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

To: epicure who wrote (173905)	11/3/2005 11:28:50 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And just because terrorists are active somewhere, does not mean the mainstream have accepted militant Islam there- No.. of course not. But what it does mean is that those people will be required to live in fear due to the activities of those terrorists. Because terrorism's purpose is JUST THAT, to instill terror and fear, and undermine the people's confidence in the government. And as that government totters, the moderates will flee, the investment capital will flee, and the economy will fall to ruin.. And once the people's will to resist is destroyed, they will become sheep and do whatever they are told in order to just survive. In effect, they accept the new reality because they have no way of altering it. It's happened time and time again.. But that said.. We do UNDERSTAND (at least many of the people I work for) that we have to stop the terrorist networks without pushing more people into joining them.. But we're not making the policy and there are many US military and State department leaders who don't seem to understand that the solution revolves around finding Iraqis who are willing to stand up and fight, and THEN insuring those people are protected and supported, not just left to their own devices as we move to the next village. The bottom line is that the society here morally rotted over the past 30-40 years of being brutalized under the Ba'thists. Power and intimidation was the currency of that regime and you were either a participant in the terror, or a victim of it. And that's going to take at least a generation or solve to transend.. That's what I keep telling myself.. We're here because we don't want our children to have to fight their children 10 years down the road in a major regional conflict. We may not succeed at this level of intensity.. And we may have to alter out expectations, and/or strategies as we discover new realities. But pulling the rug out of any chance of a democratic society forming here, as many on this thread advocate, is no strategy at all.. Hawk