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

To: longnshort who wrote (132519)	5/10/2004 8:30:42 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This was posted to me on Free Republic, and I like it a lot, so am passing it on: >>To: CobaltBlue There is an understandable desire to avenge the terror attacks on our homeland and our troops overseas. However, I subscribe the notion that this is news because the United States is not trying to simply conquer and occupy Iraq. Nor are we simply trying to seek out and destroy terrorist strongholds. Rather, we are attempting to institute a constitutional republic in a very troubled part of the world. These reports undermine the legitimacy of our efforts. The Pentagon has taken prompt and appropriate action to address the situation. However, we must not be outraged that there has been an outcry from the press or the Congress. It is a political year. All bets are off and we should acknowledge that. The missus and I believe that we are entitled to "discipline" our children. We do it lovingly and appropriately. If we administered discipline in public, we should anticipate that some might not understand us. Therefore, we should conduct ourselves so that we administer discipline as needed and avoid the watchful eyes of others. We could control this thing if we were simply dealing with an investigative report. The furor would be far less. We cannot control the power of images. That is why a medium such as television is so dangerous. Are the images out of the ordinary? Uh, I usually do not witness piles of nekkid Arabs lying on the ground in my hometown. Is what is depicted appropriate behavior on the part of our military? Well, that is a more difficult issue. Was the POW camp at Andersonville appropriate? Was the firebombing of Dresden appropriate? If one subscribes to the theory that all is fair in war, then to be consistent one must say that any behavior is acceptable. Therefore, it would be acceptable for our soldiers to rape Iraqi women, kill Iraqi babies and sodomize Iraqi youth. After all, they contributed to the massacre of our people. If we are unable to go that far, we have to develop a code or foundation for appropriate behavior. Where do we as a culture want to draw that line? My faith dictates that might does not make right. We have an obligation to treat even vile criminals humanely until they have been judged and found guilty. The way we do these things projects our values as a society. No one is surprised by the brutality of terrorists. That's not news. No one is surprised when a rabid dog bites a mailman. We are surprised when soldiers acting under the color of authority and wearing out flag do thins kind of stuff in our name. I'm not moaning about it, but I am concerned and I thing that we all should be.<< freerepublic.com

To: longnshort who wrote (132519)	5/10/2004 9:22:42 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I find it amazing the libs think Abu Ghraib is worst then 9-11 when 3000 INNOCENT citizens were MURDERED. "Have you forgotten?" With regard to winning the war against the Islamic militant ideology, it's a disaster.. 9/11 was the equivalent of Pearl Harbor. It woke us up (at least some of us) to the threat that Islamic militancy posed directly to our country. But the war must be fought in the Middle East. It's a war for the futures of millions of muslim youths, who's beliefs and opinions are currently being shaped RIGHT NOW, awaiting actualization when they reach adulthood. And it's a war that must be both carrot and stick.. We cannot just fight this war with guns and bombs. We have to fight it with superior political, moral, and economic values. The middle east is a mess right now.. Economic stagnation, major demographic pressures, peaking oil production and a non-diversified industrial base that can employ their people. And there are two major ideologies currently vying for the minds of those young people.. Westernism and Islamism. My whole view of Iraq is that it presented an opportunity to attempt to reverse the existing trend in the Mid-East and force the Islamists to defend their own turf, while providing some major motivation for the regimes in the region NOT to surrender to their Islamist pressures. So yes.. in the strategic view, this scandal is a major defeat for our foreign policy goals. It's not the end of the war, but it's going to make the job that much harder to perform, and final victory that much more difficult (and bloody) to achieve. Btw, those Islamic militants attempted to kill far more than 3,000 people. Had they been only two hours later, the death toll could have been as high as 20,000 or more. So no.. I have CERTAINLY NOT FORGOTTEN. Hawk