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

To: LindyBill who wrote (57464)	11/19/2002 1:13:46 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I am convinced that the Admin, under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsford guidance, is going to embark on a slum clearance project in the ME. Are you convinced that the Admin’s attempt at slum clearance in the ME will be any more successful than the various government attempts at slum clearance in our cities? Taking Iraq gets rid of a major "Bad Guy" in a area that is full of "Bad Guys." We will then have a "Lily Pad" that allows us to pressure the rest of the "Tribal Chiefs" and "Witch Doctors", (Dictators and Mullahs) in the area. I realize that this is the theory. I’ve messed around in a swamp or two in my time, though. I get the feeling that when we try to step on that “Lily Pad” in our big heavy way it’s going to turn out to be sitting on top of waist deep muck, and that we are going to be getting as much pressure as we are giving. I don’t see an occupied Iraq as a strong point from which to project power, I see it as the exposed crotch of the war on terror, a dangerous point of vulnerability. I think the chances of deterring this guy are just too risky to take…He can just keep screwing up things for us in the ME. What has he screwed up for us in the last decade? If you wanted to give the Middle East an enema, the place to stick it in is the Wahabis in Saudi Araba. Yep. Unfortunately the Saud family used religion as the opiate of the masses for many decades before realizing that they had a nation full of raving addicts on their hands. Very difficult situation: it’s not a radical government dragging a reluctant populace, it’s a radical movement entrenched among the populace pushing a government that is no longer capable of controlling it. Regime change will do no good at all: if the current government falls, the one replacing it will almost certainly be more radical. Of course we could occupy the place, but with what end in mind? As long as the believers believe, no government we install can stand without us. Big problem, no quick or easy solution. Unfortunately, American occupation of a neighboring Arab state plays right into the hands of the Wahabi propagandists in Saudi Arabia. Once we are established in Iraq, we can keep the pressure up on the Terrorists in and area and continue to take them out. Once we are established in Iraq we are a sitting target with big fat bullseyes on our big fat corn-fed butts. There are few more attractive targets for a terrorist than a shaky proxy government, an occupying (rather than invading) army, and the enormous civilian infrastructure that goes along with them. They will be able to kill Americans without having to manage operations in America. Very convenient. I think our CIA and Military are doing a pretty good job of learning how to track down and kill these people. As long as the ideology remains, killing these people only adds to the pantheon of martyrs. New ones will replace them. They know how to harass an occupying force, and like us, they learn all the time. There are indications that they learn faster than we do. We need to fight the ideology, and you don't kill ideas with bullets. You kill them with better ideas. In the meantime, the shakeout from the Iraq operation will have enormous repercussions on the Palestine situation. It will undoubtedly help the Israelis. It is too soon to say how things will work out, but I think it is obvious that the longer we are in the area fighting Terrorists and doing slum clearance, the more we are going to side with Israel. This is undoubtedly of great benefit to Israel. I am not convinced that it is of great benefit to us. They are locked in a circle of violence that I don’t see them ever resolving; the way out that they once might have had was closed by their own inability to acknowledge certain grim realities of their own history; even that way is now closed, as far as I can see. I don’t think we should abandon them, but I don’t think we should lock ourselves in there with them either. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Bush has the country behind him now as never before. This last election shows that the left is now out of solutions on Foreign Policy, and will either follow Bush's lead, or engage in meaningless "Protest Marches," where they can try to recapture the glory days of the '60s. Well, I guess you know how I feel about that. Both left and right are packed with brain-dead ideologues that substitute dreary outmoded mantras for thought. If we maintain some kind of balance, where the deranged on either side cancel each other out, we occasionally get some common sense into government. If either side ever gets their hands on the wheel all by themselves, we’re f*cked, and so are a lot of other people. Still waiting to see if some sort of balance will emerge here.