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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (135683)	6/4/2004 9:35:27 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sometimes you make a heck of a lot of sense! When I consider possible responses by the USA to the 911 attacks, I think the world has got off very lightly and things have gone remarkably well. The USA hasn't had further attacks, a billion Moslems should be grateful that the USA is not as barbaric as the Islamic Jihad head-hacking thugs, the world's economy is zooming along, the total number of dead is only in the 10s of thousands [Afghanistan and Iraq combined].

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (135683)	6/4/2004 9:37:16 PM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 281500

MQ, This is a gem of a post. mike

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (135683)	6/5/2004 4:31:00 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, I have to disagree with most of your disagreement. I don't think that the USA is weaker than it has been. I'd say it's at all time strength. I'm not sure what your basis for this statement might be. In terms of military strength, the U.S. has expended a huge amount of energy, munitions and equipment fighting a war a half a world away from America. Our fighting forces are tired, overworked and many of their families are maxed out in terms of their willingness to sacrifice. There is concern in this country that our reenlistment levels in the National Guard, and maybe even the regular services, will fall below the level we need to maintain our necessary troop strength. (We do accept enlistments from New Zealanders in case you're interested.) We're at the point where we're pulling troops away from other troubled areas in order to attempt to continue at strength in Iraq, and the situation there seems to be susceptible to becoming more, rather than less, of a drain. Our equipment is in need of more and more maintenance and repair and our economy is straining to meet the expenses necessary to keep things going at the current level, much less at a higher level. Our involvement in other areas of the world didn't cease to be necessary when we went on our Iraqi misadventure and we're still spending billions on "star wars" defense; a program that is dubious in every way except in its capacity to feed the coffers of big defense contractors. So with a defense capability that's almost totally immersed in a no-end-in-sight struggle in Iraq which is draining its resources, its manpower and its equipment, as well as its planning and brainpower, why do you say with respect to America that "it's at its all time strength?" Also, democracy hasn't got a bad name. The USA neither invented democracy nor is democracy dependent on the USA to keep it alive as a political idea. You wrote that in response to my assertion that "the vision of demcracy is badly tainted." In the context of the middle east, I would say you are probably wrong and that I am probably right. The world has heard the Bush Administration tout the benefits of democracy and freedom where "torture, abuse of rights and brutality" are not tolerated. The press in the region has pounced on the pictures of innocent Iraqis injured and killed in the fighting there, they've shown the pictures of the abuses in the prisons, they've published stories about the men and women taken from their homes and imprisoned in the dark of the night with no word on where they were taken or when they'll come home, and they have seen the work up to the war in our "free democracy" by our government and our "free press" and they now know that the "threat of wmd" justification for the war was probably greatly exaggerated. I don't think our actions in Iraq have done anything to give democracy a good name in the Gulf region; the opposite is true but I'll be happy to hear you explain your reasoning. Overall, things seem to be going not too badly in Iraq and elsewhere. Not as well as they could have, but not as bad as they might have either. You are absolutely correct. Of course no matter how badly things were going an optimist or an apologist could make that claim and then substantiate it. The head administrator for our school district stated with respect to one of our principals, "I don't think {x) is doing such a bad job that x should be fired." My response was the he was asking the wrong question, the right question was whether x was doing a great enough job to be retained. My response to you is the same, the question isn't whether things could be worse, the question is whether things should be better. Even overlooking the faulty reasoning that led to the Iraqi occupation, in Iraq each day marked, and marks, a new beginning. For many of those days we continued to do and say the wrong things at great cost to our soldiers, our treasure, the Iraqis and our prestige. In recent WEEKS the lumps in charge of Iraq have finally gotten enough bumps on their heads to finally start to figure things out, but they're still lumps and to say that "things could be worse" is to use the wrong evaluation standard. That mistake is compounded by saying that a billion Moslems should be grateful that the USA is not as barbaric as the Islamic Jihad head-hacking thugs, the world's economy is zooming along, the total number of dead is only in the 10s of thousands [Afghanistan and Iraq combined]. Even overlooking the obvious fact that we had no reason to retaliate barbarically against a "billion Moslems" because of the terrorist acts of a few that call themselves Muslim, your dismissal of those who've died horrible, unnecessary and tragic deaths as being "only in the 10s of thousands," indicates an "us and them" attitude. After all, 9/11 involved a whole lot less deaths, injuries and suffering. Why not use your dismissive standard and forget about 9/11 since it only involved a "few thousand" deaths. In fact, why not talk about how it could have been a "lot worse," knock on wood and feel really, really grateful to have been so lucky. Most streets go both ways. I also found it remarkable that your post got two "attaboys" from fellow posters, but on reflection I realized that you're saying the kinds of things I wished were true. We do like to feel good about what we do or what we've done, even when we shouldn't. And yes, I suspect OBL was laughing at us when his worst enemy in the Gulf and the man responsible for the deaths of many Islamic clerics was removed from power by the American military.