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

To: KLP who wrote (44617)	9/17/2002 12:00:59 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi KLP; Re: "Remember what I said to you on Sept 10, 2001 about "being prepared" and FDR's Dec 8th 1941 speech? You didn't see why the US needed to spend more for military and defense programs, including CIA, FBI, etc as I recall. It is in SI here someplace, and if the Search ever gets fixed, we could find it easier.... " SI search is working fine tonight. For example: Bilow, September 10, 2001 We won. This is peacetime. We fought the 75-year long war to "make the world safe for Democracy", and now the world is safe for democracy. We should have had a party when the Berlin wall fell. We have not yet got used to it being peacetime. When we have, I expect the Republican party to return to its traditional isolationism. Frankly, I look forward to that. During peacetime, military expenditures should be concentrated on R&D, making sure that productive capability is available, (as opposed to actually producing weapons that quickly become obsolete), and reserves instead of standing army. #reply-16328470 Am I still isolationist? Hell yes! The WTC attack had to pull us out of isolationism to get rid of the regime that harbored the terrorist group that did it, but that's pretty much a done deal now. As I stated before, the Republican party has a very strong isolationist thread. That thread became rather obvious when Bush tried to beat the war drums. As I've stated many times before, the US has the most attractive popular culture on the planet, and our "cultural hegemony" will destroy all competing cultures. It's only a matter of time. Running around ineffectively using our military (in a farcical attempt to shape civilian opinion of the US) will only postpone that cultural victory. The US' great victories are all in peace, not in war. Germany and Japan, for example, were converted into friendly democracies during peacetime, not wartime. If, despite all facts of military logic, the Germans had defeated Britain and settled with or defeated Russia, and then settled with or defeated the US, the world today would still be largely democratic and US oriented. The details would be different, but the end goal of history is the same. The US is the largest extremely multi-cultural country with a common language and because of this our culture is made up of an amalgamation of all the best parts of the whole world's culture. The result is intensely attractive to people the world over. We're a steam-roller and we cannot be stopped, only slowed. If we'd only followed my prescription and got out of the Middle East, the Al Qaeda whackos would have left us alone, and gone after the Israelis or the Saudi regime instead. What we did was put our pecker in a hornet's nest and then complained when the locals didn't bring us to orgasm. But I never said anything about reducing spending on the CIA or FBI. You're probably thinking I'm some other poster, I bet. Start looking for it here, and follow down the "reply links": #reply-16320623 -- Carl