Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (99133)	5/26/2003 12:19:29 PM
From: Lou Weed	Respond to of 281500

<<Certainly the Kurds have a better claim to statehood than the Israelis ever did, and if the Kurds aren’t bound by some abstract need to maintain Iraq’s territorial integrity, why would anybody else be?>> Excellent point Steven.....it's something that should be highlighted more often. MON

To: Dayuhan who wrote (99133)	5/26/2003 12:41:52 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

>>Do I detect there a hint of disaffection with the neocon cause? << I have two clients - unrelated people, probably don't even know each other or know that I represent both - who work for various security organizations out at the Dulles International Airport - after talking to them I've lost all confidence in airport security. When I learned that travellers coming into the US, even from places that WHO has said have SARS epidemics, are not being screened at all, not even having their temperature taken, not even filling out a questionnaire so they can be located later if there was an outbreak on the plane, I've lost all confidence in public health administration. After I learned that nuclear material was being looted in Iraq, I've lost all confidence in military security. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. But it's not just our government. Look at how Canada, China, and Taiwan have handled SARS. Hong Kong and Singapore did it relatively right, so kudos to them. I am not a big fan of government, period, and after years of living in the Washington metro area and watching them close up, for the most part they are clowns and government employees are people who couldn't get a real job. Not all, then there are the true believers, the ones who have a Cause, and will distort and ignore facts in order to advance their own agendas. Still, it beats the alternatives. It's against the law for government employees to take cash and if they are caught they actually get in trouble, which is more than you can say for most of the rest of the world.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (99133)	5/26/2003 2:25:36 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 281500

Steven, you make some good points, but what I like to ask is what would it take for you too see happening in Iraq, in order to acknowledge the Iraqi people are better off then they were under a tyrannical ruler who tortured and murdered for power and pleasure? I believe everyone (including neocons), hoped for a rapid and swift transition to democracy, coupled with a peaceful orderly move to law and order. Hoping for something, and being disappointed they haven't occurred well, are far from believing the Iraqi people were better off a few months ago. The past decisions at this point are largely irrelevant, we may all dream of scenarios which would have worked to free the people of Iraq in some utopian orderly way. Or, we may believe this or that policy prescription would have worked far better then open conflict and invasion. However, they are only dreams and wishful thinking. Bringing justice to Iraq, bringing democracy to Iraq, first meant we had to remove Hussein's fascist grip on the people. Reality has happened. George Bush has taken the foreign policy risk and today tens of millions of people have a chance of living a life free of fear, torture, and slavery.