Vitaliy wrote:

> Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>> ?? Invading Iraq has proven to be a /very/ expensive proposition, and it
>> wasn't even with the purpose of controlling anything there. It isn't
>> limited, at least not as far as we can see,
> 
> As Rich has already mentioned, 

I didn't see that. All I saw was a response by Rich that says "I was using
the definition of limited war" and then stops without explaining which
definition he used.

> the Iraq war fits the definition of "limited war" well.

While not knowing what definition you guys are using, I can't really tell
whether it makes sense to me. So far /every/ war was limited, in a sense --
or all wars were (and are) flare-ups of the one and only, really unlimited
war of human stupidity against itself. 

Besides, if you really think it's limited (in the general sense of the
word), can you define at least the economic limits? I think they are still
quite unknown, and few people really go there and put it all on the scale;
and even when they do, they only can put existing costs on the scale, not
future ones.

In another post you wrote about the tax-payers' contribution to saving the
credit companies that got themselves in trouble. I think that's probably
peanuts compared to their contribution to the current president's marketing
strategy.

And another "besides": a war can only be regarded as "limited" in a very
abstract sense, and only if you're far far away. Usually, for many people
in the war zone, there is no limit to it; it covers all of the aspects of
their life. In this sense, I tend to regard the concept of a "limited war"
as part of Doublespeak.

(I'm not contesting that the war has had some positive effects for some
people, but that's a no-brainer; there is almost nothing that's been done
on a large scale that didn't have some good effects for some people, so
this fact proves or even indicates little if anything at all.)

>> and Iraq is and was a poor country, run down and with very little
>> resources.
> 
> Some would argue that in terms of economic well-being most Iraqis are
> better off than they were.

Possibly; I haven't been there before, and I haven't been there afterwards,
and information coming out of there is mostly heavily tainted IMO. But this
has nothing to do with my comment. I was trying to make the point that even
a "liberation" war against a country with very few resources is so
expensive that nobody has the guts to put the actual price tag on it.
Definitely not the ones who vote for it :)

> TANSTAAFL.

That's only true when you look at the big picture :)  -- there are enough
"small picture lookers" who take somebody else's lunch and think it's free.

Gerhard

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