End to terrorism

[66Lenses]

Terrorism is one of the biggest evil in our modern day society and a fear that can give any govt. sleepless nights. With terrorism on rise and threats looming large, govt. is taking steps to safeguard its citizens as much as it can and also securing installations of national importance. Now in modern times threat from open war has reduced and countries have to fight this internal enemy.

Do you think, this world will ever be free from terrorism ? Will we be able to live in peace ever ?

Share your views on this topic.

[chip anderson]

When we have political leaders with the cohonies of BlackJack Pershing. Yeah!

Chip

[RGC_man]

You cannot defeat terrorism without removing the root cause.

Britain learned that in Ireland. America is learning that in Iraq.

Blair is amusing saying we will not deal with terrorists...except the Irish ones.

[chip anderson]

You can just remove the stem, the root and the terrorists. We didn't remove the root cause of Japanese Imperialsim, National Socialism, British Imperialism, or any number of "causes" but we d**** sure stopped the problem.

Chip

[rbaker]

And, just what are the root causes of terrorism?

[orangezero]

rbaker,

one broad ranging definition would be that one group of people have more of something than another group of people. whether it be land, money, feelings of comfort, etc.

any other things I say that might be highly contributory, and, well, I'll bet someone will yell at me..

might be a bit hard to cut out that root

[Dave Nelson]

Geez, stop being so sensitive. Do you get yelled at that much?:confused:

[RGC_man]

And, just what are the root causes of terrorism?
Not having control of a nation state and foreign interference seem to have been contributory factors in Ireland, Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Basque country and a whole host of other conflicts. Not to mention those who fought for American independence.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

[rinselberg]

Not having control of a nation state and foreign interference seem to have been contributory factors in Ireland, Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Basque country and a whole host of other conflicts. Not to mention those who fought for American independence ... one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.All terrorists have "grievances". Not all grievances have terrorists ...

Generalities - in general(!) - don't get us very far. Not even the one that I just posted. Every enduring international or ethnic/sectarian conflict needs its own deeply educated specialists to try to set it right again.


Four Easy Pieces (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1405#1405)
A no-brainer (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=146448&postcount=22)
And they still haven't found it ... (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1370#1370)
Don't shoot the messenger (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1351#1351)
Postcard from Tora Bora (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=146003&postcount=3)
Gravity's Rainbow (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=145968&postcount=13)
Axis of Knievel (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=145772&postcount=12)
145 becomes a very lucky number for MNF Iraq ... (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=144888&postcount=7)

And Then There Were Eight ... just eight of the latest reasons to make RinselWorld (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=111012&postcount=15)™ your next Internet port of call ...

[ziggy]

You can placate groups as much as you want,, it will never stop the problem. The only thing any country can do to curb the tide is to be the bigest, meanest, most powerful kid on the block, then never leave your home. You cant delude yourself into thinking you can help,give aid to, or save anyone. Time and time again the great nation has, with nothing but good intentions, went some where to help a downtrodden group only to offend of another group. You cant win for losing. Some one will always fell slighted and then seek to retaliate.

ps. I got a new spell checker,,can ya tell:o

[orangezero]

"one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"

probably true in some regards but to say this, i believe, distorts what these people are attempting to accomplish and gives them more credibility than they deserve.

ideology. blind ideology without rational thought, thats generally what causes terrorism. lots of brainwashing going on here. not that these people are stupid, but if you or I were let to believe from birth that some group of people were subhuman, it would be hard to change that. some ideology is better than others, and some people are reluctant to admit it.

gandhi accomplished his goals. martin luther king jr. helped his cause, and they did it through peaceful means AND it let to a longterm solution. terrorism seems to have a problem of giving people delusions of power and doesn't do much to change anything, other than to enhance violence and hurt the helpless in society. those that are repressed and seek out terrorism to accomplish their goals are often the same types of people that would have no problem repressing others to gain even more power. So, I dont' think generally those that terrorize are simply freedome fighters, hoping to have freedom so they can get back to their wheat fields and live the simple life.

We ARE a war-mongering people. It is in our nature to struggle and dominate. Our brains should be used to overcome this limitation in our wiring, but too often its the lust for power that dominates...

[orangezero]

oops, double post, sorry.

[Spexvet]

IMHO, hopelessness is the root of terrorism. When a group of people knows they can't win a war (for example), when their lives are horrible, and when they see no end to their situation, they use terrorism to forward their cause.

[chm2023]

Hopelessness certainly. Also leaders who cynically exploit that hopelessness and frustration and re-direct it at an evil "other"


And before we start feeling all superior to the masses who adhere to this: ask yourself how a book like Coulter's "Godless" that opines that liberals/Democrats are devoid of religious faith and are traitors to their country, gets to the number 1 spot on the NYT list? Cynics re-directing frustration at an evil "other"? A lot easier than one would think.

[rinselberg]

... hopelessness is the root of terrorism. When a group of people knows they can't win a war (for example), when their lives are horrible, and when they see no end to their situation, they use terrorism to forward their cause.It's a mistake to try to reduce the "root" of terrorism to one specific cause or reason. If you want to know what makes a specific terrorist or terrorist group "tick", you have to study that person or group in depth. Their circumstances, life histories - everything about them. But there are no "generic" terrorists.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker", came to Britain to study and graduated in 1997 with an MA in International Business.

Four of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers were trained pilots.

Of the suicide bombers that attacked the London subway, one was described as "a good student who played cricket for a local team".

Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a one-time medical student and son of a Saudi diplomat, climbed into a truck in Mosul (Iraq) and blew himself up in 2004.

Evan Kohlman, an NBC News reporter on terrorism, had this to say about the background of hundreds of known "militants" who came to Iraq to perpetrate terrorist violence against the Multi-National reconstruction mission:You have some from poor families, some jobless, ... you also have individuals that come from wealthy families, that come from a life of privilege and substance and material goods and material wealth.I find the other post that I quoted (at the very top here) particularly troubling, because it's a glaring oversimplification of a very complex problem, and because it sounds like the first misleading step towards shifting the blame for terrorist crimes from the perpetrators, onto the targets and victims.

[chm2023]

Rinsey: I stand by my original post. The fact that people are wealthy doesn't mean that they can't be frustrated by what they perceive as systemic injustices. Also doesn't mean they are any less likely to be border line personalities--a characteristic shared by most of the great evil doers of modern times.


What is interesting to ponder is the rejection of the state as the legitimate voice of the people by the terrorists, and the subsequent relationship of that state with the terrorist organizations. How hard does Saudi Arabia try to fight the AQ terrorists? How hard did the R of Ireland try to rein in the IRA?

[rinselberg]

All our posts here - canceled. The TV industry is already on top of it. "Your brain on high explosives ..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13444608/site/newsweek/


Four Easy Pieces (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1405#1405)
A no-brainer (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=146448&postcount=22)
And they still haven't found it ... (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1370#1370)
Don't shoot the messenger (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1351#1351)
Postcard from Tora Bora (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=146003&postcount=3)
Gravity's Rainbow (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=145968&postcount=13)
Axis of Knievel (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=145772&postcount=12)
145 becomes a very lucky number for MNF Iraq ... (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=144888&postcount=7)

And Then There Were Eight ... just eight of the latest reasons to make RinselWorld (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=111012&postcount=15)™ your next Internet port of call ...

[shanbaum]

I suspect we won’t make much headway so long as we confuse issues by expressing them using imprecise language. Essentially none of the declarative statements made in the initial post in this thread is true.

For instance, it begins by saying “terrorism is one of the biggest evils”, meaning, I suspect, something a little different. Terrorism – the tactic of using surprising violence against innocent persons to try to obtain some objective – can hardly be placed atop the list of “big evils” that the world faces, at least by any metric I can think of. Compared to the seemingly incessant civil wars in Africa and the civil war we’ve started in Iraq (which certainly constitute “open wars”), there’s just no comparison in terms of the numbers of deaths caused by those things and the cumulative number of deaths caused by terrorists throughout history (if number of deaths is the measure).

And I, for one, find the statement that “government is taking steps to safeguard its citizens as much as it can” among the most preposterous I’ve seen in print. Consider what the government has been paying attention to lately; consider on what it’s spending our money. “As much as it can,” my ***. Not even “as much as it can without not further lowering taxes on the wealthy”. That’s the government we’ve got; if you think it’s doing “as much as it can”, you probably deserve it.

In any case, it’s important to distinguish between our adversaries, and the tactics they use. Violent Islamic religious fanatics – they’re the specific enemy. We’re obviously not “at war” with all terrorists (e.g., the IRA, the Basque separatists). And to consider ourselves “at war” with the VIRF’s is itself another linguistic mistake; it’s exactly what Bin Laden wanted to achieve with the 9/11 attacks, after which we elevated him from being a marginal nut case – a two-bit criminal (albeit one with lots of dough) – to being the leader of one side of a global contest between Islam and the West, something that used to exist mostly in UBL’s and his followers’ imaginations .

That’s exactly what he wanted, and we gave it to him. We accepted his bait, and declared war. But even UBL probably didn’t expect the gift of the Iraqi Civil War, which came about in part, I think, because we already thought of ourselves as being “at war”. That characterization – being “at war” – made preventative invasion seem so much more reasonable. What’s wrong with killing people if it might preserve one’s way of life, especially when you’re getting rid of a madman (mad because, after all, he was known to have killed people to preserve his way of life)?

Now, of course, we are, by our own choice, actually “at war” – so obviously, we have to persist until we “win”. That’s how wars end, right, somebody wins, somebody loses? Obviously, we want to win and not lose. So, the other day, W says, we’re not going to render all those soldiers’ deaths to have been in vain by leaving “before the job is done”. But what’s “the job”? The Administration would like you to think in the simple terms it uses – the job, obviously, is to “win”. But that’s not an accurate description of what we’re doing at all. We’re not trying to defeat the “insurgents”. If that were the mission, those generals that Bush claims are calling the shots would be demanding three times the troops we’ve got over there; we’d have to expand the size of our military accordingly, and we’d almost certainly need a draft – something neither party has the guts to do. What we are in fact doing is trying to buy time for an Iraqi government to coalesce and mature to the point that a magical transformation will take place – a sufficient number of all Iraqis will develop sufficient allegiance to this government, and the Iraqi Army will command sufficient respect (and exercise sufficient competence) that the bad guys will have to give up.

So, a new faith-based policy replaces the original faith-based policy (you remember, that in the absence of the tyrant, democracy would spring up spontaneously, and beneficially infect the entire region).

But because we don’t talk about it in those terms (instead talking about “victory”, as though we were actually trying to vanquish an adversary), when some goofball says, “to leave Iraq prematurely would create a haven for terrorists”, that seems to make sense – it certainly might. But how do we know that “prematurely” wasn’t a long time ago? How do we know that now isn’t “too late” (and if it is “too late”, how do we ever leave)? And why should we think that Iraq won’t be a “haven for terrorists” whether we ever leave or not? One argument that the Administration has started making lately is that it made a great decision in going into Iraq because we’re fighting the terrorists over there instead of over here (Mitch McConnell was preaching this on Meet the Press last Sunday; I expect that other Republicans will be reading from the same script). In other words – words that they don’t use – we’ve turned Iraq into a kind of terrorist magnet, so the Iraqis bear the burden of violent religious fanaticism – hey, better them than us, right?

The crux of the new faith-based policy is that a (preferably democratically elected) Iraqi government will command authority amongst the Iraqi people – authority that an occupying army (or a government that cooperates with an occupying army) cannot. Indeed, even the demented Rumsfeld had the sense to wonder, back in 2003, whether our presence in Iraq wasn’t in fact creating “terrorists” (again, using the term to mean, basically, “adversaries”) at a rate faster than we were able to kill them.

So there doesn’t appear to be any dispute that our presence in Iraq produces an effect that directly undermines the ultimate goal – that the new, democratic Iraqi government matures and works its unifying magic. This leaves questions like, how mature does this new government need to be? Given that our presence there has some negative effects, does it produce some other countervailing effects that make it sensible to remain? Or, to put it another way, just how much mojo do we think the Iraqi government will gain when we leave? Enough to make up for the lost firepower?

The only way we’re going to be able to answer those questions, or questions like them, is if we examine the issues using sensible language. If we describe the problem in terms of “victory” vs. the hallowed “cut and run”, we probably won’t even ask the right questions. The point of the government using that language in the first place is to avoid any discussion of, or for that matter, thought about, the actual substantive issues; instead, they’d like the question to turn on their effective use of clichés.

So, strange as it may seem, but back to the original question, I propose that one important obstacle that stands between humanity and peace, is imprecise use of language.

[rinselberg]

... to consider ourselves “at war” with the [violent Islamic religious fanatics] is itself another linguistic mistake; it’s exactly what OBL (Osama Bin Laden) wanted to achieve with the 9-11 attacks, after which we elevated him from being a marginal nut case – a two-bit criminal (albeit one with lots of dough) – to being the leader of one side of a global contest between Islam and the West, something that used to exist mostly in OBL’s and his followers’ imaginations .

That’s exactly what he wanted, and we gave it to him. We accepted his bait, and declared war. But even OBL probably didn’t expect the gift of the Iraqi Civil War, which came about in part, I think, because we already thought of ourselves as being “at war”. That characterization – being “at war” – made [preemptive] invasion seem so much more reasonable. What’s wrong with killing people if it might preserve one’s way of life, especially when you’re getting rid of a madman (mad because, after all, he was known to have killed people to preserve his way of life)?Guess what?

I don't see it the way that Mr. Shanbaum sees it - although it would be remiss of me, not to compliment him on a well articulated and carefully thought out kind of post: Another OptiBoard "must read".

It's not so much the Bush administration that has put OBL (Osama Bin Laden) and al-Qaida on the world's center stage as the leaders of Islam v. the West, as it is - Robert Shanbaum!

By 3Q 2001, at the time of the 9-11 attacks, OBL and al-Qaida had the free run of Afghanistan, courtesy of the all too obliging Taliban regime there.

The Bush administration, vesting considerable initiative in the very capable hands of the "demented Rumsfeld" (courtesy of Robert Shanbaum, Inc.) - and DCI George Tenet - put some of that national security "fire" in Afghanistan out.

The mission there is not "complete": It's no secret that Taliban remnants, currently receiving support from across the Afghan border with western Pakistan, have been stepping up their violence against the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (http://www.af/) ("our guys") and the coalition of nations (starting with the US) that supports that government.

What we are in fact doing is trying to buy time for an Iraqi government to coalesce and mature to the point that a magical transformation will take place – a sufficient number of all Iraqis will develop sufficient allegiance to this government, and the Iraqi Army will command sufficient respect (and exercise sufficient competence) that the bad guys will have to give up.Exactly - except for the word "magical". I think there's method here - not just "magic", or wishful thinking. But - guess what? (There's that brand new tagline again ...) Instead of the usual OptiBoard poster thing, of trying to substantiate or reinforce every one of my assertions with more "information" - I'm not going to do that. I'm just saying what I think about this. I've already put myself "on the hook" by predicting a positive turnaround in Iraq that will be clearly visible by the end of 2006, when I posted under the title OpEd on Iraq: Cutting to the chase (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=125920&postcount=10). That's what the "data" - the accumulation of daily news reports from Iraq - is signaling to me.

The Bush administration had very good reasons for taking out Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The WMD standoff was one of them. I offer two suspect "pieces" of a WMD "jigsaw puzzle":

There was no substantial disagreement between the U.S. and other countries before the war about the likelihood - based on a history of deception - that Saddam Hussein retained weapons of mass destruction. Jacques Chirac warned last February [February 2003--one month before the Multi-National invasion of Iraq] about "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq" and added "the international community is right . . . in having decided that Iraq should be disarmed." David Kay has spoken of German and Russian intelligence reports that "painted a picture of Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction." The Israelis procured gas masks for every citizen. If Saddam actually disposed of all his weapons and stocks of chemical and biological agent well before last year's war began, many countries were deceived. . . . But we are now learning something further from Mr. Kay's recent disclosures: That there were quite specific prewar indications of WMD - "reports of movement" of weapons themselves, and of "weapons being assigned to specific units as well as specific locations." This may explain the press reports that appeared in this newspaper and elsewhere late last year. Each captured Iraqi general being interrogated was convinced that, although his own unit had no chemical weapons, the units on his right and left flanks certainly did.James Woolsey in the Wall Street Journal; February 7, 2004. (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004660)


The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense. . . . Seeking to deter Iran and even enemies at home, the Iraqi dictator's goal was to cooperate with the [UN] inspectors while preserving some ambiguity about its unconventional weapons - a strategy General Hamdani, the Republican Guard commander, later dubbed in a television interview "deterrence by doubt."Michael R. Gordon and Bernard Trainor in the New York Times; March 12, 2006. (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50711FE3B550C718DDDAA0894DE404482)


The US has secret voice recordings of Saddam Hussein that validate what is also perfectly obvious: He was determined to resume his pursuit of WMD, even by waiting, if necessary, until international support for UN economic sanctions and weapons inspections finally evaporated. And sooner or later, that day was certain to have come. Even if Saddam died first, is there any reason to think that his successor (one or the other of his two idiot sons) was going to turn over a new leaf and renounce the pursuit of WMD?

Saddam was not a threat to us ... [UN] economic sanctions were taking their toll.The UN sanctions were certainly taking a toll. But the toll was on the common people of Iraq - not on Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. That standoff couldn't be allowed to drag on indefinitely.

Iraq was another national (and international) security "fire".

TWO dangerous fires.

Better to knock both fires down some, then put the first one (Afghanistan) out completely, while ignoring the second one (Iraq).

I'm willing to accept Mr. Shanbaum's suggestion (or implication, I believe), that Osama Bin Laden began turning somersaults out of sheer, unadulterated joy, when the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq. But to me, that's beside the point. I think the Bush administration had the overriding security reasons to impose "regime change" on Iraq. The shadow cast by OBL wasn't counted as a vote (either way) on the Iraq decision. And that's as it should have been.


For more of my carefully archived ruminations about Iraq, Afghanistan, al-Qaida, Iran, the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Major League Baseball and many other subjects, please consult my "OptiBlog" by availing yourself of this strategically placed hypertext link (which means CLICK on the next UNDERSCORED string of letters) ... RinselWorld (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=111012&postcount=15)™.


Yours truly.

PS. I don't think anyone is "complete" on the WMD issue unless they have seriously engaged this [previous] post and stacked it up against their own thinking about Iraq and WMD. The post is available in its final version on another forum, And they still haven't found it (http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1370#1370) ... - or, if you would prefer an OptiBoard draft version that is very close - NO, I didn't say "daft" version - in case there are any smart-alecks lurking about here - ah, just a little good humor (http://www.mgm.com/audiotrax.do?wma=MANCHURI-CL04_ProfitFiscalYear.wma&artist=Khigh%20Dhiegh%20%28Yen%20Lo%29&title=MANCHURI-CL04_ProfitFiscalYear.wma&desc=MANCHURI-CL04_ProfitFiscalYear.wma) there - Sunday New York Times: "Kay" Sera, Sera (http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=136051&postcount=1) ...

[chm2023]

Here's a fun thought: were Saddam still in power, do you think the Iranians would be so free and easy with their pursuit of nuclear weapons?

RS's analysis is spot on. What is so depressing is how completely successful the Bush administration has been with "The Big Lie*". The Democrats are now in the position of accepting the Bush "givens"--we are at war with the terrorists, we can't afford not to "win" in Iraq. The mantra that we can't allow our troops to have died in vain is particularly disturbing--our boy wonder CEO Bush apparently is not familiar with the notion of sunk costs--following this train of thought, the longer you stay, the higher the bar for "winning".

(*Iraq is only the most flagrant example of this. I was especially taken with the "Clean Skies" act--you know the one where Bush rolled back the EPA requirements for power plants emissions. Now, reasonable people can argue this was necessary--I don't agree with their argument, but ok, suppose the trade off for economic good was worth it. How is this to any reasonable person promoting "Clean Skies"? It is startling how facile this bunch is with lying.)

Well, need to get back to work. Be careful to avoid the flaming debris of your neighborhood's holocaust of burning flags over the weekend.:finger: Remember, people don't kill people, flags kill people. (Hey here's a great new product idea, ready light flags, like the charcoal, no lighter fluid needed! Who says all the great ideas are already taken???)

[shanbaum]

Well, Rinsel, I’m not sure what to make of your response; you say you disagree with me, but you manage not to say a single word (that I can see) about the main point of my post - that imprecise use of language detrimentally affects the way we think, and can result in things like a flawed foreign policy.

I admit to having made a number of provocative statements along the way – none of which had anything to do with the WMD’s Iraq didn’t have, which for some reason, you thought would be a reasonable thing to write about in response.

As far as that topic is concerned, I’m not particularly interested in re-hashing it. I do not dispute that there was a widespread, though erroneous, shared belief prior to the invasion about the WMD. It wasn’t quite as widely shared as some commentators say, but that’s picking nits at this point. Now, there is an (at least) equally widely shared belief that the prior belief was wrong. So what? It’s obvious that the people responsible for that failure aren’t going to be held accountable for it. You, for example, extol precisely the people who were and continue to be so utterly incompetent, and you apparently have plenty of company.

The only extent to which the WMD topic might bear on what I was trying to say is this: if there had been no 9/11, and therefore no “Global War on Terror”, would the right wingnuts (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, et al.) have been able to sell the American public on an invasion of Iraq? I don’t think that the answer is obvious; for one thing, it’s very hard to recall a pre-9/11 mental state with regard to all this, which means, the answers we give are suspect. But I seriously doubt that without the “what if he sells the weapons we know he’s developing to the terrorists” argument – which wouldn’t have seemed very plausible without 9/11 – that an invasion would have been supported. And it’s not implausible to suggest, as I did, that if the response to 9/11 had been something other than in effect declaring war on whatever opposes us, the proposal to invade Iraq might have seemed more outrageous than it did seem in the context of the GWOT. Maybe we wouldn’t have done it, and the thousands of needless deaths that have occurred, would not have.

Of course, Saddam would still be around – and equally “of course,” he would likely continue to be no threat at all; maybe we would have elected a more competent administration that would have managed to obtain competent intelligence. I doubt that, but I suspect that almost any replacement could have been more effective in garnering the kind of multilateral support for coordinated diplomatic (or stronger) action that we now see the Bush administration bumbling towards, having failed at the tough-guy approach in every sense but the talk.

What’s downright bizarre, in any case, is the way that you seem to think that the war was a good idea despite the fact that all of the prewar rationales you recite have either been disproved (e.g., the existence of the WMD), or are utterly speculative, (e.g., that Saddam was “determined” to develop WMD eventually). It appears that somehow, in your brain, the fact that those “facts” that supported the war in the first place, have turned out to be false, just doesn’t matter; similarly, no matter how badly the actors involved screw up, they’re still your heroes.

What you suggest are “certainties” are nothing of the sort – well, maybe they are certainties to you, but, thankfully, I bet America would be reluctant to go to war based on your certainties, which are so easily arrived at. Not any more, at least, I hope; now that we’ve witnessed (to some extent) the limits of our own capabilities, and the complexity of the “facts on the ground”.

[rinselberg]

Here's a fun thought: Were Saddam still in power [in Iraq], do you think [that] the Iranians would be so free and easy with their pursuit of nuclear weapons?If Saddam were still in power, the US would still be in some kind of military standoff with him. Keeping enough of our soldiers combat ready in Kuwait to make sure that he wouldn't be wanting to go backsliding again, with what I assume would be a permanent or open-ended regiment of UNSCOM (weapons) inspectors ...

I think that you are getting carried away with this (recurring) idea that Saddam (or another Saddam-like dictator) could continue to serve (if ever it was possible in the first place) as a useful or reliable check and balance against the Iranians - and also with the idea that an enduring enmity between Iran and Iraq would be conducive, and not inimical to US national interests.

If the "solution" is Saddam, then the "solution" is already worse than the original "problem" ...

[rinselberg]

Well, Rinsel, I’m not sure what to make of your response ...Thanks for responding at such length, Robert.

Even if there had been no nine-eleven attacks, I think that the coupling of suspicions about Iraqi WMD programs, together with the political fallout of the first (1991) Gulf War and the tensions between Iraq on the one hand, and the US and Kuwait on the other hand, during all of the intervening years, could also have set the conditions that would lead to a US administration's decision to use all out military force to effect a regime change in Iraq. (Or, if that seems linguistically disingenuous on my part - "to invade Iraq".)

So (in my view) another large scale military intervention in Iraq could have been triggered, even without the long shadow cast by Osama Bin Laden and the nine-eleven attacks.

I think that those paragraphs that I quoted, from the OpEd piece in the WSJ, and that NYT report, suggest that Saddam Hussein was playing kind of a double game with the UN weapons inspectors - always wanting to leave us just short of being completely convinced that he was disarmed.

Maybe instead of beating up on George Tenet (or whomever), we should just tip our hats to Saddam (in the perhaps only brief time that he still has with us) and say Nice con job. You really kept us guessing there, pal ...

I'm trying to get my head around what you are saying, when you suggest that the US response to the nine-eleven attacks could have been something other than a "declaration of war".

I think it is the GWOT acronym, and the phrase Global War On Terror that you are singling out for particular criticism.

Even if you are on to something significant here, and somehow it was that GWOT (and similar war related terminology) that helped paved the way to a war in Iraq that otherwise would have been less likely to have come about - how could that be determined? It sounds like the material for some graduate level research projects and Masters/PhD theses, and it could be addressed in various graduate departments or disciplines. I won't try to fill in those blanks, but some particular department names or disciplines do come to mind here.

I guess that's as far as my thinking takes me on this point.

[chm2023]

If Saddam were still in power, the US would still be in some kind of military standoff with him. Keeping enough of our soldiers combat ready in Kuwait to make sure that he wouldn't be wanting to go backsliding again, with what I assume would be a permanent or open-ended regiment of UNSCOM (weapons) inspectors ...

I think that you are getting carried away with this (recurring) idea that Saddam (or another Saddam-like dictator) could continue to serve (if ever it was possible in the first place) as a useful or reliable check and balance against the Iranians - and also with the idea that an enduring enmity between Iran and Iraq would be conducive, and not inimical to US national interests.

If the "solution" is Saddam, then the "solution" is already worse than the original "problem" ...


You have 2 likely scenarios coming out of Iraq: an Islamic state with sympathies towards the jihadists, or, a strongman that we will have to prop up. Would Saddam be preferable to either of those options? Hell yes.