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And Yet Words Sometimes Fail to Explain the Insanity of the World Peace ProcessReader comment on item: Kenneth N. Waltz – The Stupidest Strategist? Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Jul 2, 2012 at 12:13 Obviously, your perspective is as faulty as former presidents Bushes and you have not really understood where I have come from or know where I am going with all of this. But it is not hard to understand why this might be so. In reality, I do have my issues, a culmination of nearly six decades of having to watch as a world that potentially could find a way to peace instead resorts to varying kind of humanistic rationale to find ways for one sector of society to divide and dominate (now there's a conundrum if ever there was one) for whatever goal that might be achieved for humanistic satisfaction. I have long ago given up on human reasoning as a basis for how mankind should continue; for every time it tries, it fails. Being human, I do have a warrior mentality; but then there's not a man alive or once was that did not have to face the reality of survival and develop whatever abilities as humanly possible to accomplish that task, not merely physically, but emotionally. Some do well; some not so well; some never achieve it. When Viet Nam was all the world's rage, my time to face up to the dilemma of surviving the American draft was put to the challenge as it was laid at my doorstep. I did not dodge it and contemplated entering the navy; yet circumstances played themselves out and I was not chosen to go. I could have played the pacifist after that, for the times certainly played that to the hilt. But having been born to the generations that endured the two prior worldwide conflagrations and being self taught the 'reasoning' of why, pacifism did not address the underlying causes well enough to make a real human plan to avert the next confrontation. You make insinuation of less than honorable intentions for the recent wars in the Middle East (going back to Lebanon for me) and you have definitively laid the blame on American imperialism (maybe not overtly or intentionally, but sublimely it has that resonance of logic) and there are some inferences of truth to that; but the bulk of the reasoning lays deeper, to the roots of ideological controversies to which there will be no rational resolution on any humanistic level. Therein lays the inevitability: going to guns; and there are plenty ready to go to guns, now aren't there. Now I do agree that the term 'war on terror' does have its play on words; for it should be war IS terror. But it has been used as a tool to legitimize imposing one's will on another, whether in these little acts of war on small targets (civilian and military) for ideological reasons and larger targets (still civilian and military) for less than ideological rationale. Those labeled terrorists are given that special little designation because those that are charged with keeping the peace are afraid to call it what it is: war on humanity. In their little human minds they have developed some twisted rationale that is for the most part demonically inspired- and for good reason-demons hate humanity. Yet these 'terrorists' think they can impose their will at will and will obtain whatever tools necessary to do so. This is what Mr. Waltz (and evidently quite a few others) seems to want to ignore-the intentions of war-not remembering that the process of peace is not natural to the typical arrogant mindset of 'my will is better than yours;' and they'll prove it when they have the means to prove it. Last century it was Hitler and Stalin that proved it; who will it be this century? While it may be argued that there is not enough evidence that Saddam Hussein did not have a sufficient capacity to wage a WMD style war during the United States invasion of Iraq, the Iranians and Kurds already have enough war dead due to chemical attacks that gives credence that if he had been able to keep his chemical ordnance intact for use, his mind had already demonstrated it was unstable enough that he could have employed them again is such circumstances arose. His intentions were plain enough-he just did not get to the place where he could have done it again. Now as for the Bush's' intentions, senior Bush had a different agenda than junior-though both converged on the Iraqi situation I suspect for a circumstance of convenience. That the senior Bush did not have Schwarzkopf finish what was intended in the first Gulf War was a failure that we should have avoided; but since it was incomplete, Bush junior was compelled to finish it and the mere 'threat' of WMD was evidently enough for some to provide a false sense of legitimization. The real threat all along was the instability of the mindset of Saddam Hussein - and junior President Bush needed no imagination to perfect a human reason to act against that. But, that poses a 20-20 hindsight question: was that reason enough? Further, if the same 'reasoning' that imputes instability to Saddam Hussein (and later Muammar Ghaddafi, Hosni Mubarak-maybe Bashar al-Assad), is there enough justification to begin an elimination process against them all? After all, they all started demonstrating their insecurities of power against their own populations before exporting the 'terror' that made them easy targets of labeling as dictator or tyrant-or whatever label that would make it easy to argue for their removal. What is the intention necessary there? But of intentions, we'll come now to the central issue of the Middle East-survival of the peace process; and what will it cost? Does Israel deserve being targeted by the likes of Iranian leadership; or how about Hamas and Hizbollah? Both have specifically and pointedly declared that for them, Israel does not deserve to exist, either as a nation or as a people. While Iran can conveniently say what they want without apparent disagreement from likeminded thinking from the region, how is it then that the world is beginning to take sides in preparation for war to either make that point stick or fall into the regions of hell arguing it in futility at the point of a gun? Now, like too many do today, you cannot necessarily blame it on the Bush's. All of the Bush doctrines went out the window when the current occupant of the White House went to Egypt to begin the process of 'normalizing' relations between the current American Administration and the entirety of the Muslim world. It is no secret and the evidence supports the situation that the Arab Upheavals are proximal to that 'fundamental change' of the American political scene and how it relates to the resurgence of fundamentalist Islamists in their declared intentions and efforts to make shari'a the defining social norm, to be imposed on a world that has otherwise lost the sense of the rationale to keep a world peace. That is the faulty intention that is being demonstrated-and that is what I am demonstrating as a situation of inevitability. It is not what I want, as you have so incorrectly asserted by trying to argue Mr. Waltz's position; but look at the world and tell me that you think peace is in the offing. To the contrary, peace is never more so the offering on the altar of warring intentions as it is now-Iran may have set it up-but they are as much as anybody going to pay for their intentions as anybody else. Now, if you took the time to read this wordy explanation, you will finally come down to the bottom line: I have been watching all of this come to pass, doing so for more than fifty years; and there is only one way to explain this in one sentence: but I'll leave that to you. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (89) on this item
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