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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (186110)	5/3/2006 4:20:59 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Excellent point Hawk: <The truth is.. a position that is unwilling to be publicly discussed and subjected to critical analysis is a position that isn't worth a sht in the first place.*> That's the dividing line between ego and reason. Very often people won't discuss and allow analysis. That's when it's their ego and feelings and beliefs on the line and they do NOT want those things discussed. King George II has more than a bit of that in him. Religions are all full of it. As are most, if not all, groups. Maybe the Skeptics Society is not so subject to the problem. Dogma is the rule. Which is not to say that one has to waste one's breathe explaining everything, as there are only so many hours in the day and a popular attack method is to consume all the opposition's energies. We can see such approaches when explanations are given, which are ignored. Such as my explanations to Geode about why we can know Iran wants nukes. Note that not once did she try to reason those points. Just asserted that I'm an economic ignoramus, declared victory, and left = full of dogma and ego. Mqurice

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (186110)	5/3/2006 4:37:40 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Jttmab.. the only position you have is the opposite of anything logical.. And I think that most of the time you've got a position, but you don't have the foggiest idea WHY you hold that position... Thus, the reason you avoid displaying any intellectual and telling us your position. Let's see if I have this right. I have a position[s], but you don't know what they are. But you do know that whatever they are they are the opposite of anything logical. The truth is.. a position that is unwilling to be publicly discussed and subjected to critical analysis is a position that isn't worth a sht in the first place.* Actually, any position expressed solely on SI isn't worth a sht. You [or I] may have the most brilliant position in the world, but it doesn't make any difference because the Administration won't be using it. Then there are the cases where there may be a good idea/position today, but after the inevitable bungles of this Administration a good idea is no longer viable. And that's where we are with Iraq. There are no good ideas left. The only thing you can hope for is winning the power lotto. The odds are not good. Re: Palestine/Hamas. Another bungle on the part of the Administration. The Abbas government was corrupt and ineffective. The only thing they had going for them was that they said* they wanted to live side by side with Israel. Of course, Israel said the Abbas government wasn't doing anything about Palestinian terrorism. But no matter, Abbas said the words the Administration liked to hear. On the other hand, Hamas was on the terrorist list, but they've had a truce with Israel for the last 2 years. I'll take a two-year truce over some empty words from a corrupt Abbas government any day of the week. So, I would have had Rice call up Hamas, congratulate them on their election victory; remind them how nice it must be to not have Israel target their heads with missiles. And encourage them for a three year truce. And then a four year truce. Tell them to keep the anti-Israel rhetoric down and Hamas will benefit and the Palestinian people will benefit. Instead we choose a policy that reeks of hypocrisy in saying we want democracies in the mid-East. I've suggested on several occasions in the past, if the US wants a presence in the mid-East put a large US base in Israel. They are our allies [rumor has it]; we would add to the security of Israel. We would become a trip-wire as we were in Europe during the cold war and as we currently are in South Korea. It would even be a plus to the Israeli economy. No one ever replied to those suggestions. I've also suggested that if you happen to believe in the domino theory of democracy in the mid-east you pick a country where the transition to democracy is easier. You don't pick the worst damn country in the mid-east, i.e., Iraq. You pick some softy country like the UAE or Kuwait. Look at Haiti, a podunk country surrounded on three sides by water. It should be a cake walk to turn into a democracy compared to Iraq. Then there's Russia. You couldn't ask for a nicer turn of events towards a democracy. It's no cake walk there. I'll give you another nightmare country to flip into a democracy. North Korea. Generations of a population that have no experience in government other than brutality. It was stupidity for the Admistration to dissolve the Iraqi military and create an army of unemployed. Calling them back in a few months later didn't fully rectify that error. What was the major reason for not splitting up Iraq? Because Turkey didn't want it to happen. Because their Kurdish population might want independence [freedom] also. Instead we choose to try to force an ethnically divided country that have been at each others throats for hundreds of years rather than put a thumb on Turkey to shut up. You want to call the GWOT a war. Fine. I'll at least agree that if you didn't call it a war the American public would support it even less than they do now. Look at the results of this war. Terrorism exploding around the world. Whatever policy the Administration is pursuing in GWOT, it's an abysmal failure. The US policy in Iraq, Palestine and Iran are the best recruiting tools terrorism ever had. Startegic Arms agreement. I wouldn't have a strategic arms agreement with Russia unless there were terms for verifiable. The one Bush came up with is not verifiable. I wouldn't have a strategic arms agreement with Russia that allowed stored weapons to not count. The one Bush came up with allows stored weapons to be not counted. Under the Strategic Arms Agreement with Russia if you declare a nuclear capable sub to be in maintenance, the warheads don't count. An utterly worthless agreement. One of the first things that Bush did coming into office was cut funding under Nunn-Lugar which was to secure the nuclear weapons in Russia. I said it was a mistake. Back in 1999, I was putting together a threat document for the FAA and tried to get them to put hijacked airplanes used as weapons on the threat list. The mitigation strategy was to not allow hijackers in the cockpit. The FAA security program manager said they heard that before and she wasn't going to allow it on the list. It never happened and they weren't going to worry about it until it did happen. Your world may have changed because of 9/11. Mine didn't. Nor did it change for the many people that tried to get the FAA to change policy to keep hijackers out of the cockpit. There's a long list of threats that you don't know about that aren't making it to the "valid" threat list, because they haven't happened...yet. And they're a lot worse than 9/11. jttmab