From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Wed Jan 22 2003 - 16:43:25 MST
Dan L writes to me, in at least two-ply thinking
[my comments are indicated >[] thus):
<<
People want definitive answers to complex things [....] Seems to me with
foreign policy that the only real answer to anything is IF/THEN.
If we attack Iraq, then:
* there's the Friedmanian possibility that the shackles of Arab dictators
will be loosened, creating tolerance in the region;
* Oil will get expensive, then cheap
* We will be managers of an empire of sorts. (A superpower is an empire)
* We will NOT be thanked, whatever the outcome
* McDonalds will introduce Lamburgers
If we don't attack Iraq, then:
* The credibility of the US on the global stage will be entirely diminished;
* Saddam will maybe be good and only gas his own;
* Saddam will maybe be bad and gas our own;
* The world will breathe a sigh of relief. Erroneously.
BTW, I think the Bushies do NOT want a smoking gun to be found in Iraq.
>[Interjection from MMB: Not by the inspectors, oh hell no! For precisely the
reasons you suggest below...]
If they found a battery of nuke missiles, for example, that would be the
smoking gun. But the Bushies would have a new problem, the UN saying "Well,
America, you were sure right about that WMD thing. So now we've found them.
Just in time. Our mistake. And of course, now that we have found the threat
of mass destruction and removed it, no need to invade."
>[Interjection from MMB: And if stuff is found post-US-assault, then the
filthy Zionist-run Sons of Satan planted it there, just the way they staged
the WTC attacks!]
You know what...? I think the UN sucks. If they manage to cow us into
not invading, then so be it. Our credibility will be nil. Things will
fester, the problem will revisit us worse than ever, at a later date.
And then UN credibility will be nil.
Bloody bore being the world leader.
>>
>[Ayup. It's chess times poker, with blood on all the cards, and light too
dim to see what-all chips you're betting with.
MMBDamned and double damned]
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