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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (5133)	12/20/2003 9:02:34 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 20773

Well said. And I have to wonder, if we do nothing about terrorism, what will those statistics look like in 5 or 10 years once they have access to biological, chemical &/or nuclear weapons?

To: rrufff who wrote (5133)	12/20/2003 9:07:16 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Did I ever say we should turn the other cheek and do nothing? So often, political "arguments" are painted in stark terms - support my policy or you support some extreme, unreasonable alternative. We talk about focusing on Afghanistan instead of Iraq and we are Saddam lovers and pro-terrorism and all that crap. I used those statistics to point out the hugely disproportionate amount of resources that were dumped in one area, while we show little or no concern about much larger absolute numbers of human beings who get smashed by often preventable causes every year. I find that disproportional panic and attention very unmoderate. Others think we have to go balls to the wall against terrorism, fine. Let's at least spend the money attacking terrorists who attacked us. The focus needs to be to eliminate the teaching of hatred in the schools. It's heresy and defeatist to point this out, but the odds of the US dictating what is taught in religious schools from Morocco to Indonesia are slim and none. We can't occupy all those countries and transform their educational systems in our own image. You can pressure their leaders to pressure the religious authorities, but America's credibility in the pressure department is iffy at best now. Alliances with friendly tyrants - that opens up a huge Pandora's box. Off the top of my head that means we have to dump our ties with China, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi and Pakistan. I'm sure I overlooked another few dozen nasty autocracies on our Christmas card list. Where do we start breaking off relations? Morality and equity - an even bigger Pandora's box since your morality and equity won't be the same as mine, which won't be the same as Abdul's or Juan's or Wang's or Vusi's or Mahatma's or....etc., etc. You can strive to build a consensus around certain principles. Or you can take the approach above and ostracize anyone you don't agree with. The first approach takes great persuasive powers and the second significant coercive powers to have any effect. As an operational policy, putting your ideas into motion is problematic. That doesn't mean I reject the principles, but we have to think a step further out than the one-paragraph summary.