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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133150)	5/16/2004 10:59:32 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Kind of like how Bismark's unification of the numerous German principalities prepared Germany for being a nation. I wonder if anyone's ever looked into the effect of the tremendous war death decreases in the male populations of Germany and Japan in terms of the willingness of those countries to change course following the war? A lot of testosterone went away and was gone for a generation. It makes sense that a stronger female oriented population would create some cultural and political changes, especially in populations that had seen their sons, husbands and fathers leave for war, die, and accomplish nothing but disaster.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133150)	5/16/2004 3:24:18 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 281500

Because, of all the Arab countries in the region, Iraq was the most secular, and one of the more modern with regard to women's rights.. One could have said this about Iraq in the late 70s. All sorts of rough beasts were lurking in the shadows there and in Iraq of today, though. Whether we leave or stay, this war has been a disaster, though. You writing, "But hey, we have to let the Iraqis make the hard decisions for themselves so that they recognize that any repercussions that result are their own fault, not ours" is just a rationalization. For one thing, it is always tricky business to speak of a "nation" making a "decision," even in a representative govt with "real" elections. Second, Saddam's regime was already tottering even before we invaded due to the sanctions. And third, we won't have made a serious dent in Al Qaeda--instead we've opened up the "most secular" of Arab countries to anti-American influence, we've made even more enemies in both the Arab and the non-Arab world, we've lost our focus on Al Qaeda, we've diverted hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of men as well as our attention from the real war on terrorists in order to bring down a guy who was already caged. And, if recent reports are correct, we didn't even kill one of the worst and, apparently, most competent of our real enemies (Zarqawi) when we had the opportunity back 2002. This admin has been incredibly incompetent.