----- Original Message ----- From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 12:32 PM Subject: Re: war and peace
Unless you > know of something the US can do that would be _better_ > for the people of Iraq than toppling Saddam Hussein, > maybe you should be a little bit more sympathetic to > the President. Huh? My position is that I lean against invading Iraq because I don't think we've done due diligence for nation building afterwards. I had expected and hoped we would have paid more attention to Afghanistan afterwards. I don't think a position that agrees with his goals but is worried that the ground work needed to achieve those goals hasn't been done yet is all that unsympathetic. If I had an engineering project proposal and someone told me that the first phase looked good, they agreed with the second phase, but I needed to demonstrate feasibility before they would OK it, I would not consider them unsympathetic. What I would consider better is doing a trial run in nation building in Afghanistan before imposing a regime change in Iraq...while containing Hussein via sanctions. I know that position has real minuses also, so that's why its a lean position instead of a strong position. That being said, we may have gotten to the point where its best to carry through with the invasion and hope for the best. >He's doing it for American interests, > certainly - there's nothing immoral in that. He is, > after all, the President of the United States, not of > Iraq. Since I compared it with the Marshall Plan, which you know I approve of, I thought I tacitly stated that I believed that Bush's intentions were good. >But the course he has chosen is the single best > one that he could have chosen were he governing solely > in the interests of the people of Iraq, and he > deserves some acknowledgement and credit for that as > well. I don't think that's a given. If the transition to a better government is smooth, as I hope it will be, then you would be right. But do you honestly think there will be no land mines along the way? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
