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

To: Win Smith who wrote (103462)	6/29/2003 4:19:12 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"To justify military intervention with the purpose of imposing democracy is either a cynical cover for imperialism or an act of irresponsible naïveté. The leaders of great powers are rarely naïve, though their citizens often are. A case in point is that US officials have declared that they will not allow Islamic fundamentalists to take power in Iraq even by free elections. " thenation.com

To: Win Smith who wrote (103462)	6/29/2003 5:58:35 PM
From: Ish	Respond to of 281500

<< I'm sure the PNAC people have it all figured out, though. That's their nature.>> Good, you're finally catching on.

To: Win Smith who wrote (103462)	6/29/2003 7:10:13 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Depends on what you define as "significant". The number of body bags per week that is acceptable to the American people, in pursuit of imperial ambitions, changes over time. I see an encouraging decrease, in the willingness of Americans to die in obscure Asian deserts and jungles, compared to the 1960s, or 1890s. Progress, I call this. A volunteer army makes our sensitivity to casualties much more acute. I don't see any possibility of re-instating the draft. Any attempt to do that, and we'd see civil disobediance on a massive scale. If I had a draft-age son, I would have been willing to send him to Afghanistan, but not to Iraq, Iran, Syria, N. Korea. Not unless I'm given a reason a whole lot better than anything the NeoCons have come up with so far. As a rough guess, I'd say, if U.S. soldiers are dying in Iraq, at a rate of 1-2/day, in 2004, Bush is going to be vulnerable at election-time. And, if any Democrat is elected, even one whose criticism of U.S. imperialism is timid, he'll find a way to withdraw from Iraq. Probably some variety of "Iraqization" (remember "Vietnamization"?).