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

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (60342)	12/7/2002 10:50:28 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>A) Work for peace, democracy, and improved standard of living in the Middle East and Africa. B) Hit Al-Qaeda as hard as possible with all available means. Right now Bush II is doing neither.<< The administration certainly appears to be pulling its punches when it comes to Saudi funding of Al Qaeda. The Saudis are very opposed to democracy, for obvious reasons. But even when the administration pushes for democracy, this gives the appearance of backfiring, e.g., the threat to withhold money for Egypt due to the imprisonment of an intellectual (name escapes me) caused a backlash by even his own supporters and family. For as long as I can remember, US foreign policy is damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't. The only choice is to do what is to do what is the closest to the right thing according to the highest and best objective criteria. However, as long as we are dependent on oil, our policy decisions will have to include sucking up to the Saudis.

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (60342)	12/7/2002 11:38:53 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

A) Work for peace, democracy, and improved standard of living in the Middle East and Africa. B) Hit Al-Qaeda as hard as possible with all available means. Right now Bush II is doing neither. We come to the same conclusions from slightly different places. I've found Michael Doran's piece on the causes of 9-11 to be the best place for me to start my thinking. If you have yet to read it, I recommend it highly. You can find it starting here: Message 17498211