"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
news
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Mark Rand" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:57:44 -0400, "Ed Huntress"

wrote:



I think the consequences for all of us would be a lot worse than
you're suggesting, if the world let that happen.

I didn't comment on the consequences.
Since you've brought it up, however, I think they would be trivial in the
negative sense.
I don't, for example, think that all of the rhetoric and bluster is very
much more than that.
What is happening to the Palestinians is being afforded the patina of
legitimacy because the world is unwilling to stick a finger in anyone's
chest and just tell them to figure it out, or else.

It's a game Ed.
I think I'll just stop here, but let me add one thing.
BAO DIEN TU
And this.

I just spent an hour or so with a kid that I consider a fine young man.
He's
a Marine, but I set that side - queers that can't shoot straight, the lot
of them. He's about to deploy.

Here is what I told him.

Afghanastan looks just exactly like SE Asia to me and after listening to
McCrystal this morning, I'm as convinced as ever we'll **** this one up.

He was puzzled, and we both belong to the same fraternal brotherhood so he
knows my bonafides. I think he thought I was going to give him another of
my
history lessons but I didn't.

What I said is that we've screwed the pooch in our efforts and need to
pull
the plug ASAP knowing full well that we'll have to go back.

We can't get, today, from where we are to the important point that our
enemy
will give up. That's all that matters.
We also can't walk away now and hold our water because the public won't
support it unless our poliical leadership explains it convincingly. That
isn't going to happen.

The ME is so far from that reality that it's funny and we need to do
something to get all of those **** heads to understand that with some
degree
of humility. That is the element they all lack. The Thank You they can
provide is to sit down and settle their hash on their own. Time's Up.


--
John R. Carroll

Afghanistan has become a real miasma, but I'm not following it enough to
have an opinion about where it's going. It does give me the creeps,
especially in light of our Vietnam experience. But I'll have to leave that
one to others. I hope for the best but I think we'll survive the worst.

The Middle East is different, though, and the combination of oil, oil
wealth, nuclear weapons, and religious craziness looks like something we
can't back away from. It's always been frustrating to me, not because I
think one side or the other is all virtue, or that there is some simple
"fairness" that should be applied to solve the whole thing. It looks like
the best we'll ever achieve is to help institutionalize some kind of truce
that may keep the region from blowing up.

Because, if it blows up, we'll catch a fair dose of the fallout --
politically, economically, and otherwise. That could be the beginning of a
new world regime of extreme instability. Stability isn't fairness, but it
beats the alternative.

--
Ed Huntress