RE: Inability to see the enemy (was RE: IRAQ sort of: Re: Tim Ma y calls for...

From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 21:17:56 MST

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    Ron h says:

    > Seriously, this country was hit first by the Al Qaeda. Now it sees a man
    that has hit them
    > personally in the past, as well as others, looking for the weapons to hit
    them
    > again. So they have decided to hit him first. Is that so illogical?

    Let's start by trying to sort out the syntax. I'm guessing that Ron meant
    this:

    > Seriously, this country was hit first by the Al Qaeda. Now it sees a man,
    > as well as others, that has hit it personally in the past, looking for the
    weapons
    > to hit it again. So it has decided to hit him first. Is that so
    illogical?

    The logic appears to be: We Americans were hit recently by a bad man, and
    earlier by another bad man. Now we see the second bad man and other bad men
    preparing to hit us again. So we're gonna cream his ass first. The second
    bad man. You know. Then the other bad men. Especially the first bad man,
    that is, the most recent bad man, if we can ever find him.

    One problem with this analysis is that there could be an equal and opposite
    analysis also in play:

    ..............

    Seriously, this country Iraq was hit first by the USA and its UN allies. Now
    it sees a man
    whose father has hit it personally in the past, bringing forth the weapons
    to hit it again. So it has decided to hit his nation first. Is that so
    illogical?

    ..............

    [note for the slow of reading: this is not *my* personal view; it is my
    guess at the view of the bad man]

    Luckily, the second version might not actually *be* in play. The bad man
    might be too concerned for his own skin. We don't know that Saddam employs
    the interesting strategic approach suggested by Ron h. So perhaps, even when
    threatened by more than the weekly fly-overs and bombings, he might *not*
    decide to sneak terrible weapons into the USA or other UN foes and act as
    the other bad man did. Let's hope so.

    (*What* terrible weapons? I'm sorry, I can't answer that, and apparently
    nobody else can either. But you never know.)

    Damien Broderick



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