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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (122078)	12/25/2003 4:41:00 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "... does the ability to do business have a wee bit to do with free markets and rule of law, conditions which exist in places like South Korea thanks to US Marines?" There is little correlation. McDonalds is doing fine in places that have never seen US boots like India and China, but is essentially absent from places like Iraq. And during the whole time that we were in Vietnam, there was no McDonalds presence. Nor do our soldiers bring free markets or law. To get those things is mostly a matter of the locals getting together and deciding to do it. For example, China now passed a law for the respect of private property, but no US troops were involved. Oh, and on the subject of how wonderfully the war in Iraq is going, here's the latest headline from the NY Times: 4 G.I.'s and 6 Iraqi Civilians Are Killed in Bomb Attacks Edward Wong, NY Times, December 25, 2003 As Iraqis and occupation soldiers began their Christmas celebrations on Wednesday and early Thursday, guerrilla fighters unleashed a string of intense rocket and bomb attacks across the country, killing at least four American soldiers and six Iraqi civilians and wounding dozens of people, military and government officials said. ... nytimes.com Sharon's plan for making Israel safe continues to fail with another half dozen dead today. Meanwhile, Pakistani fundamentalists (presumably) try to blow up our boy Musharraf for the second time in two weeks. What's going to happen to the Pakistani nukes after he's gone? Do you suppose that the Moslem fundamentalists are angry at the US and Israel and might smuggle a nuke into Jerusalem or New York? -- Carl