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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: stockman_scott who wrote (25170)	4/15/2002 12:27:29 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) of 281500

Hi stockman_scott; Great column by Buckley. I can't believe how long he's been writing. I have his collected essays, and they started in the 50s. His analysis of the futility of trying to reduce terrorism with a military response is dead on: There is no way to be entirely discriminating in a military offensive designed to find something that can't be found, namely the fuse box that causes an 18-year-old Palestinian girl to arm herself with a bomb and detonate it in an Israeli mall. There aren't, sitting about, neat paramilitary kiosks with explosives and rosters of willing terrorists. The search for these was bound to be fruitless, rather like looking for the infrastructure of lechery in Gomorrah. General Sharon might have sent in a platoon, pulled out Arafat and his 100 lieutenants and executed them on the entirely reasonable grounds that they embodied the terrorist movement in the West Bank. A bullet into the heart of Arafat is not a wayward contribution to the search for the infrastructure of the evil and genocidal war against Israel. So Palestine would be left leaderless? Such a problem would be that of the Palestinians who have tolerated Arafat for so many years. Israel is not executing an effective anti-guerilla action. As is described in US military field manuals, the correct form of anti-guerilla activity has to have a strong "win their hearts and minds" component. The Israelis are ignoring this, and are consequently making no progress. I'm sort of relieved to see myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Buckley. (Buchanan I don't have much respect for.) I took that test to determine where you belong on the authoritarian / libertarian, left / right axes and came out only 2 tics right of the very center. Since Buckley is practically the definition of US conservatism, I am relieved to find myself in total agreement with his essay. By the way, this essay may mark the beginning of the very slow conversion of the US right to the abandonment of Israel. -- Carl

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