I want to elaborate on my praise of your recent post:
! ! I'll condemn Syria, Iran and Hezboullah. Israel has the ! right to do what they are doing. Thank you! I was losing hope. ! However, they won't ! succeed because you can't fight terrorists or terrorism ! with a standing army. Well, but the fight is not just with a standing army, and any claim that it is unidimensionally a military effort is factually incorrect. Or did you miss the NYT expose of certain non-military programs that arguable compromised those very programs? ! This is my biggest beef with the stupidity of the Bush ! Administration's going into Iraq and tying up so much ! of our resources. They've tied our hands and freed ! Iran and Syria to do their dirty work. A potentially valid criticism that I do not reject out of hand. ! ! Here's my take on what should have happened: ! ! 1. It was the right thing to do in invading Afganistan, ! but we should have done it with enough of our and ! our allies troops to fully occupy and pacify it. I agree. ! ! 2. Leave Iraq alone. Iraq and Saddam was a counter ! weight against Iran. Take care of Iraq long after every ! thing else is done. In retrospect, I agree. The argument that the administration knew better I think is not as strong as some claim. I think they wanted to believe the worst; but I also think the intelligence services failed them. If Tenet said "Look George Iraq just doesn't have WMD, don't go there" I doubt sincerely he would have gone out on such a limb. Instead, he (a Clinton appointee BTW) told him that argument was "a slam dunk." So naturally they focused on the sizzle that sold the steak, because they believed it sincerely. Clinton very successfully molded the intelligence agencies after his own image during his 8 years, and they resisted and (I believe) undermined Bush any chance they had. The whole Wilson thing reeks of a setup and the man himself is strange and improbable. All this crap Bill comes out with about the dialectical machinations of Big Oil, the MI Complex and the omnipotent and omni-present neo-con cabal is just shrill rhetoric. I simply can't take it seriously. But the idea that we did something stupid by focusing on Iraq and not taking out Iran appeals to my rational side that sees in retrospect that the more intransigent problem is Iran and whack jobs in Hezbullah, not Iraq. I sincerely wish the Democrats had put somebody reasonable up in 2004 as an alternative. ! ! 3. From our base of operations in Afganistan, Fund ! our own insurgents in Iran and Syria the same way ! we funded and helped the Mujahudeen beat the Russians. I agree. ! ! With armed and trained insurgents inside their own ! country, Iran and Syria would be getting a dose of ! their own medicine. Syria would topple in a heart beat, ! Iran would take longer. Amen. ! ! 4. Send special forces into Pakistan's Northwestern ! territory to root out Osama Bin Laden. Agree. ! ! 5. Send troops to occupy the Kurdish region of Iraq, ! which is already outside of Iraq anyway under the no ! fly zone, to protect them and the northern Iraqi oil. ! Again, agree. ! Saddam couldn't and wouldn't do much about that. It's not Saddam I would worry about in that case. ! ! 6. Use our vast propaganda machine against the ! Muslims to pit one against the other. That ain't hard ! to do. None of them truly like each other. Makes sense. I thought we were doing that, but if we were, I would have expected better results. ! ! 7. Put Saudi Arabia on notice that we can and will ! confiscate their wealth held in this country and in ! other places around the world if they continue funding ! terrorism and Islamic fundamentalists with oil riches. Agree. ! ! 8. Do what we did during World War II like developing ! synthetic rubber and oil to find new sources of energy to ! rid industrial nations of the need for Middle Eastern oil ! once and for all. Agree. ! ! 9. Force Isreal to settle the Palestinian problem once ! and for all by giving up the West Bank and ceding enough ! of the worthless desert to connect Gaza and the West Bank. Don't know about that one. But for the Arab blood-lust to murder all Jews, that would make sense. But there are strategic and tactical reasons Israel won't agree to that, and most of them center on national survival. ! ! The West Bank belonged to Jordan originally and they ! gave up all claims to it so it could be used for that purpose. ! ! That won't completely stop Palestinian terrorism, but it ! forces them to finally admit why they are doing what they ! are doing and eliminates a lot of international sympathy. That argument makes sense. ! ! There are a few other things we could do, but those are ! the main points. OK, I am listening. - Bob ! ! Jim Eddins ! ! ! 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