Whether the war will be 'catastrophic' etc. (was: Re: Everybody Have A Nice War!

[loupaulsen at attbi.com]

Another thing is, you can't rule out the possibility that the tactics and 
strategies they use in the war are being affected by the fact that the global 
anti-war movement exists.  They are going to great lengths in the media to 
emphasize that their strategy is 'shock and awe against the military', 
not 'shock and awe against the population'.  That's not what Ullman originally 
told CBS when he was gleefully boasting about 'taking down the city' and so 
on.  

They have the military capacity to destroy Baghdad completely at any moment, 
but they also have to decide what their political capacity is, and their 
judgment of that may change from moment to moment.  They know that the 'whole 
world is watching', and this knowledge may cause them to exercise some, dare I 
say, restraint.  Any restraint they do exercise will of course be solely due 
to their fear of the global 'us'.

Note that their first action was not to launch the blitzkrieg but to gamble on 
killing Saddam Hussein himself, in the belief (quite possibly unjustified) 
that the Iraqi resistance will fall apart without that one indispensible man.  
When that fails, then what?  From their point of view there are positives and 
negatives to having a more or a less 'catastrophic' war, and our own 
continuing activity has to weigh in that balance.


> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, mike larkin wrote:
> 
> >
> > Why do I get this feeling this war is going to be over in about 20 seconds, 
> and that Bush is going to end up making fools of the anti-war ("millions will 
> die") movement?  The conservatives at work are practically drooling at the 
> prospect.
> 
> Of course, the war is wrong regardless of the number of lives lost. I've
> not agreed with or encouraged anyone to oppose the war on the grounds of
> "it will be catastrophic." Nobody knows for sure.
> 
> Brian
> 
> -- 
>