The election has energized the Boulder peace movement. I have a running argument with a protesting niece about the efficacy of protests -- but we can leave that for another day.
What AlexC calls "Dirty Hippies" are on the corner of Broadway and Canyon most every night for my drive home. Being Boulder, every couple minutes, some car will honk and give a thumbs-up. The dozen naive kids will howl in solidarity. I sit silent and shake my head, waiting for the light.
I don't know if any of them can read or not, but we are privileged to have an articulate and well-informed commenter on this blog whom I know to be anti-war.
I will ask if articles like Saddam Made $21B From U.N. Program would change one's opinion of the need for war. It is clear that Saddam and his buddies were livin' large while their people starved, and that the U.N. was getting close to lifting sanctions entirely.
The findings also reflect a growing understanding by investigators of the intricate schemes Saddam used to buy support abroad for a move to lift U.N. sanctions.Coleman said the probe is just beginning and that officials aim to discover "how this massive fraud was able to thrive for so long." He said he is angry that the United Nations (news - web sites) has not provided documents and access to officials that investigators need to move ahead.
Officials must get to the bottom of the allegations because, among other things, it will help the international community to better design future sanctions programs, some senators said.
The status quo seems untenable to me. I would like to hear some reasonable-percentage scenario that describes a (reasonably) peaceful outcome in Iraq that protects US interests and offers some hope to the Iraqis.
I am not sure if you were refering to me here, but in answer to your question, quite simply, yes. But I was never anti-war, at least not in the respect that many liberals are. I just didn't trust the planners to do it right, especially the part about rebuilding a safer, more democratic Iraq. The shock and awe talk and the herald us as liberators talk all sounded hopelessly optimistic. I will concede though that these recent findings do indicate that regime change was going to be required. I still don't buy the urgency argument, but something was going to have to be done. While we are investigating the sanctions program to determine what went wrong and how we could better use this tool we should also investigate the war planning and implementation for lessons to be learned there. Both sanctions and military action will be used again against rogue states so we should learn everything we can. I support the use of both tools, and I support out troops, but the ultimate way our officials can support out troops is to make sure the understanding and planning of military action and its ramifications is the best it can be.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at November 17, 2004 08:41 AMYa, it was you -- thanks for the thoughtful response. If I seem tough on you, perhaps I wish that I could get thoughtful responses out of the virulent anti-war folks that I know.
It is disappointing that this war has had such partisan overtones. It makes it impossible to objectively provide some of the analysis you seek. Democrats always want the President to admit mistakes, but I can hear them saying "Even the President admitted that..."
Ben Stein's book, and many commentators, points out how futile it would have been to review WWII execution in 1943, or have a congressional inquiry on Pearl Harbor in 1942. In other words, there is plenty of time for military evaluations.
Yes, the problem with reviews (let's lose the title investigation for starters) is they end up being at least if not more about finding blame than learning lessons. The military I think is actually quite good at reviewing strategy and tactics in a process to seek to improve, if we could get our elected officials who direct them to follow suit we would be much better off. As for the time issue, I won't argue that a little more distance time wise will provide more complete answers, but with Iran and North Korea already in the bullpen we maybe should do a little cramming.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at November 17, 2004 01:28 PM