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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: el_gaviero who wrote (7828)	9/13/2001 5:16:27 PM
From: Terry D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Fighting will be necessary, but somehow I suspect that Islamic fundamentalism, with it's sacrificial impulses, its continual renewal in the cauldron of Palestine, its proximity to oil, is going to require something that in the end has nothing to do with it and everything to do with us. Exactly. When Powell and Bush say it is time for our supposed allies too stand and be counted - they don't mean Pakistan. If they side with us, they could have a new government before we get there. They are talking directly to Kuwait, Bahrain and especially the Saudis. No more hiding behind us, paying off the militants, playing both sides against the middle, trying desperately to maintain their lifestyle. You are on our side or you and your oil are the enemy side. No more dancing in the middle. All of this is beyond obvious - but there is a point. The US invades Afghanistan, takes out bin Laden and perhaps takes out the Taliban replacing them with whatever: 1. The Taliban and its sympathizers stream across the border into Pakistan, destabilizing a nuclear power. 2. Hard line fundamentalists throughout the Middle East rise up. Civil wars erupt through out the region. 3. Perhaps Jordan or even Egypt goes the Irani route. 4. bin Laden's cells in Seattle, Philadelphia, Toronto, here in Portland are cut loose by his death. They each carry out their well planned missions. Life during wartime in the US requires real sacrifice. 5. We have US ground troops fighting shitstorms in Afghanistan, Jordan, Kuwait. 6. NATO decides that when they said "together" they meant at a distance and offer aid in the form of landing strips, staging areas and not publicly stabbing us in the back. 7. We are engaged in an ongoing war that takes years to terminate. A new type of world war whose aim is uncomfortably close to delivering an act of genocide upon the practitioners of the intolerant, fundamental strain of Islam. 8. This act is beyond the scope of our ME allies to stomach. They have to be kept in line. The Western world is never more clearly divided from the Mid East. 9. We are alone in concluding the war. 10. By the time it is done, many US troops are dead and many more US civilians die from increasingly frantic, desperate acts of terrorism. 11. A new threat emerges. It always does. A worse case scenario that needs to be accepted. We cannot fight another war where our opponent has the stomach and desire to commit acts of atrocity that we cannot return in kind. The moral high ground does no good in war - our only aim can be to get it on and drop our hammer and chase them and hunt them down as they run. Brutality. I am too old to fight it. My kids are too young. Are we prepared for this ugly, indeterminate war? We fight it now or we appease and fight it later. Can we make such a sacrifice? We did against other clear dangers in World War II and we made the right choice. We have to put our heads down and do it. Normal life will have to wait.

To: el_gaviero who wrote (7828)	9/13/2001 6:20:44 PM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23153

El Gaviero, You must have missed some of my posts. I don't believe in bluster, talk, big military action, cruise missiles, ground troops or aircraft carriers in this particular situation. I do believe in information and extreme pain for those responsible for every terrorist attack going back 30 years and preemptive strikes against the usual suspects. We believe in freedom of speech and expression here, but if we come upon a training camp and find banners proclaiming the by now familiar things about the Great Satan, the U.N. its bitch and Osama bin Laden, then we just take it out, but not before spending a few tender moments with whoever is still breathing and exact everything, via drugs and/or bamboo shoots, about the chain to the next camp, the next cell, the next courier. I anticipate that a lot of the people who will carry out these deeds will not speak a word of English and will never have set foot on U.S. soil. They will be paid handsomely in dollars or gold for their services. You and I may not like them, but they will be the only ones specialized enough to carry out the mission in the Afghan hills and Islamabad neighborhoods. As for my statement about no longer observing the Marquis of Queensbury rules, it simply means that, in terms of our war and our national survival, no rules apply to whatever it is we may need to do. It is a street fight now and before we walk out of the house we better walk through the garage and see what's there that we can carry with us. Another society embarked on a holy mission, a mission filled with vengeance and purity of heart, a mission which projected a cleansing of all that was impure in society and mankind and hoped to create a kingdom to last 1,000 years. It was, of course, the Third Reich, and it lasted about twelve years during which time it killed 21 million Russians, 7 million Poles, 7 million Germans and many others--the total count for the Axis war was about 57 million lives. As I type this, the Senate has been evacuated on a bomb threat. Kb