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 : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (10924)	2/6/2006 9:33:12 AM
From: Suma	Respond to of 541464

Nadine: I wrote my post early on as when I come onto this site I start from the last poster and respond without reading the ensuing posts. I think the point by others here has been well taken. Read a great article today from Charles Krauthammer about Humas... and how they should be handled. No recognition, no aid and put them on IGNORE..

To: Suma who wrote (10924)	2/6/2006 1:14:38 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 541464

Very nice post, Suma, even if I'm not entirely in agreement with you, other than for the comments for Nadine. She is one of SI's finest posters, IMO. Re your comment re Democrats, leftists and progressives....I think this is how that is shaking out, from what I've seen so far. Democrats are more to the center of the left, the leftists are to the left by a distance from the center, and the progressives are quite far from the center. IMO, the Progressives are nearing the FarLeft in extreme views. Go to Moveon, ANSWER, and other such places, and you will see what I'm saying is true.

To: Suma who wrote (10924)	2/6/2006 3:34:26 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541464

I do not think that Bush was grabbing for power so much as he was wrong in invading Iraq.. OBL was in Afghanistan. It was much more logical to me to go after him there. I think Iraq has been a bugaboo from the beginning and will not accomplish anything except to have a civil war. Rather much compare it to having stuck ones finger in a hornets nest. Having done that I can verify that they find another nest.. In their swarming a lot of damage is done to the person who invaded the nest AND it didn't accomplish anything except to release a lot of hostility and we now have more potential Terrorists in the world as a result of our not concentrating on one country where the man who was responsible for 9/11 STILL resides You have put your finger on the essential difference in world-view between the left and the right since 9/11. The left (I know it's not just left and right but let's call it that for purposes of discussion) says, in effect, Okay, we have a problem, but it's limited in scope - we just need to get OBL and his Al Qaeda band of criminals. We should be able to use the courts but even we can see it won't work so very limited military action should be used. The right, unlike the left, does not see Radical Islam as problem that suddenly appeared on 9/11. They've been watching it for a long time. It's a political wave that has been growing in the Muslim world for over 20 years, and has been killing Americans, Israelis (the left tends to see the Israeli/Pal conflict as a separate issue; the right sees it as part of the whole), and many more Muslims during that time. It's been funded with masses of Saudi petrodollars and the failure of Arab nationalism. Viewed from this perspective, OBL is not "IT" and catching him, while symbolically important, isn't the main thing. Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda is just the tip of an iceberg - one that the left won't acknowledge yet; they're still insisting that the 10% of the iceberg that shows above the water line is all there is. The main things, from this perspective are: a) disabling the Al Qaeda network and other such so that they can't top 9/11. For this, whacking the mid-level officer corps is the most important, and we've been doing quite well at that. b) bringing the dysfunctional Arab countries into the modern world, so that the baby boom of currently unemployed youth doesn't have a choice only between schlerotic autocracy and radical Islam. The invasion of Iraq wasn't done primarily for reason a) but for reason b). Thus the charges that it was a distraction, we took our eyes off OBL, etc, seem quite besides the point to me. Though reason a) did apply; Saddam was a fairly major supporter of Islamic terrorism (where was Zarqawi pre-March 2003, for example?), despite the assertions to the contrary that we hear everywhere. Similarly, the cries of 'we just made more terrorists' assumes that all these young men would have been selling shoes in Amman had we not invaded. This is most unlikely. They would have been radicalized and heading somewhere else - perhaps to Chechnya, Madrid or New York? If that is choice, it is not the worst option to have them fighting the Marines in Al Anbar. We will doubtless produce a skilled cadre of survivors but there will be a lot more of dead or disillusioned veterans. It is part of the nature of a long war. Once you're in it, you had better concentrate on winning in the end.