To: FaultLine who wrote (25777 ) 4/17/2002 12:57:08 PM From: Win Smith Read Replies (3) | Respond to Well, as an old fan of John Le Carré, I can deal with the "all is gray" view. The existence of gray areas doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue our interests, but I do think we should maintain a little humility. Moral ambiguity seems a more realistic expectation in the wider world than "moral clarity", though the latter certainly makes for better wartime propaganda. Anybody with knowledge of, say, the US involvement in Cambodia, or perhaps more topically, Afghanistan, who can't acknowledge moral ambiguity there is either disingenuous or very selective in their historical reading. "Moral clarity" sounds perilously close to "the moral equivalent of the founding fathers" to me. Arab Veterans of the Afghan War dalitstan.org The 'Afghans' expelled from Pakistan under pressure from Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and the USA are often fugitives in their homelands. So many go to Iran, from where they are able to get to Sudan or northern Iraq. Here, Kurdish Islamic groups accommodate them until they are filtered out to other countries in the Arab world. The wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the Middle East is increasingly deep-rooted. It is fuelled by not only the attempts to suppress it by the governments concerned but also the growing belief among the Muslim populations of the region that long-ignored political and economic reforms can only be squeezed out of the regimes in power, not obtained by negotiation. The fundamentalist creed also believes that the secular Arab governments must first be overthrown before the greater enemy, the West, can be tackled.
