>//But the problem with any decision to act is you only see the consequences of the action without really knowing what the consequences would have been of inaction. So the debate is difficult, because the choice isn't between what we have now in Iraq and a perfect world, but to make a proper comparison we need to know what 2008 would look like with Saddam or one of his mad sons in power, sanctions off, and perhaps their competing with Iran for influence in the region - possibly by funding/supplying Hamas to match Iran's support of Hezbolloh.
>//
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>You know, I hate to come across as a Republican shill, but I've got to give Clinton and the dems a lot of credit for gutting the CIA. We didn't have any humans on the ground that could give us the intel we needed. Had they been there we might have, make that, would have had much better info.
Where is Bill Casey when you really need him <g> Not having our own assets meant relying on Curveball and Chalabi (a curveball in his own right). My arguement for good intelligence is always that it is more likely to prevent mindless, widespread violence than to encourage it. When you don't know what's going on on the other side you adopt what Cheney calls "The one percent doctrine" - i.e. if there is only a one percent chance the other guy means you harm you kill him then search the body. It can get messy.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
