Reading (For Dummies)

The war

I'm glad* Doug is starting up this thread, as I'm developing more of an opinion than the normal "war is evil" thing myself. While I do admire the efforts of the Baghdad Human Shield, I worry that the liberal front is acting uninformed.

The United States learned the importance of playing the information game during WW2. The goal is having spies in on the other side, and not giving away who they are by acting like you know too much. Assuming that the Iraqis have some weapons of the evil variety (which I guess is everything but in this case I mean dirty bombs, chemicals specifically made for killing humans and little doggies in cages, etc), and the United States knows where they are, the US might have a reason not to tell the UN inspectors. There was a recent article on kuro5hin about this sort of disinformation.

What I do worry about is that the United Nations seem to think there are no weapons, so maybe this excuse doesn't apply. I mean, the US could obviously give the UN the information and evidence, with the stipulation that the UN does not tell its weapons inspection teams. That the US either has not presented the evidence to the UN, or that the UN doesn't believe it, is cause for alarm in my book. And if the US hasn't given the UN any information? Well there's a sign of a lack of trust, which is more worrying.

I'm not as politically edumacated as Doug, but reading the news these days I can only distrust everything I see. Either the has made a policy not to tell anyone what it knows, or it is lying and everything is just about oil/money/power/revenge/etc. But I don't think we'll learn what the truth is until we're all old enough to read about it in a history book. Of course, then we'll probably be dead.

I tend to lean on the side of the US lying though, for the UN security council reasons mentioned above, and also because of the clause in one of their Iraq resolutions giving them the power to interview Iraqi scientists, including the right to take them out of the country for the interview. If there is a spy in Iraq, why not move him out, protect him, have him squeak in front of the UN, and let what happens happen. And keep it all hush-hush.

But, as a Joe Citizen, I must confess that I'm not privy to all the dark room meetings that the players are, so I don't know...

*While Doug makes good points, he invoked Godwin's Law. Oops.