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

To: jttmab who wrote (186124)	5/3/2006 5:22:07 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Let's see if I have this right. I have a position[s], but you don't know what they are. Everyone has a position. Everytime you post to me to criticize one of my positions, you've taken the opposite position. The difference is that I have the intellectual guts to explain why I hold my particular position. I put my ideas forth to be critically analysed and discussed. You yourself are stating that no one knows what your positions are. Well, I'm not a psychic... so I guess we know who to blame for the ethereal nature of your perspectives. And that's where we are with Iraq. There are no good ideas left. Gee.. that's deep.. I guess I can say the same thing about Darfur, right?? They are in a civil war that the world failed to prevent, which is what happens when there are "no good ideas" left, right? But you want to get us involved there... The Abbas government was corrupt and ineffective. As is the Hamas government. Otherwise they wouldn't need international handouts to run their economy. 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. And you think Iraq is enraging anti-US sentiment in the Arab world?? Putting a base in Israel would CEMENT that belief. But why not put a UN multi-national peace-keeping and humanitarian assistance mission in the West Bank and Gaza?? After all, they need the assistance more than Israel does. 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. This just goes to show that you HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH!! Making a deal for a "truce" with an ideologically inclined group who PRIMARY PURPOSE FOR EXISTENCE is the destruction of another nation is not going to cut it. They climbed the ladder to power based upon this religious and political philosophy. And for them to maintain their political power within that group, they cannot ignore those values. They have to be seen as taking an active stance in fulfilling those principles.... Hell jttmab, the PLO was the same way... and peace was never truly achieved with that group (only some factions of it, and that required DECADES). So it's time for your daily "reality slap" pal... A truce is NOT peace for them. A truce is merely a necessary interval that permits them to consolidate their power and eliminate their internal enemies. And Israeli missiles only fly at Palestinians when suicide bombers, mortars and rockets are being used against Israelis first. 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. I believe that mistake is widely recognized by all sides. Bremer tried to claim that the Iraqi military had effectively ALREADY dissolved, but he didn't need to sign that fact into law. All he had to do was gradually reconstitute it, by picking and choosing which former Ba'thist Generals he was willing to trust, while integrating Shi'a and Kurds into the mix as well. If anything, it would have provided sufficient time to try and "rehabilitate" certain powerful Sunni leaders and avoid support going to Al Qai'da as Sunni tribal chieftains commenced to worry about who would protect them. 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. Yep.. tremendous problem. But I don't see you providing a solution. In reality it's going to be similiar (on a grander scale) to what Germany had to go through with East Germany. But we're a long way from that.. The first thing that needs to happen is for the "Dear Son" to recognize that he has an "out" if he chooses to rehabilitate himself along the lines of Qaddafi. It won't lead to immediate progress there, but it's going to require an epiphany on his part, as well as realization that no nation in the region is going to tolerate his continued intransigence (which includes China and Russia). But I frankly don't see a "rosy scenario" there without some strong regional commitment to confronting him and laying out the rules of behavior. Startegic Arms agreement. I wouldn't have a strategic arms agreement with Russia unless there were terms for verifiable. Funny.. you want verification on that (which I agree with), but we don't need verification on treaty obligations related to Iran? And we don't need to verify any agreement that are being proposed with N. Korea? They are both nations that have DEMONSTRATED that they will violate any agreement that we foolishly enter into with them. 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. I believe that threat had been recognized for many years prior to 1999, or even 2001. And NOW, we have the greatest threat mitigation factor by virtue of every passenger now recognizing that they are ALL combatants, in the event of such a future hijacking. 9/11, in my opinion, has DRASTICALLY REDUCED the likelihood of a future attack of that nature. People just will not sit still in their seats and permit it. But now we have OTHER threats we have to worry about, such as shipping containers with WMDs and possibly cargo planes being hijacked, or deliberately plunged into target by Jihad motivated pilots who have infiltrated the airlines industry. Btw.. I still find it amazing that they'll take my cigarette lighter when I board an aircraft, but I can carry matches.. Doesn't make much sense to me... Did you make that recommendation too?.. ;0) 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. Of course there are.. Who do you think you're talking to here? I've been involved in the security field for well over 15 years now. But if you know anything about security, you know that there's a continuous battle between security policy and economic policy. Security has a direct, and an indirect, economic cost. It's economic benefit is only recognized when it prevents an incident that would have caused far greater economic impact. But security is generally pretty low on the list of things that any policy maker, or businessman, thinks about, let alone spends money on.. That is.. until they are forced to. Hawk