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

To: Win Smith who wrote (84556)	3/21/2003 12:20:12 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Very trenchant comment. NRO MAR. 21, 2003: WATCHING IN SHOCK & AWE I take back everything I ever said about the Slow Army. The Third Infantry Division is rocketing along the sands of southern Iraq at speeds usually reserved for the light recon guys. The atmosphere inside their armored vehicles must be hot, dirty, and comprehensively dusty, but the guys are sweating it out with growing pride at the job they're doing. Keep the pedal to the metal, guys. For those of us who wore the uniform in the Vietnam era, the most amazing thing is not the capability of our soldiers, or their equipment, or the level of success so far. It's not the calm, tough aura around the field grade and senior commanders. That stuff is all the norm. The amazement comes from the attitude of the press embedded with the troops. During Vietnam, we shunned the press. They were the enemy, almost as much as the North Vietnamese were. They couldn't be trusted, and deserved the mushroom treatment. The "five o'clock follies" body count briefings were meant to keep them at a distance. But the Newly Embedded Pressies (or "NEPs" if I am permitted to invent an acronym) are learning much in a prolonged lesson denied their predecessors. They are getting to know ? and love ? the guys on the line. Being there, seeing these young folks, their intelligence, training and enormous capability will implant a respect for the American soldier no other experience can. Big Dog Don Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers have built a bridge to the press that will pay off in fairness and understanding for decades to come.<<<<< nationalreview.com

To: Win Smith who wrote (84556)	3/21/2003 2:20:30 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Very timely observations from Huntington via Kaplan. Well worth underlining, remembering, and taking to heart. How do Huntington's ideas apply to the current crisis stemming from the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington? He speaks with reluctance about specific policies the United States ought to pursue. Huntington has warned in the past that it is pointless to expect people who are not at all like us to become significantly more like us; this well-meaning instinct only causes harm. "In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false, it is immoral, and it is dangerous." In the incipient war being led by the United States, the utmost caution is required to keep the focus on the brute fact of terrorism. He observes that Osama bin Laden, for his part, clearly hopes to incite civilizational conflict between Islam and the West. The United States must prevent this from happening, chiefly by assembling a coalition against terrorism that crosses civilizational lines. Beyond that, the United States must take this opportunity to accomplish two things: first, to draw the nations of the West more tightly together; and second, to try to understand more realistically how the world looks through the eyes of other people. This is a time for a kind of tough-minded humility in our objectives and for an implacable but measured approach in our methods.