Watch what they do.

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The public preparation for the Iraq invasion still confuses me. It seemed to me as if rationalism was completely shut off at that time.
True on the public pronouncements, not necessarily so on the actual reasons.
The chemical weapons argument, for example (IIRC people thought more about chemical agents than about nukes at that time).

What's the silliest action if you want to prevent chemical weapons use by a dictator who hasn't used those agents in twelve years?
- It's of course an invasion that threatens his rule and leaves him no way out.
What's the silliest action if you want to protect your people against it?
- Do the invasion yourself.

There was absolutely no rational thinking involved. I asked sometime in 2004/2005 people whether this question was ever mentioned in public discussion; whether an invasion is really a logical answer to the supposed problem.
They said "No."
Unbelievable.
True -- if you listened to and believed even part of the babble and political hype over the issue (most who were paying attention ignored all that foolishness). The actual reason was to tell the ME (Not Afghanistan * -- that's not in the ME) that we would no longer do nothing as four previous US Presidents from both parties and over 27 years had to a series of attacks against US interests (Not the US proper -- that was Afghanistan *) over that time; that and to get some bases there. There were a host of minor synergies and most of them have dribbled out over time but had Bush said all that upfront, he's not have gotten his resolution from Congress.
And well, it's quite the same today. Nobody really asks himself or others whether fighting in Afghanistan is really a useful method to combat AQ.
All valid questions IF one assumes the issue in Afghanistan is to combat AQ. Don't think that's a valid assumption.
I believe that the failure to actually discuss our ways is still rampant.
That's hard to do coherently today due to our rapid worldwide communication ability; it's too easy to telegraph what one intends and thus to alert ones opponents.
It's just not recognizable as an outrageous failure as was the Iraq invasion thing.
Why is it a failure? The ME doesn't question that Americans are nuts and will visit your country and break things if you make us mad; we have -- and will continue to have -- bases in the area. Actually, we could almost give up the bases today with little loss and we're still ahead. The whole world is a bit ahead even if most don't realize it yet.

* To most westerners, the differentiation between attacks on the US emanating from Afghanistan and attacks on US interests worldwide emanating from the ME is nil, they're both the same thing. That is not true at all in the eyes of those from the ME. Afghanistan was the eye for the US eye; had nothing in the minds of the ME to do with the ME, Afghans areb abarians and ignored by ME people.

Iraq, OTOH, had the misfortune to have an unloved dictator, be a military wreck and thus an easy target (even if the Army messed up for the first 18 months, it's still been relatively easy) and to be geographically central in the ME and thus it got to be the arm for the arm of the US worldwide interests. May confuse westerners but the Asians understood -- and, most importantly, those in the ME understood. Which is why we went...