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

To: skinowski who wrote (152662)	11/26/2004 8:55:59 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You might win that bet, and you may not. The point is, that many people see it as wrong to "bet" with another country's future at all, when it involves an invasion, and a war against "insurgents" (now why aren't THEY the moral equivalent of our founding fathers?). And extremists (who are not crazy at all) will always have a certain advantage over countries like ours, because they are not bound by any normal rules- which often leads to them winning. Now you could say "fine" we won't be bound by normal rules either, but then the extremists still win, because they will have broken our country to the point where we do things that only an extremist would do, and by making us extremist, in response to their extremism, they will have destroyed what we are. It's always a good thing, imo, not to fight extremists unless you really really have to. Many people still are upset that we went in to this war which does not appear to have been necessary, and which looks less and less likely to have a clear win for us. That is why it may look like to you that "some people seem to be so absolutely certain that extremists and crazies would be victorious over the US - and over the many Iraqis who would like some normalcy in their country." but the whole thing is a great deal more nuanced than your simple statement- and even than this little post.

To: skinowski who wrote (152662)	11/26/2004 8:57:38 AM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

From day one we brought anarchy to Iraq -- as soon as Iraqis realized that we were either unwilling or incapable of establishing any sort of civil order of any kind, the looting of Iraq spread like fire in dry grass. The lawlessness was not "extremists" -- it was pure criminal activity. The only thing that could stop the criminals is the mullahs -- and they will in time form the backbone of the Iraqi political system. That is not because the Iraqi people overwhelmingly want a theorcracy -- it is because we showed ourselves impotent and incompetent at the task we now use as our justification for the invasion -- nation building. We can destroy a nation -- we have the firepower to destroy every nation on earth. But we have shown ourselves incapable of taking even the first and most basic steps in nation building -- restoring order.