SOUNDING BOARD is an outlet for opinions on good and crazy things going on at home (wherever I may be). All are welcome. You are not expected to bring anything except your common sense & sense of humor.
'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
-Robert X. Cringely (from geek wisdom)
SOUNDING BOARD
Sunday, September 29, 2002
_____________________________________________
No matter what the current context is, some people really have three 'dominant strategies' (no game theory implication) to anything related to US - object, object and object.
The writer argues that US has no moral obligation 'to beat the drums of war' against Iraq. He wrote a whole litany of weapons, military strategies, defense system and budgets of US, and concluded that 'What is endangering the world most is the United States imposing its militaristic policy and mass-producing weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations and the rest of the world are correct in opposing America’s planned war against Iraq.
Huh?! So it's US endangering the world now, and we should ignore Iraq? What?! You gotta be kidding me. Open your eyes to reality. Iraq did not allow unfettered access to sensitive areas during the last weapons inspection in 1998. What does that imply? Think.
'UN and the rest of the world opposing America's planned war' against Iraq? I don't know where that came from. It certainly is very sweeping.
It was under the old UN Security council resolution that Iraq did not give unfettered access to weapons inspectors. It was under the old resolution that they objected to further continuation of the inspections. Now the Iraqi government, upon the theat of international military campaign, gave in. To some it was good news. But is it? Think. If they will let inspections continue, they might as well do it in the old resolution, as the proposed resolution/s will surely be tougher. And if they can afford not to give unfettered access and even discontinue as what they did before, they can do it now, and anytime as long as they are governed by the old resolution. This will defintely delay the process, asssuming US doesn't 'go it alone'.
Iraq agreed "unconditionally" to let the weapons inspectors in. That was official. But did Iraq categorically stated they agreed to an unfettered access for inspectors? Think. That's a totally different ballgame.
There are a lot of aspects to consider here. In fact, assuming that US goes to war with or without UN, the more crucial questions are - how do we deal with Iraq after the war and after regime change? How do we rebuild Iraq? Of course, for some people (and some of them are still holding hammer and sickle even after thousands of lessons all over the world has shown that their revered system won't work), it's always gonna be three simplistic and overused strategy - object, object and object.
posted by Allan at 3:57 AM (GMT+8)
permalink (URL of this post) ::
