I think the Iraq war was a mistake - or rather, I think was started for the wrong reasons...and the US handling of it (both in the military and political arenas) has been extremely distasteful.
But I can understand the reasoning. It's the precautionary principle. Take Global Warming, for instance. We still don't know if it's really happening. But back in the early 90s, when scientific evidence was even more sketchy...people decided, hell, we gotta do something about pollution now.
Likewise...we mock Rumsfeld for his bit about "unknown unknowns". Still, he was right. There's too much we don't know. Put yourself in the shoes of the US government. Assume stuff like oil and politics are out of the equation. Decide purely on the basis of suspected WMDs. Maybe they have them. Maybe not. Maybe they're trying to get them. Maybe not. What do you do? If you act, you run the risk of disaster, sure. But if you do too little, or worse, nothing... there'll be another, maybe worse disaster.
As Rumsfeld also put it, in another tongue twister, but a logical one... "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense".
Yes. I agree. The situation was handled badly, and they rigged the presentation to sway public and political opinion.
But that doesn't mean the considerations weren't real.
-- Acyl
But I can understand the reasoning. It's the precautionary principle. Take Global Warming, for instance. We still don't know if it's really happening. But back in the early 90s, when scientific evidence was even more sketchy...people decided, hell, we gotta do something about pollution now.
Likewise...we mock Rumsfeld for his bit about "unknown unknowns". Still, he was right. There's too much we don't know. Put yourself in the shoes of the US government. Assume stuff like oil and politics are out of the equation. Decide purely on the basis of suspected WMDs. Maybe they have them. Maybe not. Maybe they're trying to get them. Maybe not. What do you do? If you act, you run the risk of disaster, sure. But if you do too little, or worse, nothing... there'll be another, maybe worse disaster.
As Rumsfeld also put it, in another tongue twister, but a logical one... "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense".
Yes. I agree. The situation was handled badly, and they rigged the presentation to sway public and political opinion.
But that doesn't mean the considerations weren't real.
-- Acyl