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

To: Fred Levine who wrote (67613)	2/5/2003 1:06:53 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

...and we watch them go to the gas chamber. Is that a crime against humanity or is a local issue?...what course of actions should international organizations take? Well that is obviously a crime against humanity. Your other question is more interesting though. Let me ask you something: suppose you find out that the corner store on your street is owned by a child molesting drug dealer. What would be the course of actions you will take? I doubt you will grab a gun and shoot him. Personally, I would start by not inviting him to my home. Then I would not buy from him. I would expose him for what he is to all my friends and the other neighbors so they can avoid him as well. Then I would move on to not associating with the owners friends, on the grounds that one cannot be so different than his friends and supporters. Then and only then, if I still perceived threat from him I might start to take further actions. In the example you site, I would start by stop selling chemicals to the country in question. I would stop undermining the efforts of its people to overthrow him. I would provide humane help to his victims. And I would spear head international efforts to isolate him. I would not, as your post seems to imply, overthrow a popular and democtratically elected leader because I disapprove of his internal policies. That would be neither moral nor a good idea. BTW, what do you purpose we do with Iraq after we get rid of Saddam? How is this "nation building" going to proceed and how likely is it to be something decent or even practical? Will we have the courage to respect the wishes of Iraqi people, even though we disagree with those wishes? The Kurds are about one-third of the population and want independence. Turkey, a NATO member, as it has been pointed is adamantly against even their self autonomy. Will we respect the wish of the population or that of Turkey? The Shia in the south have suffered from brutal oppressions for centuries and feel most secure with the only other Shia country in the region, namely Iran. How does US feel about the wishes of this other significant part of the Iraqi population? Will they be allowed to persue closer ties with Iran? What about the oil fields? Who will control them and how? When you try to answer these questions from the pragmatic eyes of US policy makers, you will see that the end result will be another regime that will oppress the will of Iraqi people and since it won't be able to do so peacefully, it will be just as brutal as Saddam has been. In short the outcome will be replacing Saddam with another brutal dictator, except this one will award all the oil contracts to US corporations. I am sorry Fred, but the more I look at it, the more I see Iraqi people losing their lives so that big business can pocket more profits and Bush can look good for elections. ST