I often hear from people who suggest that, in spite of the great costs involved in our invasion of Iraq, it was all worth it because ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein, a mass murderer, was a good thing to do.
I could not disagree more with this position. First of all, even if the premise is true (that it was good for Iraq), we must consider the cost to America of this action in relation to alternatives with the same or smaller costs. For example, we could have spared many thousands of American lives and saved TRILLIONS of present and future dollars by developing fusion power.
But even that premise was wrong. Saddam was indeed a mass murderer, but he was also an enemy of the same terrorists that we are at war with. Even for the Iraqi people, he was a better alternative than the bloodbath which is ongoing and which he prevented for decades with his tyrannical system.
We should have made plans in the 1990s for responding to terrorist attacks with massive bombing of their camps in Afghanistan. But, in fact, our military was never asked to develop such plans, because the media and some liberal organizations have trained us to worry about collateral damage. But carpet bombing of terrorist camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s would have spared us of 9/11 and given us the upper hand in the war with Islamic terrorism.
The lesson is clear. We are not the Policeman of the world. We need to put American interests first, and crush any organization which is at war with us, wherever they are. Instead of worrying about collateral damage, we should be worrying about the security of our children.
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3 comments:
Tim,
First off Saddam harbored Al Q. You can look it up.
Second in war the most important thing is location, location, location.
Third - our intel in the ME was very poor. Being in Iraq gives us the opportunity to develop contacts independent of the Israelis. They are our best friends in the region, however it is wise to have our own sources. In addition since CIA is so dysfunctional it is wise to develop a system outside them. The only way the DOD could do that is to have a need for combat intel and work the way up the chain.
You are correct about the expense. It may be worth it. Only time will tell.
As to fusion.
If we had a working reactor today it would take at least 10 years to roll it out. In 2003 we had no working reactor and the prospects were that we would not have one for 30 years, it would be too big, cost too much, and generate too much power. ITER type designs are expected to have to produce 17 GWe to be in any sense economical. There is no current use for such a reactor The largest power plants being built are 1 GWe, with most in the 25 to 100 MWe range.
I have a short write up here:
Fusion Symposium.
And you can follow the links for more detail.
It is now four years later and we finally have some prospects. We are still a minimum of 3 years away from a power prototype and probably 6 to 10 years from production.
Simon, I agree with you about the state of fusion technology today, and I thank you for all the info you gave me recently about same. I particularly like the prospects for the Bussard reactor. My point, however, is about priorities. Had we spent the money we wasted on Korea or Vietnam on fusion research instead, I have no doubt we would today be exporting oil.
As to your comments on Iraq, in order:
1. Saddam and Osama were not friends but enemies. Saddam was a booze swiggling, porno reading, secular Muslim. I have never seen a credible report linking Saddam with Al Qaida. If there was anything there, it must have been trivial; heck, Al Qaida has people is most big countries, including the US. Just because there are located here does not imply that we are harboring them.
2. Location may be critical in real estate, but it is not that relevant to war. Far more important (among other things) is NOT invading the wrong country!!
3. Our intel in the Middle East was much better than most people realize. The biggest problem was how our civilian leaders played games with it, and even how politics and turf wars (inter and intra) prevented valuable intel from getting where we needed it. (You ought to read "Imperial Hubris" - skip chapter 1 and go right to chapter 2, then return to chapter 1 - otherwise you may get the wrong idea of where Scheuer stands.)
I also think we under-use our strategic bombers, which like to take off from nearby bases but can do a nice job taking off from Missouri and unloading on top of the heads of the bad guys. We don't need to spend $600 billion invading the wrong country to bomb the crap out of our enemies.
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