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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DOUG H who wrote (323)	9/19/2001 9:18:03 AM
From: Jill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Doug, no apologies needed, most of us are playing catchup here, and trying to sort out complex issues. The question is, why did we fund the lesser devils with munitions, biowarfare etc? That really has to be thought out. One reason is, we benefitted financially! Another reason is the cold war. It served our purposes. But when allegiances change, we've created our own monster who comes back to haunt us. We called those half a million kids "collateral damage." I think language is very dangerous when it smooths over human suffering like that. I think we're a hybrid, and our policies sometimes are contradictory and reflect our conflict. We're a superpower. Being in that business, we do some bad stuff. No way we can remain a superpower and not deal in the dark side. ANd our own policies at home--some of them are terrible. Our health care is in total disarray--we're 37th among first world countries--shameful. And our minimum wage is way too minimum--people can't survive on it. I can see our conflict reflected in the changing CIA policies. There is no way we should have slackened on intelligence--or said that we can't recruit those with violent pasts. Intelligence is definitely the dark side, and necessarily so. We can't be democratic about our intelligence efforts! Sometimes we don't know where to be good and where to be bad. On the other hand, we do have ideals. We are a melting pot. There is opportunity everywhere. Those terrorists were living here, earning a living, taking lessons at flight schools. I hope to go to the service on Sunday for our fireman and policeman--our heroes who cheered on the WTC employees as they evacuated down as many as 81 flights--the ones who kept going up, up, up and never came back. That is also the American spirit.