I do not know that we can conclude that the recent US military interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq) have been reckless in terms of strategic goals. I would argue that the strategic goals were quite well thought out - and I think they are still unfolding. To that extent, I think the Bush administration has been no more reckless than the US bombing of Yugoslavia (which contemplated ground troops) or Indo-China for that matter. As Chomsky has pointed out - while the US may have appeared to have 'lost' the Vietnam war militarily, it achieved political and strategic victories. The same may prove true of the US intervention in the Middle East. At any rate, however you might want to charaterize the Iraq war, I don't believe it has been carried out - or is going forward without planning.
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I understand your reasoning and do not, in principle disagree. My use of *reckless* was, we might say, a bit hasty.
I believe however that there is a larger issue - beyond whether American militarists have plans.
Perhaps the heart of the matter is best described via the words of Calpurnia to her husband Caesar in Shakespeare's play:
Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.
...
These men have plans yes, but the world is larger then their plans and blowback and chaos, wild branchings of events not considered in the confidence limited worldview of think tanks or frozen assumptions of software simulations, surely follow.
Yes, they have a plan for Iraq. Yet even if it *succeeds* it fails because the targets of this plan are not inanimate rocks but humans who have plans of their own.
DRM
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