Re: An Unnecessary War

[Andrew Mearman <ajmearman@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Bush administration would be proud of you, Sven!

Presumably you are angry with them for their stance on
North Korea?  That stance shows their apparent disdain
for WMDs to be a sham: they negotiate with those that
have WMDs and flatten those that don't.  The message
this sends out to small countries is that if they want
to ensure that the US will not just destroy them
whenever it feels like it, they should get WMDs ASAP!!
 So much for preventing nuclear proliferation!

Your arguments also seem to rest on the assumption
that Saddam is insane.  This is far from proven,
although Saddam has clearly been responsible for some
horrible acts.  Still, this was also true in the 1980s
when the US helped to arm him against Iran.  It is
also not clear that Saddam is any more insane than
Pinochet, Noriega, Batista, various Indonesian
governments, the Mujahadeen, et al, all of whom of
course the US has supported in its geopolitical
strategy.

Whatever this war against Iraq is about, it's not
about creating peace.  Maybe it's the next
presidential election?  Maybe it's the oil; which
brings us back nicely to the economy.  After all, PKs
are supposed to be political economists (or so I
thought).  This makes a potential war on Iraq an
eminently suitable topic for this list.

Andrew

--- slarson <slarson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I really don't think this debate belongs on PKT, but
> since Henry apparenly has
> carte blanche by the peer review of this list to
> post whatever he thinks is
> cool for the day, I'll toss in my hat as well.
>
> Every argument against using a military intervention
> as a means of last resort
> against Iraq draws heavily on the Cold War
> experience to make the case of
> balance of terror. Well, the Cold War wasn't exactly
> a period of balance.
> Several times it was only hours away from turning
> hot. The Berlin crisis of
> '61 was only one sauna conference away from a
> destructive eruption in Europe.
> The critical moment was when Moscow wanted to
> activate its pact with Finland.
> Had that happened neighboring NATO member Norway as
> well as Denmark would have
> been activated. The Soviets had standing plans to
> "secure" its Leningrad
> fleet's access to the Atlantic by force. Doing so
> would necessarily have
> violated the sovereignty of a neutral country and a
> NATO member. Play out the
> sceanrio and you see a rapidly escalating conflict.
> Kekkonen, then Finland's
> president, went to Moscow and spent an hour in a
> sauna with with a couple of
> Soviet leaders, and the situation cooled off. But
> had Finland had a less
> experienced president, or a stronger right-wing
> party at that critical point
> of time, world history had taken a different turn.
>
> The Cuba crisis was another occasion where only the
> skills of one man - in
> this case Robert Kennedy, envoying for his president
> brother - made a
> difference enough to prevent a disaster. There were
> several other occasions.
> The entire US operation in Vietnam was a massive
> injection of political
> instability in a sensitive region. And what would
> have happened if the Soviet
> Union had succeeded in incorporating Afghanistan in
> its political sphere? What
> if Chrustjev had been better at bonding with Mao
> than Nixon and Kissinger
> were?
>
> The scenario of one single SS-20 or Minuteman being
> erroneously fired speaks
> for itself.
>
> You can always make the case that Iraq's leader is
> comparable to Soviet
> dictators. That is true in terms of ruthlessness and
> lack of respect for
> freedom and democracy, but while the Soviets were
> able to breed relatively
> sane leaders, much indicates that the next leader of
> Iraq - if Saddam gets to
> appoint him - will be even worse than he is. Knowing
> how dangerously close the
> Cold War came to an open conflict, why on heavenly
> Earth would anyone want to
> rebuild that situation with WMD's in the hands of an
> even crazier guy??
>
> The very argument that Iraq has not cooperated with
> terrorists is ridiculous.
> Abu Nidal was killed in Baghdad where he'd lived for
> a long time. Any argument
> that Iraq has a secular leader and therefore would
> not be of interest to
> "religious" groups like Al Qaeda has to explain why
> Iraq's political interest
> in perpetuating the Palestine-Israel conflict -
> displayed, e.g., in its
> long-term support to Abu Nidal - coincides in time
> with Al Qaeda's recent
> interest in that very same conflict.
>
> Just because alcoholics in Moscow and idiots like
> Reagan or Thatcher did not
> cause a disaster having WMD's at their disposal, it
> doesn't mean other
> lunatics will be as lucky.
>
> /srl
>


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