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

To: marcos who wrote (117260)	10/20/2003 1:33:56 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<One of the smartest moves Dubya made, was right after 11.09.01 he went to that mosque> Yes, it was smart. But it was just a publicity stunt, a bit of PR. When no actions followed the gesture (or, rather, actions followed that denied the gesture), it looked hypocritical rather than smart. We might be winning this war, if he had respected the Muslim world, when they all told him: 1. don't do Regime Change in Iraq 2. be an honest broker for peace, instead of 100% backing Sharon <' only difference between crime and war is scale' - that's one way to express it, maybe .... probably takes something resembling a government on each side, as well, otherwise there is no opponent with definable territory > One of the interesting questions today, is: Do you need to be a nation-state, with a "definable territory", to wage war? It takes wealth to wage war. When all wealth came from the land, holding it was necessary, to be able to wage war. Today, that may not be true. The Bin Laden family owns companies that operate in many countries, companies which produce profits. Al Queda and Hamas raise funds in nations whose governments ostensibly are against terrorism. They seem to be able to do all the things necessary to wage war: gather funds, recruit soldiers, train, arm themselves, gather information, spread their ideology. Certainly, having a "definable territory" has some advantages. But it also has some big dis-advantages. For instance, look at the situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border. On the Afghan side, they had a government that openly allowed a safe haven for Al Queda. The U.S. did Regime Change, and our soldiers are free to chase them across the countryside. In Pakistan, the government is officially on our side, so we can't do Regime Change. But the Pakistani government has been fairly ineffectual at ending Islamist fund-raising/recruiting/propaganda, and they don't allow U.S. soldiers free access on their soil. So, today, Pakistan functions as a Safe Haven for Al Queda, better than Afghanistan.