There's a very interesting interview with an intelligence guy
who calls himself "anonymous" for the benefit of his employer, the CIA Some things
stand out in this very candid interview. One is that while bin-Laden hates the U.S. for
what he thinks it is, his intention is to change U.S. policy and drive America out of the middle-east. He also
indicated his belief that bin-Laden will use any weapon at his disposal to hit the U.S.
And that includes nukes. Some attention should be paid to the seven policy problems that
need to be solved before you can tuck Al-Queda away.
Would the U.S. be in the middle-east if it wasn't for cheap oil? And we emphasize
cheap, not simply plentiful oil. We would because of Israel but our involvement would not
be as profound, we wouldn't be as hopelessly entangled as we seem to be. And
coincidentally, I saw an interesting program last night on a local TV news show about the
old steamcar. Believe it or not, many excellent automobiles were steam-driven in the
good old days, all the way into the depression-era. They were powerful, could go
fast, were cheap to run. What happened? A Mr. Henry Ford introduced a cheap, mass-
produced product and choose the internal combustion engine to drive it. And, as they say,
the rest is history.
One of the key questions that the American people must address in the coming
months is this: Is the U.S. creating chaos in the world or is it creating order?
Whatever happens in November, Iraq will be with us for awhile. It is amazing,
uncanny, and even a bit mysterious how everything conspired to get President Bush
trapped in this thing. It's no good to take a holier-than-thou attitude however.
And it is very false to assume that President Bush is the problem or that America
is the problem. President Bush simply demonstrated that he is not a war-time
president and will be a problem if he has four more years on the job.
I think there is a general concern that the Bush Administration views the middle-east
as a kind of post-world war II Japan or Germany: States that slipped backward, have
to be restructured and fit closer to the global system. Iraq has shown however that
we are not capable of waging a long and involved war in this region.
Generally speaking, a freedom-loving democracy is not capable of waging any war
unless there are compelling reasons to do so. Vietnam is the number one example of
fighting a war without compelling reasons. In Iraq there was too much ambiguity in
the intelligence information and without weapons of mass destruction, no compelling
reason. Each candidate should be forced to outline what compelling reasons would
bring them to unleash the dogs of war.
Posted July 19, 2004
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the convenient form below and thanks!
Back to War on Terrorism
Previous impressions on the war on Terrorism:
"What then, for the future? What then, for the first half of the 21 st century?"
"What is unfathomable, when looking at Iraq, is that no one in the Bush Administration
took seriously how those states fabricated by empire would disintegrate..."
"Most reasonable accounts and analysis see Iraq, now, as a slogging, painful,
impossible sort of conflict in which the U.S. can't possibly win."
"If you are a poet, a madman even, certainly a thinking person, the last place
you want to be is in the backwaters of history."
"We are patriots and for the good that America can produce..."
"We are neither fear-mongers or prophets..."
"Dissent is one thing that keeps free people honest..."
"The first question to ask is, "Is it worth the killing?"
"The core issue still remains this: How real is the threat of terrorism?"
"Can a good citizen agonize over the policy but love the country and still believe in its future?"
"President Bush's credibility wanes for some simple, clear-cut reasons..."
"The idea that the U.S. can "rule the world," is an absurd notion..."
"Common intuition says that the U.S. is at a cross-roads, a threshold point..."
"The most fascinating and awful thing to confront is this..."
"Our fears did not start in September of 2001..."
"In foreign affairs, the citizen is sucked into the final drop of calculation the
state is capable of..."
"The loyal opposition of the Democrats may have disintegrated in Iraq..."
"Listening to the good, heart-felt discussion about diversity and affirmative action..."
"We have two perspectives..."
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David Eide
eide491@earthlink.net
copyright 2003
March 27, 2003