Was the Manhattan project worth the money? Was the Panama Canal? Would anyone have thought so before they were made to work? Did you think there'd come a time when we weren't going to have an interest in what happens to Iraq and her oil? (I didn't)

Nice quotes, Amy.

And one of my favorite Onion titles:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_announces_iraq_exit_strategy

Did you think there'd come a time when we weren't going to have an interest in what happens to Iraq and her oil?

Who's "we" in this sentence? You got a turd in your pocket?

Aw, Bunny, take the point. If you wanna let world events flow without any input from you, the rest of us would be cool with it.

Aw, Bunny, take the point. If you wanna let world events flow without any input from you, the rest of us would be cool with it.

I know it's late there, but could you try English? And making sense.

I am no peace activist. If we're attacked we need to defend ourselves. If it's "us or them" I pick "us." ...I'm not anti-fighting-at-all-costs.

That said my favorite playlist for the past 6 months on my iPod includes:
- Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
- I'd Love to Change the World - Ten Years After
- Gimmie Shelter - (who doesn't love it - reminds me of Southie which is appropriate since I work in the building where Martin Sheen was thrown off in The Departed)
- Black Panther - Mason Jennings

I was in high school when this crap all began and at the time I supported it (I thought we were at risk...?). As an older and hopefully wiser person I don't feel that this is a good thing.

You are looking at at it the wrong way...of course the war has paid for itself...for the Big Dick, Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel it paid fine.

Was the Manhattan project worth the money? Was the Panama Canal?

The total cost of the Manhattan Project was only about 1% of US annual GDP at the time and the end result was that it prevented at least 1,ooo,ooo US casualties in an invasion of Japan.

The total cost of the Panama Canal was less than 2% of US annual GDP at the time, we had recovered that cost from toll earnings alone by the 1950s, and it will continue stimulating our economy by reducing transportation costs and time for the forseeable future.

Just using their direct federal cost of 1.5 trillion, Iraq will cost about 12.5% of annual US GDP. If you accept their 3 trillion figure it's about 25% of annual GDP over the time period of the war. Even if success were inevitable I can't see how it's worth it. What the heck are we going to get out of it that's worth pissing away a tenth to a quarter of everything the entire country can produce in a year?

What the heck are we going to get out of it that's worth pissing away a tenth to a quarter of everything the entire country can produce in a year?
Wasn't that Osama's plan from the start??

Personally, I think we should pay down the national debt before we go off spending like Beverly Hills housewives to invade and bring democracy to country where democracy is probably impossible due to the collectivist-think of Muslims.

PS A good thing Muslims have the Jews to hate and kill or they'd only have each other to hate and kill. Second only to Jew hatred and lust for Jewish blood is the lust of different sects within the Islamic Middle East to slaughter each other and any nearby Christians and others who might be in their path.

Meanwhile, they're putting up mosques in America and Europe faster than they used to put up subdivisions in the 70's in suburban Detroit.

Oh, and the example I always give about our Iraq invasion as an answer to 9/11:

Somebody -- not you -- robs a bank. Somebody needs to pay. You'll do. They throw you in jail for bank robbery.

Also, I'm sure we'll be hearing more "we can use their oil to pay for it" nonsense out of the right on this. I'll just note that if we stole every cent of Iraq's oil revenues it would take 60 years for us to get 3 trillion dollars out of it.

Can anyone tell me what interest anyone in the world had in Bosnia? Anyone?

Don't hand me the bullshit line about needing to stop the ethnic cleansing, because nobody gave a fuck when Rwanda imploded. Nobody seems to give much of a fuck about what's going down in Sudan. And I don't see any military mobilizations to defend Tibet.

You holier-than-thou types can cry all you want about "no blood for oil", but you always seem to be the first to cry about the price of gas.

There would be no worse outcome for the world than for the entirety of the oil in the Middle East to fall into the hands of one nation. And with the sanctions on Saddam collapsing fast, we'd be looking at another Desert Storm type situation right now.

Amy - the best linking excuse between 9/11 and Iraq: a message must be sent to the Islamic world. And putting a US presence on the doorstep of the two nations exporting the majority of Islamist terrorism to the world is a damned good start. I just wish we weren't being so timid about it. Iran should have gotten its ass handed to it the second we knew they were supplying advanced weapons and training to the so-called "insurgents".

Sean is my new hero. I wish that everyone who is getting a letter from the IRS about their rebate also got a "PS- Here is what your share of the unpaid war is so far..."

Crid - well said as always

You holier-than-thou types can cry all you want about "no blood for oil", but you always seem to be the first to cry about the price of gas.

This particular holier-than-thou type drives a sub-sub-sub compact that gets 38 miles to the gallon. I'm perfectly fine with paying $3.09 (this morning's price) at the pump. Meanwhile, my Chevy Tahoe-driving, Iraq war-supporting evangelical Republican coworker complains loud and long after she's stopped at the local Conoco on the way to work.

On a related note to your post, Amy, NPR had a heartbreaking story this morning about Iraqi women, and the humiliating daily bullying they suffer from at the hands of their fellow Muslims. Imagine not being able to jump in your car to simply pick up a few groceries at the store--no matter the cost of gas.

Oh ya it is expensive. But remember success was never a foregone conclusion. The benefits you wont ever see raised by the anit-iraq folks are there if you open your eyes.

Already pressure is building in Iraq's neighbors. Saudi announincing that they will allow women to drive, kuwait allowing them to hold certain government positions, Iran has had recent student demonstrations too large to hide. Lebanon and their huge anti-syrian protests etc.

Wait until Iraq has more electioons and their top pols step down and hand over power to the winner of their next elections, with no coup. The pressure will get really nasty then.

Weapons and terrorists have been flowing into Iraq for a long time, not just from Iran. All the tinpot dictators in the neighborhood want to see Iraq fail. Wether they send weapons and terrorists or just cash, they still are doing their damndest to keep Iraq from being able to handle democracy on thier own.

If Iraq succeeds and has a functioning democracy, where Christian churches like the one that opened in baghdad a few months ago are left in peace, then the mullahs are in deep shit. So is the house of saud.

The gamble here folks is not to just flip Iraq, and kill some terrorists, its to get the mass of muslims to see their failures as their own. To see one of their local countries turn into an economic powerhouse aka japan/germany. All right in front of their faces. But then for muslims to realize that it is not America and the Jews holding them down, it is their dictators.

When that happens, if it is allowed to go forward, the dominoes will fall fast. And then people who complained about the cost will say "damn, Bush was not going after just a win in one battle in the WoT, he was going for the jugular all along".

Then a lot of young people around the world will know that the generation ahead of them who chanted no blood for oil, halliburton is evil, its all our fault; was actually full of shit, and could not see the forest for the trees.

It is called a strategic move, folks. It has no immediate payoff, but costs you a huge investment right now. Like buying into a company, it is risky and may fail, but the payoff is huge.

The IRS just sent me my "1040 forms and instructions" booklet. On page 86, there is a pie chart for federal outlays.

The total portion for "National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs" is 23%

The total for "Social security, Medicare, and other retirement" is 36%. Then there is an additional 19% for "Social programs" and yet another 12% for "Physical, human, and community development".

Those last 3 items total almost 3 times national defense. How many convincing arguments have you heard for those programs lately? Are they paying for themselves? Have their missions been accomplished? Do you feel all warm and fuzzy about how successful they've been? What about their cost to the already spluttering US economy, and their costs to society that are far greater, the politicians who used the programs to funnel money to their cronies, etc., etc.

For the war costs, at least we got rid of Saddam, pinned down AQ in a war they seem to be losing, scared Libya into abandoning its nuclear program and Syria into making some concessions in Lebanon, and brought most of the Gulf Arabs into the anti-Iran, anti-Hizbullah, and even anti-Hamas camp. And that's not even counting avoiding trouble we would have run into letting UN sactions run out on pre-war Iraq.

Of course, all of this still may not be cost-effective given the price tag, but it's probably more real success than you can point to from most of the other above-mentioned federal outlay programs. Where's the outrage?

If you guys wanna go back in time, it's OK with me. But on the way out of Iraq, you have to-

- Put a monster in charge again

- Make sure he has two psychotic sons who are ready to fight for control after he dies

- Drain the wetlands again

- Give Khaddafy his weapons back

- Threaten the shit out of the democratically-minded northern and southern regions

- And certainly not last or least, re-establish the no-fly zones, because we we've been at war in Iraq for decades.

etc etc etc... Seekers, history has branched. The teenage admonishment to "get over it" is too mild for you at this hour. I really wish the war had gone better; we all do. But the voters supported Bush through the invasion and the subsequent election because they looked at China and the rest of the world and figured out that oil was really important, and that it was bad to leave madmen in charge of it.

Props to Naif, who sees the pointlessness of whining.

Someone please run this down with hand puppets for Shawn, he's got comprehension issues.

Crid, I'd take those things vs. our loss of life, treasure, and respect (the big bad U.S. of A. can't fucking handle one Middle Eastern country the size of one of its states; how pathetic is that?) and the freedom to do other things with our military force. Especially since the Iraq war has mostly served to give Iran a new BFF instead of a mortal enemy.

You're right, though that no matter how badly we have fucked up (and from my perspective, Bush has failed our country in an historic fashion. Seriously, like Andrew Johnson bad.), we need to move things forward and force the Iraqis to get their shit together. We can't fund things at their current level indefinitely, and it would be bad for Iraq to become a totally failed state. Because we do need that oil.

YOu can't "take" those things. History has branched.... It's different than it would have been. Other bad things would have happened and other good things would have happened. You are permitted no insight, or preference, for what those things would be. It's ridiculous. If only that one guy hadn't look at your great-great-great-great-grandfather crosseyed that one afternoon down by the river, then he wouldn't have gotten into that fistfight, and your life would have been different.....

And what do you mean "handle"? Sure, we could have mustered the troops to go in an micromanage every single encounter of all the Iraqis for the last five years, essentially incarcerating them.... But that's not what we're about either.

The oil needs to flow, but I don't think this was a naked grab for their derricks. Middle eastern oil was never that important to the United States personally, so to speak. And we'd have done a much better job of things if that _were_ the mission.

YOu can't "take" those things. History has branched.... It's different than it would have been

Duh. I know that. I was responding to this statement you made, "If you guys wanna go back in time, it's OK with me. But on the way out of Iraq, you have to-" I was making the point that I would prefer all of those things, Saddam in power, etc. over the current state of affairs where we bankrupt ourselves and lose American lives trying to keep together a nation of people that mostly have trouble deciding who they would prefer to kill: us or each other. Right now, I'd like us to get out of the way so they can get on with the latter. We can pick up the pieces and put them back together when they're done.

And what do you mean "handle"?

I mean, have the ability to keep people from killing us and each other. Impose martial law, etc. The stuff that conquering powers normally do when they win.

This occurred to me on the way home - that pulling out of Iraq actually serves our strategic interests very well. The mess that would occur there, with Iran supporting the Shiia, Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda supporting the Sunnis, would essentially take all of the Muslim world's focus and energy. There would be very little time, money, weapons or suicide bombers for the Western world.

I think this is more likely to work in our favor than trying to prop up Iraq and turn it into a positive example for the Middle East. Hell, put the ball in their court and see if they can solve things. Might prove to be a useful lesson for the world's most dangerously disfunctional region.

So, okay, I busted you for playing my own game. But folks can't go back. Mostly because none of the people moving around the board nowadays were anywhere near so alarmed about the risks as the venture began... Even if they had the keys to the time machine, they wouldn't have the moral license to drive it.

Is there any better definition of cowardice than to fight only when you know you can win? (See the graduation advice here.) Anyone who's ever been to a schoolyard knows this brutal truth: You have to fight. (At least, you have to show up. One of my best new friends at a new job is a 6'6" gentle giant, and I like to tease him about the weather up there. He says he once got taunted by a school bully, and had to show up back by the tracks after school one day to get his ribs kicked in. It hurt. The bully never bothered him again, and nowadays sits in prison for drugs or some damn thing.)

> stuff that conquering powers
> normally do

Did you want to conquer, or did you want to establish democracy? Like I said, I don't think we went in just to claim the booty. Bush is a fuckup, but we took him at his word as the venture began. Saying 'I never liked the look of that guy' at this point is not helpful.

Y'know, I thought the popular love of Ronald Reagan was going to be the strangest political thing I ever saw in my lifetime, even if it was somewhat deserved. But the absolutely transformative, infantilizing, crazy-making hatred of Dubya is the new champion (even though it is completely deserved). It make people want to shred the very fabric of space-time, invert causality and the effects of gravitation, and park their cats in doghouses.

It's freaky.

Also, we can't just pull out. Wait until you see what President Obama has to do. Or whomever: "While her comments were not a categorical refusal to run, Rice also said she had no expectation of playing a role in the campaign by speaking out for McCain or other candidates."

Hey - please be consistent. It is not possible to "spend" or "waste" {insert big dollar number here} and still claim that an American company gets the money. That's because the American company brings that money back home. No, of course not all of it, but take the point. Yes, you can claim that the money would be "better used for {name American deficiency}" - but it wasn't before, and it won't now, even if you snapped your fingers and popped everybody out of Iraq this instant.

And one more time: just because Mr. Bush is the only person in government whose name you know, that doesn't make him the source of your anger. Get the civics textbook out. For added interest, one might note who was in office when Haliburton made its most radical advances (not G.W. Bush).

Crid,

I understand we can't stuff the genie back in the bottle in Iraq and I'm not trying to say that there's nothing good that has or can come out of it. Also, I don't support just pulling out. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it so to my mind we have to see it through to a half way acceptable conclusion.

My point was that it's just plain silly to compare the cost of Iraq to the Manhattan Project or Panama Canal. They were 10 to 25 times cheaper and both undeniably yielded fantastic benefits for the US. My objection to your comment was that whether you intended it or not you were trivializing the monumental financial cost of this war. Three trillion dollars is more than everything any nation except us and Japan will produce this year. It's approximately the value of every good and service produced in Norway and Sweden since the war began. In return for this ridiculous expense we currenly have very little to show for it.

Again, I'm not bashing Bush, saying we should definitely pull out, or even that the decision to topple Saddam was neccessarily wrong. But, for God's sake, how long does this war have to go on and how much do we have to spend on it before the die-hard war supporters can at least concede the critics might arguably have a tiny point? Does it need to become the longest war in US history and cost more than any other country can produce in a year before we can say it's become a giant cock-up without being dismissed as Bush-bashing surrender advocates?

Did you want to conquer, or did you want to establish democracy?

I never cared a bit for either. But since we did the former, it strikes me that the process should go: 1) establish martial law and instill order, 2) rebuild infrastructure, 3) slowly reduce our control and stand up their forces. But our inability to do 1) has been a real problem in doing 2) and 3).

Also, we can't just pull out. Wait until you see what President Obama has to do.

I agree. We'll slog on there for several more years no matter who is CIC. Too bad, though. As I mentioned above, I think there is a real advantage for us in getting out of the way for a while and letting the local powers get caught up in the mess.

Well, I don't think the CIC will be Shrillary, in any case, based on what this guy wrote:

(This is from a paper in Aspen)

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man
Gary Hubbell
February 9, 2008

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Gary Hubbell is a writer, photographer, location scout for films and photo shoots, and a ranch real estate broker. He writes a monthly column for the Aspen Times Weekly. He can be reached at
http://www.writerphotographer.biz.

> both undeniably yielded fantastic
> benefits for the US.

In retrospect, that's true. Gee golly, you approve of the flow of history. That's fabulous.

Shucks, I regret my divorce. Actually I regret the whole marriage... It was a hideous bungle. But you can't go back through a series of events that complex and nuanced and say that it was at that first shared slice of pizza off-campus when everything went wrong. To wit: The United States remains --at this hour-- the only nation to have fired a (sub-atomic) shot in anger. Many people still get cranked about this, including Americans. And to get the Canal built, the United States basically yanked a new puppy nation out of a sovereign country on an adjacent continent... an absurdity so obvious that ownership of the treasure was surrendered to the mutt less than a century later.

History is on your side: This president will not be admired. And I'll expect and demand a new approach to Iraq in both practical and moral terms on January 21st, 2009. But in this weird, weird moment of mass psychosis, we should try to remember that things are never as bad as they seem, any more than they're ever as good as they seem.

> our inability to do 1

I don't think you can turn the place into Poughkeepsie without more troops than Bush ever had to bring to the project. Those of us who marinate in capitalist democracy's delights presume them to be self-evident... And even when we don't, there are always people hectoring us to remember how the rest of the world hates us for our wealth. But you don't get Poughkeepsie without a United States, and at this hour it seems uncertain that Iraq will be a single nation in twenty years anyway. But I'd bet that in a hundred years, it'll be a capitalist democracy no matter what.

Good morning Miss Alkon,

I do hope alls well with you today. My reason for writing the following
is in answer to your recent blog entry regarding the Iraq war. More
specifically, my answer to your invitation at the end of the pay for
itself entry:

"Don't you feel all warm and cuddly inside about the peaceful democracy
we've bought in Iraq? Expensive, but worth it, huh?

And if you actually think so...do tell us why."




As you invite reasonable discourse on the subject and are devoid of
sound bites (very refreshing by the by), I thought I ought to answer.


And so here is my response:



If we look back some years before the first Gulf war, back to 1985, one
of the things that made international news was an Israeli air strike
against Iraq, this air strike destroyed a facility that was being used
to create material suitable for the production of nuclear weapons.
Though condemned globally for their "aggressive action" at the time, it
is now acknowledged that had Israel failed to act then the Baathist
government would have had nuclear arms by the time of the Gulf war.
Unsavory prospect isn't it? In that instance, preemption could be
justified by both the danger at hand and retroactively by observing what
danger was avoided some years down the line. What preemption makes
possible, also makes preemption questionable because its virtue or folly
can seldom be judged except by hindsight, the only 20/20 vision history
can provide us.

Fast forward a few years to prior to the start of our present situation
in Iraq. The homocidal butcher Saddaam Hussein, a man known to have
killed thousands of his own people and attempted in the past to develop
nuclear arms, who considers his model for the head of state to be Josef
Stalin, and worked countless horrors on even those he did not kill
outright...has stymied inspectors, and played games of diplomatic cat
and mouse for years.

In a perfect world, inspectors in great numbers would arrive in the
country, show a warrant, and go searching until they declare the area
clear, and that would be the end of it. But in a country roughly the
size of California, noncooperation and a record of deception are very
bad signs. What treaty could be trusted, what inspection of such a vast
open land be truly thorough?

Consider the nature of the intelligence field Miss Alkon, forget what is
said in movies or fictional works, the fact of the matter is that
certainty is far from common. Very often it is like playing poker in
the dark with everybody trying their damndest to cheat the best. The
unvarnished truth of the matter is that if justification required
verifiable knowledge, then no successful endevor could ever be had,
because even the most probable truth could be a misdirection planted by
the target country or even some other country hoping to provoke a given
outcome. Therefore what is required is a reasonable certainty based on
what IS considered reliable, that a given danger is real.

Given the record of the regime, their near success years before and the
nature of the power mad dictator's personality, I would say that by any
reasonable standard, we could count on continued efforts by the Baath
party to attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction.


I realize of course that does not answer the whole of the antiwar
argument, but it was not meant to, only the first part, the rightness or
wrongness of the initial war. Now on to the post Baathist Iraq.


No one, either deployed or simply watching the news, will say that Iraq
is not a dangerous place. However I ask you Miss Alkon to remember two
old sayings about newspapers:

"Papers do not report buildings that do not burn down."
and
"Newspapers exist to sell newspapers, not to report truth."

The news will print with glee the story of a convoy that is struck by an
IED and suffers the loss of two soldiers.
What they will not print Miss Alkon, is the context, which is that it
was the only convoy to be hit, out of three hundred going out around the
country.

Out of context, it appears there is constant loss of life, serious
hazard at every turn, and no meaningful result.
In context, 299 convoys of soldiers reach their destinations without
incident, deliver food and clean water to desperate citizens, provide
medical care to the sick, and arrest insurgents responsible for laying
bombs in city streets without care for civilian lives, and two men paid
the price for that. A heavy cost yes, to those who are lost and those
who mourn them, but no good thing comes without cost.

More good goes on here in one day than will be reported by the media in
a whole year, that is the sad truth Miss Alkon, and while I do not doubt
that you write as you do out of devotion to your fellow citizens and
your citizen soldiers, I respectfully submit that your viewpoint is seen
through a lens that is less than clear.

The nation building that is going on in this country at present is slow
yes, no one will deny that, but I wonder Miss Alkon, how long should it
take to build a nation?

Consider it a moment. The United States went through the revolutionary
war, the articles of confederation, shays rebellion, the whiskey
rebellion, and a major civil war costing half a million dead in battle
or of disease in camp, without even counting the wounded or dead of
disease or starvation for want of supplies, before establishing a truly
unified nation. Italy took nearly a century to unify itself, to say
nothing of its efforts at republic, France is on its fifth republic, and
Germany went through one failed attempt at a republic before final
democratic government post WWII. Japan ended up with what was
essentially a military regime after the meiji restoration...the list
goes on Miss Alkon, of nations who try and fail and try again to build
nations governed by and for the people, these efforts may take many
years to achieve.

The attempt to plant democracy in Iraq has not been without its false
starts, but nor has it been a failure either. Consider the voter turn
out during Iraq's first election in 50 years. Despite calling the vote
apostasy against Islam, Muslims turned out to vote, despite the threat
of suicide bombing and terrorism, citizens turned out to vote...while in
our own country people stay at home instead of voting when it rains.
People who will brave bombs to make their voices heard Miss Alkon, can
indeed build a country. It will not be without its slumps or failures,
but it can and will happen, and we who are the best armed, best trained,
and most liberated people in the world, have a responsibility to ensure
that what happens after the conflict, brings about a result that will
not require a return visit.


And now last but not least, let me lay out for you the best reason of
all...the most probable alternative scenario had none of this ever
happened.

Let us presume that the president never ordered the invasion of Iraq,
and that Saddaam continued his rule. In all probability he would have
continued to rule for the remainder of his life, maybe he would have
developed nuclear arms, maybe he would not have...but he was not a young
man, and the end of his life, assuming it was not by assassination,
would not have been a great number of years more. At his death, his two
sons, Uday and Qusay would almost have certainly split their country in
a civil war. I am not sure if you know anything of his sons, but I'll
assume you do not and relate a bit of their character. Both of them
enjoyed torture, rapine, murder, and bloodshed, both had been
indulged...one could say twisted, to that end from early childhood by
their father. You don't have to know much history to know that dynastic
succession often yields civil war even when there is a code of honor
involved...how much more so when only butchers are in charge? A civil
war between two would be dictators, and whichever comes out on top, the
people lose. Take your pick as to which you think would win, the mad
man or the sadist, both like their father in that their egos and sense
of invincibility make them devoid of the survival instinct that brings
other dictators, such as Castro, cautious in their dealings with the
world. Even if we assume that the inevitable civil war did not end up
dragging other middle eastern countries into the conflict...as we see
can and does happen, sooner or later Iraq will acquire a nuclear
arsenal, the question then becomes...do you prefer it a liberal
democratic republic...or a state headed by a dictatorial madman with
delusions of granduer and persecution and a sadistic delight in
bloodshed.


We will never know if that scenario would have come to pass...but
consider what might have happened to the region, while you consider what
is happening now, that is all that I ask. As you invited answer, I now
invite you, attempt to paint your own scenario if you will. Try to
picture an Iraq that continued Baathist rule, and a middle east into
which the sons of Sadaam vied for dominace...to say nothing of other
factions and tribes...I promise you, finding a pleasant, rosy way to
paint that picture will prove impossible. The present is not perfect,
and the future is hard, but by these sacrifices and hazards there is at
least the chance for a decent future.

Even while I wrote in criticism of your view regarding the Iraq
conflict, I must admit I also send my praise to you for your critique
over the troubles presented to the world by the doctrine of Islam.
While I cannot say that it is a religion completely devoid of virtue, I
will say that one of the biggest problems is that it demands those
virtues be directed only towards fellow Muslims. Its "exclusive hold on
truth" and 7th century outlook of the world is both destructive and
dangerous to the lives and liberties of all others.

I am not a religious man by nature, however it does almost make me long
for the 12th century "crusader" spirit. *l* I write in humor of course,
at least partially, in all honesty I find myself wonder how liberalism
can combat the threat, when its leading speakers and advocates so often
attempt to accomodate and embrace everything. Frequently, for all of my
regular liberal bent, I find I have to turn to conservatism to find
someone willing to make a stand and call evil for what it is.

Makes me wish you were published in a thousand papers instead of a few
hundred, we need more secular humanists with sane minds and backbones in
the public eye.

I don't like Sally Kern...but she's got guts to state her beliefs
plainly and unequivocably, and to stand behind them despite the slings
and arrows hurled at her. If liberal leaders were more willing to
confront Islam, a real hazard, with the same ferocity that she tackles
her imagined ones, we as a democracy would be far better off.