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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (117121)	10/18/2003 10:39:52 AM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

<<<At any given time, situations are changing and constant reappraisal of decisions previously made is required. In a democracy, that doesn't mean handing a blank cheque to the leader of the day, it means constant reappraisal by everyone interested in proceedings so that if necessary, they can change their minds. Those wanting a particular train of thought and action will find it annoying to be looking over their shoulders and in the front lines, those involved must have confidence that they are being backed and that they don't have to look over their shoulders. But further back in the thinking and planning department and into the democratic foundations, there must remain constant reappraisal, otherwise, the poor buggers at the front lines might still be in the trenches in Flanders and nobody is thinking, just following a series of leaders who never change their minds. >>>> Nice piece of writing, Winn. You speak the truth as close as anyone here. To orient a country for war (on terrorism) , as GWB has done. required a positive attitude, major concentration and some exaggeration. This is not the time to be changing minds about the job to be done in Iraq, and that has not changed. The details of how to go about the job have to be adjusted as the situation changes, which brings the Press screaming about not following a "plan" or the cost involved. Fortunately, there never was a detailed plan to dispute (g) And, as much as they would like to, the UN is not going to be permitted to make one (a plan) since there are many unknowns yet and condemnation by the Press would result whenever a change was made. Sig

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (117121)	10/18/2003 11:53:45 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, I understand your reasoning, but I disagree. I like freedom and that means first and foremost freedom to think and freedom to express, But isn't it true that a person's right to think and express certain ideas and values ends where they begin to infringe upon other people's rights? After all, your analogy should permit me to heckle bad acting, use my cell phone to gossip with friends, to to be generally loud whenever I go to the theater? After all, isn't that what we do when I watch a movie on TV at home? And while YOU AND I might have the right to express our views, OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES HAVE A HIGHER RESPONSIBILITY to represent ALL of their constituents and NOT act in a manner which undermines the national will in time of war. When blood lust is up, the old chimpoid tribal fighting rules tend to come to the fore, but keeping the human sentience and reasoning and individual decision making is as valid as any other time. I don't disagree that we need a social conscience, but what good is such a conscience if it has little impact upon the other "chimpoids" we're engaged in battle with? We know who we are.. We know that our society is the progressive culmination of thousands of years of civilized thought, as well as the most integrated society on the planet. I have nothing to be ashamed of as an American when I have some "chimpoid" crashing civilian airliners into heavily populated buildings. Nor do I feel much sympathy for any society that brainwashes it's children to become suicide bombers.. So maybe I would be more inclined to listen to Utopian philosophical banter were I not currently engaged in trying to figure out how to change the socio-economic and political landscape for several hundred million muslims on the verge of becoming subjects of a militant Islamic heresy. And maybe I'd be more inclined to listen were more of that pacifistic criticism aimed at them, and not us.. I'm tired of people making excuses for such values, or trying to cast it merely as "blow-back".. It ignores the reality that power abhors a vacuum, and if you don't seek to influence the future to a positive result, we will eventually be forced to confront them when they seek to "influence" OUR futures.. Policies are constantly being formulated, reformulated, abandoned, updated, changed with some zig-zags thrown in just in case. Of course they are Maurice.. But thus far, I haven't seen the critics of this administration offer any viable alternatives except to "exit with honor", whatever that's supposed to mean.. That strikes me as a group of people who see the "Vietnam syndrome" in everything this country does. The bottom line is that many people have not come to grips that, by taking the fight to those who would seek to attack us militarily or economically, we are acting in a manner that someone like Winston Churchill would have acted towards a rising Nazi Party. But the enemy we're fighting now, consisting of stateless supra-national terrorist organizations, is not nearly as easy to confront. We can't merely attack, defeat, and occupy a geographical entity as we did with Germany and Japan. Because these groups operate within the boundaries of other states who are either intimidated into cooperation, or find these groups "useful" for advancing their own political agendas. Nations like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and previously Afghanistan, all have willingly provided sanctuary to such groups, as well as financial support. And that makes them legitimate targets in this war if they don't display significant political change. The bottom line, IMO, is that democracy, in whatever form, and Islamo-Fascist Theocracy are inherently incompatible political systems. And we as a people need to understand that this is a war of ideologies and economics, as well as demographics. The population of the muslim world is growing faster than our own.. That's a indisputable fact. The majority of them live in economic poverty under corrupt and repressive governments. That is a fact. And they are increasingly becoming susceptible to the militant rhetoric of their religous leaders, who intimidate and/or eliminate the more moderate and "reflective" religious leaders of their faith. And in my analysis, we're sitting in a time frame that closely resembles 1931 Weimar Germany... And all the political meteorologists see the "gathering storm" on the horizon, but continue to refuse to alter our course to avoid it. Hawk