Re: Barack Obama Pits Space Explorers Against School Children

On Dec 17, 5:29 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, but there is the attitudes of the society. There are
subtle ways to change them. My argument is that at least in the short
term there is no real alternative to Baath. As I said the Syrian
régime would be totally unaceptable for a Western country, yet Assad
has given more "freedom" in the broad sense than any other country in
the region.

The British Military are congratulating thenselves on reducing the
Christian population in Basra from 20,000 to 3,000 and presiding over
a persecution, not only of women but also a Maoist style persecution
of intellectuals. Prospects are bleak.

I make different assumptions than you, which is why I come to more
pessimistic assumptions than you.

I think the policy of supporting Arab "strongmen" is what got us
*into* this mess in the first place. The Arabs are rebelling against
them, as they well should, but they find no way to rebel except
through Islamic fanaticism - just as the rebellions against dictators
in Latin America that survived and succeeded tended to be Communist
ones. America should be mindful of the long term, and it should be on
the side of freedom.

In the short term, a new Saddam isn't going to appear in Iraq even
with our help, but more troops would keep the lid on. Ethnic
persecution is wrong, but partition of the country along ethnic lines
would reduce the overhead for law enforcement, and make something like
a police state less necessary.

I don't think that the changes in the Muslim world we require in short
order can be achieved through sweetness and light except in the very
long term. The main obstacle is pride, and ignominious defeat is
usually the antidote to that. But any kind of a war with the world's
one billion Muslims is what we don't want - and, as I've noted, people
who want to stay comfortably at home, not serve as soldiers in an
uncomfortably hot clime, are too likely to be tempted to fight any war
on that scale by pushing a few buttons.

Besides running away from the Earth's potentially insoluble problems
to Mars, however, I do have a few recommendations.

One recommendation would be to lean - subtly, and behind the scenes -
on existing governments in the Islamic world to resist giving in to
the radical religious elements in their countries. This is already,
though, the course of action most of them would _like_ to take, so
what they really need is assistance, not pressure. They are unable to
go as far as we would like them to do so in that direction because
it's too easy for the fanatics to threaten the stability of their
regimes.

We don't want to replace kind, well-liked leaders by hated tyrants. On
the other hand, if jackbooted thugs are needed to keep down the
rabble, having them be our (or Israeli!) jackbooted thugs isn't going
to help deal with the terrorism problem either.

The current approach seems to have been - cut down on the anti-
American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, but otherwise go back to the Dark
Ages as much as is necessary - and those who don't like the Dark Ages,
well, we have something for them too. We're welcoming immigrants now,
since we need to pay the pensions of the Baby Boomers.

Only problem with that is that given the current terrorist menace, we
ought not to be letting in immigrants from the Islamic world without a
full background check... as one would do for a British citizen being
considered for a post in M. I. 5. This raises a manpower issue. I
would consider letting in more Russian immigrants instead, feeling
that the threat of organized crime is one the constabulary is
competent to deal with.

John Savard
.

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