<p>"There’s a reason why the Middle east has been in conflict for many decades, but apparently this reason escapes the intellect of people like Sandra Day O’Connor and Vernon Jordan. . . "</p>
<p>Decades? How about centuries? And if this conflict should be better understood by Jordan and O’Connor now, why didn’t Bush and his administration not do a better job of knowing what they were getting into at the beginning?</p>
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I’m not sure what your point is. My point was that people like Jordan and O’Conner proved that they had no comprehension of the Middle East turmoild by issuing such a naive document.</p>
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such as what?</p>
<p>over throwing Iranian government in 1953, creation of the State of Israel in Palestine, support of undemocratic governments- Saudi Arabia etc- incoherent message we support Hussein then claim he is the world’s most evil person. </p>
<p>Let me state clearly that I am not anti Israel but in hindsight would the creation of a Jewish state have been better placed in West Germany along the border of Brussels, Luxembourg and France.</p>
<p>This is my point: If the ISG was a “naive document”, what do you call the belief that we could invade another country rife with sectarial and religious hatred, take down the ruling party, hold an election, then sit back and watch all the little adam’s, washington’s, and madison’s all suddenly blossom ?</p>
<p>tom: your assertion was that it was the policy of the US & UK that caused the Mid East strife. Your implication that the establishment of the Jewish state was the root cause ignores the fact that it was the complete UN that set up Israel as a nation.</p>
<p>hayden: if the entire Iraq war were focused on nation building, you would have a point. But it wasn’t.</p>
<p>FF, we’ve given the ISraelis 130 billion and perpetuated their crimes. Also please comment about coup , and everything else he mentioned.</p>
<p>King George did not lose the Insurgency War in America. He lost because His Majasty, His Generals and Admirals did not meet contingencies, along with foreign hatred for George, distance, and a war not supported at home. </p>
<p>This George may face the same.</p>
<p>FF- while I agree that the entire UN that set up Israel as a nation I feel that it is safe to say if the U S and Britian did not take the lead it would not have happened. If the allies pushed for the founding of a state in West Germany the entire UN would have set it up there. My bigger problem with U S Middle East policy is in Iran. I am of the opinion that the US and Iran could have a strong positive relationship but for poor US decisions.</p>
<p>Tom, it is easy to fall into the “woulda,coulda, shoulda” trap of evaluating history. Perhaps things could have been better with respect to Iran if we had done things differently. But, then again, perhaps things could be a lot worse right now if we didn’t do what we did over the last 50-some years. The Cold War resulted in a lot of foreign policy choices that, when looked at individually and in hindsight may be second-guessed. However, when looking at the bigger picture, we ultimately won the cold war.</p>
<p>Who knows, perhaps 50 years from now, historians will see that methods used in winning the cold war caused more problems than if we had just let the Soviet Union “bury us” as Kruschev vowed.</p>
<p>President Bush told us all many moons ago that he is “a war president”. Also told us that he’s “the decider”. And he has decided that we go to war with Iraq and in his pea brain we ain’t going no where till we win that mutha and win in the traditional sense of a military victory. </p>
<p>He has couched this as a global fight of good vs. evil, that the future of the world is at stake. This is the same tired rhetoric always drummed up. Same as, for example in the Vietnam era, that if Saigon fell then them commie bastards would be landing in Santa Monica, California.</p>
<p>Just as previous administrations failed to look at the true issues (or lack thereof) in Vietnam and the history of that country and its relationships in that region, the current adminstration ignores the history of the middle-east, the thousands of years of war between the religious factions and in a grand act of assumption and self focus that took and keeps us there, they can only assume that these people must want democracy and an NFL franchise in every mid-east city and be just like us 'mercans (and all they gotta do is just give us all their oil).</p>
<p>Bush has no clue. After three years he is NOW seeking advice…and it’s all advice he’ll never follow… he’s the war president.</p>
<p>With all apologies to Randy Newman, I suspect here is the speech the president will greet us with on Iraq after the new year:</p>
<p>No one likes us-I don’t know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around even our old friends put us down
Lets drop the big one and see what happens </p>
<p>We give them money-But are they grateful?
No, they’re spiteful and they’re hateful
They don’t respect us-so lets surprise them
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them </p>
<p>The Mid-east ain’t crowded but it is too old
And it is far too hot
But that oil is good as gold
And they just won’t do as we tell 'em so…
Let’s drop the big one
There’ll be no one left to blame us </p>
<p>We’ll save our ally Israel
And maybe Egypt too
We’ll build an All American amusement park there
That seems the right thing to do</p>
<p>Boom goes Iraq and Iran too
More room for me and more room for you
And every city the Mid-east round
Will just be another American town
Oh how peaceful it will be
We’ll set everybody free
They’ll be lots of oil for you
And there’ll be profits for my friends and me </p>
<p>They all hate us anyhow
So lets drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now</p>
<p>ff- I agree with you that the Cold War resulted in a lot of policy choices that may be second guessed but I do not want to do that. What I would like us to do is consider that the Cold War may have resulted in creating or developing a culture in many countries that animus feastered towards the US. This added to fundamentalist religious zealots resulted in terrorism. How we fight this war on terror needs to be done carefully. As I tell my D your decisions have consequences- the manipulation of the 9-11 attacks to get us into Iraq will have negative consequences for some time. I was against it from day one and I felt it was never justified. GW takes most of the blame but Congress, including the Democrats did not fulfill their duty. I hate it when the phrase weak on terror is used I hope it is never used again it did not serve this country well. I hope every voter rejects any political party or pundit that uses it. Our cowardly politcos did not stand up to this marketing slur.</p>
<p>tom: I suspect that the Iraq situation is just like my description for the Iranian situation. We will never know whether the correct path was chosen. Those who are confident that the wrong path was chosen because it has turned out to be quite messy have no basis to know whether the wrong choice was made or rather the best choice of several very bad options was chosen. </p>
<p>One of Tim Russert’s favorite questions that he asks of those who supported the war is, “If you knew then what we know now, would you still have voted for the war?” He is implying that if we knew that there would be no WMDs and that the war would drag on longer than hoped that most would not have supported it. </p>
<p>What he fails to also discuss is that along with knowing that the WMDs were not found, the same document that reported on this also said that Saddam would definitely have pursued the WMDs (including nuclear) once the sanctions were gone. It also concluded that the sanctions were already rapidly evaporating and there was nothing that the US or Britain could do to stop this from happening. Hence, “what we know now” should include the assumption that had we not gone into Iraq, the current situation would be Iraq with Saddam in power with a re-constituted WMD arsenal including a nuclear capability well along the way. Combine Iraq with nuclear weapons and Iran with nuclear weapons and you’ve got a real witches’ brew.</p>
<p>What’s the diff? Iran and NKorea will soon (if not already) both have nukes, and we could have saved $300B, as well as 3000 American lives and 650,000 Iraqi lives. </p>
<p>That’s a specious argument at best, FF.</p>
<p>So, I guess if crazy dictator is going to have nukes, we might as well let every crazy man get them? Step right up Hugo, don’t be the last one on your continent to get a nuke. You too Fidel - perhaps it will bring you back to health. Hamas, you want one too? Sure … no problem.</p>
<p>Talk about specios logic.</p>
<p>fundingfather, does reality ever matter to you? There were no WMDs.</p>
<p>How about this reality? We are spending a trillion dollars for this fight. A TRILLION DOLLARS. That’s just so far. It’s going to be more.</p>
<p>I’m sure as a fiscally conservative person, this bothers you no end and you don’t want to spend another dollar fighting in a country with no WMDs.</p>
<p>dstark, please go back and read my post.</p>
<p>Fundingfather, can our troops come home now? Iraq isn’t going to be in the WMD business for a long time.</p>
<p>Well, the other thing that “we now know” (assuming that you believe a variety of reports from differet POVs) is that if we were to leave now, more chaos would erupt and terrorism would increase. Now, just as it always has been, it’s much more than just WMDs.</p>