Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> that US out of everywhere is as it always has
> been is the best rule of thumb. I would have made an exception for Rwanda,
> but it supports my convictions that it didn't happen there.
That point on Rwanda is I think important. I rather suspect that if one went looking over the past 50 years for places where big-power intervention _might_ have been defensible, one would end with a list of _all_ the times when there was never a ghost of a chance that such intervention would take place. In fact usually on even casual examination it turns out that the U.S. _was_ intervening (on the wrong side) as in East Timor, where Carter and Reagan both cheered the murderers on.
I have often had the patience to engage in direct oral conversation with those holding Luke's positions -- I don't see how you have the patience to read and reply to him in e-mail!
Incidentally, the war in Afghanistan is slowly provoking a lot of sleeping dogs. My daughter who dropped out of political activity a quarter century ago has decided she has to go to Washington for the April March. And after the to-be-expected big dropoff of attendance at meetings of the local anti-war group in December and January, it has started growing again. If Bush really wants to carry out his endless war, he might find he has one to fight at home as well. We're getting the time to organize and grow that the Gulf War didn't give us. And also, as the movement grows, the window-smashers of Seattle etc. will just get absorbed and cease to be a problem.
Carrol