quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
I agree with you on France, except that I think that part of the motivation of the French and Europeans generally is that a change in regime, much like what happened in Eastern Europe, can occur without the need for the brutality of a war.
if you mean to otherwise-rid iraq of saddam, then thats the same as war (as saddam stated in his interview he'd sooner die. lets help!)

quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
In the meantime, weapons inspectors can keep Saddam from developing WMD.
is this your opinion? or what you think france thinks?

personally, i feel that its been clearly shown the only thing keeping saddam in check is military action (as is, sadly, often the case with nutty dictators). for 15+ years, iraq was inspected and "proven" clean. it took military intervention in desert storm to display (and dispose of) saddam's WMD and other illegal arms.

again, last week, it was only the threat of a US-enforced friday deadline that helped saddam and company suddenly discover a whole buncha new warheads and begin to destroy other mandated illegal arms.

inspectors aren't producing results.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
Why put all your oil eggs in the Saudi basket? By controlling Iraq, the monopoly of OPEC is broken, new contracts come up for US oil companies, the US isn't toally reliant on the goodwill of the Saudis, and the US has a new offshore Strategic Oil Reserve. There are too many long-term economic benefits to oil companies from a successful war in Iraq.
thats true. and obviously more than possible. but i still dont think it likely -- at least not near that extreme. especially with powell so publically stating the opposite (something that would surely haunt the US were they to take control of the oil like that)

quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
but everyone knows, most of all the US govt., that the task of nation-building is not something they do well, or even like (Republicans used to scorn the idea, when Clinton wanted to do this in Somalia.)
well, the US did a good enough job rebuilding (or helping to rebuild) countries to the point where those countries are strong enough now to defy the US in the UN (im lookin at you, france, germany, and japan!)

then there are places like cuba or saudi arabia, where there were now-obvious mistakes.

rebuilding is really a lose-lose scenario, and i cant fault any government official to loathe the idea. its money spent outside of the country (that could easily be spent on internal poverty), and something that must now be kept in check for years and years afterward, to ensure it doesnt "go bad"

however... even considering all the possible fuck-ups and a worst-case-scenario of a US-rebuilt iraq... its still light years better than the current option.