Your next question is a valid one though, and I tend to agree with your answer.
As for your last point, "winning hearts and minds" is most definitely NOT a device i'd use towards measuring our success in the war on terror. How well we disrupt and limit terrorists from attacking Americans would be my measure of success, whether that makes France happy or not.
I think the Iraq war is a failure because it hasn't curbed terrorism, not because people who already hated America do so even more.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gruss Gott
To: CF-Community
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 1:40 PM
Subject: Re: The Republican Fear Machine is at it again
Hi Brian,
That's the FUD logic, though, used to justify troops in Iraq. Mr.
Bush will frequently say that the war is worthwhile since we're
fighting the terrorists there.
The counter point is that prior to Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq there
were zero American terrorist deaths in Iraq - now they're averaging
one per day.
So the question is, is that a useful strategy to minimizing terrorism
in the US, or is it just poking sticks at a hornet's nest that wasn't
a problem before we started messing with it.
My answer would be that we're no safer because of the Iraq invasion.
If fact, we're in more danger. This is because prior to Iraqi
invasion opinion polls showed most of world (including the Arab world)
supported the US and the invasion of Afghanistan (about 80% supported
- source The Economist).
After the Iraq invasion approx 60% of the world is against us and near
90% of the Arab world.
This means that if you use "winning hearts and minds" as a measure
towards the goal of winning the war on terrorism, we're losing it.
g
<snip>
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