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

To: skinowski who wrote (152656)	11/26/2004 10:11:12 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi skinowksi; Re: "So, when the average fool will lose hope for victory and normalization, we will cut our losses and happily abandon the "quagmire"?" We will cut our losses and *sadly* abandon the quagmire. Re: "Then, all will be well?" Things will slowly get better. Things have slowly been getting better for hundreds of years. Heck, when I was little, we practiced drills for an expected nuke war with the USSR. That makes terrorism look like a picnic. Re: "Isn't this precisely what - what's his face - Zarqawi - is trying to achieve?" The best play for Al Qaeda, strategically, is to keep us in Iraq for as long as possible. While this is their best play, I would guess that driving us out is their goal. People don't always make the best play. We're stuck in a land war in Asia, for example, LOL. As I've said before, Iraq will likely end up controlled by one or another of their many right wing religious groups when this is over. In the short run, that's a bad thing for us. But in both the short run and the long run, the people of Iraq will have to make their own discoveries about who runs their country better. They've already tried Saddam, and they didn't like secular dictators. Maybe after they've experimented a bit they'll be a bit more friendly. Our basic problem is that we have no way to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Instead, they're watching Al Jazeera, which is showing footage (that they interpret as that) of an Iraqi prisoner being executed by a swearing American soldier. We have few friends in Iraq, and with the continuing war, our friends become fewer. I read that Iraqi political groups are asking for a postponement of the elections. I say that we should have the elections no matter how violent the country is, declare victory, and leave. -- Carl