JDG wrote:
Later in this post, you make a distinction between "tactical" and
"strategic" language. Do you agree that while US actions in Iraq in Gulf
War I could be called an invasion in the "tactical" sense, they would not
be described as an invasion in the "strategic" sense?
I think that anything properly described as a war is strategic -- "war" is a strategy for extending power. But some wars are "more strategic" than others; the first Gulf War certain fits that description in my mind. The invasion of Iraq in that war was tactical -- a tactic employed toward the overall strategy of liberating Kuwait. Stopping short of Bagdad made sense in that framework.
I'm not sure why you feel betrayed here. In what way did you specficially have your perceptions of Saddam Hussein's nuclear threat to the United States changed from 2003 to 2004?
To speak to time frame you asked about, I believed that Iraq had far more capability to develop WMDs than I now believe they did.
I believe that the administration manipulated intelligence, with only a small possibility in my mind that it wasn't deliberate. Aside from what's been reported, I know a fair bit about how intelligence information makes its way to the White House -- the explanations for how erroneous information ended up driving policy struck me as unbelievable. I concluded that either the system that was in place when I became familiar with it has been disassembled or bypassed. Either way, the current administration is responsible.
Well, for one, you and Dave Land have disputed that it was an "attack." Since the word "attack" is disputed, I am choosing another word that I feel cannot be disputed, i.e. "counter-attack."
Okay. I thought you were defending the idea that Iraq had attacked the United States as justification for the war.
... in the context of disproving Dave Land's assertion that Iaq is a country that "never had attacked us."
If that wasn't in the context of justifying either war, then in fact I didn't understand.
When I read, "it has become clear..." I feel disrespect. Our perceptions are not facts. At least that's how I see it!
I can't explain this. I was writing that your position had become clear. If I have misrepresented your position, that would be one thing. Unless you want to get metaphysical on me, I believe that your position on this subject had been made clear by yourself.
Well, of course you can't explain it; it's a feeling I have. You are not the cause of it.
In other words, now that you've brought up specific tactical attacks on our country, I agree with regard to those. But I still think your previous messages were Newspeak, as they used the general language of strategy, not tactics.
I'm presuming that there is a typo in your last sentence. You seem to be
accusing me of using the language of "tactics", not "strategy."
Not so much a typo as ambiguity. But I think you get it.
This was a direct assault on the US's interests, our
economy, and our way of life.
I get the first one -- US interests. I'm not so sure about the second -- to me, attacking the economy would mean threatening the system, the feedback loops and so forth that regulate markets. Are you saying that a threat to our goods and services is a threat to our economy? If so, how's that different from our interests? Or are these two akin to strategic interests and economic interests?
The last one -- our way of life -- is something I've heard many times over the last couple of years, but I really don't get it. What does it mean to you?
So, while the invasion of Kuwait was not a tactical attack on the United States, it certainly was a strategic attack on the United States, which is why we mobilized against it the way we did... as opposed to see the Yugoslavian invasion of Bosnia-Herzegovina or the Rwandan invasion of Zaire.
I can only see it as strategic to Iraq if their purpose was to pull the West into the region in order to touch off a larger conflict. If it was to actually try to expand their borders, they were nuts, a possibility that cannot be discounted!
Nick
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