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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (2425)	10/9/2002 12:54:44 PM
From: E	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 7689

if it was OK for the US to intervene in the Balkans, with all the problems they can cause, why not the ME? We supported US leadership in the NATO action in the Balkans as a last resort, after the failure of diplomacy and deterrence. The same will be true on the Iraq question. If Saddam doesn't allow thorough inspections, and every option has been exhausted as it was in the Balkans, we won't have to do it alone, as we didn't in the Balkans. This matters, particularly in the years following the initial defeat of Saddam. And Military action in the Balkans didn't involve the range of subsidiary risks that actions against Saddam would, ie reactions in other Muslim countries that endanger the long range security and safety of US citizens. It was a far more delimited situation, and less risky in that way. Uh, I would think Afghanistan would be cited as showing the US military CAN fight in such places. The Taliban no longer rules there. We can fight in such situations, but can we control them over the long haul? Going into Afgh. was the right thing to do, but the Bush admin has pulled back on funding for peacekeeping activities outside Kabul and Kandahar. We seem to be finding ourselves more and more in the position of the Russians when their territorial control was limited to the cities. Yeah. Enemy casualties. Sorry, but those don't count once you're at war. If they're civilian casualties of the victims of Saddam's oppression, including innocent children and newborns, they count, or ought to, imo. (Surely they count greatly to the "Right to Life" state-enforced gestation faction!) The aftereffects of our victory against Saddam, eg the rise in malnutrition and sickness among vulnerable parts of the population, much of it a result of the embargo, are widely publicized through Muslim media. We barely notice it here. But we notice the hate. These are some of the reasons imo we ought first to exhaust other options than a precipitate unilateral invasion not yet justified to, and therefore impressively supported by, the American people.