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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (132781)	5/12/2004 11:43:39 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawk: What we need today is lots of patience. Let the militants make worse moves than we do. Butchering an American civilian is one of those mistakes. OBL had it made: Plenty of money,with more rolling in from blackmailing the Saudis.A whole country to roam around in and a growing constituency. He blew it, struck too soon and too strong on 911 with no follow-up. Thought he had a safe haven and the US could not or would not win in Afghanistan if the Russians could not. Now hes holed up in the mountains , his money is gone, his supposed infallability is gone, and very little is left of his organization if thats what one can call it. Al Sadr has the same problem, he moved too soon, took over Fallugha and brought in the Marines. Overstepped his position, got a lot of townspeople killed, lost a lot of insurgents and ammo, brought in the real clerics to tell him to knock if off and get out of town. So he moved to Najif in the shade of a Mosque and they dont want him there either. Those who planned and carried out the attacks in Spain? Nearly all are dead now. Underated the Spanish authorities. Tough. Our job now is to make fewer mistakes than the enemy. Leaving Iraq before the job is finished would be mistake. Not even Kerry recommends thats. IMO changing Administration in the middle of a war would also be a mistake - but thats not a shared opinion. And with a country divided 50/50 politically no future wars are going to get the full support of the public. Which leaves military assignments properly in the hands of elected officials. Help may be on the way(g) cnn.com Sig

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (132781)	5/13/2004 12:48:22 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Ah, so your answer to the "drain the swamp" conceptuality question is economic development. Which is fine in principle, but given the total botch of the post-war security situation, extremely problematic in practice. Then there's the somewhat unrelated issue that W's team seems to have primarily seen "ecomomic development" in the Iraqi arena as an opportunity for big contracting bondoggles for Halliburton and Bechtel types. Economic development in undeveloped countries is difficult in the best of circumstances, at least under the current World Bank / IMF regime. In Iraq, the circumstances are far from the best. On the other other hand, there's the historical disdain of conservatives for "social engineering", along with the more specific disdain of the neocon true believers for "Arab Minds", except that now the truest of true believers are supposed to somehow convince a skeptical population of "Arab Minds" that the true believer way is indeed the one true way. Good luck to them.