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

To: NightOwl who wrote (126324)	3/16/2004 1:29:19 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi NightOwl; Re: ""Arab complaint?" This ain't no stinking "Arab complaint!" It's a universal complaint! Nobody likes the Top Dog CB" What you're doing is applying psychological reasoning to "explain" the behavior of the Arabs, but your reasoning is more than just faulty. By your own logic, the Spanish and British should also be flying planes into our buildings. They're not, so your reasoning fails as a "sufficient" condition for a foreign people to use terror against us. And what about the Spanish? Are they the "top dog"? Certainly not, but that didn't protect them from being attacked by those Arabs. Thus your logical reasoning also fails as a "necessary" condition for a foreign people to use terror against us. What you've given me is illogical lawyer reasoning, nothing more than emotional argument. The best I can say for it is that it gives more support to the rumor that lawyers systematically eliminate logical people from jury pools. Re: "Similarly the world welcomes our tourrorists in the knowledge that they come bearing "stuff." And if by "keeping with local customs" you mean, leaving in three days or less, without most of the "stuff" you came in with, then I would have to admit grudging agreement." What you're saying here is a mirror image of the circumstances of how we welcome foreign tourists in the US. In other words, we welcome them provided that they spend money and don't stay. That's all the welcome anyone could expect. Hell, that's as good as the welcome I can expect when visiting parts of my own country. Re: "Suffice to say if you want to remain Top Dog and have a moral aversion to coercion, then by all means try bribery/deceit. But please. Give them YOUR "stuff" not mine because I just don't have much left." (a) I have no need to remain top dog, it just doesn't matter that much. As I've stated before, I don't think that this is possible over the long run. (b) I do not have a moral aversion to coercion. My complaint with Iraq is that it FAILED, not that it was immoral per se. That is, the immorality is largely in the WASTED lives, not in the loss as such. (c) I'm not advocating a policy of bribery. In fact, I've repeatedly stated that attempts to win friends through bribery has a 100% failure rate. And our attempts to win the friendship of Iraqis through assistance to their country is similarly fated. (d) I'm not advocating a policy of deceit. Bush seems to make this his calling card, but I don't think it's a good idea. It's possible to deceive people about things happening far away, as, for example, Bush deceived the American people about the situation in Iraq, but it is quite another thing to deceive far away people about their own situation. As I've repeatedly stated, the American government cannot convince its own citizens to stop killing themselves with handguns and cigarettes, and those are clearly in our best interest; how can they possibly convince a foreign population that we've bombed the bejesus out of for 12 years that they should luv us? Re: "Hey get over it. Until and unless you find a way to give up the Crown, step down from the Throne, give up the Numero Uno place at the carcass, and the "Leadership of The Free World" that goes with it, THEY will be coming after you." Probably 99% of all terror attacks are against targets other than the US so I don't see what your theory of the "top dog" has to do with reality. For that matter, by your own theory, the whole world should be after our head. Instead, only the part of the world where we got involved assisting a local minority of Israelis against a local majority of Arabs is using terror against us. Furthermore, they use it equally against ALL other countries that get involved with them. And yet you conclude that they're after us because we're #1? Re: "Personally if it were up to me I might consider making OBL the next God Emperor." By making this comment in response to me do you admit that our actions in Iraq have left our military less able to confront other significant threats? Re: "What is needed for any competent Top Dog today is the certainty of the old "smash, grab and get" war policy of Sherman/Grant. Let the mess fester and ferment. If it produces a worthy blend keep it. If not "smash, grab, and get" again and again until they get it right." I was in favor of the prewar situation in Iraq, as compared to the current situation. Before the war, if one read about bombs in Iraq, it wasn't our guys that were getting blown up. Now we're the targets. If what you're arguing for here is to pull out of Iraq and use the strengths that our military does possess (rather than occupation), I agree. But the WTC attacks were founded, in part, in Afghanistan, and it is that sort of anarchy that Iraq appears to be headed towards. In that, Bush has not made progress in the war against the roots of terrorism, he has instead created a new and more virulent form. The continuing attacks of Al Qaeda are just more proof. -- Carl