Results of the War - Good or Bad, and for whom?

[Micah]

When I look at the situation in Iraq and the rest of the Mid East, I wonder to myself what the outcome will be, and whether it will be good or bad, and for whom?

I look and see that America is going to take out Saddam Hussien and his regime and free the Iraqi people. People might say we have no right to be there, that we are killing thousands of civilians, that we are bad bad USA, etc. but do they ever consider that the outcome of this, no matter what the true intentions are (Whether for oil as the leftists speculate or the world's security) of the Bush admin, will be positive and make the Iraqi's lives better?

What I am saying is that all this petty bickering over how evil the US is and this is why blah blah and that the Europeans are a bunch of weasels because blah blah blah is really mute since the final outcome of this war WILL be the freedom of the Iraqi people.

But then, I come to consider what the effects to America will be. Perhaps there will be more terrorists as the leftists believe, that is a definite issue. Perhaps this could destablize the Mid East (although at this point it seems unlikely unless the Arab nations like Jordan, Iran, Syria, etc. get involved in a much bigger way then they are now), and what would this do to the US and Israel?

What about relations with European countries? It's obvious that we will need to wait for some democratic president to get elected before the US has any chance to obtain better relations with the likes of Germany and France. Not that I personally care what they or any of their supporters believe.

Perhaps this war will stimulate the US economy? War usually is good for the economy, as has been shown in the past. Many leftists say this is why America is in ther, and that is why they protest the war. I say, who cares? The Iraqi people will be FREE! Don't you care about that? Does it matter what the intent is in this war?

[peacelover]

It's hard to say for sure.

All I know is that we will never know the consequences of not going to war with Iraq when we did.

Because we went to war early, there is the chance that people will look back and say that it was an unnecessary war, coalition aggression etc etc. But if we had done as they wished, and not gone to war, and 5 years from now Saddam Hussein had done what war would have prevented and used the WMD he is accused of having, people will bang on about appeasement and how we should have gone to war earlier.

Let's face it, had we gone to war earlier against Hitler, some people would probably say we should have given democracy more of a chance, because they weren't to know it would fail. I know this is simplifying things, but my point is that whether or not the outcome of this war is viewed as "good" can't fairly be analysed, unless we have proof of what would have happened in the absence of the war.

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by peacelover

Let's face it, had we gone to war earlier against Hitler, some people would probably say we should have given democracy more of a chance, because they weren't to know it would fail. I know this is simplifying things, but my point is that whether or not the outcome of this war is viewed as "good" can't fairly be analysed, unless we have proof of what would have happened in the absence of the war.

It's a famous experiment that illustrates exactly what you have written:

You put a cat in a box. Inside the box is a vial of poison that has a device that will break the vial; the device is triggered by nuclear decay. Seal the box. From this point on, you cannot know if the cat is alive or dead.

If the material decays to the point of triggering the device, then the cat will die. The only way you can tell if the cat is alive or dead is by opening the box. However, if you open the box and the cat wasn't dead, you will trigger the device and the cat will be dead by the time you get the lid open far enough to see the state of the cat. How else can you know the state of the cat, unless you open the box and find out? Dilemma........

So the question is: Without opening the box, is the cat in the box alive or dead? The answer: The cat is in two states; both alive and dead. That means you have a paradox, because nothing is and is not, at the same time.

This puts you squarely on the "horns of a dilemma" and that is where the difficult decisions are made, and that is the answer to the "why" this war is being prosecuted now.

[mimil]

Originally posted by Johnny Yuma
It's a famous experiment that illustrates exactly what you have written:

You put a cat in a box. Inside the box is a vial of poison that has a device that will break the vial; the device is triggered by nuclear decay. Seal the box. From this point on, you cannot know if the cat is alive or dead.

If the material decays to the point of triggering the device, then the cat will die. The only way you can tell if the cat is alive or dead is by opening the box. However, if you open the box and the cat wasn't dead, you will trigger the device and the cat will be dead by the time you get the lid open far enough to see the state of the cat. How else can you know the state of the cat, unless you open the box and find out? Dilemma........

So the question is: Without opening the box, is the cat in the box alive or dead? The answer: The cat is in two states; both alive and dead. That means you have a paradox, because nothing is and is not, at the same time.

This puts you squarely on the "horns of a dilemma" and that is where the difficult decisions are made, and that is the answer to the "why" this war is being prosecuted now.

That was a great demonstration! The war is being persecuted because we didn’t know if the cat was dead or alive In fact it is being persecuted because the cat was both dead and alive. Or maybe because some believe it was dead, and some believed it was alive. No, no, no it has nothing to do with the cat, but with the fact that he is alive or dead, or both at the time, that’s a dilemma!!

You know how this called? Misleading the opinion. And this exactly the game that has been played for the last 3 months. A little bull here, a little bull there and everybody fights over the wrong reasons, everybody forgets what are the realities, feed the people with false debate and extravagant dilemma, you’ll be able to do what you want.

Question: did we go to war:
Too Ealry?
Not early enough?
We could have waited a little more

Underlying hypothesis, this war was not avoidable. Why? Well, let me think, Ho yes, because the Iraqi regime is an evil one, and because we must liberate the people and because they have WMD and because if we don’t finish by may it will be too hot and sandy, and also because we wanted to go anyway and because it is a threat to our security, and even maybe because god know it is right.

Good. Perfect, there is nothing to add. What about the people who don’t agree? Ho well, them they are just irrelevant.

Now lets look 20 years down the road. China wants to invade country X. “We are there to remove a threat to our country, they have WMD, they are an evil regime, we will free them and teach them the good old values of our political system.” Eventually they also have something we want to have, but it is an irrelevant point. And anyway, nobody has anything to say when it comes to our integrity and security. Sorry, sorry, wait, let the UN see what they think. Ok sure, let’s give them a couple of month and mislead them with false information. Let’s have Russia veto for us, and be our ally, we will give them a part of the cake. An anyway what are you talking about, don’t you remember Iraq. Maybe then we will understand how stupid we where and what a huge mistake we did.

Be certain that the Chinese control their media a lot better than the westerners do. We will all look like idiots to have not been able to at least agree on the way to do things. A great lesson for both diplomacy and democracy.

[peacelover]

Originally posted by mimil

Underlying hypothesis, this war was not avoidable. Why? Well, let me think, Ho yes, because the Iraqi regime is an evil one, and because we must liberate the people and because they have WMD and because if we don’t finish by may it will be too hot and sandy, and also because we wanted to go anyway and because it is a threat to our security, and even maybe because god know it is right.

Good. Perfect, there is nothing to add. What about the people who don’t agree? Ho well, them they are just irrelevant.


They're not irrelevant, at times I consider myself to be such a person. But had we not gone to war - would the people who wanted to be irrelevant? It's the same principle.

I think you've missed the point a little. It's not so much whetehr the war was avoidable so much as whether it was advisable at this stage. In 1935, war was very avoidable. If France had beaten the out of Hitler when he remilitarised the Rhineland (which they could have easily done - he was ill-prepared for a war), people would have said they were being aggressive and harsh. The point is that, in hindsight, they would have been right to be. But more crucially than that - if France had used force against Germany at that stage, people may never have known just how vital and correct that decision was.

Fast forward to Iraq 2003 and a lot of people think we are being aggressive. Time may prove them right, time may prove them wrong. Unlike the 1930s, we took the early stage. And we may never know what tragedies we have prevented by doing so. Equally, there may have been no such occurrences.

So I guess what I'm saying is that we may never know if war at this stage was the right decision. But had we not gone to war, and Saddam had nuked Israel, we'd have looked back and said it would have been.

[yehudi]

Originally posted by Johnny Yuma
[B]You put a cat in a box. Inside the box is a vial of poison that has a device that will break the vial; the device is triggered by nuclear decay. Seal the box. From this point on, you cannot know if the cat is alive or dead. Schrödingers paradox Johnny. You're turning into a damm intellectual, man

You can't say I didn't warn you.

No needs for quantics for me, mythology is clear enough. I would simply talk of Pandora's Box. Illustrated like here (http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=2790)

.

[Mediocrates]

Well I used to be an actuary and how we would look at it would be a series of best worst case scenarios. That is, what is the optimal condition of the worst plausible outcome. I think this translates roughly into thinking in terms of the negative cases.

Will result in 'waves' of terrorism
-I'm not seeing it, yet

Will crush foreign investment in the Middle East
-too soon to tell

Will foment local rebellion and destabilize other states
-Possible, but is that always a bad thing?

Will topple OPEC and destabilized the oil market
-Possibly, so far the price has gone down and ironic result is that Arab states themselves may make this battle 'all about the oil'

Will increase friction with other pariah states like Syria and Iran
-Yes

Will create a new Pan Arab unity which replaces the 3CP as a global threat poised against the west
-Again, not seeing this, their unity is really aligned with local interests not global interests

Will increase pressure on Israel to make a deal with the devil
-Probably in the first instance but it will also lead to the devil being dragged to the table and beaten until it starts talking. I see the PA as the New Cuba of the ME. A quaint leftover of the Cold War, powerless and irrelevant but more of a concern to their own people and the perceptions of the world.

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by yehudi
Schrödingers paradox Johnny. You're turning into a damm intellectual man
:o

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by mimil
That was a great demonstration! The war is being persecuted because we didn’t know if the cat was dead or alive In fact it is being persecuted because the cat was both dead and alive. Or maybe because some believe it was dead, and some believed it was alive. No, no, no it has nothing to do with the cat, but with the fact that he is alive or dead, or both at the time, that’s a dilemma!!

You know how this called? Misleading the opinion. And this exactly the game that has been played for the last 3 months. A little bull here, a little bull there and everybody fights over the wrong reasons, everybody forgets what are the realities, feed the people with false debate and extravagant dilemma, you’ll be able to do what you want.

Question: did we go to war:
Too Ealry?
Not early enough?
We could have waited a little more

Underlying hypothesis, this war was not avoidable. Why? Well, let me think, Ho yes, because the Iraqi regime is an evil one, and because we must liberate the people and because they have WMD and because if we don’t finish by may it will be too hot and sandy, and also because we wanted to go anyway and because it is a threat to our security, and even maybe because god know it is right.

Good. Perfect, there is nothing to add. What about the people who don’t agree? Ho well, them they are just irrelevant.

Now lets look 20 years down the road. China wants to invade country X. “We are there to remove a threat to our country, they have WMD, they are an evil regime, we will free them and teach them the good old values of our political system.” Eventually they also have something we want to have, but it is an irrelevant point. And anyway, nobody has anything to say when it comes to our integrity and security. Sorry, sorry, wait, let the UN see what they think. Ok sure, let’s give them a couple of month and mislead them with false information. Let’s have Russia veto for us, and be our ally, we will give them a part of the cake. An anyway what are you talking about, don’t you remember Iraq. Maybe then we will understand how stupid we where and what a huge mistake we did.

Be certain that the Chinese control their media a lot better than the westerners do. We will all look like idiots to have not been able to at least agree on the way to do things. A great lesson for both diplomacy and democracy.

This is the most bizarre display of histrionics I've witnessed in ages.....