More Tall Tales From the Bush Administration

[MMMMMM]

"If Hussein had to go, there were plenty of ways to get rid of him short of war."

Baloney.

[adios]

HAL is up around 50% since you recommended it. Paying a nice dividend too. I think it's going much higher.

[Taxman]

I was quoting adios when I mentioned the honesty "high ground" and I stated no opinion myself about that matter. I'm writing this because it looks like you were responding to my post. I do agree with you about the lies all around the whitehouse.

[detox]

What the pundits keep missing is this:

There never was SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE and RISK for Clinton, the rest of the world (British modern day crusader nuts don't count), the UN, OriginalBush, etc. TO INVADE.

There is always risk, that's what the inspectors and sanctions were for. The decision to invade never had anything to do with risk, not even for Shrub or Cheney strong arming CIA analysts.

It was an EXCUSE. Nothing more.

[Utah]

Seriously, the results-oriented attitude of the American administration has nothing to do with option pricing models or expectation/variance optimisation! (You are giving those guys way too much credit!)

They don't neccessarily need to know. They simply need to understand things at a higher strategic level with the quantitative overview. I used to tell Senior Management of Target Corp. whether they should spend $25 million building a new department store or to close a department store. I did some very complex analysis that used option pricing theory that often combined a Put and a Call option. However, senior management didn't need to know this. They only needed to understand the net value and cash flows, strategic elements, and risk. The fact that they didn't understand the option pricing in no way made them idiots as they had no need to know. Maybe most importantly, they needed to trust me and my numbers. I think this is parallel to the intelligence community. Bush doesn't need to work out the complex game theory or optimization models- but he sure as hell needs to trust the people that do.

What I objected to was you attitude (echoed by the attitude of Rummy & Co.) that, since we got rid of Saddam, well, surely that means the war was a success!

When did I ever say anything about Saddam? You are Alger might want to make a few tinfoil hats to keep out the voices [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

I'm sorry but that's voodoo. And I hope you can see it for the voodoo it is. A superpower that conducts geopolitical strategy "hoping for the best" and going into war without planning diligently ahead is a bad, bad omen

I was answering a specific point and I made no attempt at a grand justification of war. The original poster said the money was wasted. I simply said that I don't think it was, and I even qualified my statement twice. No vodoo here.

Total buffoonery!f You don't need "Game Theory cubes" to see the absurdity of such an approach, an approach that hinges solely on the premise that the other side craves peace so much that it will allow the "village idiot" to do as he pleases.

Please tell me why you think it is absurd?

Simple math really. I posted this somewhere else recently, but I dont remember where.

Lets say you are playing a game of Chicken:
You have two choices - chicken out or not
The other player has the same choices
You really would like to win, but you really dont mind chickening out, as all you lose is a little pride
However, what you really dont want is Splat!
You see the other driver get into his car down a bottle of Everclear and put on a blindfold
What do you do?

The irrational player has an edge. The defense of course to all this is to act irrational yourself. Under your premise, you are assuming that the USSR craves peace more and will always cave. However, lets say the craving for peace is equal. And lets say that the Russians are not so willing to give in. in fact, lets say that they decide to play the irrational player as well. Now, you have a situation! We saw this play out in Cuba.

You can call it absurd all you want, but the game exists in reality - it is unavoidable. Example, you don't see N. Korea playing this game? By being irrational, or making the world perceive them as irrational, N.Korea has greatly strengthened its position - i.e., ("Dang, that mother just might be crazy enough to blow the crap out of S. Korea. We better be careful."


As I have recommended to other, Read "Prisioners Dilemma" which is a great primer on this line of thinking.

[detox]

Yes, they're back at it again. Same old whining and bitching without any regard to the new realities of Liberated Iraq. The fact that you all want to disregard is that both the United States and Iraq are better off now than they were before the war. The war was a complete success! And those who try to deny it, like Howard Dean proclaiming we're no safer today, are forever doomed to be the laughingstock of the sane and rational. It's over folks, the war was a good thing, which is why all the Democrats except for dead Dean either voted in favor of the war, or were supportive of the war in the past. How extremist are you if your own party favors the war?

[elwoodblues]

Just because both Iraq and the US are better off after the war (and that point is debatable) does not mean that the war was a complete success nor that it was justified in the first place. There are a lot of countries that would probably be better off if we overthrew their government and tried to establish democracy...that doesn't mean that war against those countries is justified.

You are being too results-oriented...poker players should know better.