Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (128716)	4/8/2004 11:08:53 AM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"That we had two choices in dealing with 9/11.. " There are two kinds of people in the world, those who say there were only two choices in dealing with 9/11, and those who don't.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (128716)	4/8/2004 3:07:29 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And try understanding that each and every nation in the mid-east was artificially created by the British and French colonial powers after the defeat of the Ottoman's in 1918. Except Turkey. Ataturk repelled the British-backed Greek invasion.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (128716)	4/8/2004 10:13:55 PM
From: h0db	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawkmoon, you keep carrying neocon water, but the bucket if full of holes. First Iraq was about WMD and links to terrorism, and now it's about making Iraq into a democratic example for the rest of the region. This puts you, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et. al., right in line with Lenin: the ends justify the means. Think about how our former friends in the region view this-- what are the dictatorships we seek to ultimately overthrow from the democratic garden of Iraq? Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Kuwait, Oman, UAE. We're asking them to give us base access and political support while we execute policy, which, if successful, will result in their own destruction. We had some examples of democracy in the Arab world before, most recently in Algeria. What did the freedom-loving people of Algeria do? Elect an Islamic government. what do you think the people of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. would do if they could elect their own leaders? The exact same thing the Algerians did. But ultimate this is a purely abstract discission because we have already failed in Iraq. We failed in the first three months when we failed to have a plan for what to do after we won. We "liberated" Iraq and the plunged it into the worse chaos they've ever known. We expected gratitude because we overthrew Saddam, but the only people truly happy about his downfall are those now vying for their own separate bases of power-- the Shi'ite clergy and the Kurds. The saddest irony is that the State Dept. actually had spent three years drawing up detailed occupation and reconstruction plans--security, basic services, de-baathization, conversion of the military. What happened to those plans? Rummy and Dicky and the gang ignored them. Why? Because they did not include a leadership role for Chalabi. theatlantic.com Now we are reaping the whirlwind. This is now an insurgency. Our choices are to stay and bleed a while while we search for peace with honor, or follow the Israeli model and respond with overwhelming force and ruthlessness. We don't have the stomach for the second option, and it won't win the war or create a democratic Iraq; it will just inflame the hearts and minds we had thought we had already won when the statue of Saddam was pulled down last year.