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

To: frankw1900 who wrote (60090)	12/6/2002 2:51:00 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi frankw1900; Re: "I found the last few lines of Raed's post quite interesting. Does it read like he's going to join the resistance to the US invasion? I don't think so. He doesn't like the US from certain points of view, but if it rolls across the border set on doing down the regime, I don't think he's going to get in the way." I agree. The fact is that the vast majority of every population will not risk their lives (much) to fight a foreign enemy. But as the situation with the Palestinians shows, it doesn't take a lot of people to cause trouble. Only a few percent of any population make even halfway effective killers anyway, the rest just get in the way. What's more significant is what people like Raed do when they become aware of someone who is inclined to use a gun. Every large population on the planet has people who are inclined to fight against the government, whatever government that happens to be around. That is, some of those inclined towards the left wing will be willing to fight a right wing government, and some of those inclined towards the right wing will be willing to fight a left wing government. That these people don't cause huge problems is not due to their lack of desire, but instead due to the fact that the regular public assists the authorities in their capture. For instance, if the Washington snipers had obtained the sympathy of the residents in that area, that trucker might have been more likely to have warned them that their car had been identified instead of alerting the authorities. That is why the sympathies of the regular mom and pops of a subjected population are so important. It's not that everyone pulls a gun, it's that those who do pull guns are protected, through direct support, or just through inaction, by the public. -- Carl P.S. The military's research on killing in humans (how humans are motivated, etc.) is applicable to this subject.