Now msfe is doing an ever better wild-imitation - linking another dubious web site, and leaving it to others to clean up the resulting mess.
I'm waiting for any of the critics of Bush policy to propose a coherent, workable alternative.
If Bush's opponents favor a continued "containment" policy, then do they mean continued sanctions, which do not prevent Saddam from diverting oil revenues to his military and security forces, including his weapons programs, and which force the Iraqi people to live in a permanent state of privation and dependency? If they have some other program in mind, then for how long is it supposed to remain in place? What's supposed to back it up (especially after the threat of force has been shown to be hollow)? What are its risks and potential side-effects?
Or is the proposal to allow Saddam and his regime to do whatever they want? If so, their history and their Ba'athist ideology indicate that "whatever" would be extremely dangerous to their neighbors, to Israel, to western interests, and to the Iraqi people, would include wars of conquest and resource expropriation for the sake of building an Arab empire under Baghdad's leadership, and would almost certainly include the re-acceleration of weapons of mass destruction programs and continued if not further extended safe haven for international terrorists (not just Al Qaeda) in Baghdad and elsewhere.
So, which is it? An inherently unstable situation that includes permanent escalated US and allied military presence in the region alongside the permanent impoverishment and oppression of the Iraqi people? Or freedom for the Iraqi fascist totalitarian state to do what fascist totalitarian states always do, but this time with weapons of mass destruction, in the wake of a widely perceived US and allied retreat, amidst confirmation of the impotence of the United Nations? Or, probably even worse, some confused, haphazard, and unpredictable combination of the two - with an option on true conflagration at some later date?
Or is there some other remotely realistic alternative?
Until you have a reasonable, superior alternative, then you're just carping from the sidelines, substituting wishful thinking and reflex prejudices for a policy, or, perhaps, as sometimes seems more common, ranting like a fool.
I'm waiting for any of the critics of Bush policy to propose a coherent, workable alternative.
If Bush's opponents favor a continued "containment" policy, then do they mean continued sanctions, which do not prevent Saddam from diverting oil revenues to his military and security forces, including his weapons programs, and which force the Iraqi people to live in a permanent state of privation and dependency? If they have some other program in mind, then for how long is it supposed to remain in place? What's supposed to back it up (especially after the threat of force has been shown to be hollow)? What are its risks and potential side-effects?
Or is the proposal to allow Saddam and his regime to do whatever they want? If so, their history and their Ba'athist ideology indicate that "whatever" would be extremely dangerous to their neighbors, to Israel, to western interests, and to the Iraqi people, would include wars of conquest and resource expropriation for the sake of building an Arab empire under Baghdad's leadership, and would almost certainly include the re-acceleration of weapons of mass destruction programs and continued if not further extended safe haven for international terrorists (not just Al Qaeda) in Baghdad and elsewhere.
So, which is it? An inherently unstable situation that includes permanent escalated US and allied military presence in the region alongside the permanent impoverishment and oppression of the Iraqi people? Or freedom for the Iraqi fascist totalitarian state to do what fascist totalitarian states always do, but this time with weapons of mass destruction, in the wake of a widely perceived US and allied retreat, amidst confirmation of the impotence of the United Nations? Or, probably even worse, some confused, haphazard, and unpredictable combination of the two - with an option on true conflagration at some later date?
Or is there some other remotely realistic alternative?
Until you have a reasonable, superior alternative, then you're just carping from the sidelines, substituting wishful thinking and reflex prejudices for a policy, or, perhaps, as sometimes seems more common, ranting like a fool.
