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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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elcid    RE:Patriotsim can be good or bad.   10/3/2004 12:00:20 AM
In wartime, unless one lives in a despotic state, I regard it as unpatriotic to criticize official policy in public BEFORE you do so in private to the people in charge, complete with recommendations on the better alternate policy you suggest, and supporting evidence about why it is better. [Clarification: I mean interacting with staff rather than leaders per se: this is how you reall get things done. I hear when I write like this people think I mean I write a letter to the President, and I am deluded enough to think he read it. But I don't mean that: I write to the President only on a simple matter to be counted - as in 5240 people wrote in supporting us on that issue yesterday. If you want to influence policy, you need to figure out who to influence, and influence them, by explaining why they will look better if they adopt your point of view on xyz.] IF we are in a war, you OWE it to everyone on our side to give the administration a chance to get it right. And until you did give them that chance, it is not true that you know they will not listen to reason, as you understand it. I also regard it as bad to give our people, our country, our civilization, and our leaders a bad reputation in time of war. I hate to say nice things about Sen. Carter, or the Green Foreign Minister of Germany (whom I have almost never agreed with in decades), but these left win politicians are much more responsible than those who are saying that Iraq policy is wrong, unjust, etc. - and pretending that the left is united in this anti view - which is on the record quite false. It generates a kind of hysteria in which people fail to look at the issues - why study if you "know" Bush is wrong? - and in the more radical forms there are calls on democratic sites for assassination - not just of leaders - but EVERYONE who supports or votes for them. Hardy rational, democratic, or supportive of our concept of civilization. The failure of left leaders to speak out against this is a real danger IMHO. I come from a different era, the era of "my honorable opponent" - and I still know honorable Democrats (see Norm Dix of Tacoma, Washington). But I testify that there are honorable Republicans - some from my birth state (George Romney and Gerald Ford) are more ethical than any Democrat I ever met. Lets stop pretending all the guys on the other side are somehow demons. This is not true, nor constructive.
 
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realpolitik    RE:Query for RBrookU   10/3/2004 12:08:39 AM
If you step back for a moment, and give up the obsession with wmds, and which dictator deserved to be deposed, you might begin to perceive a deeper and long range strategy emerging. The question is how to address the root causes of terrorism, and the answer is somewhere in the Middle East. If you accept that, then the next question is where to start, and how to do it. Saudi Arabia is unquestionably a part of the problem with their monetary sponsorship of wahabi missionary work. But they are ostensibly our ally. Iran is also a sponsor of terror, but they are a tough nut to crack militarily, and also they have a strong undercurrent of emergent democratic change (which is why the Mullah's have been restricting who can be elected to office) that would be lost if Iran were attacked. Syria is a good target, but doesn't have as much gravity in that solar system. Also, it is possible to talk to Assad. Pakistan is nominally on our side, and the Taliban in Afghanistan was overthrown. That leaves Iraq, who regardless of all the above, was already near top of the list of big bad pariah states. It just seems a no brainer, that Iraq was the place to start. .
 
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elcid     Saddam and the Baathists were a mortal enemy of Al Qaeda    10/3/2004 12:14:21 AM
Confession: I made something of a fool of myself in 2003 by agreeing with Rebrooku on this matter. I made a still impressive circumstantial case that AQ was opposed to all secular regimes, if only because they didn't use the peculiar kind of law AQ regards as the only legitimate form. I also reviewed how Saddam deliberately kept clerics from having positions of power in or under his regime, sometimes using extream measures to do so. But I (and Rebrooku) failed to consider the power of the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Saddam, who never honored Islam in his personal life, was always willing to use it for political purposes, and pretended to be Muslim. [A devout Muslim cannot keep mistresses, or be a street thug, assaulting and murdering for fun and profit, as Saddam did his whole life long]. Similarly, AQ has demonstrated remarkable willingness to work with anyone, even Christians and secular people, if it is tactically advantageous to do so. The facts are that we know for sure that Iraqi military and diplomatic and intelligence people met with AQ people on a number of occasions. While I am aware of no open source material on what they said while meeting, it is fairly likely that the content of some of these conversations is known. It is wrong to assume that people who know more than you do are unreasonable in their conclusions about what is appropriate. In any case, it is certain that Iraqi official institutions did have non-hostile relations with AQ. It also is germane to point out that Iraq was involved with terrorism of non AQ sorts. This makes it a terrorist state, one that directly dispatched teams to attack the USA, and to assassinate one of our Presidents. If there were NO connection to AQ whatever, it is still a terrorist state, in a geostrategic position of value, and a valid candidate for invasion.
 
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elcid     Saddam and the Baathists were a mortal enemy of Al Qaeda    10/3/2004 12:15:18 AM
Confession: I made something of a fool of myself in 2003 by agreeing with Rebrooku on this matter. I made a still impressive circumstantial case that AQ was opposed to all secular regimes, if only because they didn't use the peculiar kind of law AQ regards as the only legitimate form. I also reviewed how Saddam deliberately kept clerics from having positions of power in or under his regime, sometimes using extream measures to do so. But I (and Rebrooku) failed to consider the power of the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Saddam, who never honored Islam in his personal life, was always willing to use it for political purposes, and pretended to be Muslim. [A devout Muslim cannot keep mistresses, or be a street thug, assaulting and murdering for fun and profit, as Saddam did his whole life long]. Similarly, AQ has demonstrated remarkable willingness to work with anyone, even Christians and secular people, if it is tactically advantageous to do so. The facts are that we know for sure that Iraqi military and diplomatic and intelligence people met with AQ people on a number of occasions. While I am aware of no open source material on what they said while meeting, it is fairly likely that the content of some of these conversations is known. It is wrong to assume that people who know more than you do are unreasonable in their conclusions about what is appropriate. In any case, it is certain that Iraqi official institutions did have non-hostile relations with AQ. It also is germane to point out that Iraq was involved with terrorism of non AQ sorts. This makes it a terrorist state, one that directly dispatched teams to attack the USA, and to assassinate one of our Presidents. If there were NO connection to AQ whatever, it is still a terrorist state, in a geostrategic position of value, and a valid candidate for invasion.
 
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elcid    RE:Query for RBrookU   10/3/2004 12:26:13 AM
In WWII we had as formal enemies Germans, Japanese, Italians, Finns, Romanians, Bulgarians, and Thais. This is a very diverse group, and includes even a true democratic nation, which understandably was upset by being invaded by the USSR and attempted to get its territory back. It is not inherently unusual to have a diverse set of enemies. Not one person I know of who does serious policy analysis confuses Baathists with members of the AQ network. You are quite wrong to assert that I (or anyone) is so confused (certain posters on this board excepted). To say that Iraq offeres a geostrategic position in the middle East, that it is our enemy, that it supported directly and indirectly acts of terror against us and allies of ours, is beyond dispute true. There is no need to say Iraq had a direct role in the 911 attacks, or even knew the date of the attack (which for reasons of operational security it should not have been told if AQ was its closest ally). Your argument is in the end wrong-headed because it is not germane: we are at war with more than AQ per se. It could vaporize tonight and the crisis will not end. We must make all organizations and nations involved with terrorism disappear or change their ways (see Lybia). It is entirely tactical what order is picked, for what tactical reasons. And nothing you have yet said is the slightest reason to doubt the official policy should have been revised in any significant detail.
 
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elcid    RE:Query for RBrookU   10/3/2004 12:38:18 AM
You are missing salient points about the "intelligence failures." Not least of these is that there was good reason to believe what was believed about chemical weapons. Everyone, left, right, independent, agreed. And in fact there WERE chemical weapons. Two were used in attacks, and several were intercepted en route to an attack by Jordan. That case revealed they came from Syria, where Iraqi weapons were sent and remain. This is open source, on the record, and in the media: all that is missing is a large-scale use by Iraq - surely something it was reasonable to worry about. On the nuclear side, if there were no assembled weapons in a force trained to use them, nevertheless there was an active development program, involving 405 staff at one site (in Lybia) and the reopening of Shinkolobwe in the Congo. [Researching a novel set in 1941-2, based on a historic Japanese proposal to raid Shinnkolobwe to steal its tailings, richer in uranium than any other mine in the world produces as ore, I ran into German engineers in country who reported Koreans were surveying the mine with a view to pumping it out to restart operations - something that has since happened. Lybia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Pakistan belonged to a club that traded plans, machines, and materials, in support of each-others nuclear ambitions.] While I believe it would have taken several or many years for Iraq to make a weapon, there is no doubt it was working on one, and the only way to know its status was to get inside it and see. This we now have done, because of Lybia's betrayal of the club.] Since Iraq was not allowed to do this kind of development, it was not wrong to go to war to stop it. What IS wrong is that we didn't go to war in the Clinton years to stop it. And it is a UN failure as well as a US one. Only in the case of BW was intel truly wrong. And the evidence there is indeed "a slam dunk case" in the circumstantial sense. But the extent of corruption and incompetance in Iraq was not understood, and this threat was not real, not because there was no program, or no investment, but because the program was never technically proficient. We could not know that either until we went in to find out: all we could know was that they were breaking the rules and not abandoning the effort.
 
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elcid    RE:Query for RBrookU   10/3/2004 12:50:17 AM
Don't be so pessimistic. The Iraq occupation was indeed mismanaged - at first. I am less sure it is being mismanaged now - since the beginning of summer. I believe it could have been managed a great deal better if we had used our extensive resources and expertise in several fields (military police, occupation government, civil engineering). I also oppose the creation of a special, extra-legal intelligence unit, that had access to military resources (as well as help from Islamic allies of the more despotic variety: Egypt for one - and there is another I will not name). I am told that this unit failed to produce much useful information (that is, members of the unit are saying this, not irresponsible critics who don't know). But it did produce a scandle or three which have clearly hurt our cause. It is not my style to do business in this way - and it is my style to get useful intelligence. The ONLY way to do that is to acquire sophisticated language and cultural skills and establish relationships with people who may know something of interest. But, bad as they are, these failures are not particularly unusual, nor critical in the long run. Sooner or later Congress is going to investigate the special intelligence unit, and it will be abolished. Already we are taking better steps to deal with security and infrastructure issues. More are in the works, some near term, some medium term. And our product is saleable: people like self rule and hate dictatorial regimes. It is going to end up a very positive thing. Meanwhile, we have bases in a position of use in the critical area of the Islamic world. It was worth doing, and if you were President I bet we would still be doing it. {US policy is surprisingly consistent, because our interests are related to it, and our staff tends to be the same whoever won the last election].
 
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elcid    RE:Post-9/11 Assescessment Failed States and Dominos   10/3/2004 12:52:09 AM
You are playing word games. You are evading defending your proposal. You said we should be invading Somolia, that it was a better choice than Iraq. I replied that it seemed the wrong time to do it. I made no comment about past policy or events there. I only asked why invade now a democratic process with some legitimacy (involving all players) may be in place?
 
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elcid    RE:Post-9/11 Assescessment Failed States and Dominos   10/3/2004 12:57:34 AM
Oil shipping lanes? From where to where? Oil from the Gulf mainly sails East, or takes pipelines west. Japan, China, Korea, India, other nations all buy oil that does not use the Red Sea route. A great deal of European oil uses pipelines to move west, and more does not Iraq is not now restricted from sending it that way. Still other oil sails via gigantic ships South, around Africa. You only impact a minority of mideast oil if you have a position near the Red Sea. And Djbouti already covers that better than Somolia. What do you GAIN in geostrategic position by invading Somolia? Will not the establishment of an effective regime there likely have more impact on the ability of radicals to operate than an invasion would? What is the STRATEGIC justification for invading Somolia? And how do you justify it politically? Iraq was technically at war with us - Somolia is not.
 
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elcid    All politics is domestic   10/3/2004 1:05:58 AM
Thank you. I understand your point. I agree with your point. You could be quoting me - I say that - except we are both quoting a truism or axiom of politics widely used. We hardly disagree - so please drop your criticism of me because I don't understand this. In Prognosis for China I explain what the issue seems to be (Taiwan) and what the issue really is about (crisis in governance in China and the need to justify continued CCP rule in local eyes). It is hard to express the degree to which I agree with you - and disagree with vast numbers of scholars and analysts on China - because I look at things from a local point of view. Once (and I was most unhappy about it) the future (present) President of China asked me to explain why Chinese people were doing something? [The incident was reported in the South China Morning Post the next day]. He (like me) is an engineer interested in politics, and he thought I might have a handle on local affairs of use to him. Sometimes I have been asked to explain historical events in Japan or the Philippines - by people in or from those nations - because I do more research on them than most nationals do. You cannot understand present political trends out of the local economic, political, geographic and historical contexts.
 
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