Hi Horse and Marco,
If it makes it easier to accept one of the most lop-sided victories of all
time as a model of "American inefficiency" because we can't find the remains
of the leader of the pack, then by all means do so. Getting bin laden was
not primary focus of the war on terror. This has been repeated ad naseum
since last fall (prior to the liberation). The point is that we are fighting
terrorism, which includes eliminating terrorist sponsoring states.
All your view would prove if it was correct is that we are TOO EFFICIENT --
we send out a group of special forces to kill a few thugs and managed to
liberate a repressive regime to boot.
HORSE:
If they'd handed him over they would've stayed unliberated.
ROG:
Yeah, and if Saddam agrees to everything we probably won't get to liberate
Iraq either. For a student of the MOQ, you seem particularly upset by Dynamic
responses to changing situations.
> complete with photo
> of the plane flying into the building and about to exterminate a few
thousand
> people guilty only of being American.
H:
...and various other nationalities and I think the figure was closer to 2
thousand (which is still 2 thousand too many).
R:
They were specifically attacking America. And on this side of the pond, a
few does mean 2 or 3. I believe the final count was around 2700?
H:
I think you mean the pointless struggle for the Falklands which was more
about boosting Thatchers poll ratings than liberating the islanders!
R:
Don't "get all wobbly" on us now, Horse!
H:
The answer to my original question is none then?
R:
They killed thousands of supporters of Al Queda and the Taliban, and
imprisoned hundreds of others. Our biggest problem may be that we used too
big of a bomb on Osama. Time will tell. Why don't you give us, oh say 400
years or so like ya'll have taken with the IRA. If we can't deliver his body
by then, you may have a point.
H:
And Bin Laden is still at large - which was the original point of the Afghan
action. And
why do the thousand of dead Afghanies not count as casualties - after all
most of them weren't soldiers but innocent civilians.
R:
Which way is it? Did we kill none or too many? If you can let me know of
another recent war of similar scale that killed fewer innocents, I would
appreciate it. Everything i read was that it was by far the most efficient
in this regard. Correct me if I am wrong with applicable statistics.
H:
Several thousand dead and no Bin Laden - what a model of efficiency.
R:
That is why the US and coalition didn't position this primarily as a war on
Bin Laden. Seriously, the Administration made this point virtually EVERY DAY
to the US, and did so BEFORE the war started.
MARCO: (Hi Marco -- it has been too long!)
> I have doubts about the actual ability of USA to directly annihilate the
right
> persons. Except for Salvador Allende, a Chilean democratically elected
> president. Replaced by Augusto Pinochet, terrorist and dictator... but
strangely
> not an enemy.
R:
You Europeans have the strangest ways to redefine war. It befuddles me. We
did not have a war on Hitler, Mossolini, Hiro Hito, Khomeini, etc etc.
(Correct me if I am wrong, but the Italians didn't have a war to kill
Roosevelt, did they?)
It really does come out looking like US bashing when this type of commentary
and revisionism is offerred to international affairs. I have already
expressed regrets for transgressions the US took (inappropriately in many
cases imo) to save ALL OF OUR butts from the USSR. Granted, the US did much
of the dirty work, but that sure doesn't justify ya'll responding with what
comes out like cost-free moral judgement.
In other words, those refusing to take a turn at bat shouldn't wait till
after the game is won to criticize the batters for the occasional foul ball.
Baseball does indeed seem a lot easier though from the benches.
But i am probably over-reacting (as usual)
Peace
Rog
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:33 BST