----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 1:07 AM Subject: Re: Winning the War on Terror
> Out of curiosity, you mentioned one year ago that if the number of dead crosses the 10,000 mark, you would consider the cost too high. So how do you feel about the invasion and the occupation today? :) My memory was that I stated that a measure of the success/failure would be whether the number of people killed in Iraq the year of the war was less than that before the war. The rough estimates I had for the number killed each year was 100,000. I further stated that I would expect the number of civilian non-combatants directly killed by the US during the war to be less than 10% of that, or 10,000. Reasonable estimates of casualties that I've seen indicate that civilians killed directly by the US, by errant bombs or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc., were far less than this...few estimates are over 5,000. So, the war met that criterion. Further, it is clear to me that the number dying every year is less than it was before...far less. The US does have some moral responsibility for the civilians killed by the insurgents, but not the same type of moral responsibility that the actual killers have. It has the same level and type of moral responsibility as it had for not stopping Hussein's killing before. Thus, the US made a difficult choice that benefited Iraq. I argued, and still hold, that the long term loss to the US and the world will slightly outweigh the gain for the citizens of Iraq, but that doesn't undo the benefit to Iraq. 1) Increase efforts to rebuild Afghanistan and work hard to obtain "lessons learned" from that country. Make it a showcase of improvement as a result of American involvement. 2) Invest in our ability to deal with the Middle East. Since that will be a hotbed for a number of years, fund institutions of learning in that area. Create long term jobs for experts so people know that they won't find jobs cut to zero just as they get their PhD. 3) Use the threat of going it alone to get smart sanctions past the UN. 4) Continue to work at destroying AQ 5) After a couple of years, re-evaluate the situation. It is quite possible, after learning lessons in a successful Afghanistan transformation, the plusses to the Iraq people would outweigh the risk to the US and the rest of the world. 6) Mourn the lives of the Iraqis you refused to save because the cost would be too high. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
