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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (75083)	10/5/2004 6:03:32 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793926

A very interesting read, indeed, though I disagree with one of the author's major premises, i.e., that we have not been explaining our purpose clearly. It is clear to me and to everyone who listens to Bush that his purpose is to radically change the Middle East not necessarily out of some mystical belief in democracy's merits but because of a hard-headed, hard-nosed calculation that doing so is ultimately in our best interests. Democracy is merely the vehicle for the plan to have failing Arab and Muslim countries get on their feet and achieve some modicum of freedom and independence. If there were other vehicles that would do the trick, I have no doubt that they too would be used. It's ultimately about population growth. There are a lot more of Them than there are of Us--if they're more or less happy, more or less free, more or less better off economically, They are a lot less likely to think about suicide bombings, terror, etc. We will eventually be outnumbered--those masses simply cannot stay subjugated because allowing so will ultimately mean constant war, constant terror, a huge drain on our resources, etc. Throwing money at the problem doesn't work. We learned that domestically through the welfare mess. We might as well try to fix things. I'm not convinced it's going to work, but what is the alternative? The first step, of course, was to get rid of the thugs like Saddam. That and oil is why we did what we did. The rest is all BS.

To: Suma who wrote (75083)	10/5/2004 7:05:42 PM
From: tbancroft	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793926

Barnett offers such good insight, but his assertion that it doesn't matter whether it is Bush or Kerry as POTUS (or actually, that Kerry might be better than Bush) absolutely astounds me. Kerry can and will abandon critical strategies if he senses sentiment running against him, regardless of the long term implications and/or results. He's shown no compunction about making statements slandering allies, nor about discouraging our soldiers. (At least he's not actively disparaging them, as he did in '71.) Here’s what this splitting of the U. S. military means to the American people: The National Security Act of 2005 tentatively sits on the far side of this national election. I fully expect that if Bush is reelected, this piece of legislation will be profound, moving America down the pathway of seriously reordering its national-security establishment for the better. Does that mean a Kerry administration wouldn’t do the same? Not at all. In fact, that administration may well be the far better choice to pull off such a dramatic reorganization, given the growing distrust of many Americans and the world regarding the Bush administration’s integrity on matters of security.