Dan Minette wrote:
So you are suggesting that the brutality of the Roman Empire is a successful model we should emulate? Events move at a much faster pace now than they did 1-2 thousand years ago. The people of today's world have tasted freedom and autonomy and are unlikely to allow themselves to be pushed and shoved around no matter how large the stick is. Using violence and intimidation will create (has created) enemies not just in the middle east but everywhere in the world including here. What Bush is doing in the Middle East has a very real chance of escalating into a much wider conflict.Violence and intimidation might be successful short term measures, but they will ultimately fail.Well, everything ultimately fails. If you are talking about pure practicality, the Roman empire lasted through brutal means for over 1500 years. Yes, the brief experiment in Western European civilization failed after a bit over 500 years, but Constantinople fell after over a millelium. Earlier civilizations were also brutal and long lived. IIRC, the Egyptian government lasted a So, historically, violence and intimidation works over the long term, if "works" means that one is able to exert the will of the organization on numerous individuals and keep a given government/civilization existing for a prolonged period of time.
Now, there are a couple of cavaets to that. First of all, there is the though of morality. Even though a system based on brutality can be stable long term, it is not a desireable system. It might have very well been possible for the US, early in the '50s, to dominate the world with the threat of massive H-bombing of any country that stepped out of line. But, it would have been wrong, and the US did not do that.
But it is the very thing we are moving towards right now.
May not??? How can any American that understands what his country stands for even consider that a brutal system is anything but an abomination?The second thing is that such a brutal repressive foreign policy would have repressive reprecussions at home. It would be hard to not have the attitudes needed for that kind of brutality not affect the internal actions of the government. Third, even though brutality may be internally stable, it may not be the best system.
A system that allows for the freedom for other countries to pursue their best interests, within broad boundaries, seems reasonable. Especially, one that gives added weight to countries where the people are soverign. The advantages of this system is that the folks in those countries tend to be more likely work for the general good, and thus the good of the most powerful country of their own free will, because it benefits them too. The benefits that the US reaped from the Marshal plan, and by the way it set up the Japanese government is the classic example of this.
OK
Iraq is isolated, inspected, flown over, intimidated and as thoroughly controlled as is possible form the outside. The threat it presents is minuscule compared to NK or even Saudi Arabia's elite.So what is the point of dealing with Iraq the way we are if the idea is to contain the spread of WMDs?There are a couple of reasons. 1) Iraq has invaded another country only about 10 years ago; North Korea only did it 50 years ago.
This is why we should keep working diplomatically for an internal change without letting our guard down. We would have had all the reasonable people in the world behind us if we pressed for change in a peaceful manner.2) If the sanctions are ever lifted, Iraq will have a very significant disposable income. North Korea's present government's best chance of significant foreign exchange is blackmail money.
If you are saying that we should deal with NK diplomatically I couldn't agree more. But think about it. If the more difficult problem can be dealt with in a peaceful manner, why can't we deal with the less difficult problem in the same manner?3) N. Korea has had patrons that has made it much harder to deal with than Iraq. In dealing with N. Korea, one has to factor in the response of the Chinese government to a regiem change on its doorstep. I'm sure China does not want a unified democratic Korea.
The line we cross when we make a preemptive strike is the casualty. Don't you see that we are giving people the world over a _cause_? Can you see how potentially dangerous that is?4) War with Iraq can be fought quickly, with relatively few casualties. War with N. Korea will be a mess, with many civilian casualties. The N. Korean army is in much better shape than the army of Iraq.
5) There is a rule of thumb that makes sense: you do what you can do without worrying about what you cannot do. We may be forced to do something about N. Korea, but the price that will be paid in human suffering is much worse. Having Iraq and N. Korea with WMD is worse than just having N. Korea. Its like playing Russian Roulette with two bullets instead of one.
But one of the bullets is a blank.
The point is that the admin _admits_ it will have control, not what it says it might do with it. With control of the second largest reserve in the world, they have more control over distribution and prices. Not to mention that they have a large standing army adjacent to most of the worlds oil reserves. How heroic do you think the Saudis are feeling? Not to mention the smaller sultanates. Your point (in a previous discussion) was that we wouldn't have control over the oil fields but the administrations own statement negates that argument.In fact its not much of a puzzle at all because the motivation isn't WMDs or terrorism, its oil. Nothing else makes any sense whatsoever. You can go on all you want about how we wouldn't control the oil fields if we conquer Iraq. Hooey. The Bush admin is even saying that oil prices will be lower post conquest:Doug, I don't consider hooey a strong arguement at all. Basically, it says to me that you know you are right, independant of data or reasoning."The Bush Administration's only attempt to quantify the economic costs of war was provided by White House economist Larry Lindsey. Mr Lindsey said the liberation of Iraqi oil fields would drop the oil price by boosting oil production by 3 to 5 million barrels a day." http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/26/1040511133257.htmlThink about your statement Doug. Is Bush supposed to be for or against the US oil patch? While there are some oil companies that could benefit from lower prices, by and large, higher prices favor the oil patch.
I don't disagree with your reasons either, but I don't think you are seeing the big picture.There are good reasons against going to war against Iraq now; but I do not consider these arguments good.
Doug
But believe it or not, I hope I'm dead wrong.
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