Here we go

[kev313]

To war that is.

Interesting read off of msnbc. Sorry about the format, I cut and pasted.

Lord knows I don't want to start another Klipsch Forum Brawl...Whatever our opinions of this war might be, I say we all agree to disagree, wish our men and women away from home the best and keep them in our thoughts (and prayers if that is your thing).

Anway, here it is...

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, a distinguished historian of American foreign policy, compared this moment to the birth of the Cold War around 1948, and before that to the Spanish-American War of 1898, which established the United States as a world power. Were definitely in a period of major change, he said.

Mead supports the administrations policy on Iraq. Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, opposes it. But she agreed on the scale: Is this 1914? she asked, recalling another crucial moment, when overeager leaders plunged the world into a disastrous war.

THE IRAQ GAMBLE

By accident or design, President Bush has allowed Iraq to become the gamble of a lifetime. Today, The Washington Post summarizes whats at stake in four areas of crucial national interest Americas stature, Middle East politics, the war on terrorism and conditions at home.

A less than gleaming outcome in Iraq could, in the view of many experts, inflame terror, weaken our alliances, diminish the United States and collapse confidence in our economy which is already at its lowest point in more than a decade. Even a successful result contains risks in the eyes of those who have pondered the recurring cycle in human history in which power leads to hubris, hubris leads to overreaching, and overreaching leads to collapse. Victory could tempt the United States to overreach.

Against this, Bush has set the rubble of Sept. 11, 2001. The status quo, he reminds the world, is also fraught with risk. Success in Iraq, he has said, could pay off handsomely by liberating a strategically placed country from a despot, sowing modernity in the heart of the Middle East, and imposing a severe price on a state that nurtures terrorist jihads and pursues banned weapons.

Whether the United States, and the world, will be better or worse off after a war in Iraq is a matter of conjecture on which very experienced, expert people strongly disagree. Where some envision suicide terrorists with radioactive bombs, rising inflation and gasoline shortages, others picture a burst of economic enthusiasm at home and a chastening of rogue nations abroad.

But if the process toward war continues as it has been moving, and the U.S.-led coalition invades Iraq without clear support from the United Nations, there is no doubt that America, and its place in the world, will have changed. And so there is a sense in these tense days that existing rules are being broken or rewritten, updated, smashed or subverted. The verb you choose speaks volumes about your viewpoint.

CONTAIN, DETER, ERODE

For more than 50 years after the cataclysm of World War II, a shaky peace was maintained by forming alliances, issuing threats and slowly, patiently exerting pressure. The Cold War was an exercise in waiting. A lexicon of waiting words defined American strategy, words such as contain, and deter, and erode. The United States rarely attacked.

Now, the Bush administration has announced that the old way is inadequate in the face of new threats posed by global terrorism. Peace, in the administrations view, requires risking alliances if need be, escalating beyond threats sometimes, removing some enemies who might once have been contained. To the slow work of the vise, Bush is adding the sharp blow of the hammer.

Until it falls, no one can say precisely how much the hammer will smash.

If the experts are right and this is a threshold moment for the United States and the world, then shelves of books will be written about how it came to pass.

Those with the long view might begin as far back as 1916, when France and Britain first started haggling over Western influence in what is now Iraq. A middle-length version could begin in 1990 and 1991, with Iraqi President Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War to expel his forces. Historians will look back someday and see this not as two wars, but as the conclusion of a 13-year-long war, said Daniel Yergin, a leading authority on global economics and oil.

The short version will begin with Bushs January 2002 State of the Union speech, when he widened his scope in the terrorism war from al Qaeda and Afghanistan to take in the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an axis of evil Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

PREEMPTIVE WAR POLICY

Few observers outside the Bush circle recognized then how quickly the president would home in on Iraq. Nor, apparently, did Bush realize how ready North Korea and Iran would be to sprint toward the nuclear clubhouse while the world focused on Baghdad.

If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.

PRESIDENT BUSH

Four months later, in a commencement speech at West Point, the president announced that the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment must give way to new thinking...We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties, and then systemically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.

This idea that some prospective threats must be dealt with preemptively was then expressed as formal policy in September. The world finally heard what Bush was saying, saw that Hussein was the test case, and, in many countries, took a dim view of an American hyperpower conducting preemptive wars.

Through six months of often rancorous diplomacy and street protests, critics of the Bush policy have resisted more and more fiercely. The administration has tried, intermittently, to explain Iraq in terms of past breaches of international law and ongoing crimes against humanity. But having planted the idea that this war is intended to vindicate a new policy of preemption, there is no unsaying it.

Whats about to unfold is going to be transformative for the Middle East, for American relations with Europe and for the United States itself.

DANIEL YERGIN Global economics and oil expert

The chips are now heaped in the center of the table. The same geopolitics that have had Western powers haggling over Iraq for decades still apply. Onto that, radical jihadists have added the high stakes of suicidal terrorism. And atop that, Bush has piled the explosive idea of preemptive war by the worlds sole superpower. A coalition of countries France, Russia, Germany and others has added a layer of unprecedented resistance to U.S. leadership.

However the world arrived at this point, we are here. Bush has staked his own credibility on ousting Hussein. He has marshaled the nervous support of a majority of Americans even as their gloom about the home front deepens and he has raised an unusual, but not negligible, coalition of international allies. The next step appears inevitable: the cards, as Bush put it in his recent press conference, will be on the table.

Whats about to unfold is going to be transformative for the Middle East, for American relations with Europe and for the United States itself, Yergin ventured.

[Deang]

"Whats about to unfold is going to be transformative for the Middle East, for American relations with Europe and for the United States itself.

Ah yes, the whole Muslim Middle East is going to sit idle while we put a puppet government in place and build Walmarts in Iraq. Doo-doo is going to hit the fan.

[Bill H.]

The question no one is asking is why wait 12 years to detrone the bastard?

[Bill H.]

How in the name of the United Nations does anyone expect men to find

Saddam's stash? We all know that men have a blind spot when it comes to

finding things. For crying' out loud! Men can't find the dirty clothes

hamper. Men can't find the jar of jelly until it falls out of the cupboard

and splatters on the floor.... and these are the people we have sent into

Iraq to search for hidden weapons of mass destruction?

I keep wondering why groups of mothers weren't sent in.

Mothers can sniff out secrets quicker than a drug dog can find a gram of

dope. Mothers can find gin bottles that dads have stashed in the attic

beneath the rafters. They can sniff out a diary two rooms and one floor

away. They can tell when the lid of a cookie jar has been disturbed and

notice when a quarter inch slice has been shaved off a chocolate cake. A

mother can smell alcohol on your breath before you get your key in the front

door and can smell cigarette smoke from a block away. By examining laundry,

a mother knows more about their kids than Sherlock Holmes. And if a mother

wants an answer to question, she can read an offender's eyes quicker than a

homicide detective.

So... considering the value a mother could bring to an inspection team, why

are we sending a bunch of men who will rely on electronic equipment to scout

out hidden threats?

My mother would walk in with a wooden soup spoon in one hand, grab Saddam by

the ear, give it a good twist and snap, "Young man, do you have any weapons

of mass destruction?" And if he tried to lie to her, she'd march him down

the street to some secret bunker and shove his nose into a nuclear bomb and

say, "Uh, huh, and what do you call this, mister?" Whap! Thump! Whap!

Whap! Whap! And she'd lay some stripes across his bottom with that soup

spoon, then march him home in front of the whole of Baghdad. He'd not only

come clean and apologize for lying about it, he'd cut every lawn in Baghdad

for free for the whole damn summer.

Inspectors! You want the job done? Call my mother.

[kenratboy]

I'm ready to go!

I have heard both sides of the debate, and I am set on war. That is all.

[jt1stcav]

Hell yeah we should go in and oust Saddam and his regime! Did the world listen to the President's address last night? Did everyone forget about 9/11? Did everyone forget that not all the victims were Americans? Should the memory of all those victims be forgotten because of all these bleeding heart liberals throughout the world demonstrating for UN resolutions to work (which haven't since '91)? Did everyone forget that Saddam has personally funded/trained terrorists in Iraq? Did everyone forget that Saddam & Sons have killed their own people with chemical and biological weapons? Can't the world see that George W. isn't concerned about his popularity right now, that no matter what France, Germany, Russia, China, etc. think, our President is doing what's right for everyone in ousting a dictator who would strike us and other free nations without warning. The Clinton administration sat on their hands while terrorists were making their mark throughout the world, and ultimately here at home! George W. gave Saddam more time to step down/disarm than I would have, but Saddam's a stubborn and defyant dictator. The UN couldn't do the job properly (and they were still bullied by Iraq the second time around), so now it's up to us and our few allies to do the job. This isn't about oil or killing innocent Iraqis, but overthrowing a thoughtless dictator, and restoring Iraq and its Muslim people from this ruthless ruler and his regime. I don't want war, no one does, but desperate times require desperate measures. Our military is ready and willing to do the task at hand (I know, I was once with the 1st Cavalry Division.). I pray for all our men and women over there in harm's way, and let us not forget the victims of 9/11, so that they did not die in vain!

That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth.

[chickey]

Jt1stcav,

Well said.

"Sometimes it's not always the most popular guy that gets the job done." Gordon Gekko

C

[jt1stcav]

Thanks chickey. This war may be drawn out for years to come, there may likely be more terrorist attacks here on US soil (and abroad), and the USA may be totally isolated from the rest of the world because of this. But imagine what the alternative will be if we don't strike now. Sure, Al Queda and other terrorist organizatons may bide their time for awhile, and then attack again when we least expect it. But the Bush administration will be blamed for all the new attacks throughout the world, and all the bleeding hearts will have a field day! France and Germany will blame us too when their countries are also being attacked, because Bush after all, is a war monger! Did the rest of the world forget what Germany did during WWII, and how the weak French tucked their heads up their own a$$holes when the Nazis invaded? Russia has no room to talk about this war being an illegal act; what did they do when they invaded Afghanistan in the '80s? It was okay for them to do it? And when they did the attacking, was it for world peace? I think not. These countries (and others) will eventually come to our aid when they get tired of being attacked on a regular basis!

[Bruinsrme]

JT,

thank you for the breath of fresh air.

Just think the academy awards being cancelled may get more press coverage than the start of this

minut military action.

[jt1stcav]

REMEMBER the bombing of PanAm Flight 103,

REMEMBER the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993,

REMEMBER the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon,

REMEMBER the bombing of the military barracks in Saudi Arabia,

REMEMBER the bombing of the American Embassies in Africa,

REMEMBER the bombing of the USS COLE,

REMEMBER the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/01,

REMEMBER the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11/01, and the crash in a PA field,

REMEMBER all the lives that were lost in these vicious attacks!

REMEMBER that these victims were not all Americans,

REMEMBER there were innocent people from other countries as well.

REMEMBER that this war could have been prevented.

REMEMBER that we did not ask for any of this, but we will finish it!

REMEMBER all our brave men and women in the Armed Forces fighting for Peace!

...Thanks, bruinsrme.

[BBB]

Ill have to agree with Bills ideas on this matter. Im from the old fight fire with fire school of thought. We should use a mother to fight a mother.T minus 30 hours and counting.

[kenratboy]

Tick tick tick...

The time is closely approaching.

I am watching FoxNews and they have some pretty good military people telling how and what will happen. This is going to be a hell of a show .

Latest word is that a TON of Iraqies (military) are literally waiting to run across the border so they can live. That will do a TON to demoralize the other Iraqi troops. So, all we need to worry about is the Republican Guard, but there is only 20,000 of them, and a million of us, and we have planes, helicopters, etc.

[jt1stcav]

----------------

On 3/18/2003 4:23:20 PM kenratboy wrote:

..."but there is only 20,000 of them, and a million of us, and we have planes, helicopters, etc."

----------------

Actually, CNN said about 125,000 US troops are there so far...but there will probably be more as the war progresses.

[kenratboy]

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On 3/18/2003 10:14:06 PM jt1stcav wrote:

----------------

On 3/18/2003 4:23:20 PM kenratboy wrote:

..."but there is only 20,000 of them, and a million of us, and we have planes, helicopters, etc."

----------------

Actually, CNN said about 125,000 US troops are there so far...but there will probably be more as the war progresses.

----------------

No, 20,000 Republican guards (Saddam's loyal troops) and I said there are about a million people in the US Armed forces. There are around 300,000 US troops in the Middle East/Arab nations right now.

[jt1stcav]

Sorry, I misread your post...my bad!

You're right. And now with the operation underway, there's bound to be more to follow.