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

To: Ilaine who wrote (141037)	7/20/2004 3:01:33 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 281500

Repetition is the key to the Big Lie theory....

To: Ilaine who wrote (141037)	7/20/2004 6:10:15 PM
From: Noel de Leon	Respond to of 281500

Moi? repeating my self? Try this: ""I read your commentary," began a conversation with a Dear Reader the other day. "And it is kind of funny. I mean, this is a war that is costing, what $100 billion...and nearly 1,000 American lives. But people don´t really talk about it. They don´t really know anything about it, and don´t know what to say. "The war was probably pretty stupid from the very beginning. But most people trust their leaders...and they don´t know anything about al Qaeda or Iraq. When 9/11 came, they just wanted the government to do something. So, the government did something. Everybody was more or less in favor of it. Even Hillary [Clinton] and Kerry voted for it. "It kinda makes sense that most people...the people you refer to as the lumpen...would want to go and kick somebody´s butt. America´s supposed to be the biggest military power on earth. It just didn´t make sense that we couldn´t even protect ourselves from a group of guys with box-cutters. "Of course, that´s the thing about a Republic. You´re supposed to elect people that are smart, sober and calm. And these guys are supposed to sit around in solemn debate at times like this. They´re supposed to carefully weigh the merits of various arguments and decide what is best for the country. They´re not supposed to be swept along by mob sentiment. They might do something dumb. "But now you´ve got CNN and the Internet...and everybody gets whipped up at the same time...and the politicians just go along with whatever is getting high numbers in the polls. That´s not the way it is supposed to work, but that´s what happens...and it´s just what - who do you keep referring to - de Toqueville...warned about. Or maybe it was George Washington. I think you had the quote in the Daily Reckoning...´I leave you a Republic...if you can keep it.´ "Well, it turns out that we couldn´t keep a Republic any better than Rome could. Now, we have a circus in Washington and a clown in the White House. And I agree with you...Kerry wouldn´t be any better. In fact, he might be worse. "You had a good line in the Daily Reckoning the other day...what was it...oh...that America will be great as long as she is good. I think that was from de Tocqueville too. But like ancient Rome, it looks to me that we stopped being ‘good’ a long time ago. Good people don´t go bombing other people just because they think they may be up to something. And they don´t let other people pay their bills for them either - but that´s another issue. "But getting back to my point...I think most people still think that the war against Iraq was a pretty good thing. It got Saddam out of there. And we didn´t know what threat he posed...but at least we found out...and now he poses no threat at all. "The scary thing is that almost no one was against the war for the right reason...and that´s still true today. People argued that it wouldn´t work. But almost no one said it was wrong to go kill people. If the war had gone well - almost everyone would be happy with it. That´s what I mean about America not being good. Everyone wants it to be great...and no one seems to care if it’s good or not. Maybe it was always that way...I don´t know. You reach a certain size and a certain power...and maybe you can´t help but throw your weight around. I think you´ve been saying something like that in the Daily Reckoning. Anyway...it´s only because it didn´t go well that people are now against it. Heck, I guess it´s better that it didn´t go well. If it had gone well, we´d be in Damascus by now."" The Daily Reckoning Baltimore, Maryland Tuesday, July 20, 2004