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To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (173283)	3/5/2003 2:33:10 PM
From: tcmay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

"knew someone would ding me on this. I'm not saying that all pacifists are anti-capitalists, or that you even have to protest capitalism in order to protest the war. "However, I am saying that a lot of the people you find in those anti-war marches happen to be anti-capitalists. These include the people who make it their hobby to protest anything they see as the "establishment," i.e. rebels by nature. With Jim talking about "buy-n-hold" as a vast conspiracy, he might as well join those who think likewise." I'm not a pacifist, but I am against starting wars with countries that are no clear and present danger to the United States. Moreover, I take the Founders (spec. G. Washington) seriously: "avoid entangling alliances." The U.S. has become in the post-WW II era the "world's beat cop." At enormous expense we have kept troops in South Korea (and their leaders say they don't want them, and American soldiers are spit upon), we have intervened in the internal civil war in Yugoslavia (and we almost certainly backed the wrong side, the Albanian Muslims!), we have supplied Stinger missiles to Islamic radicals in Afghantistan (and one of those missiles is likely to bring down a 747 on landing approach--any of many apartment windows in San Diego and similar cities are within lock-on range of a Stinger), we have kept troops in Germany when the locals have five times the standard of living of our troops, who are also spit upon. And so on. We have squandered vast amounts of money trying to do "nation building" and "regime change." We have sent CIA assassins around the world to topple regimes, to install dictators, to kill union leaders, to assassinate elected officials. We are not the world's cop. As a capitalist, I say "Trade with them. Buy oil. Buy VCRs. But don't be their defender. Let them learn to defend themselves. That's more efficient, it teaches local skills, and it doesn't confiscate money from Americans to send to Third World despots and satraps." To those who say the Gulf War in 1991 saved the oil market...get real. Saddam would have pumped _more_ oil than the Kuwaiti princes have been willing to pump (them being founding members of OPEC and all, and able to throttle back production when it suits them). Countries have been redrawing borders for millennia. And the modern "borders" of Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, etc. are fictions of some British bureaucrats who got out some dusty maps and drew lines, rewarding their collaborators (as in the "Hashemite Kingdom"--yuk yuk) and punishing those who wouldn't provide kickbacks. Now Pax Americana is doing the same thing. Installing dictators who will kick back to American interests. And bribing Turkey with $30 billion and untold amounts sent directly into Swiss bank accounts of the Parliament members (who apparently took the money and then reneged, voting down the U.S. troop deployment...look for a second round of bribes to happen soon). These nations are shakedown states. Egypt gets $4.5 billiion a year from Uncle Sugar, i.e., taxpayers like you and me. Most of it goes into secret bank accounts. Israel, a basket case economy ruled by Eurotrash socialists, gets $5 billion a year. Without Uncle Sugar, their socialist economy would collapse and the Arabs they displaced from their farms and orchards would sweep in and liquidate them all...which I think is coming anyway. I resent having my taxes so high so that bribes can be paid to countries which, if they are really facing a threat from Iraq, should be paying _us_ to defend them! It's all a sick joke. We bribe the leaders, we assassinate them, and then we natter on about the importance of democracy and freedom. What a sick joke. --Tim May