Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry edwards
Seems too broad a generalization. Americans have no stomach for unjustifiable wars if Vietnam and Iraq are the examples. Or as Rumsfeld puts it; the voters can't understand his complex war. Rumsfeld has the moral subtlety to appreciate the value of an imperial war which has killed 100-600,000 people whereas the average American with their simplistic morality finds killing people in those numbers in a non-defensive war unacceptable.
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You've conflating my view with Rumsfeld's. I cannot read his mind so I take on face-value taht he follows the president's lead. The President laid-out a number of reasons for deposing Saddam. NOT ONE of those reasons was enough reason for me to buy into deposing Saddam. Let's keep them separated, shall we?
Bin Laden & Saddam, and that ol' Ho from N Vietnam all came to the same conclusion -- the USA has no stomach for war. All three of them believed that if enough of the visual impact of war could be put before the American people that the Americans would quail from the objective.
Those are the beliefs stated independently by each of these men. They did not qualify their assertions as to just vs unjust. They just wanted to make sure the public saw lots of bloody images. They were absolutely right.
B
PS I will agree this much with Rumsfeld: Most people do not have a mind for geopolitical strategy. They have no concept of what will happen if the oil supply for 3/4 of the world's population were to be embargoed. People will demand their governments do "something" and they wont give a damn what "something" is.
If, due to interruption of 3/4 of the planetary production of petroleum the choice becomes between my kids starving or some kids in China starving, then my choice will always be for some other kids to starve, not my own. Multiply that by 3/4 * 6,000,000,000 people and the magnitude of the worldwide threat to stability should become more apparent.