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

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (130669)	4/30/2004 4:38:54 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You potted history is false, as is your allegation that military power is to be used to democatize the world. (There was never a Christian doctrine permitting forced conversion, any such attempts were ad hoc, and the Crusades were meant to come to the aid of the Byzantine Empire and protect the Holy Places, for example, not to convert Muslims). No one is interested in invading regimes that do not threaten their neighbors or constitute a humanitarian threat to elements of their own populations. They may not be democratic, but we will only seek cultural influence, as long as they are not intolerable. There is not even a dictum that bids us intervene everywhere that it might be justified, without regard to other factors. Iraq is a fairly unique case, and tied up in the general mess of the Middle East and the rise of terrorism...........

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (130669)	4/30/2004 8:31:17 PM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Now military power is being used to democratize the world(starting with Iraq). Any bets? >> In reality all we can hope to accomplish in Iraq is to provide an adequate environment for democracy to proceed. The Iraqi's will learn that their reluctance to pay the price now to support this movement to democracy will only result in a higher price to be paid later on. It took the USA numerous decades to largely achieve the ideals presented in the Declaration of Independence and our founding documents. Most of these ideals are universal among man. Until we set at least a part of the Mideast in a direction that gradually achieves these ideals we will never have a hope of defeating the Islamicists. Iraq is an ideal and necessary target. If anyone is reading anything about the economic growth in China and India and its effects on global commodities prices you should also learn that the energy supply of the world is very precarious. So precarious that failure to protect and grow Iraqi oil exports will have a devastating impact on the globe. Getting Saddam off of his pot of black gold was necessary. He would not have needed a WMD more than his control of oil.