On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:28:04 -0000, "Simon Robbins"
wrote:

Seems to me like Iraq was
simply the easiest target to justify based on past-record when quite
possibly it wasn't believed to be the most serious threat.

Yes, I can go along with that.

That's why I personally was against the war--well, no, that's not
entirely true. I was against the war because terrible things can
happen (viz Korea with the Chinese coming in, and Vietnam with our
utter inability to resolve it in an acceptable fashion).

No doubt Bush (and Blair) underestimated the end game--that it would
be so expensive and so complicated. But the war was a walkover, and it
has had a salutary effect on Libya at least. We were incredibly lucky
in Iraq. We may even have been lucky that it played out so poorly,
since that will discourage Bush from trying it again. But North Korea
and Iran can't know that for certain.

Personally, I think the world is a safer place now that it was on
September 10, 2001. Fewer Iraqis are losing their lives, and the
survivors are infinitely better off. Al Qaeda is a shadow of what it
was--with all due respect to the Spanish tragedy, or the Bali one, 200
deaths is on the scale of what the IRA, the ETA, and the Palestianian
groups have been capable of for generations. They are a far cry from
September 11 or even the Cole.

Just my two cents.

all the best -- Dan Ford
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