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

To: LindyBill who wrote (81986)	3/14/2003 5:54:46 AM
From: kumar	Respond to of 281500

calculator will get a lot of use around NYC and DC. I am a bit bemused that NYC & DC are seen as targets after past events - the bad guys dont try the same MO typically. How about SFO bridge, Bay Bridge, Sears Towers, Niagra Fals (with chem stuff spewing the way the water goes)....

To: LindyBill who wrote (81986)	3/14/2003 6:41:54 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I did my time in Germany. Great beer! your calculator will get a lot of use around NYC and DC. Let's hope not. LB, I think we are in the second third or perhaps the second half of a decisive shift in world power. This one is moving slowly. It began with the fall of the Berlin wall and the iron curtain. Kinda funny to think back to how everyone thought it presaged the end of war. I did some consulting in Germany twice after the wall went down. During a visit to Potsdam, and other "new frontier" cities, I learned that all of the East Europeans thought things would improve overnight. But my old Berlin friends were dismayed at the refugee inflow, The crime rate increases, the street gypsies (non Germans) and the inevitable tax increases to pay for new infrastructure in the East. While driving down the Ku-Damm and observing the clear shift to a lower standard, I recall thinking and writing the easy days are over for the West Germans. Russian soldiers were selling their uniforms and equipment to get money for food and beer. Gypsies set up shop under the Brandenburg Gate to resell the items to tourists. The German press was so positive...yet the streets told a much different story. Yugoslavia was similar but different. It had been a sweet vacation spot for westerners and easterners. Yet the non-Muslim population there knew a huge change was taking place and strife escalated every month. Until finally many Christians were forced to flee for their lives. We are no where close to a solution there. The old western partnerships like NATO are also on the verge of collapse. The French are not surprising. They would not fight when the Germans were in Paris drinking their cognac and sleeping with their wives and daughters. The Germans are strap hung by a weak military brought about at least partially by the constitution we wrote for them in 1946. The UN is choking on its own rules. The UN is strangling on its own bureaucracy. The terrorists and rogue states, unencumbered by rules and regulations, and with no concern for public opinion due to no or rigged elections are operating the most freely. And they are effective militarily. Their fear tactics are demoralizing many countries into inaction. We have US Armed Forces personnel stationed in over 90 countries today. A big crack in that policy opened the day Rumsfeld suggested pulling back in SK. With Eastern Europe continuing to live in the 1930s or earlier, with our old alliances and support team crumbling, with attempted Muslim domination of parts of Eastern Europe, with the corruption rampant in S American governments, with Africa coming apart, with military problems erupting in NK, Thailand, The Philippines, with our promise to defend Taiwan likely to be an empty one, I see no way for the current status quo to survive. A massive power shift is underway imo. Many more major earthquakes are coming. unclewest