No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

Did Defeating Iraq make us Safer from Terrorism?

Paul Krugman again points out that the President has no clothes on.

"Still, we defeated Saddam. Doesn't that make us safer? Well, no.

Saddam wasn't a threat to America — he had no important links to terrorism, and the main U.S. team searching for weapons of mass destruction has packed up and gone home. Meanwhile, true to form, the Bush team lost focus as soon as the TV coverage slackened off. The first result was an orgy of looting — including looting of nuclear waste dumps that, incredibly, we failed to secure. Dirty bombs, anyone? Now, according to an article in The New Republic, armed Iraqi factions are preparing for civil war.

That leaves us facing exactly the dilemma war skeptics feared. If we leave Iraq quickly it may well turn into a bigger, more dangerous version of Afghanistan. But if we stay for an extended period we risk becoming, as one commentator put it, "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land" — just the recruiting tool Al Qaeda needs. Who said that? President George H. W. Bush, explaining his decision not to go on to Baghdad back in 1991. "

The entire editorial is worth reading.

I keep looking for positive things to come out of the invasion of Iraq - beyond the obvious, that is. The obvious is that Saddam and the Ba'ath Party of Iraq no longer oppress the Iraqi people and that the US Army and the military in general has had a superb live-fire exercise allowing them to try out a lot of new technology that should have worked, but hadn't been really tested yet. I don't believe that any real democracy will be possible without also the breakup of Iraq. Then the pieces will be subject to fundamentalist Islam rather than any democracy. And I don't think that we will be able to pull out many troops without leaving something similar to Lebanon or Yugoslavia. Remember, Iraq is between Iran and Syria, neither of which is known for its dedication to democracy or its good will towards Iraq.

I think that the Bush administration, against the advice of most of the rest of the world, has grabbed the tarbaby and will find it very difficult to let go. Of course, it will be easier if they were lying to us and the only reason they had for invading Iraq was to convince the rest of the world that there is no more Viet Nam syndrome and we would really use military force and every other reason they have offered for invading Iraq was a lie.
posted by Richard at 9:01 AM