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Subject: Americans must respect Islam
salaam al-aqaaid    5/13/2004 10:18:35 AM
The outrageous atrocities commited by Americans at the Abu al-Grayyib prison complex speaks to a need for the United States Americans to give sensetivity training to its entire military so that they will no longer offind Muslims with the contemptious use of women as prison guards and unsavery adiction to homosexual pornographies. These things are offinsive to the Muslims community. Have you no shame? You must remove all women and homosexuals from contact with Muslim prisoners. This is offinsive.
 
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sorkoi2003    RE:Regime change and Invasion of Iraq....    10/1/2004 8:27:40 PM
El Cid, I understand your passion and your position that you have stated eloquently on many occassions. Alas, I cannot agree with it for some of the reasons already we discussed. 1. I do not believe that 'the enemy' is going effected by discussions that go on this thread. So I cannot accept your assumption about giving comfort to the enemy. 2. I joined SP to listen, to learn, to engage with issues that interest me. This not the army or a cult which demands loyality to cause beyond any critical touught. 3. If the course of action be taken by leadership is wrong- I believe it important that people of good conscience are not steam-rollered into silence by the excuse that they give succour to the enemy. This is the way to McCarthhyism and 'group-think'. Too many incompetent, mendacious decision-makers use such loyality as cover for thier short-comings. 4. I believe that war in Iraq was due to coming to power of the Neo-Con cabal (or as they prefer to call themsevles Neo-Reaganites). I think the Neo-con vision for the world is short-sighted, dangerous and probably doomed, it is a Leninism of the Right. 5. If you are in hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging, President Bush suggestion would seem to be ignore you are in hole and carry on digging- it will get better in the end. The invasion and continued occuption of Iraq is a mistake. 6. As for history - will historians tend to work for the side who wins- that is why I think the war in Iraq will be judged not as a mistake but a crime- for it squandered American power (and Iraqi and American lives) in the pursuit of a chimera.
 
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oldman    RE:This will make it Simple - We invaded Iraq - Because We Could    10/2/2004 3:29:43 AM
The way I see it, the minute Iran attack our embassy and took our diplomats hostage we were at war, declared or not. Even today Iran is the main supporter of terrorism. While Afghanistan was a response to 9/11, taking Iraq and having U.S. troops west and north of Iran and a nominal ally in Pakistan, we are in an excellent position to strike Iran and/or forment revolt. Not to mention Syria, possible the biggest harborer of terrorist in the world. Depending on who is next, either would be a major blow to the terrorist.
 
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elcid    RE:Query for Rebrooku   10/2/2004 4:20:33 AM
Rebrooku (what does that mean anyway?), an argument is not fallacious just because you wish to use an insulting adjective to describe it: it must be one of the identified fallacies to be fallacious. In this case, the war in Iraq is the second campaign in the War on Terror. That you don't like it I understand: it does not change the fact that the properly elected and appointed officials of our country made a policy decision. Further, the policy decision appears sound at its foundation. The formulation of policy was formal and deliberative. That is, it did not begin with the conclusion (as is charged by some on this board) "we must invade Iraq." Instead, it began with a definition of the enemy, which for our purposes can be summarized as radical islamic terror organizations and all the nations, organizations and infrastructures which support them. Next, a deliberative process was used to decide how to engage this elusive enemy. You seem to understand the first conclusion that was reached: that Afghanistan needed to be removed as a base of operations for Al Quaida. You may or may not have missed that the Administration gave the Afghan regime a warning and some time before invading. Although it was not recognized or liked, it was not even decided that we absolutely must invade, IF the regime could be persuaded to turn over OBL et al. I regard that as a wise, potentially economic (in terms of both lives and money), and moral policy, in classical liberal terms, by the way. Where you seem to disagree with the administration was in stage two: invade Iraq. But you evaded the question: what country would you have invaded second? I bet either (a) you didn't want to invade anyplace, or (b) you could not name any place of similar or greater strategic value in the WOT. It was my hope, if you were not a wet (Brit usage), and really on our side (which you should be because the enemy is your enemy too), to demonstrate that Iraq WAS the right choice by showing ANY alternative is less strategically sound. But you have neither admitted to being an pacifict in the face of terror nor to having any kind of strategic option. After saying there were "better" countries we should have engaged, I was hoping you would name one or some.
 
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elcid    RE:Post-9/11 Assescessment Who we really should ahve invaded   10/2/2004 4:30:15 AM
Somolia? The Somolia that has finally established a process to form a Parliment, which in turn will elect an interim President? Somolia, in East Africa, far from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and Egypt? How, exactly, would bases in Somolia give the USA strategic leverage over (or in support of) any of these nations in the same sense that bases in Iraq do? More germane for policy, perhaps, given the lack of a regime in Somolia, it is hardly possible the regime there was supporting any sort of terrorist organizations per se. What legally or morally justifies an invasion of Somolia? Only two things I can see: (1) Somolia is used by some radicals because of the lack of law enforcement to regulate them and one could hope to put them out of business - or at least under pressure - by invading in force; (2) humanitarian grounds. Both cases are very weak: if the magnitude of humanitarian issues is the criteria, North Korea tops the list, and Iraq is much higher up it. Besides, we have an effective Somoli aid program in place, one I am unexpectedly impressed with. The fate of Kurds and Shia in Iraq was much worse. And the terrorists use Somolia mainly to rest and hide. It was never, and is not now, a major training base, and it is likely to become much less attractive as the new government takes hold.
 
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elcid    RE:This will make it Simple - We invaded Iraq - Because We Could    10/2/2004 4:43:08 AM
Rebrooku, we seem to speak different dialects of English. I interpreted your use of "media" in the American vernaculor, to imply the major news networks of the USA. And I was replying about all policy analysts and policy makers in a general sense, using myself only as an example, in terms of exposure to the media. Now that I understand you are talking about foreign media, I am even more confused. You seemed to say that policy-makers were badly informed because of media. What was your point? My response is not germane because it totally eluded me. I thought Chinese people had dialect problems, but now I wonder if we don't in the US as well? Perhaps it is "liberal" - "conservative" - and "popular" that are our dialects? I don't understand what you tried to say at all, except it was somehow insulting to policy analysts of your own country in time of war, and somehow related to their being misled by media. For the record, while I do read print media from the Far East (mainly newspapers, magazines and trade journals), I also read academic papers, books, formal reports of institutions, and formal diplomatic announcements/white papers. In addition I exchange more than a hundred electronic letters a day, engage in regular personal conversations, and study various kinds of imagery and maps. By good fortune I have an entire network of people in more than a few countries sending me materials of interest, so it is only occasionally I have to go hunting information: most of the time it falls in to my lap in a timely way. You may judge for yourself the quality of my product by going to FAS.org and reading Prognosis for China (which is exhaustively documented, revealing the kinds of materials I regard as useful).
 
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elcid    RE:This will make it , well, less complicated-uchiita   10/2/2004 4:55:14 AM
No, please to not say I mean Bush misrepresents. I mean he is sincere, and so obviously so that any reasonable listener is persuaded. {I heard a technical discussion of this by some people who do analysis of different politicians a week or two ago, so I know my view is not unique in this matter]. Bush may say something that turns out not to be correct, but he didn't know that when he said it. If the CIA director told you he had a "slam dunk case" you might believe him too? If he told you the same thing Clinton's outgoing security advisor, and many Democratic members of Congress also said, you too might believe it. And if you later found out it was not exactly correct, you probably would feel in good company, and quite upset if everyone said only you were wrong, when almost everyone was equally wrong. And for the record, where Bush was wrong, there was sound reason to think the way he did. There was no reasonable basis to assume we had a complete picture, certianly not the proactive cooperation we required. We needed to go in to find out. It was a practical and moral imperative. If you really don't agree with that, you are not responsibly engaged with policy discussion. The fact is, this administration has not done nearly enough: saying it has done too much is nonsense. If we don't become much more effective we are going to have wmd attacks in our cities in the intermediate term (and maybe the short term). I have fought the good fight against wmd for many years, long before it was popular or understood by numbers of people. The invasion of Iraq was in fact justifiable in terms of wmd - in terms of need to know. We needed to have answers we were not getting. And we should not have waited 12 years - or even 2 years - to get them.
 
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elcid    RE:This will make it , well, more humorous   10/2/2004 4:58:21 AM
How can I send email without an address? [I did ask a SYSOPS member if he could find it so if you hear from me I figured it out]
 
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elcid    RE:Regime change and Invasion of Iraq....    10/2/2004 5:04:56 AM
War is inherently political. The most critical dimension of all is psychological. And there are at least two - usually three dimensions of this. There is the psychology of the enemy. In this case, it may be it will not be affected by this board. There is the psychology of our side. That is where you made your error: it certainy is affected by this board. This is the second most read non-governmental military discussion board in the world, after Janes. And in most wars (but maybe not ours) there is the psychology of neutrals. In this case, I suspect, whatever people may believe, there are no neutrals. I have reasonable grounds to believe OBL interprets the Koran literally when it divides mankind into two parts. If this is correct, it does not matter if people want to be allies of the US or not- they have radical Islam as a mortal enemy and are (or ought to be) de facto allies of his enemies.
 
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elcid    RE:Regime change and Invasion of Iraq....    10/2/2004 5:09:04 AM
You are welcome on Strategypage for the purposes you stated. You have raised the level of discussion on the Iraq board above the level it long was mired in. And you and I at least seem firmly allied in advocating the the them of this threat about the necessity of respecting Islam. So I do not mean to imply that you are in the army and required to do this or that. I only mean that logic compells you to agree with US policy in general (if not in detail) because it is your only significant hope AQ might not cause a general economic collapse and widespread radical Islamic revolution. Unchecked for many years, they are learning how to be dangerous. And you are no less at risk than I am.
 
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elcid    RE:Regime change and Invasion of Iraq....    10/2/2004 5:19:00 AM
I agree with you about McCarthyism. However, McCarthyism was essentially phony patriotism, alleging conspiracy where it did not exist. Radical Islam not only exists, it has mounted significant and even strategic attacks, not only on the USA, but on the heart of the western economic system infrastructure. Further, the policy of the Bush administration does not diserve the kind of critism it is recieving. The criticism is neither informed nor logical. It is full of charges that are in fact false assumptions. It is ignoring clear and compelling evidence that a policy of inaction (followed for years by the previous administration) only led to excalating and even catastrophic attacks. Opposing effective action against this kind of enemy is in fact not in your (or any non radical) person's rational self interest. It is by definition immoral and it is at least technically illegal (if the Sedition Acts are law). I do not mean by this to be disrespectful, nor to end discourse. I hope instead to say that criticism that is not constructive is a dangerous thing. My mother taught me "do not criticize something unless you have a better alternative to suggest." I am not hearing ideas about how we should be fighting our enemies better than we are doing? Respect for non-radical Islam is not, by itself, a strategy. In fact, I have heard you deny the very nature of the war, as defined by the enemy. I do not see how that is constructive - or (again no disrespect intended) even sane. [When you do not recognize objective reality, you are in that subject area technically not being sane]. This is not a joke - this is war - and war of an inherently different kind than we have mastered (or muddled) in the past. Saying it is really the same old political game is not helpful.
 
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