The Freudian concept of suppressed memory and the more recent idea of multiple personality disorder, make great fodder for producing cheap TV and movie plots, but that's about all. Unfortunately, memory really doesn't work that way. The reason PTSD is so horrific is that we can't suppress those memories; the way the mind really works is quite the opposite. (There's some new work on PTSD memories in which drugs that suppress memory formation are given and the patient is asked to recall the stressor events. If the timing is right, the memory doesn't get resaved, and recall is way less vivid.)
Besides, the idea of a conservative with a concience is even further out there in the outer limits of scifi.
"The Arab League is a dictator’s club, and Qaddafi was simply an outcast member."
That makes not getting involved sound like an even better idea. Really, US mideast policy is completely insane. We fought against Hussein, and presumably next is Iran (I really hope not: I was friends with some of their nuclear engineering students at MIT in the mid 70s). But both Hussein and Iran are at the very top of bin Laden's hit list. And we previously fought and died alongside Hussein against Iran. And now a brief interlude to help out the other Arab dictators (whom we are likely to be fighting against in Bharain). How can we be so stupid?
Oops. You are soooooooo right.
This is really embarrassing: I'm a whole decade behind the stupidity of the US right.
"You wonder how the US will feel if Iran deploys it in nearby countries of the Middle East, just as Washington itself has done."
The US should be happy if Iran does so. The folks Iran would want to shoot at (al Qaida and the Taliban) are the same folks the US wants to shoot at.
The Freudian concept of suppressed memory and the more recent idea of multiple personality disorder, make great fodder for producing cheap TV and movie plots, but that's about all. Unfortunately, memory really doesn't work that way. The reason PTSD is so horrific is that we can't suppress those memories; the way the mind really works is quite the opposite. (There's some new work on PTSD memories in which drugs that suppress memory formation are given and the patient is asked to recall the stressor events. If the timing is right, the memory doesn't get resaved, and recall is way less vivid.)
Besides, the idea of a conservative with a concience is even further out there in the outer limits of scifi.
"The Arab League is a dictator’s club, and Qaddafi was simply an outcast member."
That makes not getting involved sound like an even better idea. Really, US mideast policy is completely insane. We fought against Hussein, and presumably next is Iran (I really hope not: I was friends with some of their nuclear engineering students at MIT in the mid 70s). But both Hussein and Iran are at the very top of bin Laden's hit list. And we previously fought and died alongside Hussein against Iran. And now a brief interlude to help out the other Arab dictators (whom we are likely to be fighting against in Bharain). How can we be so stupid?
Doesn't US involvement delegitimize the rebels? And why can't the Arab League, if they're so gung ho to get rid of Qaddafi, do it themselves?