Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report

[James A. Donald]

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James A. Donald:
> > Permanent holy war in Iraq would keep them busy and out of 
> > mischief WITHOUT permanent large involvement from American 
> > military.

Steve Thompson
> True, but there's a question of the waste of resources and
> man-years that would come from such a circumstance.

All the oil money has been wasted, most of the humans in the
middle east have suffered poverty, ignorance, lack of freedom
and the unproductive absence of useful labor.

All my life, people have been proposing to solve this problem.
Nearly every American president since 1950 announced some big
and expensive initiative that would supposedly solve this
problem, or make some substantial progress towards a solution.
What is your solution?

> And then there's the ethical[1] side of the coin: do the
> (largely financial benefits) that might come from a civil war
> in Iraq really justify the consequent standard-of-living for
> the residents of Iraq?

And your remedy for improving the standard of living in the
arab world is?

James A. Donald:
> > Plus, of course, they would be pumping oil like mad in
> > order to fund it.

Steve Thompson
> Aren't we all about to run out of oil soon anyways?

Forty years or so, according to estimates by the more sane and
conventional authorities.

James A. Donald:
> >  the people who organize large scale terror can be
> > identified, particularly by locals and coreligionists,
> > which is why they have been dying in large numbers in
> > Afghanistan.

Steve Thompson
> Um, what planet are you on?

The planet where the Afghans held an election, in which nearly
everybody voted, some of them several times, and the Taliban
were unable to carry out any of the threats they made against
the voters, which indicates that the Afghans have been pretty
efficient in killing Taliban.

> The people who, as you say, organize large scale terror tend
> to be protected by virtue of large bureaucratic firewalls,
> legislated secrecy, misdirection (smoke and mirrors), and
> even taboos.

The average Afghan warlord is untroubled by any of this crap. 
He sees someone who looks suspicious, says "Hey, you don't look
like you are from around here.  What are you doing?"  If he
does not like the answers, he brings out his skinning knife,
and asks a few more questions.  If the answers make him even
more unhappy, he hands his skinning knife to the womenfolk, and
tells them to take their time.

> But perhaps you are not referring to Western terrorists, but
> are expecting your reader to assume that terrorists always
> wear turbans, and who generally will live and operate in the
> Middle-Eastern theatre. Perhaps you have forgotten about the
> people who planned and executed the operations that helped
> South-American tyrants form up and train their death- and
> terror-squads?

The parties that sponsored death squads of Latin America, when
victorious, held free and fair elections, which they won, and
those they had been fighting lost.  The death squads were an
response to Soviet sponsored attempts to subjugate, enslave and
terrorize Latin America, and when the Soviet Union passed, so
did the death squads.

It seems most unlikely that Al Quaeda, the Taliban, and the
rest, if victorious would hold free and fair elections, or be
capable of winning them.

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         James A. Donald
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