This And That And Then...Some More

So...

What I was suggesting in the last post was this.

First, if you believe in conspiracy theories, then you should have been hollerin' during the Bosnian War. If you weren't, you probably are believing the slander campaign against Bush and not a conspiracy theory.

Second, if you think the Bosnian War was in the interest of the US, then you certainly cannot argue that the Iraq War was not.

Now, on to other versions of this...

If you believe that we should be "policing the world," then you certainly can't have an argument with Iraq War - I mean, he wasn't a really nice guy, you know? Your argument could be that we haven't done enough, but not that we did too much.

BUT...

If you think we should never get involved in wars unless they are within the direct interest of the United States, then I can't imagine how you would argue that it wasn't in our interest when the whole world thought there were WMD's AND (and this is important) 3 million UN resolutions later, nothing was changing. You may make your argument about involving the UN, but I'm sorry, the UN proved itself unable to deal with Saddam. Twelve years later...and how many countries involved in under-the-radar business with a UN sanctioned country. There's money to be made there, so don't rock the boat.

ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT PART of the above (direct US interest) is the concept of the "War on Terror." The first thing that is relatively important to understand is this. The idea of "nation-states" is a very, very, very Western idea. Furthermore, the era of the nation-state is waning here in the West, but I would argue that the day of the nation-state never really dawned in the Arab world. YOU may define yourself by your governing borders, but I would argue (from my limited understanding, of course) that this is not a universal concept.

The War on Terror, whatever it is, is not The War in One Place.

Terror is a mindset. It is a method. It has been employed by many a rebel. It is not new. It does not respect boarders. It does not respect states. It will move where it will and it will use whomever it can.

You cannot leave loose guns lying around. They will be picked up.

Don't believe me? Ask the American Revolutionists. That's how we won our freedom.

Here are things that are accurate, I believe.
1) You don't win wars of terror with large armies. Point? Kerry. (Though Bush claims to understand this.)
2) You don't win wars of terror by ignoring the possibilities. Point? Bush. (Though Kerry claims to understand this.)
3) You win wars of terror based on intelligence. Point? The Massad. (They understand everything, even what hot links are made of.)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/21/2004 01:41:00 PM