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

To: stockman_scott who wrote (130042)	4/25/2004 12:56:56 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting comment by Dick Clark: Rather than creating new organizations, we need to give the C.I.A. and F.B.I. makeovers. They cannot continue to be dominated by careerists who have carefully managed their promotions and ensured their retirement benefits by avoiding risk and innovation for decades. The agencies need regular infusions throughout their supervisory ranks of managers and thinkers from other, more creative organizational cultures. He is probably right about that....he had been a careerist for more than 30 years.....

To: stockman_scott who wrote (130042)	4/25/2004 1:06:12 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

The Wrong Debate on Terrorism ______________________________ By RICHARD A. CLARKE An excellent, must read piece by Richard Clarke.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (130042)	4/25/2004 4:51:38 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I was tracking with Clarke, especially with regard to his acknowledging that the primary war is a civil war between militants and moderates within Islam... But then he has to make this inane statement.. Nor will calls from Washington for democratization in the Arab world help if such calls originate from a leader who is trying to impose democracy on an Arab country at the point of an American bayonet. It's as if he believes democracy equates to totalitarianism. As if, by trying to create democracy in Iraq, we're trying to install some kind of puppet dictatorship.. What an IDIOTIC thing for him to say.. Democracy is about creating an governmental system that is accountable to the people living in that country. To give them a VOICE in how that country is govern, as well as to secure their own personal human and civil rights via a legal consensus and political process. But apparently Dick Clarke would prefer that we permit some powerful elite to seize control in Iraq, as if this political "law of the jungle" is the norm to be pursued, a system preferable to a pluralistic political system. You CANNOT impose democracy by the tip of a bayonet. Because democracy IS the norm.... It is the ability to have a say in one's future, and possessing inalienable rights that cannot be arbitrarily taken away by some despotic regime, What has ALREADY BEEN IMPOSED are those governments that DENY people the basic right to have a say in how they are governed. Thus, when used against such regimes, our bayonets can only be used to unleash democracy.. (or to create another non-democratic regime that is "friendly" to us) No Mr. Clarke.. One cannot impose democracy.. Any use of military force is ON BEHALF of those who are too intimidate and afraid to assert their inalienable rights. With that bayonet, you fend off the bayonets of those who would seek to deny the political and economic voice of others living in that society. Mr. Clarke, the world is full of people who use the "bayonet" to impose their own authoritarian and non-democratic regimes upon the helpless and weak. And unfortunately it's also full of people like yourself who apparently believe that's perfectly alright.. And isn't that how we got in this mess in the first place? Isn't it because we've supported morally and politically destitute regimes, all in the name of "stability"? Isn't it because we didn't demand political and economic pluralism from these regimes we gave tacit, or direct, support to?? Isn't it because we permitted them to deny basic human and economic rights to their citizens, leaving them yearning for a personal stake in the future of their countries?? 30 years in government service, and running counter-terrorism, and that's all you've learned?? Geezus!! Hawk