Iraq: A War to Make us Safe

This CNN report from yesterday has the completely unsurprising, but totally unnerving all the same, news that the threat, or God forbid the actuality, of a war with Iraq is in the FBI's minds--not just those of namby-pamby appeasers--increasing the risk of a damaging attack on American soil.

Comments

[The Hamburglar]

Sir,

Would not going to war with Iraq decrease the risk of a damaging attack on American soil?

Just wondering,

The Hamburglar
V.P. Research and Devlopment
The McDonalds Corporation

[LM]

kinda like how beating a beehive with a stick reduces the risk of being stung...

...or something...

[set]

Yeah, like Iraq is the beehive and Al-Qaeda are the bees (the biggest problem I have with the war argument is the fact that people try to play up the Al-Qaeda connection).

The terrorists are going to attack if they can regardless of the geo-political situation in the world.

Like the title of the article said, it would be a pretense, not the actual root cause of the attack.

Which makes the beating of beehive a rather bad analogy.

[Kevin Carson]

Yeah, and anyway, if we refrain from beating a beehive with a stick for fear of being stung, we'll be letting the bees win. Recognizing that people act for reasons, and that actions have consequences, is tantamount to blaming America first--you cheese-eating surrender monkey!

[Hank]

Nice Simpsons reference, it was funny the first time... Anyways, 'tis not fear of being stung which should give us pause in beating the beehive. Its simply, we've no right to.

[Sebastian]

Terrorists can attack regardless of the world geo-political situation, and we will always have to live with some amount of terrorism, but the conditions in the middle east are leading to an extraordinary number of people attracted to their message. There's no hope of this changing under the regions current political conditions. The problem will just grow, and get worse, until we end up with more 9/11s, or worse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm don't think this is going to be easy or pain free in the short term, but this radical message is spreading around the globe, largely aided by our friends the Saudis. Remove Saddam as a regional threat, you no longer have any reason to protect these outmoded monarchies. I think this puts us in a better position to pressure them to enact democratic reforms, not having to worry about threats to our supplies of oil. It also makes me more comfortable supporting democracy in Iraq, rather than Kings and Princes in Saudi Arabia.

[Johnny Rockets]

That's assuming that we actually do succeed in implementing democracy in Iraq. I think that's going to be far easier said than done. Our track record of nation-building has been spotty at best.

[Jon H]

Sebastian -

Seems to me the way to go would be to allow Saddam to take over Saudi Arabia. Then we would have plenty of casus belli to take him out. And, we'd get a Saudi Arabia which has already been disrupted, and would probably be easier to nudge in the right direction as it's rebuilt.

If we take out Hussein, and leave Saudi Arabia, then Saudi Arabia would probably fall to the hardcore Islamists ala Iran, which is not good for us and would only fuel terrorism even more than the Saudis currently do.

- Jon (Drexel '98)

[Anonymous]

Jon H's comments remind me of an article I read not long ago questioning the wisdom of America fighting the first Gulf War. Apparently, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, bin Laden offered his services to the Saudis and they refused, turning to the US instead. The author speculated that if we'd let Saddam take over Saudi Arabia back then, we could have happily sat back and watched while he and Osama bin Laden battled each other, instead of having both of them against us. Instead, bin Laden turned against us when we put troops in Saudi Arabia, plus he was able to use our sanctions against Iraq as a recruiting tool and a pretext for his campaign of terror.

(Yes, I know a few people actually have a hard time believing that Saddam and bin Laden haven't been butt-buddies from Day One. But Saddam is a secular military dictator while Bin Laden is a religious fundamentalist - then again, I realize that to some people here, they're all people with brown skin from that part of the globe who speak funny, so they're all the same, right?)

[Bo Cowgill]

Irrespective of the content of this post, I just wanted to not how poorly written and difficult to follow it was. How many clauses was that?

[Steve]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

[kate levy]

there should not be a war. it is pointless. lifes to short for a war. how can we stop it?

[kate levy]

there should not be a war. it is pointless. lifes to short for a war. how can we stop it? please reply

[james bourne]

NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR.