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

To: skinowski who wrote (140870)	7/19/2004 8:55:22 AM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

Many in the past have tried to stop progress and learning, burning books and libraries, destroying cities, and set time back. Perhaps partially successful in the dark ages, but not in the past 200 years. Its a losing game for OBL provided he is confined to using obsolete technology such as Stinger missiles. Wars magnify the advances of technology- its the challenge that inspires new ideas. An example is defenses for airliners, such as those produced by Northrop to deter missile attacks. Israel airliners already have some defenses, at around $1mm per airplane. With a price of $200mm for a 747, an extra $1mm for defense become practical. biz.yahoo.com home.golden.net boeing.com Sig

To: skinowski who wrote (140870)	7/19/2004 2:59:09 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The group who set Bush up for the invasion of Iraq have some similar characteristics. Whatever the prospects for communism might have been, the idea that communism would find fertile ground in Russia was absurd. The neocon proposition that Iraq would be a god prospect for the US to launch a wave of democratic nation-building in the middle east, as a centerpiece of our foreign policy, also speaks to "revolutionary" (ala bin Laden and Lenin) long-shots similar to Lenin's attempt to force communism on Russia. It isn't that democracy in the middle east is impossible, it is the idea that the US would invade and occupy Iraq and usher in a successful transition to democracy as the anchor of our foreign policy that is absurd. As revolutionaries go, bin Laden's strategy arguably has a better chance to succeed because it is more realistic, and because he has a good idea of what damage our reaction to him does to our own interests. First he attacks us, then he suckers us into one foreign policy fiasco after another.