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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (201)	1/1/2001 11:18:38 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 23908

Oh good grief! We've now seen it all! Hardly... I'm going to have review my family tree and see if any of my ancestors were indentured servants.. I could have a claim to make myself..... <VBG> Btw, the Bush administration will be facing 68 active wars when they take over: asia.dailynews.yahoo.com Bush's defense advisors faced by 68 conflicts worldwide: report WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (AFP) - There are 68 conflicts worldwide demanding the attention of the advisers who will help President-elect George W. Bush shape his defense and foreign policies, according to a new study. The study, released here over the weekend by the National Defense Council Foundation, said that in many cases where a US intervention might be considered, the US military might not be up to the task. In today's world, many conflicts were "low-intensity civil" ones, rather than medium-intensity ones fought with tanks and artillery, said the foundation, a non-partisan think-tank created in 1978. "Since low-intensity conflicts are fought primarily with small arms and using guerrilla forces and terrorism, the current US force structure is unprepared to meet this growing challenge," the study said. The 68 conflicts constitute a slight increase from 1999, when 65 low- to high-intensity conflicts were registered around the globe, study said. However, the think tank noted a dangerous increase of instability in South and Central Asia, where the number of conflicts had gone up from six in 1997 to 10 in 2000. "The rise of conflict in this region is primarily due to the spill-over of the civil war in Afghanistan, which acts like a cancer on the region, spreading to the weakest states and destabilizing even the strongest," the report said. Using an index measuring instability on a scale of zero to 100, the group rated Afghanistan at 99.1. The conflict in Afghanistan took a turn for the worse late last year, when the predominant Taliban militia took control of the town of Taloqan and severed supply routes used by the opposition Northern Alliance, the foundation said. Moreover, the majority Pustun Taliban has launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the North, targeting Hazaras and ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and sending waves of refugees into Central Asia, the report said. "Not only is Afghanistan involved in a medium-intensity civil war of its own, but the Taliban militia sponsors terrorists and insurgents in China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and elsewhere," the study said. "Additionally, Afghanistan has emerged as the world's number one source of opium, adding narcotics traffickers to the volatile war zone," the report added. The foundation also listed Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Iraq among countries torn by the most intense, bloody and intractable conflicts in the modern-day world. While 12 countries, including Armenia, Syria and Kenya were removed from the annual list of trouble spots in 2000, 15 nations were added to it. The newcomers include Laos, which was rocked by a series of explosions last year, and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which fought incursions by Islamic rebels. Violence in Cameroon was declared by the foundation "the stupidest conflict" of 2000. The West African nation has formed militias and paramilitary groups in a bid to curb violent crime, according to the study. "Now, while violent crime has fallen, the militias and paramilitaries have created far more chaos and death than crime ever would have," the report said.