Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (135007)	5/31/2004 1:45:42 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I agree with the use of that kind of limited force.... Sure, so do I, so does everybody! But one little question - what if it doesn't work? It did not work with Saddam. Actually, according to Clarke and others, including now Bush, it did work with Saddam. There is no good evidence of any firm connections between Saddam and any terrorist acts in the last decade aimed at America. But your question is a valid one. What do you do when limited force doesn't work? The best example, of course, is the Israeli/Palestinian problem. I still remember Clinton's words at one of the last Camp David meetings attended by all three parties. He said something like, "One day there will be peace between your peoples because you cannot go on killing each other. Your children or your grandchildren or their children will have to make peace, why not do it now?" Those words were spoken before the last conflagration. An eruption that seems to be getting more violent and seems to be polarizing the two populations into camps of hatred and fear that may last a generation and seems to have no end in sight. I don't have an answer but one thing I do know is that the imposition of penalties on the other side, killing their women and children and making them "pay" for the actions of their leaders by each side seems to an utter failure as an answer. Was it a "last resort" for either side? I doubt it and when enough blood has run I suspect that cooler heads will prevail and then the sides will tire of the killing and accept the inevitability of making an uncomfortable peace that will hopefully grow into something permanent. But how much blood will run first?