Wow, I agree with Batman. Now I know why I have been ignoring this forum. Time to leave before I puke. again.
There should never be war There should never be war There should never be war Go ahead, maybe if you repeat it long enough you'll believe it. We're just evil We're just evil We're just evil Give that a shot too. The reality is, there too many reasons left in this world to go to war. Whether it's genocide in the Balkins, or a muderous tyrant who had invaded his neighbor, used WMD on civilians, and was thumbing his nose at his post-war agreements and the UN. Many foreigners did not want this invasion. Including the little old Turkish lady who, when asked what happens if Iraq atatcks a neighbor, 'that's ok because the US will smack them down' (para.). Well too bad. Sometimes we won't accept Europe's and the UN's apparent spineless acceptance of such behaviour, of allowing such a threat to world peace to continue. We'll be left holding the bag; that's been shown over and over. I don't argue that we go off willy-nilly. It requires a true diplomat (where Bush has failed miserably). But should we allow the 98% of (Greek Orthodox) Greeks who didn't want us to attack (Greek Orthodox) Serbia to end their genocide to determine our policy? The whole problem was a European one, tell me why it took the US to resolve the issue? If Europe cannot stand up and resolve genocide in Europe, where will it stand on more distant issues like the Middle East? Why would one expect any backbone there? And does Europe have a history of not forcing tyrants to uphold their agreements? hmmm. If someone else wants to be the world's insurance policy against such tyrants, let'm step up. Let them pay tens of billions to remove a tyrant, stabilize the world economy, and most importantly, sacrifice their soldiers to remove a threat to world peace. As for how we achieve our results, war will always be imperfect. We have probably spent billions trying to improve the accuracy of our weapons and training our troops. The reality is that our weapons will never be perfect and neither will our troops. But no one, other than glynch apparently, can deny that we try to minimize innocent deaths. And we did not create the situation to start with. We did not create Saddam. Yet we're cleaning up the mess. If Bush was brighter, we would be doing this with the UN. If there's a failing here, that's it.
From a RealPolitick view, we don't really care about innocent civilians but rather the backlash any particular action would create both here and there. If we obliterated Fallujah, you've just given all the nuts in the Arab World a Waco to rally around and made a bad situation worse. Sadly, neither side is really concerned about the innocent civilians as infdividuals, but both care about them as symbols.
Andy, this Uncle_Tim guy is like a pimple on the rear-end of D&D. Apparently, it's his intention to call everyone who doesn't subscribe to his views a "traitor", "in league with the terrorists" and so on. And I keep seeing him quoted... so if I have him on ignore, it won't do me any good, correct? When he threw his filth at mrpaige, I decided that that was too much. Can't we get anything better in here??
Realpolitik From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Realpolitik (German for "politics of reality") is foreign politics based on practical concerns rather than theory or ethics. Realpolitik in many cases has been for the advancement of the national interests of a country over ethical or principled concerns. One of the most famous proponents was Niccolò Machiavelli, best known for his Il Principe (The Prince). Machiavelli held that the sole aim of a prince was to seek power, regardless of religious or ethical considerations. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, is also cited as an intellectual forebearer of realpolitik. Other significant practitioners of realpolitik include Prince Metternich, Otto von Bismarck, and Count Camillo Benso di Cavour. Indeed, it was Bismarck who coined the term "realpolitik", with regard to his efforts in what led to the unification of Germany under Prussia in 1871. In the "realist school" of Anglo-Saxon Political Science of the late 20th century this term is mostly used as a synonym for power politics. The policy of Realpolitik was introduced to the Nixon White House by Henry Kissinger. In this context, the policy meant dealing with other powerful nations in a practical manner, i.e. diplomacy with the People's Republic of China rather than containment.
Wow Cohen,...if you made anymore sense, you might have the left discounting such a great post with side talk about them lacking brains or something to that effect... Folks on the left act like we're gleefully targeting innocent civilians with reckless nature. We chose to be in Iraq to fight a terroristic-like country that was ran by Saddam...I fully believe Iraq was a real danger because of prior actions pure and simple...plus, how can you trust or "contain" a mass murderer (who happened to run a country) with Mass destructive weapons that he glorified, fascinated over, wanted more of, and used against innocent civilians... I don't know about you, but if I like to shoot squirrels in my neighborhood, it's only a matter of time till I shoot the squirrels I really want in your neighborhood,..or at least have people who CAN shoot those squirrels in your neighborhood... To further expand on innocent civilians, it is no doubt we have concern and are doing what we can (in every way, shape, or form) to minimize civilian deaths...But lets not have Iraqis from Arab news agencies pushing these kids out in the fire...They deserve better than that from knowing adults...
Accuracy would be a good thing to recommend. Myself and other liberals in this thread have not said that the U.S. is gleefully targeting innocent civilians. Even glynch's title jus said that they were killed. The glee etc. all comes from you inserting it into the equation. This is a problem that plagues some folks. They will try and twist things and put words in others mouths in order to portray them in a worse light. Of course it's not honest, accurate, or any of that stuff but it happens all the time. As for you believing that Saddam was a threat to you I have a question. If Saddam had still in power, would you be looking over your shoulder worried that at any minute Iraqis might strike? I'm not sure where the danger to the U.S. came from as far as Saddam goes.
How many acts of Iraqi terrorism have there been against the US in the last 25 years? Please give detailed dates, places, etc. Other than the foiled keystone kops plot to kill the former President Bush, I don't know of any. I don't know what your definition of "terroristic" is, but my defintion of "terroristic" countries are countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which provide sanctuary, funding & manpower for Al Qaeda.....and still do. Iraq is more of a danger now that it is a terrorist breeding ground. But anyway, since they 1. had no WMD's, and 2. had a piss poor army -- in other words they presented little to no military threat, please let me know how they presented a danger worth the extreme cost that we are now paying and will continue to pay? Which prior actions were you referring to? Well, we trusted him quite a bit back in the 1980's right about the time he was using chemical weapons against Iran.... and we currently trust Uzbekistan, whose dictator, Islam Karimov, likes to boil his political opponents in oil. He's just like Saddam minus the WMD's --- oh wait, Saddam didn't have any either.
Yawn.... Tell that to the Kurds. It truly is laughable how the liberals are so quick to conclusively declare that no WMD were in Iraq. Did you see how small those chemicals which were confiscated in Jordan were? You could hide those in a car's trunk. It took close to a year to locate Saddam. It could take much longer to locate WMD. Not having found them yet is not conclusive in any way. Any denial of that is just partisan buffoonery. Why do the liberals insist on eroding support for The War on Terror? Cutting and running is not an option. I support our troops.
But that is politics, is it not? It's about power and I'd much rather we have the power than the Islamofacist nuts.
I'm glad you're clinging to the WMD myth. I heard they were last reported in the champagne room, you should investigate.
Yes. My original point was that nobody cares about innocent civilians... we just care about how innocent civilians being killed affects the politics.
FB, A hypothetical for you: what would Saddam be doing for the next 20 or 30 years he would likely have been in power, or the additional 20 or 30 years one of his lovely sons would have been in power? Do you think they would have simply halted all of his aspirations for 'greatness'? Was he acting like that before the 2nd war? There is NO doubt in my mind, saddam ultimately would have attacked someone else. A likely target would be Israel, but based on Saudi Arabia's view, it could have been them also. Of course not until he had the upper hand. Maybe after the UN, which was showing inaction, tired of fighting him to oversee his activities. And maybe when the US was embroiled in some other issues. So there is NO doubt in my mind, ultimately the US would have to fight him again, and maybe even terrorist activties that he would ultimately find useful in harming the US. Did you feel comfortable, with what he's proven himself capable of, with him remaining in power? Would you have guaranteed the world of his acquiescence?
I assume you mean the politicians? Do you mean ALL politicians? Or ones of a specific party? Please elaborate.
How would he have attacked someone else? He was hemmed in. Furthermore if we had gone through with the peace deal, that would have put thousands of CIA, and FBI folks on the ground in Iraq, and would have allowed for democratic elections, he would have been gone anyway, more than likely, but if he wasn't, how would he or his vile sons get out from under the no fly zones, U.S. intel agents, UN insepctors etc. in order to attack someone else? I can't know for sure the what if's, none of us can, but I don't see how he would have ever been a threat, considering the position he was in, and what we could have had in place to guard against such actions. Furthermore if he did manage to attack someone, it would have been the end for him. He would have tried, and even if he temporarily succeeded like he did with Kuwait, he would have been crushed. The difference being that it wouldn't have been us starting that one, it would have been Saddam. We might have put together a large and meaningful coalition, and the burdon would have been shared. And once again if he managed to attack somebody, it wouldn't have been the U.S. all the intel points to him not being a threat to the U.S.
Cohen, I understand your point, and I agree that Saddam would eventually have had to be dealt with, but not now, not when Bush decided to, not the way he went about it (which I think you agree with), not for the reasons he gave, and not until after we had crushed Al-Q in Afghanistan, Northwest Pakistan, Yemen and everywhere else we could find the vermin. We didn't have to do what we did in Iraq... not now. (why do I feel a strange sense of deja vu?)
