Iraqi action by US is unprecedented...

Here is a very interesting article that explains some of the reason why people are so freaked out about us going into Iraq. It seems to come down to the fact that nothing quite like this has ever been done under these exact circumstances. The only way we have to evaluate the results of something is through historical precedent, and there just isn't any for this. The Gulf War was pretty standard stuff as a response to overt agression. This one is different in that there is no valid historical lense through which to view it.

Very interesting read!

Our World-Historical Gamble

Wow!

Extremely well written and coherent.

Boy!! That was a long one!! Just like Thanksgiving dinner, this one is going to take some time to digest. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif Thank you James, for posting this.

Dan

Let's see, I'll get in and out and you can throw rocks at me if you want:

They (The Iraqis) invaded another country.
They (The Iraqis) lost a war.
They (The Iraqis) agreed to certain conditions.
They (The Iraqis) have vehemently violated those conditions and continue to do so to the extent that they not only threaten a few countries close to them, but now the entire world!
They (The Iraqis) continue to lie about violating those conditions.
(and let's not even get into all of the human rights issues)

Where's the accountability?

Who, what to do now...hmmmmmm, never mind...let's just let them (The Iraqis) play their silly games! It surely couldn't affect us!

Don't worry Sigman, eventually a Democrat will get back into the White House and then it will be ok to threaten Iraq, bomb the bejeesus out of other countries and remove their head of state.

None of these "Anti-War" types could find their voice when the Clinton administration sent cruise missiles into Iraq and threatened more serious military action using many of the same arguements now used by the Bush administration. And maybe a half dozen of them bothered to protest when the same administration dropped God knows how many bombs into the population centers of Serbia.

Sigman, I think you're missing the point, or perhaps let my title deceive you or something. This article is not by any means against our action in Iraq. In fact it outlines quite rationally exactly why the rest of the world can not and will not be able to get along with these folks. It has nothing to do with religion or Israel or anything other than Oil.

A quick summary would be this. If you are the leader of any other country in the world and you want to build an army and "weapons of mass destruction" and the "Bomb" then you first have to have an economy, you have to have a gross national product that you can tax to pay for it, you have to have an infrastructure of business and manufacturing that you can tap to do it. The process of building this makes you part of the world economy and acclimatizes you to living in the world and interacting with your neighbors. Iraq, and the rest of the oil nations there, don't have this. They have little or no economy, they have no industry other than oil. They don't have to play nice, they don't even live in the same world as us. They have all the money that they need to do all these things without any of the other things that make the rest of us want to live happily together.

That is why the rest of the world is so confused by their behavior. There is absolutely no element in history they can use to find out what will happen if the US starts making preemptive strikes like this. However, the article also says that just because it's scary and you don't know exactly what will happen doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

As far as I'm concerned this article presents a much better argument FOR doing it than trying to connect Saddam with 9/11 or anything else. These are reasons that made sense in the past, there are new reasons why folks believe we have to do this now.

Please read it, you'll find that it doesn't disagree with you at all!

Definitely!! Listen to James!! I have read this article in its entirety and it is the most cogent argument in favor of preemptive action that I have read to date. I have gone as far as printing all 21 pages so I can reread it if I have any internal arguments with it's premise. I won't expound any further on this other than to say read it, chew on it, digest it, THEN respond. This....is really heady stuff.

Dan

Thank you James and PercaDan...I started "skimming" it and realize the article is worthy of a detailed "read". Yes, though the "tone" in my post perhaps was "skewed" by the title of the thread...having been in the "Force" for 21 years - I'm somewhat of a "hawk" and am just tired of letting this "jerk" play the rest of the world! Let's get it done!

Wow, James, Thanks for posting that.

Ditto to what Dan said, and Sigman's last post.

It was an intense, challenging article to read through: VERY learned, but also overly pedantic. I didn't enjoy the reading, even though it completely validated my own conclusions about the world situation. I had to read most paragraphs two or three times because my mind would start to drift. But it was worth it.

Interesting approach by the author. Too bad that most of the people who would get the most benefit from it wouldn't have the patience to read through it, nor the intellectual wherewithal to actually understand it.

I wish there was some way to condense the whole thing into a 30 second sound-bite that the MTV types could understand.

228 hits on this thread, so far. I'm just posting this to keep it in view of the members who can only find time on the weekends to visit CPF. I hope you don't mind James.

Later,
Dan

Hi Dan, nope not at all. As a matter of fact I"m bumping it up myself /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

This is america after all, we're all entitled to an opinion whether we know anything about the subject or not. But some understanding of the underlying situation is always a good thing.

Fascinating article. It presents a context for understanding terrorism that I, at any rate, would not have thought of, and makes some sense out of the larger meaning of our looming war with Iraq. I wish everyone would read it, especially people who are so convinced that military action against Iraq is absolutely unjustified. Thanks for posting it! My perspective has been broadened.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

Dan