Invading Iraq was Strategically Unsound

[Gunny]

As far back as 1991, the military minds predicted that if Saddam was removed from power, the possible and most like consequences that result would be ancient tribal/sectarian violence renewed, terrorist organizations fomenting hate and discontent among the various religious sects, and an unstable Iraq would create a power vaccum for the various religious fundamentalist controlled states.

Even though Saddam was a scumbag, mass-murderer and basic thug of the worst order, the fact that he was a sitting right in the center of the region with a force controlled by neither Wahabbi's, Sunni's or Shia kept the entire Middle East from unifying under fundamentalist controls.

Since Saddam was willing to use ruthless force to enforce his dictatorship and policies, a manner of enforcement that goes against humanitarian Western idealism, the strategically sound choice would have been to leave him as he was.

 

[Superlative]

I Concur.


But if we didnt remove Saddam and invade, how would the US get the oil.

 

[glockmail]

Saddam was supporting terrorist activities, including well documented connections with Osama bin Laden. The UN proved their inability to contain Saddam’s quest for weapons of mass destruction, and it was only a matter of time before he obtained them. Saddam proved his willingness to attack American interests when he attacked Kuwait. The decision to neutralize Saddam was therefore sound and in the best interests of American foreign policy.

 

[maineman]

As far back as 1991, the military minds predicted that if Saddam was removed from power, the possible and most like consequences that result would be ancient tribal/sectarian violence renewed, terrorist organizations fomenting hate and discontent among the various religious sects, and an unstable Iraq would create a power vaccum for the various religious fundamentalist controlled states.

Even though Saddam was a scumbag, mass-murderer and basic thug of the worst order, the fact that he was a sitting right in the center of the region with a force controlled by neither Wahabbi's, Sunni's or Shia kept the entire Middle East from unifying under fundamentalist controls.

Since Saddam was willing to use ruthless force to enforce his dictatorship and policies, a manner of enforcement that goes against humanitarian Western idealism, the strategically sound choice would have been to leave him as he was.

I agree 100%. Saddam controlled sunni-shiite violence...he kept a lid on Iranian hegemony, and he kept wahabbists out of his country. THe invasion/conquest/occupation of Iraq has been the worst foreign policy blunder in my lifetime.

 

[jasendorf]

As far back as 1991, the military minds predicted that if Saddam was removed from power, the possible and most like consequences that result would be ancient tribal/sectarian violence renewed, terrorist organizations fomenting hate and discontent among the various religious sects, and an unstable Iraq would create a power vaccum for the various religious fundamentalist controlled states.

Even though Saddam was a scumbag, mass-murderer and basic thug of the worst order, the fact that he was a sitting right in the center of the region with a force controlled by neither Wahabbi's, Sunni's or Shia kept the entire Middle East from unifying under fundamentalist controls.

Since Saddam was willing to use ruthless force to enforce his dictatorship and policies, a manner of enforcement that goes against humanitarian Western idealism, the strategically sound choice would have been to leave him as he was.

George H.W. Bush was smart enough to acknowledge that... then again, he had been director of the CIA and a Vice President.. in stark contrast to the "Deciderer."

 

[sitarro]

I Concur.


But if we didnt remove Saddam and invade, how would the US get the oil.

Same way we have always gotten it.....discover it, find a use for it, pay for the rights to it, create the equipment to drill for it, drill for it, have it then stolen and nationalized by lowlifes in the Middle East, then, after doing all of the thinking and work, pay high prices to buy it from asshole towelheads that didn't even know it existed before we told them about it. These tasteless dimwits will then use the trillions of dollars to guild their walls with gold and let their people starve.

Any other questions chump?

 

[Superlative]

Same way we have always gotten it.....discover it, find a use for it, pay for the rights to it, create the equipment to drill for it, drill for it, have it then stolen and nationalized by lowlifes in the Middle East, then, after doing all of the thinking and work, pay high prices to buy it from asshole towelheads that didn't even know it existed before we told them about it. These tasteless dimwits will then use the trillions of dollars to guild their walls with gold and let their people starve.

Any other questions chump?

It was a rhetorical question.

Meant to illuminate the already obvious reason for the invasion of Iraq.

 

[Avatar4321]

I Concur.


But if we didnt remove Saddam and invade, how would the US get the oil.

By dropping the trade sanctions and buying it. Much like we are buying it now.

You might want to rethink the "war for oil" theory proposed by the left. It ignores most of the relevant details.

 

[Avatar4321]

It was a rhetorical question.

Meant to illuminate the already obvious reason for the invasion of Iraq.

But it completely ignores the obvious reasons for the invasion. Terrorism.

 

[Gunny]

Saddam was supporting terrorist activities, including well documented connections with Osama bin Laden. The UN proved their inability to contain Saddam’s quest for weapons of mass destruction, and it was only a matter of time before he obtained them. Saddam proved his willingness to attack American interests when he attacked Kuwait. The decision to neutralize Saddam was therefore sound and in the best interests of American foreign policy.

What terrorist activities was Saddam supporting? The closest you can come is he financially compensated suicide bombers' families.

Please provide supporting evidence of this "well documented" connection with OBL. Connections between the two were tenuous at best.

It is rather obvious common sense that it was not in Saddam's best interest to collaborate with people who were as much his ideological enemies as they are ours.

Be more specific about WMDs. Saddam ALREADY possessed and used weapons classified as WMDs in the past, while the UN and the US turned a blind eye.

So what "quest" was he on, and and specifically which WMD was he "questing" for, and how did the UN "prove their inability to contain hi when the UN never tried with anything more than words?

History 101: Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait as an attack on US interests. That is revisionist history or historical ignorance.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait under the pretext that the majority of the oil field Kuwait drew its oil from was under Iraqi soil, not Kuwait soil, and that Kuwait had been and was still considered a province of Iraq.

The cold, hard truth is the Kuwaits came to us with tears in their eyes and gold in their hands and bought themselves a mercenary army.

Destabilizing the Middle East is/was NOT in the best interest of US foreign policy. Removing the iron hand that kept sectarian violence to a minimum and replacing it with words was in fact, counterproductive to a stable Middle East.

Opening a second warfront before concluding the first is NEVER in the best interest of ANY nation's foreign policy. See Hitler's Invasion of Russia as a perfect example.

 

[Superlative]

But it completely ignores the obvious reasons for the invasion. Terrorism.

Terrorism was the reason for the invasion, is that what your saying.

We ignored all diplomatic resolutions, ignored any and all investigation into why such an attack occured, Turn a blind eye to any possible peaceful and legal lines toward a resolution, that would make no sense.

finding out the reasons behind the attack on the US, screw that lets just scare the entire north american population with fear mongering and constant news reports that this defenceless 3rd world country has WMDs and is going to destroy the US, and that we should all go buy Duct tape.

Lets drop bombs on the civilians, bomb them back to the stone age, that will totally make terroism go away, in no way would it escalate the problem, cause that always helps, if someone does you wrong, dont ask why, just kill them, they will get the message.
Dont expect their family to come after you.

The Death toll for civilians thus far, start at 65,000, according to US sources, and goes as high as 655,000.

Is that what you are saying, you honestly believe that this war was to fight tterrorism, and in no way escaladed Terrorist attacks.

 

[Gunny]

Terrorism was the reason for the invasion, is that what your saying.

We ignored all diplomatic resolutions, ignored any and all investigation into why such an attack occured, Turn a blind eye to any possible peaceful and legal lines toward a resolution, that would make no sense.

We exhausted every means of diplomatic and legal resolution and then some.

finding out the reasons behind the attack on the US, screw that lets just scare the entire north american population with fear mongering and constant news reports that this defenceless 3rd world country has WMDs and is going to destroy the US, and that we should all go buy Duct tape.

So 9/11 was just an insignificant event, huh?

Lets drop bombs on the civilians, bomb them back to the stone age, that will totally make terroism go away, in no way would it escalate the problem, cause that always helps, if someone does you wrong, dont ask why, just kill them, they will get the message.
Dont expect their family to come after you.

The Death toll for civilians thus far, start at 65,000, according to US sources, and goes as high as 655,000.

Is that what you are saying, you honestly believe that this war was to fight tterrorism, and in no way escaladed Terrorist attacks.

Civilian casualties are a consequence of war. If you are going to allow fear of harm to them to paralyze you, you may as well check out the latest issue of Arab GQ to wich color head towel is currently in fashion and purchase one.

 

[Superlative]

Civilian casualties are a consequence of war. If you are going to allow fear of harm to them to paralyze you, you may as well check out the latest issue of Arab GQ to wich color head towel is currently in fashion and purchase one.

I was refuting the reasoning that the War was to fight terrorism, and that by invading and killing people, The US deliberatly escalated the chances of terrorism.

 

[glockmail]

What terrorist activities was Saddam supporting? [1] The closest you can come is he financially compensated suicide bombers' families.

Please provide supporting evidence of this "well documented" connection with OBL. Connections between the two were tenuous at best.

It is rather obvious common sense that it was not in Saddam's best interest to collaborate with people who were as much his ideological enemies as they are ours.

Be more specific about WMDs.[2] Saddam ALREADY possessed and used weapons classified as WMDs in the past, while the UN and the US turned a blind eye.

So what "quest" was he on, and and specifically which WMD was he "questing" for, and how did the UN "prove their inability to contain hi when the UN never tried with anything more than words?[3]

History 101: Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait as an attack on US interests. That is revisionist history or historical ignorance.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait under the pretext that the majority of the oil field Kuwait drew its oil from was under Iraqi soil, not Kuwait soil, and that Kuwait had been and was still considered a province of Iraq. [4]

The cold, hard truth is the Kuwaits came to us with tears in their eyes and gold in their hands and bought themselves a mercenary army.

Destabilizing the Middle East is/was NOT in the best interest of US foreign policy. Removing the iron hand that kept sectarian violence to a minimum and replacing it with words was in fact, counterproductive to a stable Middle East.

[5]Opening a second warfront before concluding the first is NEVER in the best interest of ANY nation's foreign policy. See Hitler's Invasion of Russia as a perfect example.

1. He was supporting numerous, and includes bin Laden. Here’s an excellent summary: http://www.milnet.com/geo-pol/iraq-terror.html#
2. WMDs are by definition non specific. They include nuclear, biological, and chemical, all designed to inflict as much damage to a civilian population as possible; the opposite of “tactical”.
3. Here’s a summary of UN resolutions against Iraq, dating back to pre 1990. Its not worth the paper printed. Agreed?
4. That was Saddam’s excuse. The reality is that Kuwait was recognized by the UN and the US as an independent nation. Do you disagree with that?
5. Surely you are not comparing Bush to Hitler? The fact is that the Afgan and Iraq conflicts are part of the same war on terror.

 

[Gunny]

I was refuting the reasoning that the War was to fight terrorism, and that by invading and killing people, The US deliberatly escalated the chances of terrorism.

I disagree with your assessment. The US did not deliberately escalate the chances of terrorism. The argument that people being killed creates more terrorists is bogus.

Arabs were killing each other for trivial pursuits long before we were even a concept. All we did was take the lid off the pot. The first thing you have to do is decide which of the violence is sectarian, which is tribal, and which is actually Ilsamic fundamentalist terrorism.

The US invaded Iraq for various reasons. Political idealism -- the idea tha the people of Iraq would embrace a Western democracy with open arms -- was the biggest unrealistic premise. Ignoring the opinions of experts when we were poised to go all the way in 91, opinions that held true and are proving true today, another.

The fact is, if the US was/is not willing to ruthlessly suppress sectarian/tribal violence, then we're spinning our wheels. Simpel as that. If we ARE willing to emply those ruthless tactics, we could have jsut left Saddam in power and let him continue to do it while our hands remained clean.

 

[Gunny]

1. He was supporting numerous, and includes bin Laden. Here’s an excellent summary: http://www.milnet.com/geo-pol/iraq-terror.html#

It's already a well-known fact they knew each other and met on occasion. "Connection" within the context of this argument is evidence proving Saddam supported OBL's terrorist activities. None of which do I see in your link. Only speculation.

2. WMDs are by definition non specific. They include nuclear, biological, and chemical, all designed to inflict as much damage to a civilian population as possible; the opposite of “tactical”.

I am well aware of WMDs are, and in the context of this argument, they represent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Saddam already had chemical and biological weapons. so the term "quest for" would not apply.

If you are saying the UN proved Saddam was trying to acquire specifically nuclear weapons but could not stop him, Scooter Libby's lawyers would like to hear from you and see your evidence.

3. Here’s a summary of UN resolutions against Iraq, dating back to pre 1990. Its not worth the paper printed. Agreed?

I must've missed the part where we were discussing UN Resolutions. If it is your opinion that the UN did not enforce its own sanctions, I believe I alredy said that, and see no reason to belabor the point arguing about something we agree on. Right?

4. That was Saddam’s excuse. The reality is that Kuwait was recognized by the UN and the US as an independent nation. Do you disagree with that?

Out of context with your statement. You stated Saddam attacked Juwait as an attack on US interests. I listed the actual reasons Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Whether or not the US and/or UN recognized Kuwait as a soverign nation does not alter the reasons Saddam gave as justification for his invasion one bit.
5. Surely you are not comparing Bush to Hitler? The fact is that the Afgan and Iraq conflicts are part of the same war on terror.

I have no idea where you would come to such a conclusion. I used Germany's attack on Russia during WWII while already engaged in North Africa and against England as a perfect example of the unsoundness to opening a second front if one does not have to. In that context, it has absolutely nothing to do with Bush or Hitler.

 

[Superlative]

The algebra of infinite justice
As the US prepares to wage a new kind of war, Arundhati Roy challenges the instinct for vengeance

Arundhati Roy
Guardian

Saturday September 29, 2001

In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, an American newscaster said: "Good and evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.

Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know, because they don't appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "international coalition against terror", mobilised its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.

The trouble is that once Amer ica goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks.

Who is America fighting? On September 20, the FBI said that it had doubts about the identities of some of the hijackers. On the same day President George Bush said, "We know exactly who these people are and which governments are supporting them." It sounds as though the president knows something that the FBI and the American public don't.

In his September 20 address to the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies of America "enemies of freedom". "Americans are asking, 'Why do they hate us?' " he said. "They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." People are being asked to make two leaps of faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who the US government says it is, even though it has no substantial evidence to support that claim. And second, to assume that The Enemy's motives are what the US government says they are, and there's nothing to support that either.

For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance - the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon - were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things - to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks.

America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try to understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced.

The world will probably never know what motivated those particular hijackers who flew planes into those particular American buildings. They were not glory boys. They left no suicide notes, no political messages; no organisation has claimed credit for the attacks. All we know is that their belief in what they were doing outstripped the natural human instinct for survival, or any desire to be remembered. It's almost as though they could not scale down the enormity of their rage to anything smaller than their deeds. And what they did has blown a hole in the world as we knew it. In the absence of information, politicians, political commentators and writers (like myself) will invest the act with their own politics, with their own interpretations. This speculation, this analysis of the political climate in which the attacks took place, can only be a good thing.

But war is looming large. Whatever remains to be said must be said quickly. Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission - called Operation Infinite Justice until it was pointed out that this could be seen as an insult to Muslims, who believe that only Allah can mete out infinite justice, and was renamed Operation Enduring Freedom- it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom for whom? Is this America's war against terror in America or against terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of five million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that? In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that, all things considered, "we think the price is worth it". Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.

So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mojahedin for each dead investment banker? As we watch mesmerised, Operation Enduring Freedom unfolds on TV monitors across the world. A coalition of the world's superpowers is closing in on Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most ravaged, war-torn countries in the world, whose ruling Taliban government is sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man being held responsible for the September 11 attacks.

The only thing in Afghanistan that could possibly count as collateral value is its citizenry. (Among them, half a million maimed orphans.There are accounts of hobbling stampedes that occur when artificial limbs are airdropped into remote, inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan's economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map - no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with land mines - 10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in.

Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The UN estimates that there are eight million Afghan citizens who need emergency aid. As supplies run out - food and aid agencies have been asked to leave - the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed.

In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends........


Edited to fit.


.......Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It'll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love come home tonight? There have been warnings about the possibility of biological warfare - smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax - the deadly payload of innocuous crop-duster aircraft. Being picked off a few at a time may end up being worse than being annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb.

The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defence industry. To what purpose? President Bush can no more "rid the world of evil-doers" than he can stock it with saints. It's absurd for the US government to even toy with the notion that it can stamp out terrorism with more violence and oppression. Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism has no country. It's transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their "factories" from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multi-nationals.

Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with other nations, with other human beings who, even if they are not on TV, have loves and griefs and stories and songs and sorrows and, for heaven's sake, rights. Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was asked what he would call a victory in America's new war, he said that if he could convince the world that Americans must be allowed to continue with their way of life, he would consider it a victory.

The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America's old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel - backed by the US - invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.

For a country involved in so much warfare and conflict, the American people have been extremely fortunate. The strikes on September 11 were only the second on American soil in over a century. The first was Pearl Harbour. The reprisal for this took a long route, but ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This time the world waits with bated breath for the horrors to come.

Someone recently said that if Osama bin Laden didn't exist, America would have had to invent him. But, in a way, America did invent him. He was among the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations there. Bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. In the course of a fortnight he has been promoted from suspect to prime suspect and then, despite the lack of any real evidence, straight up the charts to being "wanted dead or alive".

From all accounts, it will be impossible to produce evidence (of the sort that would stand scrutiny in a court of law) to link Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. So far, it appears that the most incriminating piece of evidence against him is the fact that he has not condemned them.

From what is known about the location of Bin Laden and the living conditions in which he operates, it's entirely possible that he did not personally plan and carry out the attacks - that he is the inspirational figure, "the CEO of the holding company". The Taliban's response to US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we'll hand him over. President Bush's response is that the demand is "non-negotiable".

(While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs - can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It's all in the files. Could we have him, please?)

But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's family secret. He is the American president's dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of "full-spectrum dominance", its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable. Their guns, bombs, money and drugs have been going around in the loop for a while. (The Stinger missiles that will greet US helicopters were supplied by the CIA. The heroin used by America's drug addicts comes from Afghanistan. The Bush administration recently gave Afghanistan a $43m subsidy for a "war on drugs"....)

Now Bush and Bin Laden have even begun to borrow each other's rhetoric. Each refers to the other as "the head of the snake". Both invoke God and use the loose millenarian currency of good and evil as their terms of reference. Both are engaged in unequivocal political crimes. Both are dangerously armed - one with the nuclear arsenal of the obscenely powerful, the other with the incandescent, destructive power of the utterly hopeless. The fireball and the ice pick. The bludgeon and the axe. The important thing to keep in mind is that neither is an acceptable alternative to the other.

President Bush's ultimatum to the people of the world - "If you're not with us, you're against us" - is a piece of presumptuous arrogance. It's not a choice that people want to, need to, or should have to make.

© Arundhati Roy 2001

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4266289,00.html

 

[maineman]

Gunny...what beef did I ever have with you? Nearly every post from you on this thread lines up exactly with my thinking!

 

[T-Bor]

Yeap I actually agree with Gunny here as well. AMAZING !!! But I believe before Gunny was for invading IRAQ. So basically Gunny is calling Bush an idiot, in so many words. I wonder why Red states hasnt chimed in. Probably because he will get owned !!!

 

[Gunny]

Yeap I actually agree with Gunny here as well. AMAZING !!! But I believe before Gunny was for invading IRAQ. So basically Gunny is calling Bush an idiot, in so many words. I wonder why Red states hasnt chimed in. Probably because he will get owned !!!

You would be incorrect in your recollection. I saw the logic in not invading Iraq back when the original accusation from the left was: "Bush didn't finish the job .." You know, the one we listened to throughout the 90s that hasn't heard a chirp since March 19, 2003?

What you may be mistaking for me being "for invasion" is I have also continually stated there WAS justification to invade. I just believe the justification to invade loses the pro-con debate with not invading.

When it comes to conducting war, with few exceptions, ALL politicians are over their head because they're too full of political ideology and not enough objectivity in regard to strategic and tactical situational assessment.