--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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.
> 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. Hi Dan - sorry - if it wasn't clear, I was replying to Marvin, not you. I pretty much agree with what you're saying, except that from what I've heard, the Bush Administration has put a lot more thought into post-war Iraq than you're giving them credit for. This Administration has a penchant for the secretive - too much so even for me, and I'm very sympathetic to such concerns - and they just don't seem to be talking about it much, but I think there is a real vision for post-war Iraq and a committment to being there for a very long time. In fact, I would expect that we will soon be moving bases from Saudi Arabia and Qatar into Iraq and establishing an effectively permanent presence there. Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
