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

To: epicure who wrote (134076)	5/23/2004 4:51:22 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 281500

Here are scientists cautioning the militarization of science: the-scientist.com Using basic economic principles one can surmise that what one subsidizes, one gets more of and what one taxes, one gets less of. We are subsidizing the militarization of our agencies. That suggests that we have more militarized agencies doing militaristic things, indirectly increasing the need for real terrorism to justify the threat assessments. It worries me greatly when the present administration announces specific terrorist acts being on their radar screen, without raising any alert level. These are the same guys who announced general alerts (with not a word of the threat) to maintain the perception that we are at risk. It seems foreboding that their limited specific predictions seem to suggest that fair and honest elections (favoring retention of the incumbent) will be the main targets of terrorism. Silly terrorists!! Why would THEY want 4 more years of Bush? Since he is the enemy, they would want to see him voted out. Would we have invaded Iraq if Saddam could have been simply voted out due to his lack of popularity? We'd be foolish to wage war to do what a people would do anyway, given the right opportunity and timing. One has to ask, who benefits more from having our elections disrupted? The President or the enemy? With the elections coming, there is at least the hope that a new administration would be less invasive into Islamic world politics than the U.S. has been under Bush. The questions must be answered - is American politics becoming corrupted by the divisive nature of the 2 party system, and is American foreign policy becoming entangled in the interests of other nations like Israel and the House of Saud? Both are issues raised George Washington in his 1798 Farewell Speech. No, I feel quite comfortable with the "Left's" Patriotism when reading George's address. There is no need to wrap ideas in a claim of being "more American" or the ideas of a political opponent's being "unpatriotic". In such avoidance, we thereby completely avoid any "last refuge" concerns. If ideas are correct, then they can stand or fall on their own merit, logical integrity, historical correctness and intrinsic morality. Jingoism simply tends to invalidate any claims of superiority.