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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (181347)	2/7/2006 3:26:01 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I really, REALLY hope you're right here, Hawk. I sincerely do. You mentioned civil war. Yeah. That's one of the biggest dangers- -Iraqi breaking down in civil war and ending up either an Islamic fundamentalistic theocracy or getting pieces chopped off by neighboring countries until nothing is left of Iraq. But who knows at this point? Maybe we'll get lucky. If we do, that could change the whole complexion of the ME.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (181347)	2/7/2006 3:26:54 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Excellent piece by Krauthammer: Charles Krauthammer Reports The essential first lesson of any newborn democracy is that national choices have national consequences Amid much gnashing of teeth, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections is being called a disaster. On the contrary. It is deeply clarifying and ultimately cleansing. If the world responds correctly, it will mark a turning point for the better. The Palestinian people have spoken. According to their apologists, sure, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, wage permanent war and send suicide bombers into discotheques to drive nails into the skulls of young Israelis, but what the Palestinians were really voting for was efficient garbage collection. It is time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said at a news conference four days after the election, "The Palestinian people have chosen Hamas with its known stances." By a landslide, the Palestinian people have chosen these known stances: rejectionism, Islamism, terrorism, rank anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel in a romance of blood, death and revolution. Garbage collection on Wednesdays. Everyone is lamenting the fall of Fatah and the marginalization of its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. This is ridiculous. The election exposed what everyone knew and would not admit: Abbas has no constituency. Would it have been better to keep funneling billions of dollars from the European Union and a gullible United States to the thoroughly corrupt administration of a hapless figurehead? Billions that either end up in Swiss bank accounts or subsidize countless gangs of young men carrying guns? The current nostalgia for Fatah moderation is absurd. What moderation? Yasser Arafat's 1993 paper recognition of Israel's right to exist was as fraudulent as his famous Oslo side letter renouncing terrorism. He spent the next seven years clandestinely sponsoring it, then openly launched a four-year terrorist war, the most vicious in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. With this election, we can no longer hide from the truth: After 60 years, the Palestinian people continue to reject the right of a Jewish state to exist side by side with them. Fatah — secular, worldly and wise — learned to lie to the West and pretend otherwise. Hamas — less sophisticated, more literal and more bound by religious obligation to expel the Jews — is simply more honest. This election was truth in advertising. Now we know. What to do? The world must impress upon the Palestinians that there are consequences for their choices. And so long as they choose rejectionism — the source of a 60-year conflict the Israelis have long been ready to resolve — the world will not continue to support and subsidize them. And that means cutting off Hamas completely: no recognition, no negotiation, no aid, nothing. And not just assistance to a Hamas government but all assistance. The Bush administration suggests continuing financial support for "humanitarian" services. This is a serious mistake. First, because money is fungible. Every dollar we spend for Palestinian social services is a dollar freed up for a Hamas government to purchase rockets, guns and suicide belts for the "Palestinian army" that Meshal has already declared he intends to build. Second, because it sends the Palestinians precisely the wrong message. If they were under a dictatorship that imposed rejectionism on them, there would be a case for helping a disenfranchised Palestinian people. But they just held the most open and honest exercise of democracy in Palestinian history. The Palestinian people chose. However much they love victimhood, they are not victims here. They are actors. And historical actors have to take responsibility. They want blood and death and romance? They will get nothing. They choose peace and coexistence? Then, as President Bush pledged in June 2002, they will get everything: world recognition, financial assistance, their own state with independence and dignity. In August 2001, Hamas sent a suicide bomber into a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. He killed 15 innocent Israelis, mutilating many dozens more. A month later, Hamas student activists at al-Najah University in Nablus celebrated the attack with an exhibit, a mockup of the smashed Sbarro shop strewn with blood and fake body parts — a severed leg, still dressed in jeans; a human hand dangling from the ceiling. The inscription (with a reference to the Qassam military wing of Hamas) read: "Qassami Pizza is more delicious." The correct term for such a mentality is not militancy, not extremism, but moral depravity. The world must advise the Palestinian people that if their national will is to embrace Hamas — its methods and its madness — then their national will is simply too murderous and, yes, too depraved for the world to countenance, let alone subsidize. The essential first lesson of any newborn democracy is that national choices have national consequences. A Hamas-led Palestine, cut off entirely, will be forced to entertain second thoughts.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (181347)	2/7/2006 4:06:04 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, re: "Again.. you're whole premise is that somehow we're "inflicting" democracy upon Iraqis, a premise I utterly reject as non-sensical. Democracy is Greek for "people rule".... Thus, one has to ask exactly how it is that we can "force" people to rule themselves?" Once again your thought processes are too shallow. What's nonsensical is your failure to recognize that there is a constant struggle for power in all societies and that the struggle never ends. Those with the greatest will and resources WITHIN the society will rule. If the Iraqi people want to govern themselves they cannot simply "accept" democracy, they have to be willing to fight, to the death if necessary, for the continued right to govern themselves democratically. What WE cannot do is fight that battle for them and prevail against the others struggling for power in their own country, especially when the people seem to hate us more than they love what we offer. But that's a red herring, isn't it? You still refuse to answer my questions concerning what kind of democracy would likely result where a majority of the society is intolerant and brutal. You still refuse to answer any questions about what the facts and realities are telling us about the merits of the "benign democracy" hype used to justify our continued losses in Iraq. You still refuse to answer questions concerning how the war in Iraq could possibly be helping in the fight against Al Queda or in ameliorating the radicalization of the Muslim world and terrorism. And, of course, you still fall back on the "3,000 dead on 9/11" to justify a comedy of errors, incompetence and failed Bush policies. I've tried three times to engage you in a fact based discussion concerning our involvement in Iraq. I wanted to find out if you had some logical explanation to justify your avid and vociferous support of the Bush "plan." Three times you've responded with empty slogan-like platitudes. Three times you've studiously avoided those issues. Three times is enough for me. I would like to say, however, that if you truly cannot use the facts and expected norms of human behaviors to provide logical support for your advocacy of a conflict that is costing the lives of our soldiers, then you should just shut the xxxx up. What we don't need are more spinners going on and on about how smart and tough we are while our young come home in boxes and the world winds its way down a deeper and darker path. Ed