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: Jacob Snyder who wrote (150062)	10/31/2004 7:40:25 AM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I think you are forgetting one example of Muslim assitance - the police and troops of Iraq are fighting the resistance against rebel leaders with the help of US troops. I doubt that Iraq is going to ask Iran for military support. Iran is providing more rebel assistance to the Sunni troops.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (150062)	10/31/2004 10:51:44 AM
From: SBHX	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

that's the situation today, in Iraq. A small minority is willing to take active measures against America. But nobody, not in Iraq, not throughout the entire Muslim world This is probably one assessment we have to disagree on. There is an attempt at least to build an Iraq defence force capable of holding their own, so things are not as bleak as you say, nor are they as bright as the administration paints. The true situation is likely in the middle and it can still go either way. This is why it is really a contest of wills. However, if the americans do not have the will as OBL seems to think, then the alternative is the peace at all cost doctrine. I don't believe the broad majority of americans are ready to accept defeat so easily, having seen leadership and a united people at various points turning back the tides. Suppose you are correct, that this war is already lost, then is it not logical to project the fall of Saigon into this? The less discussed aftermath of unification of Vietnam that was not discussed by Jane Fonda, Tom Harkin and John Kerry was that it was not peaceful farmers that took back their land without bloodshed, but millions of people were displaced, reeducated and very often, killed. Is this what you want for Iraq? To have a civil war between the Shias and Sunnis fought by proxy between Iran and Syria? Do you wish the Kurds to seccede and get Turkey involved? What of the symbollic effect of the jihadi theocracy defeating the evil secular ideology of the west? How will this resonate in the Middle East? I believe the parallel for your scenario is the mid to late 1970s. A return to the conditions during the days of Jimmy Carter would be a catastrophe and if you were alive back then, you will realize that I mean. But I don't believe you are correct, because unlike vietnam, there is a realization in most americans that the islamic terrorism problem really won't go away until there is moderation in the middle east. A couple of flawed but functional and working democracies are not that impossible to establish. There exists the track record of Afghanistan as a template of how it might work in Iraq, as imperfect as it is, there is a way for this to succeed. Which means, there is a way for your pessimistic scenario to not unfold.