You should have been a politician Lawrence. You're so adept at avoiding the question. In this instance you try and pour scorn on the questioner. Here's what Jeremy Paxman would do: he'd ask the question again. And again. And again. So: Do you accept that the war in Iraq has created more fundamentlists than there were before? "In the meantime we must deal with the world as it is. Not all nations are presently Liberal Democracies. Pakistan is not a Liberal Democracy. We know that. Everyone knows that. We must deal with Pakistan as it exists, not as we would like it to be." This made me laugh, it really did, especially the last sentence. Here we have a country that, along with Afghanistan and, arguably, Saudi Arabia, was the most responsible for 9/11, a country that is a dictatorship, a country that is one of the principle centres of mulsim extremism, and what was the US response...let's be allies. Meanwhile, there's Iraq, a country not responsible for 9/11, a country without WMD, but with a ruler who pissed off Bush and which happens to have a load of oil and what was the US response...let's invade. That's the hypocracy Lawrence, or it would be if this was a war on terror, or a war for liberal democracy. "And then you conclude with the belief that I will be speechless as a result of your brilliant analyses: [ ] " Ah now Lawrence, you see that was a debating tactic, to make sure you wouldn't actually walk away again... Simon ----- Original Message ----- From: Lawrence Helm To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 2:15 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience Simon I was so appalled at the ignorance of the first part of your message that I neglected the ignorance in the rest of it. You seem unable to grasp the difference between a hypothesis (advancing a theory of what the future will consist of) and current diplomatic demands. I suspect many on the Lit-Ideas Left of not being able to read my entire messages, but maybe it is worse than that with you. Maybe you can't follow an extended argument. I don't know how else to account for the silly thing you wrote in your paragraph that begins "As for Pakistan. . . " Of course if you have neither read nor understood my previous posts on this subject, you won't understand this one either, nevertheless -- since you have my attention -- you need to see that there are two very different matters: 1.. The theory that Liberal Democracy is the End of History was developed by Fukuyama and has a certain degree of currency at the present time. It is opposed by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilization thesis. These are theories. Neither of them is proved. It would be nice if all nations were Liberal Democracies, but that is not presently the case. 2.. In the meantime we must deal with the world as it is. Not all nations are presently Liberal Democracies. Pakistan is not a Liberal Democracy. We know that. Everyone knows that. We must deal with Pakistan as it exists, not as we would like it to be. Beyond that I didn't apologize for Pakistan. You are making that up. Did you think I wouldn't notice? I suppose this is another case of your not reading my note and just guessing as to what I was going to say. I'm very familiar with that approach. But anyone wishing to can see what I actually said, two notes below this one, and see that you are either lying or as I believe guessing because you can't bear to read my notes. The world is not made up of Liberal Democracies. Perhaps one day it will be, or perhaps not. In the meantime we must on occasion exercise realpolitik, in other words deal with nations we don't like but can't change. Listen to Irene, she is urging us to use realpolitik with Iran: getting Bush to sit down with Ahmadinejad over a cup of coffee and having a heart to heart. And then you conclude with the belief that I will be speechless as a result of your brilliant analyses: [ ] Lawrence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------