> This bubble had to be burst, and the only way to do it was to go right
> into the heart of the Arab world and smash something—to let everyone
> know that we, too, are ready to fight and die to preserve our open
> society.
Tom obviously likes to see himself as a hard-nosed, tough-minded realist (and when he gets tired of that, he shifts, of course, to his idealistic "can't we all get along" mode). But I think that, when he says this sort of thing, he is actually pretty close to the real thinking of the Administration.
As the ex-Sec. of Treasury has pointed out, they were gunning for Saddam before 9/11; they knew that they had to impress the Middle East with America's cojones somehow, and Saddam's ass was the obvious target.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ "In an ideal world, people would be preoccupied with reading and writing poetry and having love affairs, as people were in the Japanese court in the 11th century, as described in 'The Tale of Genji.' If people were involved in that type of life, maybe there would be no war." -- Wallace Shawn