> No Weapons, No Matter. We Called Saddam's Bluff
> By Michael Schrage
> Sunday, May 11, 2003; Page B02
<snip>
> It doesn't matter. If Iraq has significant WMD capabilities, they
> eventually will be discovered. But even if Iraq proves utterly free of
> WMD -- or if it merely possesses a paltry two or three bio-weapons vans
> -- the coalition's military action was the most rational response to
> Saddam's long-term policy of strategic deception. Saddam Hussein bet
> that he could get away with playing a "does he or doesn't he?" shell
> game with a skeptical superpower. He bet wrong.
Stalin perfected the argument that "if there's no evidence, it proves they're guilty, because they're hiding it." But even he had more shame than to go this far -- to say that even if they were innocent they were guilty for making us suspect them and therefore deserved to be crushed.
> The real story here is less about the failure of intelligence,
> inspections or diplomacy than about the end of America's tolerance for
> state-sponsored ambiguities explicitly designed to threaten American
> lives.
In other circles, state sponsored ambiguity is called diplomacy. And don't get me started on nuclear doctrines.
Who is this nutcase Schrage? Is this really the Post and the not the Washington Times?
When the game theory nuts start coming out, we really have regressed back to the classical era of the cold war.
Michael