At what point does fighting in Iraq become too much ?

Discussions of things currently in the news.

Postby Blue Monster 65 » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:55 pm

Yes, Bill - I have been and am involved in raising money and gathering up suppllies to send to our troops. My family also provides other support for families whose members are currently overseas.

There are plenty of people of all political stripes who, when asked, refuse to do so and I refer to them. I assume you give when asked, no?

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Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:02 am

I still don't know what the White House's rational for the invasion was.

Sometimes I think they don't know themselves.

It was an extremely stupid thing to do, and that is not 20/20 vision hindsight.
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Postby Enzo » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:17 pm

The WHite House didn't have a consistent rationale, it changed week to week during the run up to the war.

Saddam had WMD
Saddam would not cooperate with the UN
Saddam was mean to his citizens
Saddam was somehow now magically more dangerous to the world than he had been during the last decade under out thumb
Saddam was an impediment to peace in the middle east
Saddam was denying democracy to his people
Saddam's oil would pay for the war and reconstruction
Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11
etc.
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Postby Dragon Star » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:20 pm

So you don't think that war is necessary? Because if that is what your saying, you're nuts. You have to fight for freedom, and this is no secret.

You don't have to agree with how it was carried out, but war in the middle east was absolutely necessary in every way. It was a war there, or one here against a phantom enemy that would always be lost. Surely just because those of who don't live in the US can't be blind to this fact? Terrorists will stop at nothing but defeat, so we defeat them.

I certainly don't like war, but I am thankful for it's benefits. I know the facts and I know that without war I wouldn't have the opportunity to be as free as I am with my life. The more we offer democracy to those who don't have it and want it, the more I clap my hands.
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Postby Мастер » Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:20 pm

Enzo wrote:The WHite House didn't have a consistent rationale, it changed week to week during the run up to the war.


The stated rationale did. I suspect the true rationale was more or less the same, which was the ideologically driven one. If you ask me for evidence, I don't have any.
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Postby Bill_Thompson » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:40 pm

Halcyon Dayz wrote:I still don't know what the White House's rational for the invasion was.

Sometimes I think they don't know themselves.

It was an extremely stupid thing to do, and that is not 20/20 vision hindsight.


Since the latest news seems positive, I am not so sure that is accurate.
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Why it was stupid to invade Iraq

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:46 pm

Bill_Thompson wrote:Since the latest news seems positive, I am not so sure that is accurate.

Why it was stupid to invade Iraq:
    • It alienated existing and potential allies. The US went from an all time high in international sympathy to a possibly all time low
    • It reinforced the bin-Ladenites believe that America is on a crusade against Islam.
    It must have been UBL's wet dream come true. It wasn't 9/11 that made al-Qa'ida what it is today, it was the US lashing out against Islamic nations.
    • It also handed them a target rich environment where they could easily blend in with the locals.
    • It got an awful lot of people killed, injured, or displaced.
    • There was no realistic plan for the political follow-up.
    • One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone. (Ask the Brits or the French.)
    • It tied up military and financial resources that would have been a lot more useful elsewhere.
    • It made many members of the US public lose trust in their political system.
    • It made the Iranians even more paranoid then they already were.

I'm sure that if you really think it through one could come up with some more issues.
It was cowboy politics, unthinking and aggressive, and as usual, counterproductive.
The only good thing that came out of it was that a criminal regime was ended.

How many more to go?

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Postby Enzo » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:47 pm

It will take a whole lot more than a little good news lately to compensate enough for all the bad news over the least few years to the point it becomes a good idea.


So you don't think that war is necessary? Because if that is what your saying, you're nuts. You have to fight for freedom, and this is no secret.


Do I think war is necessary? Sometimes it is. Just any old war, any time, so long as you can slap "freedom" on the title? No.

You have to fight for freedom when it is threatened. I the case of our current war, what exactly was the threat to our freedom posed by Saddam when GW Bush attacked that was not there all along in the decade since the elder Bush attacked? I see a real difference between fighting for freedom when it is threatened and just fighting.

war in the middle east was absolutely necessary in every way. It was a war there, or one here against a phantom enemy that would always be lost. Surely just because those of who don't live in the US can't be blind to this fact? Terrorists will stop at nothing but defeat, so we defeat them.


It was a war here or fight there? Surely you can't be serious. The people we are fighting over there are not the people who were and are coming here to "fight us here." We are occupying Iraq. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.

The here or there argument presupposes that there is an army of "them" and we face it on some front, and further that that front is either here or there. But fighting in either of those places is not mutually exclusive. Just because we have 150,000 troops in Iraq has nothing to do with the terror cells already operating here and intending to do us harm. If we were to instantly eradicate every single man, woman, and child in Iraq and Afghanistan,do you think there would be no more terrorists?

Terrorists is not a finite army, some exact number. They are not some group of X many people that will cease to exist if you get them all. Terrorist is a way of thinking. You kill one, another pops up in his place. You kill some terrorist, and he will have had a brother, a father, an uncle, a cousin, a something. And now THAT person is infuriated at his death and becomes a new terrorist. You blow up Al Qaeda headquarters, and the families of the innocent people killed walking by on the street become terrorists. Imams are making new terrorists every day by indoctinating them with "America is the Great Satan."

Not everyone over there actually wants what we call democracy.
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Re: Why it was stupid to invade Iraq

Postby Мастер » Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:19 am

Halcyon Dayz wrote:Why it was stupid to invade Iraq:


A few comments, out of order:

Halcyon Dayz wrote:• It alienated existing and potential allies. The US went from an all time high in international sympathy to a possibly all time low


Definitely the Iraq war strained relations with US allies, and an administration with more finesse could have exploited post 11.09.2001 sympathies more skillfully. But, if one can expect the US to change its policies for the sake of keeping good relations with its allies, one could expect those allies to change their policies for the sake of keeping good relations with the US :P

Halcyon Dayz wrote:• One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone. (Ask the Brits or the French.)


Very likely true, but I don't see why this is an argument against the war.

Halcyon Dayz wrote:• It made many members of the US public lose trust in their political system.


I don't know whether that is a bad thing :P


Halcyon Dayz wrote:• It tied up military and financial resources that would have been a lot more useful elsewhere.


Halcyon Dayz! This is a great day!

Let us suppose that the well-being (often called "utility" or "felicity," depending on one's tradition) of some entity (individual, nation, whatever) is a function of the quantities of various goods it consumes. "Good" can be defined broadly, to include not only material goods, but also things like environmental quality, security, etc. Anything that provides benefits. Let us make a few simple assumptions about the nature of this function:

a) It is increasing in each of the inputs, that is, consumption of more of any good, holding the quantities of the other goods fixed, results in greater well-being. More is better.

b) It is concave, so that, although additional consumption of each good increases well-being, further increases of consumption increases well-being by the same amount or less. More is good, but twice as much more is at most twice as good, and quite possibly less than twice as good. To keep things simple, assume that the function is continuously differentiable in the quantity of each good.

c) Its slope approaches plus infinity near zero. Increasing consumption of some good from zero to even a tiny amount results in a huge increase in well-being. (This is an assumption of convenience - it can be replaced by a prohibition on the purchase of a negative quantity of a good.)

Let us further assume that the goods are costly, and this entity does not have unlimited resources to purchase unlimited quantities of all the goods. Then how does it go about maximizing its welfare, subject to the constraint on its resources? Two proposed solutions:

[Correct solution]Choose quantities of the goods that satisfy the budget constraint, such that the entity is indifferent between additional consumption of the different goods. That is, at the optimal consumption bundle, an infinitesimal unit of additional consumption of good A should provide the same incremental welfare as an infinitesimal unit of additional consumption of good B.

[Incorrect solution]Ignore the budget constraint, declare that anything that provides any benefit at all should be purchased, regardless of the cost, and declare that anyone who proposes the correct solution must be an idiot.

By recognizing that that resources should be expended where they provide the greatest benefit, not just any benefit, you have rejected the principles of BAUT-nomics (the incorrect solution) and embraced the principles of microeconomics (the correct solution). Heid and I welcome you; you are one of us now! :P Bring more defectors with you!

Halcyon Dayz wrote:(How does one code for a [TAB]?)


I don't know. If you use [code][/code] tags, it uses fixed-width font (I think), which might be helpful.
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Postby Dragon Star » Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:33 am

Here is what I don't get and no one seems to discuss...enough of what you wouldn't do, but what would you do about it? Simply let it go and terrorists win? War with Arabia? I want to hear a concise, simplified plan, if you would.

Hindsight, whatever, what would you all do differently? HD, you provided good points, however what would you do about the problem?

Not everyone over there actually wants what we call democracy.


Just as not everyone over there even knows what it is.
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War, What Is It Good For?

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:22 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Halcyon Dayz wrote:• It alienated existing and potential allies. The US went from an all time high in international sympathy to a possibly all time low
Definitely the Iraq war strained relations with US allies, and an administration with more finesse could have exploited post 11.09.2001 sympathies more skillfully. But, if one can expect the US to change its policies for the sake of keeping good relations with its allies, one could expect those allies to change their policies for the sake of keeping good relations with the US :P
Several of the governments that did were voted out of office. :P
And it was not just the policies but also presentation.
'You're either with us or against us' and 'Freedom Fries' are not good way to make friends, or keep them.

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Halcyon Dayz wrote:• One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone. (Ask the Brits or the French.)
Very likely true, but I don't see why this is an argument against the war.
That's how the war was sold to the American public by the jingo-media.
Apparently a majority of them still think there was a link between Hussein and islamist radicals, while in fact he was on there better-dead list.
And of cause the Taliban are still very active in Afghanistan.

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Halcyon Dayz wrote:• It tied up military and financial resources that would have been a lot more useful elsewhere.
Halcyon Dayz! This is a great day!
[...]
By recognizing that that resources should be expended where they provide the greatest benefit, not just any benefit, you have rejected the principles of BAUT-nomics (the incorrect solution) and embraced the principles of microeconomics (the correct solution). Heid and I welcome you; you are one of us now! :P Bring more defectors with you!
:D IIRC, Introductory Economics (one year) was non-elective in my prep school, from the textbook by Arnold Heertje, who for some reason doesn't have his own page in en.wikipedia (but his son, the comedian does, go figure).

But in real life people learn budgeting the hard way.
It was only as an adult that I learnt that macaroni is supposed to come with ground beef, not diced spam as my mother used to make it. (Still like it that way though.)
Governments have a bit more leeway, they have good credit, part of what they spend domestically comes back as taxes, and they can even print some more, but a basic fact of life is that a buck can only be spend once.

I remember that my beef with theory was that it presumes that people always make rational decisions that serve their interests the best.
That's not at all like the people I know.
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Terrorism

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:00 am

Dragon Star wrote:Here is what I don't get and no one seems to discuss...enough of what you wouldn't do, but what would you do about it? Simply let it go and terrorists win? War with Arabia? I want to hear a concise, simplified plan, if you would.

Hindsight, whatever, what would you all do differently? HD, you provided good points, however what would you do about the problem?

There are no easy, and certainly no quick, solutions.
But I think that DON'T PANIC! is always good advise.
Vigilance and preparedness are good things, but there is no good reason to become paranoid about it.
You are still far more like to be murdered by an acquaintance then by a total stranger.

The terrorists themselves you deal with by international police-work, pretty much as you do with any other international criminal organisations.
And indeed, where they are openly active as armed groups you send the military. But you have to be careful, the locals are not the enemy.

Winning hearts and minds is actually the way to go, to bad it was just a slogan.
Most people in the Islamic world aren't likely to become terrorists, but they also see no reason to trust the west, in particular the US.
It's traditional policies in the region are generally perceived to be Machiavellian, imperialistic, self-serving, and pro-Zionist.
Not as pro-democracy or pro-freedom.
The US has allied itself with unpopular oppressive regimes for purely strategic reasons, and has sometimes meddled in domestic affairs.
(As it has done in other parts of the Third World.)
It's apparent unconditional support for Israel doesn't help either.

We need friends in the region, not just allies.
But it will be very hard to undo decades of damage wrought by the State Department.

From the novel Ugly American :
"For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance."

The only way to make friends with people is by getting to know them.

A permanent peace settlement between Israel and Palestine wouldn't hurt either, but that will require some serious prodding.
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Re: War, What Is It Good For?

Postby Мастер » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:27 am

Halcyon Dayz wrote:Several of the governments that did were voted out of office. :P


As were several of the governments that opposed the war (France and Germany) :P although in Germany's case the government survived an intervening election, quite possibly because of its opposition to the war. Of course they're all voted out if we wait long enough :P

Halcyon Dayz wrote:And it was not just the policies but also presentation.
'You're either with us or against us' and 'Freedom Fries' are not good way to make friends, or keep them.


No doubt, but the international relations argument is still one that cuts both ways. If two countries disagree on a policy, why is it incumbent on one of them specifically to change the policy for the sake of getting along, but not the other? We could argue that the decisions by the European voters to remove the governments you referenced were stupid on the grounds that they were damaging to their relations with the US.

Halcyon Dayz wrote:
Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Halcyon Dayz wrote:• One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone. (Ask the Brits or the French.)
Very likely true, but I don't see why this is an argument against the war.
That's how the war was sold to the American public by the jingo-media.
Apparently a majority of them still think there was a link between Hussein and islamist radicals, while in fact he was on there better-dead list.


Don't know if it is a majority, although it may well be; haven't seen any polls lately.

Halcyon Dayz wrote:And of cause the Taliban are still very active in Afghanistan.


Surely, but this is a different reason. If we accept "One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone," this does not imply that there should be no military action. It implies that there should not be only military action.

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote: :D IIRC, Introductory Economics (one year) was non-elective in my prep school, from the textbook by Arnold Heertje, who for some reason doesn't have his own page in en.wikipedia (but his son, the comedian does, go figure).

But in real life people learn budgeting the hard way.
It was only as an adult that I learnt that macaroni is supposed to come with ground beef, not diced spam as my mother used to make it. (Still like it that way though.)
Governments have a bit more leeway, they have good credit, part of what they spend domestically comes back as taxes, and they can even print some more, but a basic fact of life is that a buck can only be spend once.


Part of what they spend comes back in taxes, true, but this is the case regardless of what they spend it on. Government spending still must displace either present or future: a) other government spending, b) private spending, or c) private investment, regardless of the tax rate.

Regarding credit, in a closed economy (let us say a country on a remote island with no contact with the outside world, or one that adopts policies that seem to be gaining currency where I live) the budget constraint would have to hold nationally; that is, if the government borrows to spend more, this must come at the expense of private consumption or investment. In an open economy that can trade with others, the budget constraint need only hold globally. But then, at a national level, borrowing from other countries is a trade-off of present consumption (or government spending, or investment) against future consumption (or government spending, or investment).

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:I remember that my beef with theory was that it presumes that people always make rational decisions that serve their interests the best.
That's not at all like the people I know.


Depends on what you mean by "the theory." We can still talk about what is optimal, whether or not people (or governments) choose it :P But you are right, the classical approach typically assumes full rationality. Things are changing these days though. A psychologist won the Nobel prize in economics a few years ago for his work arguing that people do not always behave rationally, and examining the consequences of their actual behavior.

Oddly enough, Keynesian macroeconomics, the dominant for most of the 20th century, is inconsistent with rational individual behavior. In a Keynesian world, no matter how many times you change government policy, according to an entirely predictable rule, individuals are still surprised when you do it :P

Not to worry, though, if I am inclined to make irrational decisions with my money, there is an enlightened government that will help me make the right decision. For some reason, the enlightened government will not help me decide whether to go to school, where to live, what industry to enter, what job to take, whom to marry, how many children to have, how to raise those children (if any), which religion to practice, etc. But what to do with my money, they are always anxious to help with that, for some reason. I wonder why?

In any event, I'm just glad to see someone recognizing that optimality means expending resources on their best use, not on any use that derives any benefit at all. At a certain web forum where trumpeting one's intellectual superiority seems to be the official sport, quite a few people have a surprising amount of trouble with this concept. Although the discussion at that board would certainly lend support to the idea that people do not always think rationally, even if they tell themselves (and anyone who will listen) how rational they are at every opportunity...
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Re: Terrorism

Postby Мастер » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:42 am

Halcyon Dayz wrote:But I think that DON'T PANIC! is always good advise.


From Lawrence of Arabia, after Allenby has entered Damascus:

Officer: Look sir, we can't just do nothing!
Allenby: Why not? It's usually best.

:P

Halcyon Dayz wrote:It's traditional policies in the region are generally perceived to be Machiavellian, imperialistic, self-serving, and pro-Zionist.


Are the first and third characteristic supposed to be good or bad?

Halcyon Dayz wrote:From the novel Ugly American :
"For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance."

The only way to make friends with people is by getting to know them.


Is it? Every time I go to western Europe, well, I meet lots of people, and most of them seem pretty reasonable. But it is virtually guaranteed that at some point, someone will decide to give me the neo-Nazi, neo-colonialist lecture about how the uncivilized world needs to be taught the proper European ways and do as the Europeans tell them, for their own good of course, not at all for the good of Europeans. Then I hear about how non-Europeans are all racists. I tend to like these people better before I get to know them...
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Re: Terrorism

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:16 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Halcyon Dayz wrote:It's traditional policies in the region are generally perceived to be Machiavellian, imperialistic, self-serving, and pro-Zionist.

Are the first and third characteristic supposed to be good or bad?

Well, it's not good. I have the impression that many people in the Islamic world feel that they are the underdog, and are being taken advantage off.

Halcyon Dayz wrote:The only way to make friends with people is by getting to know them.

Let me rephrase that: The first step in making friends with people is getting to know them.

There are no guarantees in life.

I know people like that. Not to many fortunately.
They are not necessarily evil, rather small-minded.
Hmm...

Proposition: Small-mindedness is the root of all evil.
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Re: Terrorism

Postby Мастер » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:28 am

Halcyon Dayz wrote:Proposition: Small-mindedness is the root of all evil.


Well, I won't argue that it is the root of some evil. And certainly there is a lot of it to go around :P But I tend to thing that there are also very genuine competing interests, that cause conflicts with or without small-mindedness. Some of the most intractable conflicts in the world seem to me to be over genuinely competing claims to territory or other interests. But perhaps small-mindedness does make it much worse, attempts at compromise can be sabotaged by paranoia, mistrust, etc. Although paranoia and mistrust may or may not be justified :P
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Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:44 pm

With an ever growing world population, scarcer resources, and possibly displacements of populations due to climate change, we are only going to see more of that.
Disputes over land, water rights, mineral rights in what used to be international waters, and someday there will even be attempts to take possession of parts of Antarctica.
Perhaps even genuine concern about health threatening air pollution by people who happen to life down wind from a coal powered industrial zone in an other country.

And it will usually be the weaker, poorer countries that end up with the short end of the stick.

Back in the 50ties the European Idea was sold by Robert Schumann c.s. as an economical plan, but their hope was that the economical integration of Germany and France would make a future war between them impossible.
(There having been 3 major wars between them in only 70 years.)
And it worked like a charm. Nowadays Berlin and Paris are the bestest friends.

So there is something to be said in favour of globalisation and cooperation in international organisations.
I think keywords are going to be fairness and mutual respect.

Either that or disaster.
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Re: Terrorism

Postby Dragon Star » Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:42 am

Halcyon Dayz wrote:Proposition: Small-mindedness is the root of all evil.


If you would say that religion creates small minds. Because, honestly, we know the biased media already does it's part.

So I re-propose: Religion, small minds, and the media are the roots of all evil.
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Postby Bill_Thompson » Wed Dec 26, 2007 6:08 pm

Enzo wrote:The WHite House didn't have a consistent rationale, it changed week to week during the run up to the war.

Saddam had WMD
Saddam would not cooperate with the UN
Saddam was mean to his citizens
Saddam was somehow now magically more dangerous to the world than he had been during the last decade under out thumb
Saddam was an impediment to peace in the middle east
Saddam was denying democracy to his people
Saddam's oil would pay for the war and reconstruction
Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11
etc.


The WMD's issue amaizes me. Lots of countries have WMD's. I do not know why people bring this up as a point to critisise the invasion. "There were no WMD's and so the entire policiy is flawed" It does not make any sense.

First of all, are we supposed to think that the USA will invade ANY country with WMD's? If that is true, we would have invaded Israel, Pakistan and India -- countries that are our allies.

Second of all, the whole argument of WMD's seem to have come up after the invasion. The UN debates and the argument for invasion centered on Saddam violating UN resoluations, not WMD's

The News media seems to completely control our thought proces on this subject. They bet on us having short memories and being ill-informed. This bet pays off for them. It is a good bet.
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Postby Enzo » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:16 am

WMDs was used as a rationale for the invasion. Made no claims that we planned to invade all nations having them. We were supposed to be worried that Saddam had them. We are not supposed to worry that Israel has them, as we do not expect them to be aimed at us.

The UN resolution he was accused of violating was allowing access for inspectors looking for WMDs. Same issue.

The flaw is that the threat of WMD that we invaded to eliminate was non-existent.

The WMD issue did not arrise after the invasion, the WMD was what the UN was inspecting for well before the invasion.
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Postby KLA2 » Sun Dec 30, 2007 6:07 pm

The British used to refer to the strategic rivalry between themselves and the Russians as “The Great Game”. I think The Great Game between the US (and allies) and the “terrorists” (and allies) since 2001 (and prior) resembles a game of chess.

On 9/11, the terrorists played a gambit.

A gambit is a chess opening in which material (usually but not always a single pawn), is sacrificed in order to achieve an advantage.

There are three general methods in which a gambit can help a player's position. For a gambit to be sound it will typically have some degree of at least two of the following:

Gain of Time: the player accepting the gambit must take time to procure the sacrificed material and possibly must use more time to reorganize his pieces after the material is taken.
Generation of differential activity: Often a player accepting a gambit will decentralize his pieces or pawns and his poorly placed pieces will allow the gambiteer to place his own pieces and pawns on squares that may otherwise have been inaccessible. In addition, bishops and rooks can become more active simply because the loss of pawns often gives rise to open files and diagonals. Former world champion Mikhail Tal, one of the most extraordinary attacking players of the 20th century, once said that he had sacrificed a pawn just because "it was in his way."
Generation of positional weaknesses: Finally, accepting a gambit may lead to a compromised pawn structure, holes or other positional deficiencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit

Gambits can be accepted or declined. The US accepted that gambit and took Afghanistan. Probably a sound tactical move, though flawed in execution (Mistakes including bombing and strafing allies (Canadians) on several occassions, with inexcuseable injuries and loss of life.) :evil:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asia ... an.canada/

Instead of then going back to playing sound chess, they appeared to go berserk, sacrificing pawns and positional control all over the board and attempting to capture opposing pieces regardless of cost. In a real game, this could have only one outcome.

The Indians may have invented chess, but the Persians and Arabs were expert in it centuries before westerners learned to play. Bears thinking about. :wink:

{Edited to add} If this analogy holds, the terrorists are playing chess like ... chess. We are playing it like whack-a mole. Not good. :?
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Postby Bill_Thompson » Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:02 pm

A link to the post about Al Jazeera might be good thing to post here:
http://www.illuminati-r-us.com/Forums/v ... 3697#93697
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Postby Enzo » Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:40 am

KLA2, that analyis assumes the "terrorists" are a cohesive homogeneous group, and they are not. The terrorists are diverse, not one large enitity matching wits and forces with the US. The group that caused 9/11 is not the forces we face in Iraq. For that matter, what we are doing in Afghanistan is looking for their leader/leaders, but plenty of folks over there are not part of that group but still oppose our presence and fight it. The Taliban for example did not plan or cause the 9/11, they just sympathised with those who did and suported them. Much as I would allow an election sign in my front yard without actually running for office.
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:10 pm

Coming late to the party it is easier to post afresh rather than quote Halcyon Dayz or Comrade Footwear:

When countries disagree there is no obligatioon on either to amend their views if it is not in their perceived interests to do so.

What the current events in Iraq have done is show up the weaknesses in US policy and has shown the folly of expressions like "the world's only superpower"; that weakens rather than strengthens the US position as there is no need for countries to side with the US as there is no bogeyman to be protected from. While Bush and Rice are still Cold Warriors others have moved on and see no problem with distancing themselves from the US.

Dragon Star, I don't understand why not invading Iraq would have meant the terrorists won. Saddam was a secular Sunni politician while al-Qaeda and the Taliban are fundamentalist Shia. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam as a heretic more than he hated the US as heathens.

The way to defeat the Taliban is a military and political campaign in Afghanistan better funded and resourced than the current one; though a brief reading of Kipling would council against that. To take on al-Qaeda you have to confront Saudi Arabia and there is no political will for that.

As for letting terrorists win, terrorism didn't start in 2001; the US was happy to allow Noraid to fundraise in the US despite all the evidence that it funded terror and the US has funded directly or indirectly terrorist forces in Central America. And come to that the CIA funded Osama bin Laden when he was a mujahadeen fighting the Soviets, setting a precedent for islamic fighters from one country operating in another.

Edited to spell words uniformly.
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Postby Мастер » Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:32 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:While Bush and Rice are still Cold Warriors


That may be coming back into fashion :P

Heid the Ba' wrote:while al-Qaeda and the Taliban are fundamentalist Shia.


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