From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 11:49:17 MDT
On 23 Aug 2002 at 12:55, Blunderov wrote:
> Fri 2002/08/23 10:10 AM joedees@bellsouth.net wrote
>
> > [Blunderov0]
> > Talking of probable; FWIW, this is what I think is really going on.
> > The US is gravely concerned, whether justifiably or not, that
> > Hussein might use nukes against not the US, but against Israel.
> > (This, BTW might fit your postulated "Saladin complex" idea more
> > closely.)
> >
> > Everyone knows what would happen next. Therefore the question arises
> > as to how to prevent this possibility.
> >
> > Meanwhile back at the cabanas, it might not be unproblematic to
> > persuade an American electorate that they need to pay for and
> > prosecute a war on Israel's behalf. Many other groupings, not least
> > the UN, might have reservations too. Therefore, if there is to be a
> > war to prevent the above mentioned scenario, it would be helpful if
> > America, and as much as the rest of the world as possible, perceived
> > that war as being in America's own direct and immediate interests,
> > without any Israeli flies to interfere with the unction.
> >
> > And this is the source of all the nonsense. The sleight of hand
> > which is used to achieve this misdirection is: "If Osama could do
> > this, then
>
> > so could Saddam".
> >
> > Not everyone is fooled by this.
> >
> > Warm regards
> >
> [joedees1]
> The problem with this analysis is that Saddam is at heart a
> secularist, who thinks not in transcendental religious terms, but in
> immanent strategic and tactical ones. He uses the shibboleths of
> religious faith, and their self-proclaimed holy warriors, to further
> his nonreligious and
>
> territorially aggrandizemental concerns, much as Hitler did. If he
> succeeded in destroying the state of Israel, with or without help, he
> would de facto militarily own the Arabian Peninsula, and that
> ownership would grant him a stranglehold on the global economy. That
> is his global game, and the reason he is willing to bet such
> exorbitant stakes is because the reward is practically
> all-encompassing. [/joedees1]
>
> [Blunderov1]
> I really hope this is not obtuse but, from the above, it would seem
> that you in fact agree with my analysis? What you say seems to me to
> support the idea that Saddam is much more likely to attack Israel than
> the USA.
>
No, he would be likely to attack both Israel AND the US, because such
a bid would require some kind of massive attack upon the US in an
attempt to terrorize it into not expelling Saddam from the Arabian
Peninsula should he move militarily against it (as he once tried ten
years ago); otherwise, he would be replaying a scenario with an ending
unacceptable to him. For the US could not allow Saddam to dominate
the Arabian Peninsula and use a threat to strangle the world economy
(by cutting off oil shipments) as an instrument of global blackmail.
Unless drastically terrorized (and I do not believe that this is possible,
but Saddam seems to), the US would have to expel him by force.
>
> Warm regards
>
>
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