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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (364912)	1/2/2008 2:49:47 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574181

why would a president of the largest democracy in the world ally himself with a military dictator? Why did FDR ally with Stalin? There was a really villainous dictator. Yes, and Stalin did a nice job of stinging the West. Uh huh, but Stalin helped defeat Nazi Germany, which had declared war on us. Yes, but in the end Stalin screwed the West. When you break bread with rats and pigs expect to get up with fleas and very little in your stomach. --------------------------------------------- There aren't always angels around to choose our allies from. When will you guys learn that when you hang out with rats you get fleas. And if you insist on perfect purity for your allies, you won't have any. There is a huge distance between criminals and imperfect purity. It doesn't do anyone any good to put everything in a black or white context. In the case of Mushareff, he's almost certainly better than an Islamist pro-Taliban pro-Al Qaida dictator would be. Sorry, there is very little difference in my mind. Just because Musharraf gladly accepts our billions doesn't make him any better. His helping capture Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, among others counts for something. The fact that Pakistani soldiers are fighting in the NW tribal areas is worth something even if they are being beat. Are they really fighting, or are they playing at fighting? And if they are fighting for real, then they are worse than the Iraqi army. -------------------------------------------------- However, you should be aware that it was the Bush administration that urged Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan to help restore democracy there in hopes that would strengthen the government. They also persuaded Mushareff to resign from the army and run for election. Yes, definitely a positive. Gasp, you just used the word positive to describe a Bush administration foreign policy. Watch it! Dude, I would gladly give Bush more positives if only he made them happen. This is an administration that doesn't know what's it doing half the time while blundering through the other half. What infuriates me is people like you who pretend otherwise. ------------------------------------------------ Secondly, at one point do you begin to take stock and realize that all the billions you are sending this guy are doing little good? Liberals always say our allies are worthless. In truth, they're always flawed. But usually better than our enemies. My God, what does that matter? If we are sending billions and he stashes the money in his Swiss bank acct, why is that better than America's enemies. I've seen nothing to shows Mushareff has a Swiss bank account. The Bhutto family certainly does. The corruption of that family is well documented. We'll find that out when he gets deposed. ----------------------------------------------- What is the real alternative to Mushareff? I don't see one. You mention India - well the Bush administration is pursuing a much closer relationship with them and our support for Mushareff hasn't hurt that - the opposition has come from the Indian leftwing parties. But pursuing a closer relationship with India doesn't mean we ought to write Pakistan. Its a nuclear power - for it to be taken over by forces that, unlike Mushareff, are really hostile to the west would be disastrous - for everyone. The fact that it has nukes is worrisome..but then India has nukes.....so they in a sense neutralize each other. ------------------------------------------------ And who we choose to ally America can hurt us economically. For the last few years, Boeing has had a far superior lineup of planes to sell as compared to Airbus. In addition Airbus's new planes have suffered all kinds of design and operational problems pushing some of their delivery dates well into the future. And yet, for the past two years, Airbus continues to outsell Boeing.....not by much but still given each company's lineup Boeing should be doing much better. Why isn't it? Many of the biggest purchasers of planes are Arabs/Muslims? There biggest orders are with Airbus, not Boeing. Could that have to do with America's poor relations with the Arabs and the war in Iraq? I think so. Gee, this is a switch in direction. According to this 2005 article, "Airbus slowly but steadily overtook Boeing Co. (BA ) as the No. 1 global aircraft maker in the past decade.." businessweek.com So, Airbus's success has been gradual and shouldn't be viewed as a sudden turn due to Iraq. Apparently Airbus production problems was causing problems, leading to Boeing pulling ahead in 2006 and early 2007: "Airbus secured fewer orders for new planes last year than its rival Boeing for the first time since 2000. news.bbc.co.uk; Okay, my mistake....I misread another article where it suggested Airbus got more orders in 2006. While the situation is not as negative as I thought, I will speculate that orders would have been better had American relations not been so contentious with the Middle East. In any case, thanks for the correction. Its good news. ------------------------------------------- His government isn't in control of its northwest provinces where Taliban and AQ. In fact, no Pakistani government ever has controlled this area. Its not for lack of trying. You can look up youtube videos of jihadis beheading captured Pakistani soldiers in this area. I've got news for you the Taliban's and AQ's sphere of influence is growing esp. in Islamabad and even to the South in Karachi. All the more reason to not undercut Mushareff and write off Pakistan - do we want the Taliban and AQ taking over Pakistan with its nukes????? First of all, AQ taking over a gov't may be the best thing to happen......they can not act the renegade and get away with it so easily. Secondly, what do you think they would do with those nukes? -----------------------------------------------