You should have said we are between Iraq and a hard place. Lol. Stacy.
At 10:15 AM 12/17/2002 -0500, you wrote:
I have come to the conclusion that Marc was cheated by the Pakistani owner of a convenience store in his neck of the woods! :-) Marc, while I agree that Pakistan is not the country to model our society after and that there are many distinct factions operating within the government, often at odds with each other, do you believe that there are any other bad guys out there (other than Bush, I mean :-). If we limited out allies to only those who were just like us, we would have very few allies indeed. We partnered with Stalin in WWII because (being VERY generous) we felt that to do otherwise would seriously hamper our war efforts. Having someone as a temporary ally does not mean that you condone their behavior. Rather it means that you are usually between a rock and a hard place, and you may want to deny your adversary that country as his ally. I would hazard to guess that we both believe that you prioritize your problems and work from the top down. Perhaps it is the case that you have a different prioritized list than do I. However, I think that Afghanistan and Iraq and North Korea are higher on the list than is Pakistan, which, by the way, is pretty high up on my list. And then, of course, you bring up a very interesting Libertarian argument about free markets and opium (note I didn't say you put it forward). I honestly would be very interested in your elaborating on this topic. Jon Marc A. Schindler wrote: I don't think it matters (to me, anyway) whether it was deliberate or not. The people in central and SW Afghanistan in particular have little choice, as there is no economic alternative for them. One could just as easily say this is the "free market" at work without the help of the CIA. I *do* believe, however, that the ISI (Pakistan's counterpart) was behind it for reasons of their own. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.423 / Virus Database: 238 - Release Date: 11/25/2002
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