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

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (111011)	8/11/2003 11:20:15 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The French should have seen this problem coming, and not allowed this un-assimilable population in. They were so sure of the superiority of their culture, so sure they could assimilate any group, so sure that anyone, if given the choice, would choose the Superior French Culture. And they were wrong. The French certainly believe in their culture, but that isn't the issue. It's rather a simple matter of "out of sight, out of mind". Until one fine day, one realizes that every new years eve, hundreds of cars are set afire in the housing projects around Strasbourg, and the situation is out of control. The French have allowed the creation of the same kind of ghettoes the U.S. has. This is sadly true. The U.S. has successfully assimilated dozens of groups, with the exception of blacks and Native Americans. This is equally sadly true, but the situation of the Inuits in Canada is hardly better..... If Muslims in France are voting for the Islamists, what are the chances of Muslims in Iraq voting for liberal democrats ? The two situations actually aren't really comparable. For one thing, Iraqis are chez eux, coming off a brutal dictatorship, and nobody is honestly expecting them to form a French style Assemblée Nationale. Merely that there be some plurality in their government for a change. After a tyrant like Saddam, with the accompanying trade embargos nearly anything will be an improvement. Countries like Turkey show that hardline totalitarian presidents for life don't have to be the rule. The real delusion in all this is not that anyone believes democracy can be "installed" in Iraq. The delusion is that we can continue to consume oil from pushers like the Saudis as if the supply is unlimited, and this delusion is completely non partisan in nature. What I'd like to know is how many Americans are actually in favor of our soldiers dying in Iraq so we can continue to drive gas guzzlers. No Blood For Oil is a nice slogan, but who is really going to make the slightest personal sacrifice ? Maybe a more pertinent hypothetical question would be : what would the average American have been willing to sacrifice so that 9/11 could have been prevented in the first place ? Certainly in the delirium leading up to the tech stock bubble, nothing at all.