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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (67183)	12/19/2002 2:29:02 AM
From: Ira Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

"If smart people like us can find no common ground" LOLOLOL Smart people like you folks... Not smart enough to start a thread for your own purposes that actually has a title and header indicating it's about international politics. Instead you became squatters on a thread that is supposed to be discussing a single company, thereby making all other users read through piles of off topic gibberish before coming to the conclusion that the regulars on the thread have no concept of the ease with which threads can be created that would be on topic. I guess all you smart folks, who have made this thread useless for it's stated purpose, are too afraid you would get lost in cyberspace if you started a new thread and suggested everyone interested in all your theories and opinions move to it. That would be way too confusing...to talk politics on a politics thread... Ira

To: skinowski who wrote (67183)	12/19/2002 7:15:49 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 70976

Hi Ski - Talking with Zonder makes one realize just how profoundly split the world is today. Think of me as half-way in between. If my views seem very different to you (which is surprising to me, actually) then the actual "split" is more than twice as wide. I have never even believed in God, so if I have a sympathy towards people of the Middle East, it is because I lived there a long time and I think of them as human beings just like you think of your neighbours, rather than some crazies to be nuked. I see the human side of this conflict. I saw how those people lived before, how they live now. I know their hopes and dreams about their children. I also know well something you would never guess reading the papers - that the fanatics are a small minority. The rest just follow their traditions - they fast all day for a month, they sacrifice a lamb on a specific day, they pray. They are human. If smart people like us can find no common ground… I am not sure if "finding common ground" is the goal of these debates. I would be happy just with an "understanding" of the different positions. And I think that is achievable. What I find distasteful is the ad hominem statements - you are this, you are that. It does nothing for the quality of the debate, and increases the antagonism. Let's not fall into that trap and I think we are doing fine...

To: skinowski who wrote (67183)	12/19/2002 8:38:40 AM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 70976

Skin, As always events can change perceptions. It is pretty clear now that the plan is to begin the war on or around 2/1. Even Blix knows the Iraqi document is way incomplete. So we have six weeks to prevent a war that now that it is upon us, no one really wants. My gut now says this situation has been brilliantly orchestrated to give saddam a way out in the end. If that way out leaves him in power the left will not be happy because now it will be Shrub makes cynical deal with iraqi dictator. Sean Penn will go back to iraq to denounce US deals with brutal dictators. Lose/Lose situation. Best case is that Saddam and his 1000 closest friends and allies get an island somewhere and access to their swiss accounts. Another possibility as war gets closes is that Saddam is overthrown by his own military who then takes power and hopefully begins dealing with the exiles much the same way as in Afganistan. Then the left yells about a US puppet state which zonder already called(in so many words) my Marshall Plan for mideast suggestion. Its hard to be an American President, harder than at any other time since the civil war perhaps. Study bush's face some times, he is aging in office as fast as LBJ. How would any of the critics handle this job or even me you and fred? Its easy to post on SI. Mike