> And are you saying we should pull out now? That, sir, would be the most > irresponsible thing we could possibly do, bring all our troops home. We'd be > leaving a mess we created behind, without even trying to clean it up. More > people would die than are currently dying now, and the eventual government > to emerge would be whomever could employ the most brutality to silence all > competition. At least with our troops there we provide some vague semblence > of security and the glimmer of peaceable government formation.
True, it would be a disaster if we pulled out today. But we are building permanent bases there, which gives the impression (true or not) that we NEVER intend to leave. That creates problems of its own. I was reminded of an old book, by Heinlien I think. One character states something to the effect that invasion by aliens is not that bad, as long as no women come, because then it means that they are colonizing your planet, not merely taking resources. Outdated sexual roles aside, this is what we are doing in Iraq by building permanent bases. We cannot pull out immediatly, but staying indefinitely is not a viable option either, and in the debate, those are often presented as the only options. IF those were the only options, I would choose immediate withdrawal, but I hope that someone is smart enough to choose the middle road instead. Zeke _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
