From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Apr 06 2002 - 17:11:36 MST
Bill wrote:
> The US is very reluctant to side with Israel "too much" so as to
> have some Arab support in killing off Saddam Hussein and other
> terrorists in Iraq/Iran.
Lets clearly separate Saddam from "other terrorists".
Saddam is attempting to develop nuclear weapons -- that is very
differerent from Palestinians attempting to develop rockets
to knock out Israeli tanks or to hurl at Israeli cities.
The similarity between Sadaam and the Palestinian leadership
is that both seem to be very comfortable sacrificing the lives
of their own people to achieve their goals.
Lets also be clear that one can probably not "kill off"
a large body of terrorists in Iraq/Iran. Our activities
in Afghanistan clearly show that eliminating the people
who choose terrorism as a means of attaining their goals
is not easy. It would also be useful to separate the two
countries. Terrorism supported by Iraq is coming in large
part from Hussein himself by paying the families of suicide
bombers. On the other hand in Iran, terrorism seems to be
supported not by the elected administration but perhaps by
the religious conservatives or other fringe groups. Two
different cases entirely.
Finally, the population of Iraq is 23 million and Iran
is 66 million. By taking any action against them,
unless it is against very specific, unpopular leadership,
you run a significant risk of creating more terrorists
than you eliminate unless you intend to nuke the countries
into oblivion.
> Once fuel cell technology or some other energy source
> can be found and implemented to replace petro-fuel, I think that
> we (USA) could act more unilaterally with only European and
> other non-Arab support.
You are dreaming if you think this is going to happen anytime
within the next decade. I've worked a lot on this problem and
have a solution but it isn't going to happen quickly.
> Saudi financing of Palestinian and Iraqi terror is honestly enough
> reason to attack the Saudi kingdom once we have enough economic
> independence from them to do that.
Saudi financing? Have you not read the papers that Saddam is paying
the families of the suicide bombers or that organizations in the
U.S. and Europe have channeled funds to mixed-use Palestinian
causes?
The only way out of this mess is to begin to educate Arabs and
muslims (and Christans and Jews) in general to "think rationally".
You have to free the press, then convert the educational systems
and change the governments from monarchies to democracies.
You want to do this by gradual political pressure or by example
(e.g. our economic growth rate in a free society is greater than
yours in a suppressed society) rather than by force.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:17 MST