FirmhandKY
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quote:
ORIGINAL: brainiacsub
quote:
ORIGINAL: mnottertail
quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
All things considered I would say the Mullah made a piss poor choice .
And it was a choice...at that point he could have looked at what had been done and decided to throw his lot in with the American cause...decrying fanaticim at the same time....he chose instead to..as you say "dug his heels in "... at that point the result of was inevitable given American resolve.
Bad...real bad choice.
I don't know, if the Reverend Sun Myung Moon came to my town and said that the new way of doing business is gonna be such and such, and if you don't gobble the tube to our satisfaction, we are going to make life uncomfortable for you.......
Meh, they have been playing stick and ball with one anothers heads since before we were anyone, and will be doing so long after we are no longer anyone.
One thing a tribal leader cannot lose is face, life optional, he has sons and they have sons, and they will have sons and they will have........and thinks in those terms, something we never do.
That's their system of governance.
Another good point that I'd like to add to, if I may, Ron.
About a year ago, some intelligence was leaked concerning the FBI interviews with Sadam while he was in captivity prior to his execution. Sadam said that the reason why he was being so evasive and coy about his so-called "stockpile of WMDs" prior to the war was because he was much more afraid of an invasion from Iran than he was the US. He needed Iran to think he had these weapons to keep them at bay. He believed the US was bluffing when they threatened war, because they had been threatening for years but took no action. Once again, our leaders started a war because it supported their ideology, as opposed to understanding the region and its leaders and how that knowledge might be used to avert war.
Mike is making excellent points in this thread.
The thing I think you are missing brainiacsub, is that there is something called "reality". In the world of international nation states, it's called realpolitik. Thems with the big guns (and willing to use them) make the rules (a little more complex than that, but it'll do for now).
If Mullah Omar had understood that his options were to comply, and make the best of the situation, or face death/imprisonment, and the loss of his, his family's and his tribe's power ... then perhaps he would have made another choice.
Omar's miscalculation was that the US was a "paper tiger": the same misapprehension that AQ has made.
It also points out to another factor of international politics that is often forgotten or misunderstood, and is appropriate to mention in this thread about the reduction of nuclear weapons: deterrence.
The US did not have sufficient deterrent power to get a petty warlord in a "4th century country" to accede to it's demands. Why? Because he had been brought up with the ghost of Vietnam, with Lebanon, with Somali ... where the lesson that petty tyrants took was that the US might have massive armed forces, but lacked the political will to use them.
We did not have sufficient deterrent power to cause Saddam to believe that we would actually take significant action to enforce the UN resolutions. He incorrectly judged that Iran, and not the US, would invade and unseat him.
This type of thinking leads to miscalculations, and more war and death, not less.
And, I think this is one of the things that the OP was trying to bring out.
Any reduction in the US's deterrent power is destabilizing, dangerous, and could lead to the very type of conflicts that we all wish to prevent.
Firm
< Message edited by FirmhandKY -- 4/12/2010 12:41:27 PM >
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