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

To: Lou Weed who wrote (184237)	3/28/2006 9:41:00 AM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 281500

Peter Bergen in today's NYTimes makes a strong case that there was no relationship between saddam and al quaeda although there were contacts. Al Q even offered fighter to Saudi Arabia, post gulf war, to defend the kingdom if saddam did something stupid. The two largest terror attacks in saudi until recently were done by hizbollah and local groups, not al quaeda. So the alliance of sorts existed until recently between al q and SA and al q and iraq. The administration would do well not to follow cheneys lead. American folks do not buy his bs any longer and i hope card's departure is followed by all the overworked and overtired folks who head this admin right now. Time for a change is long overdue and i am the first one to give these guys credit for serving for 5 years in wartime--equivalent of 10 in peacetime. But there comes a time when further service by the exhausted is ineffective and counter productive.

To: Lou Weed who wrote (184237)	3/28/2006 9:46:24 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Isn't this the same guy that WE supported back in the 80's?!? When it was in OUR best interest, WE have supported many dictators. Then why did we go to war with Iraq in 1991, if we were such strong supporters of Saddam? And why were we conspiring to sell Ordnance to Iran (Iran-Contra) by way of the Israelis if we supported Saddam. Why would we have worked to undermine his regime throughout the time of the '90's if we were so fond of Saddam?? The world is a bit more complex than that. And you know that, Mike.. ;0) You and I both know that we've often found our foreign policy and obligation to promote democracy and human rights sacrificed upon the altar of realpolitik. We've found ourselves "played" by corrupt and dictatorial regimes who's policies have opened them up to Marxist/Maoist/Islamo-Fascist insurgencies and rebellions within their country and they come begging for military aid from us because the Soviets or Chinese were supporting the insurgents. And we've, of course, helped them because we didn't want to see another "domino" fall to Totalitarianism. And we've done this because we figure that a dictatorship, such as Pinochet, is less "evil" than permitting a totalitarian police state totally place a country's economy in the hands of a centralized political power elite. With some remnant of private enterprise and property rights, you have the promise of waiting out the dictator, or moderating his regime. Whereas, with a totalitarin regime, the entire nature of the society is brainwashed into a new ideological belief system that then has to be "re-wired" when that system ultimately fails (Russia). Just compared the difference between a country emerging from a military dictatorship to one that is trasitioning from a totalitarian system. How quickly have dictatoriships managed to transition to fledgling democratic status, compared to former totalitarian regimes? And then we have China, which is still efffectively a "fascist" state because the govt permits and harnesses private industry to it's own goals, while still controlling the political system for its own benefit. China is in for tremendous turmoil unless it takes the steps necessary to its political system, first within its own party ranks, and then via the splitting up of those divergences within the party to an evolving party system, where they can then discard the label of communist party completely. Hawk