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

To: JustTradeEm who wrote (87206)	3/28/2003 8:40:34 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Imus had Bob Arnot on this morning. He is embedded with a unit in south iraq. He speaks arabic and i have found him to be insightful in the past. He talked to some US officers, (captains) who believe that bagdad is not stalingrad or berlin where the germans fought to the last man and at the end launched an attack. These captains believe badgad and then the regime will implode from the inside. Concentration now should be on killing republican guard formations. Eventually when it becomes clear that the US wont cut and run(somalia) as the regime believes and that the iraqi military cannot inflict enough pain to stop the US, individual ministers, generals, etc will cut deals. The hesitancy perhaps?? to use chem weapons is part of this end game. I certainly hope this is true because if we have to go house to house and the iraqi people view their support of the regime like the russians viewed stalin, it can be a big mess particularly in terms of civilian casualties. Higher US casualties will create not a call for retreat or truce, it will bring into question whether in our desire to protect civilians we are sacrificing our youngsters. Trent Lott implied this on Hardball last nite and there have to be generals thinking the same thing. So these next few days are so important. By the time we get back monday.......fill in blank. mike

To: JustTradeEm who wrote (87206)	3/28/2003 8:46:22 AM
From: JustTradeEm	Respond to of 281500

Interesting article in Slate on the downside to ignoring the reality of terrorism .... I can only assume our military now wishes they were more diligent. Uncle Sam's Jihadists What's the U.S. military doing about radical Muslim soldiers? Not enough. By Deanne Stillman Posted Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 11:39 AM PT slate.msn.com JB

To: JustTradeEm who wrote (87206)	3/28/2003 10:34:00 AM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Of course, like cancer, you can ignore it (terrorism)until it is terminal. I just lost a close friend to cancer. He had undergone radical treatment that resulted in a few year's remission. Unfortunately, the cancer mutated and came back stronger than ever. We are very good at treating symptoms, not so good at determining and ameliorating the root causes.

To: JustTradeEm who wrote (87206)	3/28/2003 11:00:08 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Terrorism, no matter what the source, is a cancer to an enlightened civilization. Sentences like that advance your argument backwards. We've had the difficult debate as to what is terrorism. And, whatever position folk took, it was clear the definition was highly political. I think Bill's culminating point that it's always and only political, as in "if they are opposed to us they are terrorists, if they are on our side they are freedom fighters," that definition gets a more than a bit of truth but is too simple. If you typed that Islamism is "a cancer to an enlightened civilization," that might get us closer to the truth. Then we could argue about the viability of the cancer metaphor, just what is civilization, and how to go about, if we agree, dealing with the "cancer." As you've put it, your line is a conversation stopper and, as I said, takes your argument backwards.