JohnP
30 Oct 2007
News / Poles in Iraq. What's the point? [160]
I'm not a General, so anything I say doesn't mean a hill of beans in the scheme of things anyway, but if you want my opinion, here goes.
The reasons for staying there have little to do with the reasons for going. They are unrelated IMHO in the same way one can be arrested for drinking in a motor vehicle after being originally stopped for a missing tail light. Never mind the lack of a bottle in the vehicle will seldom be a good defense in court. Troops aren't weapons inspectors, or at least most of them aren't. The small teams originally in Iraq if you recall, were being forbidden from searching certain areas, and others they could only search if they gave considerable advance notice. Of COURSE they hadn't found anything prior to the war beginning.
Whether you believe Saddam had WMDs and you believe them to have been hidden or transferred to entities unknown, or perhaps believe them to have been a complete bluff on Saddam's part and never to have existed....that is only a fraction of the matter now. Honestly, I've seen things that make me believe Saddam had them, but I think the reasons for still being there have more to do with not leaving until the new government is on its feet enough that when everyone leaves,and trying to ensure Iraq will not become a "theocratic" vassal of the Ayatollah and Mullahs in Iran.
Such a mistep would give Tehran control of enough of the world's fuel to become its most powerful since the days of the Persian Empire. Consider Iran's recent alliances with Moscow. With a controlling share in the world's fuel supply, (I read somewhere that Iran/Iraq combined would be the world's 2nd largest producer of oil, and that's WITHOUT the alliance with Russia) they could have a strangle hold on all of Europe, and indirectly, the World. Such an alliance could control Europe or bring it to its economic knees (theoretically anyway) without rolling a single tank The U.S. would also suffer, although not as soon as Europe(Iraq provides no oil to the U.S.) . The Soviet Union, with a Persian twist....is hiding behind the next curtain to the left....
Next,
I think we are kidding ourselves if we believe for one minute that, even were every WMD Iraq ever had discovered, you or anyone else would ever hear about it in the media. The losses from giving away methods and locations, etc. inevitably derivable by anyone with previous knowledge of the WMD's location far outweigh the gains from announcing success to the world, even if it would save a little of our embattled President's popularity.
Think of this. Saddam's own scientists told him he had a program, but I am skeptical that even if they were still in the country (of Iraq), we would find them all. Nuclear weapons are small. Even in the 60's the actual warheads were not particularly large, and the Soviets even fielded "suitcase" nukes for a time. Chem and Bio weapons are even smaller. A liter of either is bad news for quite a few people. In the meantime, if we are so good at finding such weapons after they've been deliberately hidden or passed off to entities unknown, why can't we even protect ourselves from IED's, which are sometimes much larger physically than many WMD's?
The reality of things, I think, would frighten most people, people who vote...so most government officials prefer to distract the public by mocking the current administrations inability to find WMD's, while quietly offering no plan of their own to find them, either...
I feel that somewhere along the line, a decision was made, to accept ridicule rather than admit if any of these things are found (also the only explanation I can think of that cameras weren't in some of the places I've seen). Much better admitting political defeat and accepting global mockery than to proclaim "We found it!" and have the weapon(s) we didn't discover used, to horrible effect (and not necessarily within Iraq) or at the very least, lose the intelligence to be gained by not admitting we already have them.
Not having "WMD's FOUND!" proclaimed all over the news might be an embarassment to the administration, but that pales in comparison to having the headlines read "Hundreds of Thousands Dead, U.S. proclaims Success Too Early"
I'm rambling a bit but I think you see where I'm going with this.
Anyway I'm just a rescue swimmer and sometime gunner, not a general, so what do I know.
I'm not a General, so anything I say doesn't mean a hill of beans in the scheme of things anyway, but if you want my opinion, here goes.
The reasons for staying there have little to do with the reasons for going. They are unrelated IMHO in the same way one can be arrested for drinking in a motor vehicle after being originally stopped for a missing tail light. Never mind the lack of a bottle in the vehicle will seldom be a good defense in court. Troops aren't weapons inspectors, or at least most of them aren't. The small teams originally in Iraq if you recall, were being forbidden from searching certain areas, and others they could only search if they gave considerable advance notice. Of COURSE they hadn't found anything prior to the war beginning.
Whether you believe Saddam had WMDs and you believe them to have been hidden or transferred to entities unknown, or perhaps believe them to have been a complete bluff on Saddam's part and never to have existed....that is only a fraction of the matter now. Honestly, I've seen things that make me believe Saddam had them, but I think the reasons for still being there have more to do with not leaving until the new government is on its feet enough that when everyone leaves,and trying to ensure Iraq will not become a "theocratic" vassal of the Ayatollah and Mullahs in Iran.
Such a mistep would give Tehran control of enough of the world's fuel to become its most powerful since the days of the Persian Empire. Consider Iran's recent alliances with Moscow. With a controlling share in the world's fuel supply, (I read somewhere that Iran/Iraq combined would be the world's 2nd largest producer of oil, and that's WITHOUT the alliance with Russia) they could have a strangle hold on all of Europe, and indirectly, the World. Such an alliance could control Europe or bring it to its economic knees (theoretically anyway) without rolling a single tank The U.S. would also suffer, although not as soon as Europe(Iraq provides no oil to the U.S.) . The Soviet Union, with a Persian twist....is hiding behind the next curtain to the left....
Next,
I think we are kidding ourselves if we believe for one minute that, even were every WMD Iraq ever had discovered, you or anyone else would ever hear about it in the media. The losses from giving away methods and locations, etc. inevitably derivable by anyone with previous knowledge of the WMD's location far outweigh the gains from announcing success to the world, even if it would save a little of our embattled President's popularity.
Think of this. Saddam's own scientists told him he had a program, but I am skeptical that even if they were still in the country (of Iraq), we would find them all. Nuclear weapons are small. Even in the 60's the actual warheads were not particularly large, and the Soviets even fielded "suitcase" nukes for a time. Chem and Bio weapons are even smaller. A liter of either is bad news for quite a few people. In the meantime, if we are so good at finding such weapons after they've been deliberately hidden or passed off to entities unknown, why can't we even protect ourselves from IED's, which are sometimes much larger physically than many WMD's?
The reality of things, I think, would frighten most people, people who vote...so most government officials prefer to distract the public by mocking the current administrations inability to find WMD's, while quietly offering no plan of their own to find them, either...
I feel that somewhere along the line, a decision was made, to accept ridicule rather than admit if any of these things are found (also the only explanation I can think of that cameras weren't in some of the places I've seen). Much better admitting political defeat and accepting global mockery than to proclaim "We found it!" and have the weapon(s) we didn't discover used, to horrible effect (and not necessarily within Iraq) or at the very least, lose the intelligence to be gained by not admitting we already have them.
Not having "WMD's FOUND!" proclaimed all over the news might be an embarassment to the administration, but that pales in comparison to having the headlines read "Hundreds of Thousands Dead, U.S. proclaims Success Too Early"
I'm rambling a bit but I think you see where I'm going with this.
Anyway I'm just a rescue swimmer and sometime gunner, not a general, so what do I know.