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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (113161)	8/28/2003 1:13:30 PM
From: Don Hurst	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>"I think it's all inaccurate, a sweeping generalization of doom-and-glooming by someone who is simply not a qualified observer of the Middle East."<< I have seen enough of your posts to know that Dowd, who sits in Washington, has a more balanced view on the middle east than you do IMO. Friedman actually thinks that we can turn the Iraq of the Kurds, Shias, Sunnis, Christians and who knows what else into a showcase democracy. I bet he does not believe you could turn the Israelis and Palestinians into a secular, one state democracy which has a better chance of success than this nutty Iraq idea of the neocons.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (113161)	8/28/2003 1:32:27 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I was hoping for a specific agreement or disagreement by you personally, based on your general reading, rather than a citation of testimonials. The specific items are below. They are points made by many observers, not merely by Dowd, which is why I'm hoping you (or others) will comment on them individually. Which do you think is inaccurate? (Nadine, you could say they are all accurate, and yet that it is your expectation that it will all work out well for us in the end): ~Our exhausted and frustrated soldiers are in a hideously difficult environment they're not familiar with, dealing with a culture America only dimly understands ~ Our desperation for any intelligence has reduced us to recruiting Saddam's old spies, whom we didn't trust in the first place... ~ We don't know exactly which of our ghostly Arab enemies are which, how many there are, who's plotting with whom, what weapons they have, how they're getting into Iraq, where they're hiding, or who's financing and organizing them. ~ We don't understand the violent internecine religious battles we've set in motion... ~ Because the unholy alliance of Saddam loyalists, foreign fighters and Islamic terrorists has turned Iraq into a scary shooting gallery for our troops doesn't mean Americans at home are any safer.