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

To: LindyBill who wrote (34592)	7/18/2002 12:20:36 PM
From: jcky	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<< Having your clients who are allies become your enemies is as old as History. We were discussing the fact that the Israelis helped the Hamas at the start as a foil against the PLO. >> Which leads up to the following question: at which point in the liberation of Iraq will the United States be viewed as just another oppressor? Isn't the United States just setting up a new time line in the post-Saddam Iraq for ethnic and tribal clashes? The promise to Turkey not to form an independent Kurdish state would suggest so. This is really getting complicated.

To: LindyBill who wrote (34592)	7/18/2002 12:21:55 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I guess we have been trying to kill off guerrillas in the Philippines since about 1898. That's a long story, one I know all too well. I hope it never becomes an issue here; I'll bore everybody to death with detail. When Marcos took office the combined strength of the two competing communist guerilla movements was about 250; they had a presence in 6 provinces of central Luzon and were primarily concerned with trying to get rid of each other. When he left, they had 40,000 under arms, another 40,000 in training, had a significant level of control over a third of the country, and were rapidly approaching strategic parity with the armed forces. A year after he left, they had less than 20,000, and were in the process of completely falling apart. It was an interesting sort of bulwark against communism. An interesting exercise in moral clarity as well....

To: LindyBill who wrote (34592)	7/18/2002 2:03:10 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Having your clients who are allies become your enemies is as old as History. We were discussing the fact that the Israelis helped the Hamas at the start as a foil against the PLO. Well, sometimes it works better than others. But you're absolutely right, it's an old story. I never understand those critics who point out CIA support for the mujahadeen in the 80's with this air of "see? gotcha!" There were solid reasons for supporting the muhajadeen (who were fighting the Soviet army) at that time. The obvious mistake was in walking away in the 90's and letting Pakistan and Saudi Arabia run amok with the situation.