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

To: aladin who wrote (93933)	4/16/2003 4:41:01 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<your narrow view of the world states that what happened in Rwanda was ok> I begin with a Belief that the Means determines the Ends. War, especially a preventive war, is not a means that ends in peace. Colonization (the current euphemism is Nation Building) is not a means that ends in democracy. No, my view is that what is happening internally, in Iraq and Rwanda and Congo, is very much "not OK". I've never said there wasn't a problem; I've said that U.S. soldiers are not the solution. Looking back on the U.S. track record of military intervention in these and many similar situations, what happens after U.S. intervention is also "not OK." We don't make anything better. We go in, with promises and high hopes, and 10, 20, 30, 40 years later, things are just as bad. As an example, since "independance" for Congo/Zaire in 1960, there have been repeated military interventions by the U.S., Belgium, the UN. And, as soon as the troops are withdrawn, the chaos resumes. Foreign soldiers don't fix problems. They didn't in Congo. They didn't in Haiti. They didn't in Kuwait (how much democracy did we create there?). They didn't in Afghanistan (we didn't eliminate the Taliban or Al Queda, and we certainly didn't create any prosperity or democracy). And I expect we won't in Iraq, either. And this expectation is based entirely on our past track record, not on any innate pessimism or anti-Americanism. Iraq will be a democracy, when the Iraqis make it so. We cannot hurry the process. Early signs are, that we will form a government that will exclude the Shiite clerics. There will be steadily rising tensions, as those clerics organize resistance to our occupation. The demonstrations will be peaceful at first, but will get violent. How quickly they get violent, depends on how many stupid things we do. We are already doing stupid things, like allowing Muslim-hating Christian fundamentalists into Iraq. That's even dumber than giving regular "progress reports" by high Administration officials, to Jewish-American groups. These signs of a total insensitivity to the Muslim Street, will make the honeymoon quite short. We are very very good with tanks and helicopters, and very very bad with HeartsAndMinds.