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

To: Neocon who wrote (130107)	4/26/2004 10:11:13 AM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

When you decide to become part of the truth, freedom and democracy camp, we will be glad to have you back.

To: Neocon who wrote (130107)	4/26/2004 10:21:23 AM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

...had difficulty acknowledging dilemmas, looked for purity where it was not to be found, and acted as if there were no constraints against "having it all". Sounds like a very accurate description of what the neocons did in Iraq. Not surprising, given their leftist past.

To: Neocon who wrote (130107)	4/26/2004 11:32:50 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Neocon, I'll be a lot more impressed with the "adult" approach you so blithely attribute to the neocons/conservatives when I see some evidence that it's a success. There was a time when our problem was an incipient radical movement among the Islamic extremists. Now we have a much more advanced movement along with the care and feeding of 25mm people, many of whom are passively hoping or actively seeking to kill and destroy our troops and mission. The fact that the Bush people seem to want to overlook, with the exception of Rumsfeld's musing to the effect that we "may" be creating more terrorists than we are killing and capturing, is that there are two primary factors that lend themselves to the birth of terrorists. One is the tendency of some people, especially hot blooded, intelligent and pious young men, to be martyrs in a worthy cause. The second is the number of people that see an abuse of power by an evil force that "must be stopped." What we've done recently is to point most of those people at us and to greatly increase the number of them. In addition we've swelled the ranks of those who are what I call "revenge terrorists;" the fathers, brothers, mothers, uncles, sisters etc. of civilians or Iraqi soldiers killed in the "war." With better technology and a smaller world many of those martyr personalities are capable of causing us great damage. Sure they're killing us over there but with the increased number and the increased intensity with which they view us as, to coin Bush's phrase, "evil doers," the number pointed at our homeland has undoubtedly not been reduced. You can be sure that many of them are pondering and planning ways to harm us at home. So unless you live under a rock and think that the war in Iraq didn't make any more Islamic people actively hate us and become willing to risk death to harm us, that's a price we've paid. The cost/benefit question for you current self-proclaimed adults is "what has the war in Iraq done for us and what will it do for us?" It's interesting that so much has been said by the neocons about helping those "poor Iraqis." You'd almost think that our efforts and billions and lost lives there are in the form of a humanitarian sacrifice. Of course you don't see those same sentiments at work here at home so I think I'll be a little skeptical about that one. In the final analysis, however, it makes no difference; the Iraqis will go where their religion, culture and history leads them. They may do it sooner, or they do it later, but they will inevitably end up there and if they have to rid themselves of our counter pressure by violence, they will do so. The bottom line is that the Bush administration's so called "adult thinking" is incomplete and its "mission in Iraq" is undoable. That, of course, is why the "mission" has to change every few months. Being wrong is a big thing when families are losing loved ones. And yes, I mean ours and theirs, but especially ours. Better to have moved to the center, Neo. The left or the right are both too partisan and are indoctrinated with too much puffery. And real "adults" understand that the race to defeat and control terrorism is a marathon, not a sprint. Be patient, grasshopper.

To: Neocon who wrote (130107)	4/26/2004 1:37:40 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<<<I decided that I wanted to be in the adult camp, politically speaking.>>> I am not being sarcastic, if you could clear up some confusion in my mind, I would like to know from your point of view: 1. Why are we in Iraq? The reason I ask is because I didn't think conservatives were into nation building and it seems like we are into nation building in Iraq big time. 2. How would you realistically like to see things end up in Iraq (another words - what is achievable)? 3. How long do you think it will take and how much much do you think it will cost (give or take a few $billion). If you feel like answering - I don't need a lot of detail - I'm not a detail type person (probably like GWB in that way ggggg>