Tuesday, October 05, 2004

 
More coalition differences:
As noted in the previous post, the Saudis contributed financially to Gulf War I. They also contributed large numbers of men and materiael. Most of the Saudis did not wish to be overrun by the Iraqis. Most of the Saudis probably support the war by terrorists against the U.S. Also as blogged or emailed long ago, OBL, if in fact he thought he could drive the U.S. from the region, may have been quite willing to accept rule of the region by the relatively "secular" Saddam Hussein -who, of course, shared his hatred of the West.
Cheney should have called Edwards' smokescreen about the issue of unilateral sanctions against Iran and other countries. Perhaps he didn't see that one coming, although Cheney's point about the difference between unilateral and more extensive sanctions. People of good will can(and have) come down on different sides of sanctions vs. "engagement" with respect to many countries. Edwards tried to obscure his party's penchant for appeasment by suggesting that sanctions can be a substitute for military action. Business relations can coexist with credible threats to use military force given certain events. (WW I comes to mind)To my knowledge Kerry hasn't even bothered to lie that he might use force against Iranian nuclear facilities. I don't know if Bush has made such threats either, but it is clear which would be more likely to carry out such action.
A subtext of Democratic thinking is that if we appease terrorists(and striking only a terrorist organizations which have carried out terrorist acts counts as appeasment in any rational calculus)we will be left alone. The invasion of Iraq, like the invasion of Okinowa, probably strengthened the resolve of those who were making war against us, however desultorily(in most of the Arab world).
Democrats are lying when they suggest that they might have chosen a target other than Iraq to attack. They rarely if ever, state which country they would have chosen to attack-generally making noises that Iran or Syria or whathave was more of a "threat" or cause for concern.(*I* wish that we had attacked Saudi Arabia first, sparing only(if only for awhile)Mecca and Medina. Many years ago, when some lefty attempting to smear on some democratic camouflauge argued that the war in Viet Nam weakened our ability to thwart the ongoing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe(arguably true), considering the source, someone at, I think, National Review, made an utterance that spoke paragraphs, if not volumes, "Grrrrrrrrr!"