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

To: Thomas M. who wrote (7880)	9/14/2001 3:43:12 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Hi Thomas, Thanks for being the thorn-in-the-side of the imperialists among us. It was interesting to note the Mark Twain quote in your latest link. He was an adamant opponent to the foreign adventures of his day. Just as I suspect you and I will prove to be shortly in what appears to be an upcoming involvement in Central Asia. I am reading, with considerable interest, the first chapters of Meyer's "Tournament of Shadows". No finer collection of bandits, guerrillas, back-stabbers and slavers has ever existed than in the region we are proposing to send our young men into. I can barely imagine the fear that would be going through the minds of these young men if they truly understood the danger their country is about to put them in, for what must be considered some exceptionally ill-defined goals. While it would be a most wonderful resolution of the matter if the Taliban were to bend to our will and collect Bin Laden and hand him over, I rather suspect that the mindset of the fundamentalist is such that further martyrdom is called for and more heroes to the cause of righteousness (from their perspective)are about to be created by our indiscriminate use of superior armaments. With the net result that further cycles of reprisal are a guaranteed certainty. Pretty much guaranteeing that everyone loses in the future. It is worth considering, just in passing, that there are always at least two sides to every coin. An American example? While we revere George Washington as the father of our country, at the time that he was in charge of the Revolutionary Army, he was considered a traitor and fit for hanging by the British authorities. Two sides to every coin. How do the Taliban, the Palestinians, the Lebanese Shiites, many of the common men in Libya, Algeria and Egypt view Osama Bin Laden? As a hero, as a treasure and as a god-sent deliverer from the curse of the West. We should never lose sight of this as we vilify him as the devil incarnate. Two sides to every coin. The careful coalition of nations that we are uniting for an assault on Bin Laden is to be commended, and is the best of all possible courses of action. I merely aim to point out that the down-trodden of the Islamic world have an entirely different agenda than that of their rulers and wealthy neighboring states. I make no judgement here about right or wrong. I'm just trying to assess the order of battle, and the potential outcomes, none of which seem terribly appealing at present. Best, Ray