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To: Mark Adams who wrote (9617)	9/17/2001 2:14:21 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Mark - Well, if we are playing armchair President and thinking outside the box, the first question is "who" and "where"? I don't know the answer yet. The goal of war is to fight a winnable war that will lead to a sustainable peace. In World War II, I know that in Europe there were people who were ready and able to lead a democratic Germany, and that was one way of doing things. In Eastern Europe, the Russians tried to set up communist puppet governments, and that was another way of doing things. Generalizing from that and later experiences, it seems like we can't put in a government we like and expect things to remain stable. A stable government needs to be home grown. The Taliban, for whatever its faults, seems relatively stable. So at this point I would not think that removing the Taliban would lead to a sustainable peace. I know people here in the US who were kicked out by the Taliban and would like to go back to Afghanistan. They are moderates. The problem is that it appears that between fundamentalist Islam and moderate Islam there is no compromise.

To: Mark Adams who wrote (9617)	9/17/2001 2:32:03 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

OK, thinking outside the box. Here is a thought I've been working on, it's not very well formulated. The interaction between the West and Islamic nations must be terribly traumatic to them. We are already in the 21st century and some of them are still living in a pre-industrial pastoral society. What really makes me feel this way is interacting with immigrants from Central America. They seem dazed a lot of the time. Middle Eastern immigrants are better integrated into post-modern post-industrial society, I guess maybe they come from cities and went to school and college and so forth. Central Americans come here desperate to work, but the ones I am thinking of are not from cities and did not go to college. They are very confused and have a hard time adapting. And western Fairfax is very rural compared to New York City. I can't imagine what it's like to be a villager in Central Asia, but our culture must be terribly disorienting and destabilizing. There is a natural human reaction to perceived threats, fight or flight. Heck, lots of people here in the US can't handle places like New York City. My husband, who is from a suburb of Chicago, refuses to go to New York City. He doesn't like to drive in Washington, D.C. I grew up in New Orleans, which is a city, so I can handle cities just fine. He makes me do the driving in D.C. I can even drive in Manhattan, but my father refuses to ride in the car when I do because he thinks I am too aggressive. When in Rome, etc. Our culture is incredibly complicated, and there are elements which are deliberately provocative, in your face, like rap music, and modern art. New York is the exact opposite of an agrarian society. I think it was hit for that reason. It is the apotheosis of Western culture, with all the good and all the bad. If you've got the money, you can buy anything you want in New York, except for a nice peaceful village existence under the blue sky, surrounded by green fields and mountains. It's dirty, noisy, fast, loud, jarring, and exhilarating if you like cities. No Islamic country has an architect or a construction company capable of building a skyscraper. In Egypt, every time there is an earthquake, the buildings fall down because the builders bribe the inspectors and they don't build them right. My point is that they are trying to prevent change.

To: Mark Adams who wrote (9617)	9/17/2001 3:20:04 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

<It occurred to me that we could round up those individuals prone to such activity, and exile them. Pick an island far from civilization, capable of supporting life, strip them of their weapons, and let them live out their natural lives. > I happen to live on that island and like most islanders, we think we are actually so close to civilization that we are civilization. It's the 21st century now. There are no such islands. Mq