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

To: stockman_scott who wrote (47389)	9/27/2002 2:15:01 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maybe the Iraqi war won't be a cakewalk; maybe it will involve urban fighting, though I don't quite understand Kristof's credentials for making military predictions. But all this studiously avoids the main question: is the war worth waging? what are the costs of inaction? (cf Ken Pollack). Any cost-benefit analysis is meaningless if it does not look at both costs and benefits.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (47389)	9/27/2002 2:18:59 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Perhaps the American invasion will be a breeze after all. The Iraqi army is less than half the strength it was when it crumpled in a 100-hour ground war a decade ago, and U.S. forces are much stronger now. But if we're going to invade, we need to prepare for a worst-case scenario involving street-to-street fighting, with farmers like Mr. Khal taking potshots at our troops. deja vietnam all over again Instead of protecting its borders, Iraq will hide its army within its cities civilian casualties will abound.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (47389)	9/27/2002 2:34:14 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting perspective: From: Timothy Harris (rchange@speakeasy.org) Subject: Classics Corner: Bush/Atreus Newsgroups: humanities.classics View: Complete Thread (4 articles) \| Original Format Date: 2002-09-25 10:08:24 PST Loathe though we must the occurrence of the words ³G. Dubya Bush² and ³Hero² in the same sentence, we at Classics Corner cannot help but be struck by the many similarities between the House of Atreus and America¹s First Family. As you recall, Agamemnon, the irresolute and doomed leader of the Trojan War, faced a number of choices in his life and handled them all rather badly. His brother¹s slutty wife runs off with some pretty boy and he responds by organizing the testosterone-fest of all time. Then Artemis gets all worked up over a dead pregnant hare and demands he kill his own daughter. After a bit a hand wringing, the ambitious Agamemnon complies. Then there was that whole Achilles thing, where his ego gets half the Greek army killed. After he wins the war, he again annoys the gods by leveling Troy and desecrating her temples, and then, to top it all off, he arrives home to his already ticked off wife with a lady of the night on his arm. The guy was a walking disaster. Agamemnon, we think, is a bit like Dubya himself: impulsive, warlike, not terribly bright, and doomed by the family curse. Much of Agamemnon¹s behavior was, as we like to say, overdetermined. While he was free to do as he liked, his family history limited his choices to the more or less unattractive. His father Atreus, you see, did something very terrible. He did not sell drugs though the CIA to finance the Contras in Nicaragua. Nor did he wage an unnecessary and genocidal war against the people of Iraq. No, he butchered his brother¹s children and served them for dinner. This, we think, really isn¹t so bad when compared to the actions of George Senior, but it was enough to ensure that his son would bear the curse and everyone around him would pay the price. But the family curse goes back even further. Pelops, the father of Atreus, cheated in a chariot race by loosening the wheel of Oenomaus, thus killing his opponent and incurring a terrible curse upon future generations. And his father, Tantalus, tested the gods by serving Pelops as a meal. Only Demeter, distracted by her grief for Persephone, took a bite. She later replaced the shoulder of the resurrected Pelops with ivory. The child-murdering proclivities of this family, however, would continue to haunt them. The earlier days of the Bush family are only slightly less colorful and obscured by myth. George Sr.¹s maternal grandfather, George Herbert ³Bert² Walker, was a powerful Wall Street financier and a major financial backer of Hitler¹s infant Nazi Party. He, apparently, was related to William Walker, the American Adventurer who set himself up as President of Nicaragua in 1855, imposed slavery and declared English the official language. While Walker planned to rule all of Central America, he was instead executed in 1860. The Bush¹s, however, reasserted themselves with a Marine invasion in 1912. At least the House of Atreus kept the family curse pretty much to themselves. The Bush¹s have shared theirs with the whole world. Read more of the Perfessr at www.classicscorner.org

To: stockman_scott who wrote (47389)	9/27/2002 10:44:51 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi stockman_scott; Re Nicholas D. Kristof's quoting the Baghdad patriot: ""If someone tries to threaten us, we know how to respond," said a farmer named Hakim al-Khal in the bazaar of Karbala, and then he reached under his shirt and brandished a handgun." This reminds me of a recent incident I experienced with one of my older relatives. After that arthritic and shaky hand produced the small revolver, I was torn between an urge to hit the ground versus staying calm. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I chose calm. Even when this old man was young and hale he was famous for a certain accident that involved a gun, an unlucky farm critter, and an extreme lack of judgement, safety and accuracy. -- Carl