[lit-ideas] Re: Priorities
- From: "Steven G. Cameron" <stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2005 16:13:53 -0500
**Are you not concerned with the loss of life, the personal sacrifices
necessary in this long-term, unpredictable engagement?? The Talmud
states that each person, each life is a universe... Would you volunteer
your life, your children's?? Would even Bentham agree?? Are our
objectives pure (Kant)??
TC,
/Steve Cameron, NJ
Lawrence Helm wrote:
> I suppose we could use the word "war," in several different ways, but in
> this case the matter was hinging off a statement I had made, namely that our
> War in Iraq was extremely successful when compared to other major wars and
> that we suffered the fewest number of casualties of any major war.
>
>
> In regard to the insurgency, I'm sure the insurgents would claim they were
> in a war, but I doubt they'd claim it was a war of attrition because they do
> not have big numbers on their side. Rather they would hope to stir up
> enough trouble to cause the U.S. to cut and run -- something the Middle East
> had grown used to during the Bush Sr and Clinton administrations.
>
>
>
> Osama bin Laden hoped to involve the US in a long drawn-out war in
> Afghanistan. George Friedman (founder of Stratfor) in America’s Secret War
> argues to that effect. OBL and Al Quaeda probably “war game” as much as
> any military force, and they considered all the possibilities they could
> imagine and didn’t think they could lose in Afghanistan. What the US
> actually did there caught them and the Taliban by surprise. We can see by
> OBLs recent messages that he would be satisfied if we would get bogged down
> in Iraq (he previously hoped to bog us down in Afghanistan). He urges the
> insurgents to keep on fighting.
>
>
>
> However, I’m convinced that OBL will be disappointed once again. Our
> fall-back position isn’t to hunker down and battle insurgents for years.
> Our fall-back position is to declare victory and leave. But this would
> result in a civil war, Shiite against Sunni that would probably keep Middle
> Eastern nations and Islamists preoccupied for a good long while. By that I
> mean getting the Shiites up to speed militarily and then saying “good luck,”
> and leaving. Many of the Shiites are holding grudges against the Sunnis and
> if we left prematurely, they might well engage in a little ethnic cleansing.
> That would take care of the insurgents rather quickly and neatly if it
> weren’t that the Syrians and other Sunnis would probably come to their aid.
> Iran would be supportive of the Iraqi Shiites. Saudi Arabia hates the
> Shiites and would panic. They would open their coffers to pay for as much
> support of the Iraqi Sunnis as they could buy.
>
>
>
> Knowing that events could play out that way, we are trying to make sure that
> there is a Democratic government in Iraq that guarantees rights for Sunnis,
> Kurds and Shiites before we leave.
>
>
>
> Lawrence Helm
>
> San Jacinto
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven G. Cameron
>
>
>
>
>
> **Might this then (currently) qualify as a war of "attrition"??
>
>
>
> TC,
>
>
>
> /Steve Cameron, NJ
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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