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

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (109917)	8/4/2003 4:55:47 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As a specific examples just look, in a realistic way, at the morass Israel/Palestine, Iraq, and Afganistan are today The Israeli/Pal morass is hardly new, and most of it is due to Arab and Israeli polices of the last 30 years. News to me that neocons have been running Arab or Israeli politics for thirty years! Was Olso a neocon policy, or a failed liberal one? The neocon influence is new, and it is backing replacing the Arafat terrorist regime with something more tolerable to the Israelis and the US. There is a definite eye to results there. As for the current state of Afghanistan and Iraq, it's too early to make final judgements -- but not too early to note that both these places have considerably improved from the hell-holes they were two years ago. The neocon position is that it would be a good thing for Afghanistan to improve, but it is absolutely necessary for Iraq to be a success story, since Iraq is of far more strategic importance. In short, the neocons are looking closely at real-world results. You make not like their decisions, but they are looking at a set of intended results. Can you say the same for all those who marched for no war in Iraq, supposedly on "behalf" of the Iraqi people?

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (109917)	8/4/2003 5:17:52 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 281500

Noel, as I read Nadine's comment, I too was thinking that The Law of Unintended Consequences is more endemic than Nadine meant. Few of us escape its clutches. My favourite is the IRA-supporting Irish American firefighters killed in the Twin Towers [as Nadine also pointed out - the synergy between Ghadafi, IRA, Hamas, Abu Nidal, Osama, Arafat, Red Brigade and others led to a general increase in terrorism]. Some Irish Americans paid for their own destruction. That was poetic justice. Some of the Irish American firefighters were perhaps the ones looting stores while there to rescue people. Now there's a threat on Gerry Adam's life. Those who live by the sword .... good riddance to Saddam, Uday and Gerry. I hope the assassin gets Adams and his sidekick too. Once upon a time, Kiwis would drive from Calais [having caught a ferry from Dover] to Singapore, across all those countries which are now impassable, then catch another boat, drive across Oz and catch another boat. That was until the 1970s advent of violence across the world which was led by the IRA and their American supporters. Arafat, and all sorts, from Japan to South America. The tangle of causal relationships is a Gordian Knot which can't be unthreaded. But the USA isn't an innocent abroad, hated because they are so wonderful, so rich and so kind. The USA is the people in power at the time. Those people attract vituperative attack from other Americans, so even within the USA, it's not all lovey dovey Unitarian bliss. Look at Tim McVeigh for example. Look at what some of the Siers in this very stream have said about Bill Clinton. Look at what Raymond Duray says about King George II. Look at David Koresh and Janet Reno getting into a big fight. Not to mention Columbine and untold other mayhem [when the cities aren't in flames from race riots]. Since Americans are at each others' throats and have got more soldiers everywhere than anyone else and they have done a lot of shooting and supporting one or another thug [such as supporting Saddam for years], it's not surprising that some people who aren't Americans are also having a go. With the demise of the oddity which is the worldwide drug-fueled baby-boomer bulge, I expect the spasm of aggression and violence around the world will reduce and a golden age of peace, light, harmony, happiness, health, prosperity, longevity, fun and love will bust out. Propelled of course by the scintillating magic of CDMA2000 and It. Heck, even some of the cheerless malevolence we see here will turn to gentle thoughts of love. Lindy will be rooting for fun, BlandbutBelligerent will be grinning from ear to ear, Neocon will come over all cuddly. A positive orgy of pleasantry. Mqurice