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

To: MSI who wrote (2214)	10/2/2001 11:49:52 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

might it be that we are actually causing the problems by supporting combat? MSI... Think back to the events that brought about WWII and the attack upon Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had invaded China, and were advancing into the South Pacific and the oil fields of Malaya and Burma unf.edu j-bradford-delong.net "The Japanese occupation of northern Indochina in 1940 had brought with it an embargo on U.S. exports of iron and steel to scrap to Japan. The Japanese occupation of southern Indochina in 1941 brought with it another sanction, the freezing of Japanese assets in the United States. The freezing of Japanese assets turned into a de facto embargo on oil exports: Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson would only issue licenses for oil exports to Japan if they were paid for out of "hidden" funds that had escaped the freezing process that Acheson was sure the Japanese possessed, and no such hidden funds were forthcoming. In the aftermath of the freezing order, Japan shifted its military away from preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union and for preparations for attacks in the southwestern Pacific--and on Pearl Harbor. Japan could not wage war on China (let alone the Soviet Union) without supplies of oil; the Japanese navy did not believe that it could secure and hold oil-rich Indonesia as long as the undamaged U.S. battle fleet remained in the Pacific. Thus that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 appears to be the responsibility of--Dean Acheson. Had he administered the asset-freezing order more liberally, and had the flow of oil to Japan continued, the end of 1941 would have seen the Japanese army attacking Vladivostok and toward Lake Baikal. There would have been no reinforcements from Siberia to defend Moscow against the German final fall offensive." Now the fact that the US has used economic sanctions against the Japanese to "alter" their behavior, including cutting off desperately needed oil reserves (Japan has few reserves of its own), some would claim that the US provoked the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor... Now... I guess we could have just sat back, and comtemplated how our actions had provoked such an sneak attack against our fleet, and opted to negotiate with the Imperial Japanese... In fact, I can see intellectuals of your caliber pondering such reflections as the following: "Yes... we're sorry we cut off your oil and scrap iron supplies... And we now realize how much we have hurt you and why the pain we inflicted upon may have caused you to destroy the greater part of our Pacific Fleet, and kill (is that too harsh a term?? How about "sacrifice"?) some 2000 of our servicemembers.... Thus, in analyzing how we have arrived at this point, the US should immediately reinstate all oil and iron shipments, and formally apologize to the Empire of Japan, and its Divine Emperor, for causing them to take such a drastic measure"..." Would that sum up how you would apply your logic to Pearl Harbor?? I guess it doesn't matter than this attack was against civilians, and not a "military target" (except the pentagon), and thus, might be classified as a war crime. The fact is MSI... whether you like it or not, we're in a way... Bin Laden declared war on the US in 1996... We just forgot to acknowledge and reciprocate. And now 6,000 people are dead and we're being threatened with more attacks that could result in hundreds of thousands of death should a biological agent be released. I find it kind of funny how some folks are trying to find any way possible to wiggle out of defending themselves and this nation. They seemingly want to treat this like some kind of mugging, or manslaughter... What's it going to take for people to realize that this is battle of good against evil, just as real as the one we waged against Japan, Germany, and the cold war against the USSR.... This is a war against people who espouse ideals so anti-thetical to, and incompatible with, to the basic laws of civilization, that they believe civilians are legitimate targets of their war. People who have twisted a religious belief to such an extent that they believe they will be rewarded for committing such acts of murder. And btw, we're not talking about a war against Islam, but a war against those who would commit such incredible evil in its name. You CAN'T reason with these people MSI. The only reason they understand is fear and the loss of their own power structure.... They seek only to impose a brutally repressive regime upon their own people. So repressive that they must undermine and dominate any adjacent society that is secular... These attacks were orchestrated to create a catalyst for extremists for trying to obtain sympathy and support from other muslims, just as Saddam Hussein attempted to do so by flinging SCUD missiles at Israel. And they will take whatever actions they can, in order to make muslims perceive that they are "winning" and are the dominant power, including direct attacks upon the "great satan" and anyone else they perceive as offering an alternative system from their own. Time to wake up MSI... sleepy time is over... This is brutal reality, and not a dream. Hawk

To: MSI who wrote (2214)	10/2/2001 12:01:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

"Apparently there is no similarly articulate spokesman for another POV: why don't we get the hell out of the murderous Middle East? It seems by attempting to intervene we get our homeland bombed, and maybe worse. It's time we learned our lesson." Simple, obvious and wrong. Globalization has put our success in their face; do you want to stop exporting manufactured goods, fast foods, music, movies? Do you want to shut down the Internet? Do you want to close our capital markets? Only by closing down the sources of our success and power could we 'get out of the murderous Middle East'. All these things push our ideas onto a Muslim world that that hasn't adjusted to them. A segment of that world is trying radical rejection; it won't work but will make everyone suffer in the meantime.

To: MSI who wrote (2214)	10/2/2001 3:01:01 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>The problem is the unspoken assumption that everyone makes, including Halberstam, that the US can afford to be responsible for the prosperity and well-being of the entire world. It's an attractive conceit but obviously wrong.<< I met David Halberstam back in 1968 or 1969 when a buddy and I picked him up at the airport to give a talk at an anti-war fund-raiser. In that context, he was definitely in favor of U.S. withdrawal. We now live in completely different times. Islamic fanatics are on the march across the globe, from Algeria to the Philippines, from South Africa to Kyrgyzstan. It is WWIII, and we can't escape it. If we ignore what is happening in the short term, these crazies will take over the world's oil supply. They will then use the profits to develop the weapons of mass destruction to wipe us out.