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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: aladin who wrote (116309)10/7/2003 2:05:54 AM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Hi John Cavanaugh; Re: "So abandoning Somolia was ok? Letting the butchery happen in Rwanda and now in the Congo is an internal affair?"

Sometimes there are no pretty solutions. This is isn't the movies and the cavalry isn't going to come around the corner and save the settlers from the heathens. In fact, most of the time it's pretty difficult to tell the moral differences between the settlers and the heathen.

The US is a major power, but our powers are not infinite. There are actions that are theoretically within our power, but in practical terms would require such bloodshed (American blood), that we cannot realistically do them.

When I was young, the US went through another era of hubris. The result was that we got sucked into the Vietnam war. The repeated refrain was "we can put a man on the moon, why can't we XXXX?" I haven't heard that bromide for a long time.

The answer is that putting a man on the moon is a hell of a lot easier than using force to make the settlers and the heathen like each other. You only put men on the moon two or three at a time. Iraq, for instance, has 25,000,000 people. If we had enough power to put them all on the moon we would truly be a superpower. But no, our powers are very limited, especially in our ability to influence the thinking of foreigners.

-- Carl
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