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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (50262)	10/8/2002 2:55:17 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Re: Illusions Of Iraqi Democracy Nadine: That's a great article and I may have even posted it yesterday...Pay special attention to the comments the Author makes below...I don't think Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and the other Bush Admin. WarHawks have been completely honest about all these issues...They have their own agenda and don't like grey areas or experts that might confuse Congress or the masses...=) washingtonpost.com <<...The United States should have no illusion about either the costs of urban warfare, particularly on Iraqi civilians, or the herculean task of reconstructing a post-Hussein Iraq. A likely scenario is that a U.S. military invasion would result in a civilian massacre. Tribal revenge would probably be exacted, complicating the process of reconciliation and healing. A slaughter in Baghdad would surely deepen mistrust between the ruling Sunni community on the one hand and the Shiites and Kurds on the other. Initially, a military liberation of Baghdad could unleash joy in the streets of Iraq. But unless the United States is willing to forcefully police the new order for many years to come, Iraq will fracture and descend into chaos, destabilizing its neighbors and giving rise to new jihad groups that will attack Americans. Not only will there be no democracy in Iraq but U.S. vital interests will be endangered...>>

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (50262)	10/8/2002 3:17:56 PM
From: jcky	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What the heck does democracy has to do with Iraq? It is utterly naive and disingenuous to believe the US can project democracy upon a society which has not demonstrated the propensity, the willingness, or the maturity to embrace this form of government. And even if democracy can be constructed and sustained in the Mideast by its own merit, what happens if the populace freely elects a fundamentalist regime which is openly anti-American and anti-Israeli? The US cannot indefinitely prevent the remainder of the world from obtaining weapons of mass destruction nor can it occupy the rest of the world to prevent or pre-empt such possibilities. This ideologic foreign policy is sheer folly. The Bush Administration is setting itself up (and the administrations to follow which will have to mop up this mess) for major failure in Mideast. There will be a new wave of worldwide anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment tied into new terrorist roots which can be traced to this administration's belligerent foreign policy. George Junior will be recorded in the history book as the one term American president who let the genie of the bottle in the Mideast. This is so sad....