Hi Harry:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2003, Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[I had written}
To my thinking, I agree with the view that the moment the troops crossed the border, Bush had lost, it is just a matter now of waiting now to see how much and how badly, and how much can be salvaged by postwar bridge-mending and statesmanship (a concept so far apparently
utterly foreign to the current administration)."
I happen to think there is chance we've all won. Don't let your lack of appreciation for Bush to color your approach to everything.
Well, I really hope so, but I fear just the opposite. And I really don't have any personal opinion about Bush as an individual, I watch actions, not personality. I like to always expect the best of everyone, and always assume clever and thoughtful motivation first, but I just really find it very hard to find a way to fit that model to the actions taken by this president. Ill advised domestic tax policy, rash foreign adventurism, lack of any concern for social or environmental issues, all combine to paint a picture of shallow thinking. Try to merge the idea of cautious, thoughtful, sharp analytical minds with american foreign relations actions to date, and you can only come up with scenarios of grave secret emergencies, desperate enough to justify sacrificing wide swaths of foreign relations. So the choice seems to be between conspiracy (or, I guess, paranoid fantasies of imagined threats), and stupidity.
The point of my initial comment, if it must be spelled out, is quite simple. The discovery of instruments of torture does not make the war a better idea than it was, because their discovery was fully expected by those who have cautioned against the war, and won't influence the minds of people who see this as an unforgivable incursion of foreign infidels into their realm.
The question I keep coming back to is what's the rush? Excessive speed seems to be the main feature of the folly here. Given a couple of years, much of the problem of Iraq could have been resolved peacefully and with no negative diplomatic consequences. An adjustment of the sanction regime to expose the Iraqi populace to western largesse could undermine the dictator's authority without any need for military action. How many Iraqi's could be won over to the american vision for the million dollar cost of each bomb and cruise missile spent in this war? Whenever I see a miilitary action, I consider how it looks through the filter of the adage: "do I not destroy my enemies if I make them my friends?"
-Pete Vincent
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