"J. van Baardwijk" wrote:
>
> At 09:48 13-03-03 -0300, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
>
> > > I don't think it could be anywhere near that bad, and even if Bush
> > > doesn't plan to build a great country out of Iraq, it is highly
> > > unlikely he would allow such a civil war, it would make him look
> > > like a complete failure and that is one thing that he will not
> > > tolerate, no matter his sincerity.
> > >
> >But if the oil prices were reduced by a factor of 2 or 3, would his
> >electors care about how many iraqis were being killed?
>
> Probably not. As Stalin said: "The death of one man is a tragedy, a million
> deaths is a statistic".
If by electors, you mean "people who voted for him", some of them
wouldn't care about anything but the price of gas going down. Some
would care very much about the plight of the Iraqi people. If you mean
the US citizenry as a whole, some of them wouldn't care about the Iraqi
people. Some of them would care very much. And if the rate of Iraqis
being killed were significantly more than under Saddam since 1991,
enough of the people who cared a lot would mobilize to get Bush & Co.
out of office at the earliest legal opportunity. So if Bush has a clue
about his constituency, he's going to do his damnedest to keep the Iraqi
death rate down after an initial military victory.
Julia
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