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

To: Bilow who wrote (47898)	9/29/2002 7:38:22 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

The IRA didn't have a country, but the Brits negotiated with them. Same with the Basque separatists, There you go again, Carl! Now you have switched the subject to terrorists who are not using A-bombs. This whole discussion started A-Bomb negotiation and has now got down to the "5 Stages of acceptance of death." Interesting subject, but a bit far off from where we were. Lets just sum it up. If someone put a gun to my head and said, "Your Money or your Life" he would get my money. But that is not the subject! I have said that, as a country, you declare war and kill anybody, or state, that comes after you. Tooth, fang, gun, or A-Bomb. I really don't know where you are going with this. We have discussed it. We don't agree. Lets move on.

To: Bilow who wrote (47898)	9/30/2002 10:37:21 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The IRA didn't have a country, but the Brits negotiated with them. Of course they did, BUT A good case can be made the IRA started negotiating because their support was wasting away. Much of the organization had become so criminal, running protection rackets, etc., brutalizing the community, (just lke PA), that the majority of Catholics despise them as much or more than the Brits. Also not making a deal with the Brits when the country to the South was starting to do very well, wasn't helping IRA support either. Actually, Palestine is a very good parallel to Northern Ireland. It sits on the mediteranean side of the ME and its residents can look not only at Israel but the rest of Europe, and see the prosperity and peace. And experience the criminality and violence of their "liberators" just as do the Northern Irish Catholics. The Brits did negotiate with the IRA because it finally produced a political wing that was willing to deal and stick by an agreement. Something so far, the Palestinians haven't managed, but are likely to fairly soon, as the Israelis incarcerate or kill the the worst elements of the Arafat crowd as did the Brits with the worst elements of the IRA. Same with the Basque separatists, etc You seem to make the claim the Spanish are negotiating with ETA. I missed that, did I? As for terrorists with an undefined territory of operation such as the ones spread around the world that concern the US and British governments, lets look at hypotheticals a bit more. Lets suppose such a group did attack the US with nuclear weapons and made demands. Lets suppose the demand was that the US leave the middle east, vacate Pakistan and Afghanistan, and reduce its presence in Indonesia and N Africa, yadda, yadda. Lets suppose they let off bombs in New York, LA and Washington. Everybody in the US (and much of the rest of the world) knows somebody, is related to, someone in one of those cities. The reaction will be denial, grief, and rage. The parallel with hospice patients is wrong. The parallel is with the patient in the doctor's office getting the bad news. After the bad news - TREATMENT! And then, possibly - CURE! Are you sure that negotiations would be undertaken and compliance given? Really, really, sure? You've missed a couple of steps, haven't you? I expect "negotiations" would last about as long as it takes to find out the origins of the criminals - which is their infra-structure and then it will get very nasty in some parts of the world. Will the Russians get in the way? The Chinese? Hell no. Their best customer has a problem needs solving and he's mighty pissed. They will be very helpful. Be clear, the customer isn't just the US. It's the modern world. What kind of a market is a world full of aspiring medieval peasants? A parallel. The US Civil War was about slavery. And it had a solid ethical dimension, but what kind of a market was a West full of slaves? How many shoes do they buy? How many properties do they develop? How many investments do they make? What sort of savings rate do they have? How many businesses do they start? How many symphonies do they compose? How many philosophy books do they write? How many novels? How many mathematicians and physicists will they produce? How many universities will they establish? Ethics demanded the civil war be fought but modernity required it. The history of the last two hundred years shows modernity to be a tenacious, ferocious beast and if you look back further you can see it gets stronger as time goes on. The events 9/11/02 woke up the beast and now it's slouching toward Bagdad which sits in the middle of ramshackle palace built on foundations of denial: "Let's behave like it's 1940 or 780 - time doesn't exist." The bigger the army, the more swift and violent the attack, the more fulsome and overstaffed the post war reconstruction program, the better. The longer the forces of modernity stay, the better.