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

To: Sig who wrote (100412)	6/5/2003 7:17:24 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Sig; Re: "To avoid being called criminals on the world stage we are spending much money and effort to create an overall success of the new State which will not be known for a long time so is bit early to tell the outcome." Not the case. We're trying to do an Iraq make-over on the cheap. The neocons suffer the (immoral) delusion that they'll be able to pay for the expenses of nation rebuilding with Iraq's oil. Re: "Disarmament is being tried and it seems needed to keep citizens from killing each other with automatic weapons." Don't kid yourself. Disarmament is the standard thing that every occupying army (from Caesar to Hitler) has always done when faced with guerilla activity. It has the unfortunate consequence of pissing off the people who are (attempted to be) disarmed. Do you think that only American citizens say "you can take my gun when you peel it from my cold dead fingers"? No, that is a universal human sentiment. Re: "Our best effort in that regard is the behavior of our troops, hamstrung by having to act as police, having to kill some criminals." Humans can just barely put up with police forces that look like them, speak the same language as them, eat the same food, smell the same, worship God the same, and are from the same area. No nation on this planet has willingly submitted to a police force composed of a collection of trigger happy American (near) teenagers. It just ain't gonna happen. Nor has it ever happened before. Take a look at what happens in the US when a white cop shoots a black civilian. That's right, there's often a riot. Add in the extra features of a Christian cop and Moslem civilian, throw in a language difference, add some different opinions on various moral issues, and you don't get a riot, you get a guerilla war. Re: "As a national goal it would be a disaster, but what we can do is become better able to deal with their leadership, reduce certain tensions, such as removing Military from SA." I agree. Our country can't convince young people not to smoke cigarettes, which are deadly. How are they going to convince Arabs not to do what comes naturally? The removal of forces from Saudi Arabia is a good idea. But the fact is that it was not an idea that the yahoos in charge of this country came up with. Instead, the Saudis threw us out, but diplomatically. -- Carl