Ray, At 09:28 28/08/02 -0400, you wrote: >From an otherwise excellent examination of the issues you wrote:
I don't know what you mean by the above comment. I'm not exactly endorsing Bush's Middle East policy. Just describing the realpolitik as I see it. Keith > >> You wrote "I can't be sure it's true". I can't be sure either either but, >> dangerous though Bush's present policy is, it seems to me that inaction by >> Bush is even more dangerous (that is, from Bush's point of view concerning >> the American economy). There might have been other ways of tackling the >> whole issue of the Middle East earlier this year, but I think that the >> American administration concluded that peaceful culture change in the >> Muslim countries is impossible. There has to be revolution within Saudi >> Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other oil-bearing Muslim countries, in order to >> split the religion and the state -- similar to Kemal Ataturk's in Turkey >in >> 1928. (Ominously, there are signs that Turkey itself is now slipping back >> into Islam-dominated politics.) >> >> I'm not excluding the possibility that Americans troops will invade Iraq. >> This is quite probable, in fact, given the momentum of Bush's propaganda, >> but it will be slow and careful (and probably stop well within the >southern >> Shia Muslim region), making sure that there will always be sufficient >> American troops available on the SA border to support the modernists in SA >> if they are necessary. > > >More killing of old people, women and children. The military solution must >become the admittance of the failure of culture. The culture of the >aggressor. We are all predators for we must eat one another but >civilization is our only hope for salvation from the base nature of our >being. I have no problems with admitting the predator, I just don't >believe that anyone who is given power deserves being called a human being >until they rise above the blunt use of military force to prove their point. >We have much too much available to us as alternatives. We now have the >ability to answer every fanatic on the planet with genuine information. >Suppression is not the answer. Only information. Pay your soldiers to >go to school and then work on the internet fighting with words, every single >fanatic they can find. Unfortunately we all suffer from the Kudzu and >killer bee syndrome. Both the vine and the bee are invaders of our >territory that will probably eventually ruin our forests. We refuse to >get our hands dirty fighting them but choose instead to simply measure the >progress and hope they won't like cold weather. If it can't be cheaply >met with the economy of scale we won't do it and there in lies the problem. >The battle for hearts and minds must be fought by individuals who are more >sophisticated and smarter than the wealthy dilettantes who turn their people >into the same kind of fodder that our industrialists would like for them to >be. Enough! > >Ray Evans Harrell > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
