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

To: MSI who wrote (6687)	10/22/2001 3:05:18 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<As far as your lyrical representations of the USA as the "harbinger of civilization"... now, there's a challenge! > I know it's stretching a point, but these things are relative. Compared with the Spanish Inquisition, Hitler's Harmony, Stalin's, Mao's, Pol Pot's and Hirohito's ideas, it's paradise; you can very clearly see the point. Driving down gasoline alley in Main Street USA, with a cultural desert of car yards, hamburger joints, security bars over house windows, furtive glances from streetwise denizens of downtown, drive-bys [even having such a word], dirty air and the whole laundry list of social isolation and Prozac it's hard to recognize Utopia in the 3D here and now. Nevertheless, it's better than a lot of other places and the life expectancy is pretty good too. On the other hand, I feel a lot safer in Japan, England and Belgium [and even the Sheeples' Republic of Aotearoa]. But those places are not leading the technological revolution and are not in a position to prevent Iraq swarming over the middle east, defeat the Japanese Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere, provide the coup de grace to the Nazis and stop China simply taking over Taiwan at gunpoint. So, 'harbinger of civilisation' is reasonable for the current times. It seems that Vladimir and co are moving straight out of APEC and onto sorting out Afghanistan, Chechnya etc. Osama and co don't have a show. The silly idea that nobody has ever beaten Afghanistan is from a time gone by. It really is a vastly one-sided battle. The only reason the USSR didn't defeat them was that the USA and others were opposing the USSR with heavy support of the Mujahadeen. Now, there is negligible external support and there's nothing to provide internal support. The good thing is that it will give pause to anybody else who thinks they can attack the USA [and world]. It will build the myth of an invincible USA, which on a state versus state basis got a huge lift in the war against Saddam Hussein. I figure it's all over bar the shouting. Now, about Saddam. He's an affront to humanity. One of the most murderous people left in charge of a country. But let's have Powell Colinize Afghanistan first. I imagine the plans are well-advanced subsequent to APEC [China, Russia, USA, Japan, Indonesia and others all being present]. Maybe Megawati can provide some low-cost occupation Moslem forces until civilisation can be restored. She has some to spare since they don't have anything to do in East Timor now. They could be given a free trip to Mecca after a year of service in Afghanistan. From the sidelines, Mq