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

To: frankw1900 who wrote (122702)	1/3/2004 2:19:25 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 281500

<They're dead.> No they are not. For every one we kill ten more will take their place. Nor is hatred of America dead. There are things that have died: Any prospect for peace in the middle east and the rule of law.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (122702)	1/3/2004 7:44:55 PM
From: skinowski	Respond to of 281500

Thanks. One of the interesting things about your post is that it illustrates how difficult it is to argue when parties disagree - or see differently - literally every word and every detail. It's like if people are talking about different things - and using different languages. No wonder there is so little mutual understanding out there, in the real world.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (122702)	1/4/2004 9:27:12 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

To add to some of the points you've made, everyone overestimates what can be accomplished in a year, and underestimates what will happen in a decade. One only has to look at recent history to see how durable some of these regimes are if everyone takes a "hands off, maybe it'll go away" approach (a second generation in power in North Korea, and the same would almost certainly have happened in Iraq.) A real issue is that it was not really our job in the US to deal with the regime, since the Baathists have done vastly more direct harm to Arabs and Persians than to Americans, or Israelis for that matter. But for strategic reasons, we've taken on the thankless task, and will hopefully see it through. What are euphemistically called "insurgents" attacking "soft targets" (someone should get the Nobel journalism prize for inventing these terms) are simply criminal elements which always seem to thrive in disorderly transitional periods. Claims that cowardly murder of civilians celebrating New Years, or Red Cross hospital workers helping put the nation on its feet by a suicide car bombs piloted by some poor schmuck brainwashed for the occasion have something to do with "nationalistic pride" are simply absurd, but typical of the moral obliquity of a certain part of the left wing - that part that completely discredits progressive thinking by proffering such nonsense. One thing we don't hear is speculation what Saddam Hussein might have done to anyone caught attempting a suicide car bombing in his country. Maybe this is the real reason Iraq seemed so "orderly" while his regime was in power. The people behind these attacks know that if they're caught, they won't be taken down to some basement and dipped in acid baths by Americans. Saddam himself knew this well, and was willing to save his own skin by surrendering without a shot. One really has to laugh at the stupidity of a country like France. Go figure, if they had simply supported what we are doing, they'd have been able to share in the profits of reconstructing Iraq, and in the end would probably have made out better than they would if the economic sanction ridden Baathists remained in power for another 2 decades. Chirac and his cronies are complete fools and deserve to miss out.