Do you define "terrorism" as terrorism against Americans or just as
terrorism in general? Of course Iraq was invovled with terrorism in
general, but so is/was Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Cyprus.
The policy question is how can America best use its resources to stop
terrorism against Americans. So, with Iraq, there's 2 questions:
1.) Does disrupting Saddam's government make things better or worse
for Americans? So far the answer seems worse as we're stuck deep in a
region we can't easily leave because Theocratic Iran is chomping at
the bit to take over. So we're burning massive resources to stop a
problem that we created. It's a dream situation for our enemies.
It's like the best swimmer in the race swimming off course.
2.) Assuming the War on Terror is our top foreign policy priority, was
Iraq, given what we knew then, the best use of our resources?
The problem is that the Law of Unintended Consequences is a
differential equation with a time dimension and time is only
abitrarily limited. That means we have no idea how it's going to turn
out. We can try to make estimates base on a limit, but only in
retrospect.
What we do know is that we're spending a massive amount of resources,
alone, to accomplish a goal we haven't defined and therefore has no
measures we can use to judge success. If you can't measure it you
can't accomplish it.
Based on that analysis I'd call the policy a failure.
----- Original Message -----
From: C. Hatton Humphrey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:49:36 -0400
Subject: Re: Poll - Did you believe Sadaam was involved with 9/11 at
the start of the war? (Was Right-Wingers)
To: CF-Community <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Let's do a little poll from those on this list: Did you believe that Sadaam
> was involved in 9/11 at the start of the war and do you consider yourself
It has been categorically proven that Saddam did not have anything to
do with 9/11, so the answer to the question is no.
> Left, Right or Center?
Right
As an addendum - We did *not* go into Iraq because of any reports that
they supported the 9/11 hijackers. They were a nation that openly and
consistently supported and promoted terrorism. The President stated
(and recieved the support from both Houses of Congress) that he would
hunt out all terrorists and those States that support it. Iraq has
made no bones about their support of terror and every civilized nation
knew that fact. Our invasion of Iraq was founded, approved by
Congress *and* the UN and justified.
In short, don't draw the conclusion that because Saddam did not help
with 9/11 means that he was not aligned with "Those that would kill us
rather than give us the time of day."
Hatton________________________________
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