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

To: paul_philp who wrote (91086)	4/8/2003 4:15:30 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The grand neocon strategy It is no use, as you know, Paul. The anti-war crowd wants to to see this as Imperial aggression. It fits their view of life. No matter what is done, that is the way they will see it.

To: paul_philp who wrote (91086)	4/8/2003 1:07:20 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<The grand neocon strategy is to provide the people of the middle east with a new possible future> I know what their vision is. I've read as many of their position papers and speeches, as anyone on this thread. And posted my critiques of same. They say they are going to bring prosperity and freedom to Muslim nations, and thereby end the threat of more 9/11s. But I look at their track record, and I look at the preconditions needed to achieve their goals, and the tools they are using to do it, and I don't see any way they fulfill their promise. You just can't get there from here, not by the route the NeoCons are using. Track record: As a rule, in poor nations, what has followed the exercise of U.S. power, for the last 50 years, has been the opposite of freedom. The most recent relevant examples are Kuwait (re-instated a despot), and Afghanistan (replaced despotism with chaos). Our track record of doing what the NeoCons promise to do, is extremely poor. Tools used: NeoCons rely almost 100% on force, and the threat of force, to achieve their goals. They consistently display an amazing insensitivity to Muslim concerns. Example: Sharon just allowed a new Jewish housing project in Arab E. Jerusalem, and there was no response from the White House. The "road map" is dead, if we are unwilling to exert our influence to get the Israelis to stop colonizing more Arab territory. Example: the repeated speeches to American-Israeli groups, by high Administration officials, crowing about how they are going to overthrow every anti-Israeli regime in the region. Preconditions for democracy: The Administration has repeatedly made analogies between post-WW2 Germany/Japan, and their plans for post-war Iraq (and, presumably, post-Regime Change Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc.). But the preconditions for democracy, the civil institutions, the culture, the educational level, they don't exist in Muslim nations. Building democracy in these nations is a decades-long project, and requires the detailed thorough reorganization of most of society's institutions. A better analogy would be South Korea. Look how long it took, after the Korea War, before S. Korea became a democracy. First, they had to increase their per capita income by a couple orders of magnitude, and achieve universal literacy. To do what the NeoCons promise, we have to make Iraq a colony for several decades. And if we try to do that, it is a certainty that we will elicit a nationalist guerrila revolt, and be forced out at some point. Democracy will happen when Iraqis want it, on their timetable. We cannot impose it on them. All we can do is provide an example, and leave them alone. Just because I don't think the NeoCon agenda is realistic, you assume I don't understand it.

To: paul_philp who wrote (91086)	4/10/2003 11:39:56 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

The grand neocon strategy is to provide the people of the middle east with a new possible future, a realistic and ground expectation that life will get better for them and thier families. They understand that this is tightly linked to US national security and economic prosperty more fully than any other group of thinkers on this issue. That's the rosiest picture ever drawn of the neocons. Better to be a bit suspicious of anyone in position to go to war. Their published stuff says they want a world safe for the US to stay number one. Second, it's safe to assume they want a pacified ME and tend to read it through the eyes of the present Israeli government. Third, what they don't want is democracy, meaning voting islamist governments into power in the ME. That would be democratic right now. But, since that would be counter to US interests, they don't want it. But the rhetoric of democracy serves their purposes. It's called creating illusions; using "democracy" as a religious change of subject.