--- Doug The following is a great piece: > Sen Phil Graham in a Salon interview: >http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/08/graham/index.html
I mean, if there were EVER a Republican, still living, who I often disagree with and yet respect, it's G. One of scads of examples that it's a bloody lie to say I think all opponents are traitors. Do I really believe my theory about absolute and knowing treason under orders from Riyadh? In fact, I confess that there is a plausible alternative that fits the facts: towering imbecility combined with Saudi alacrity at taking advantage of a bunch of manaical ideologues. Indeed, were you to ask that I BET, I suppose I'd give slightly better odds to the alternative. But NO such explanation so well fits the available facts quite as well as the hypothesis that these are smart men creating a situation out of intent and desire. Here's a principle to try. Always look at the situation and ask: - who is benefiting? - is it possible that the present situation is exactly what someone wants? Dig it. There is not a scintilla of sense to the neocons' RATIONALIZATION of making Iraq an island of democracy in the middle east. Can you actually choke down the notion that they went in actually beliving that? We HAD an opportunity to help foster a much bigger island. A place where we had a huge history of friendship and good will. Where the people ALREADY VOTE, albeit without their votes having as much effect as they would like. A place where we had only to reach out our hand.... It's Iran. And every time the good Iranian people have tried to shrug off the [EMAIL PROTECTED] mullahs, these jerks have taken EVERY opportunity to rattle sabers and drive them back under the mullahs' control. Exactly as the Saudis wish. Because the Saudis very worst nightmare (and Saddam's) would be rapprochement between these two old friends. > "You write about the Bush administration's > > Up until about a> > year ago, the Saudis could probably be best> described > > as passive sponsors of terror. > > Oh, well, that makes it OK then. If it's true. And > it's not. It's not just okay, it's pathetic. You have to twist yourself into a pretzel to believe Saudi claims that they are our allies in the war on terror. - They financed the terrorists - financed the Taliban - CURRENTLY finance the men killing our troops - finance Al Jazeera hate-mongering - finance the Wahhabi takeover of all the world's mosques, in which death to America is the ritual slogan Oh... but the princes have NOTHING to do with any of the stuff going on in their privately owned theocratic dictatorship. > I repeat; 9/11 was funded by Saudis. Whether or not > it the government was > involved is open to question True, Doug. But why is it that the basic assumption that we must always fall back on is INCOMPETENCE? No WMD? Oooops, we didn't lie, we're incompetent. Saudi funding of Jihad against us in 20 ways? But it's not the princes. No they are incompetent at stanching the Jihad... though efficient at everything else they do, without exception. Sending our troops unprepared into a quagmire, without proper equipment, backup, or a plan? Oh, well, we're incompetent. DON'T EVER EVEN LET YOUR IMAGINATIONS TOUCH UPON THE IDEA THAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ON PURPOSE. With the aim of achieving exactly what you see. An America profoundly weakened. In debt. Divided as never since 1968. It's military reserves used up. Its best units embroiled and inaccessible in emergency. Readiness collapsed. Treasury emptied. Science debased. Energy program gutted. Elections corrupted. Intelligence community politicized. Reputation befouled. > > Since the attacks on Saudi Arabia proper, the > > Saudi government has been actively participating > in> > attacking Al Qaeda. This is something that is > agreed> > on across the board. No, it is openly lied about. It is as credible as the testimony of a farting buffalo. > We can't???? We can force Iraq, a larger, more > heavily populated, more > politically and socially diverse country to do our> bidding but we can't > force SA? In a way yopu can't blame them. They see our culture, our women, as utterly at odds with theirs. If they wait, we'll swamp them... or decide at some point to flick a fingure and send the House of Saud into exile. They have no choice, in a way. We have to be destroyed. >DOUG: Ask yourself why the pipeline has been such a > success, Gautam. What if > environmentalists had not raised a stink and it had > been left up to the > industry to build it any which way they could? Look at http://www.davidbrin.com/ I have said this for years. In The Transparent Society I talk about the importance of fair argument. The pipeline is one of my best used examples of where the Sierra Club etc benefited society by opposing, forcing improvement, and then finally (when the time was right) losing the fight. > > because of his (courageous) stance in favor of > Yucca> > Mountain in Nevada. If he does so, he will lose> > because of something he did _right_, as the > > (Kerry-supporting) New Republic just pointed out. Now THAT is a terrific insight, Doug. Har! > > I don't disagree that Nuclear power might be a good > stop gap alternative > to fossil fuels, but I think that the political > reality is that they will > never be accepted by the general public. As an example of "balance" I am not yet ready to give up on the idea of building nukes. > > The requirements should be much stiffer, and I fault> the Clinton > administration as much as anyone for this lapse. Blame Hillary. If she had gone for incremental improvements in Health care, starting with children, Newt would not have swept in during 94 making the rest of Clinton's presidency one of few legislative accomplishments. And yet, there's a weird irony. Without 94, Clinton might never have turned his attention to the Executive Branch... the one place where he had real power, and devoted himself to productivity. The result was a genius applying himself to something he never really liked, administration. And all of the REPUBLICAN civil servants I know in DC say he was the best administrator the town ever had. I gotta go. Thanks Doug. You are relatively calm and evenhanded. I needed that and to feel this is still a place worth visiting. Same to the rest of you of course. db _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
