1) Why are you talking in alternatives? How do you know this isn't a situation of options? 2) This is a point I wanted to deal with elsewhere, but here will do...This whole 'historical' justification for invading other nations we percieve as threats is so mispalced, so innacurate, and so much an example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing that it's painful. Obviously the history you are referring to is the whole 'appeasement' flag that is so en vogue with right wing apologists these days. A few points... A) Never mind that the dangers of applying that very principle to other situations were made very apparent during, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis when following the kind of advice you are advocating would have lead to WWIII...let's just look at whether the situations are even remotely appropriate. Appeasement was NOT, repeat and underline, NOT about placatin Hitler by not invading to right internal German wrongs, or to remove their military capacity outlawed by the Treaty of Versailles. Virtually every world leader, even those most strongly against Hitler ffrom the beginning eventually admitted that the restraints of versailles were invasive, and hopelessly unreasonable. Appeasement never dealt with issues involving Germany proper, but was a process of conceding foreign lands to Germany to avoid all out war. Nothing whatever about the treatment of the Jews, or the potential threat an aremd germany represented...so unless we are currently considering giving Kuwaut and parts of Saudi Arabia to Iraq, or South Korea to Norht Korea in order to avoid conflict, there is no comparison in principle or practice. B) The reason why it did not, nor ever would have had anything to do with internal German issues is very simple..it is not within the authority of foreign powers to dictate morality to other nations. That is imperialism, pure and simple, and it should be noted that virtually every expansionist nation in history...including Hitler's Germany...has claimed to be invading other nations in the pursuit of writing exisitng wrongs in the invaded nation. C) The reason it wasn't, nor could have been pre-emptive self-defense is that that is the slipperies of all slopes, and could be virtually universally applied if approved...hence it is not. The UN definitions of acceptable actions of self-defense specifically states that pre-emptive action does not qualify as self-defense. this is not a new concept...the Romans claimed the same virtually every time they invaded another nation...the potential of a threat, real or imagined. ANd, no, it wasn't always just to take said region over..the 2nd time Carthage was sacked, it was done so because it was een to be an intolerable threat...which it wasn't, but oh, well...and this kind of action was seen as tyranical even then. About this very action, the pre-emptive invasion and destruction of another nation because it was seen to be a threatthe Roman historian Tacitus wrote " They make a desert and call it peace."
Glynch, if Al Gore (thank God he is not) or another Dem were president, holding the same hardline stance against Irag and NK, would you still be so against action? I know I would still support action against Sadam using force if necessary, and if tension with NK stays this way, using force against them.
Yeah, especially since his proposed budget called for a bigger increase in military spending... Honestly, glynch is left of normal left, but he seems sincere in it. I think he'd oppose war whoever was leading it.
Fair enough, if he's sincere. I just get tired of people turning this into a political, Republican/democrat issue.
Glynch, do you really think it was rational for Saddam to invade Kuwait... thinking we would do nothing? You think North Korea has a stable government like that that existed in the Soviet Union? (and it WAS a stable government, regardless of what we thought about it when it existed) You really think "MAD" is a rational policy TO DEPEND ON with North Korea? If anything, Kim Jong-Il is far nuttier than Saddam and N. Korea is far, far, FAR more powerful militarily than Iraq has EVER been. This should be our focus. This is where I think Bush has seriously dropped the ball. He's completely mis-handled N. Korea since taking office. If we had focused our attention there perhaps they wouldn't have taken these dangerous steps with their nuke program. Does any sane person WANT to go to war? Of course not. But don't spend your blood and treasure going to war with a dictator already in a box. Put your strength where the danger is greatest, and perhaps, if your lucky, the other side "sees the light" and backs down. You don't tie yourself down to a place that can wait. I'm very concerned about N. Korea, obviously. I'm very concerned about this administration and their foreign policy and their OTHER policies. Be that as it may, this is a train wreck in the making. This is the same government that invaded a S. Korea occupied by the United Nations, including a large American military force. You REALLY think they're rational?? I'm a liberal Democrat, for what it's worth. Sorry to be so long-winded. I usually leave that to some of the rest of you.
Of course I would oppose it. I could care less about Clinton's affairs and I even think his lie was no big deal that did not have muh to do with whether he was a good president. His bombing Iraq and continuing the sanctions, however, was deeply immoral IMHO.
Why was Saddam's invasion of Kuwait insane? How could he assume that we would do something given that A) He had been our ally in war up to that time, irrespective of what military action he took, and often because of it...B) He essentially asked us about it and was told that we had no interest in that sphere..ie, go ahead...and C) We had not intervened in so many other similar instances around the world, most notably in Africa...
you know what i like you people are completely ignoring. the fact that japan said it will attack someone even if they are not attacked. japan is supposed to be a completely pacificist nation. there is a very big rising sentiment in japan that they should stop being a defensive nation and have an active army. their army is better than china's and already one of best in the world. a japan that is no longer militarily dependent on the US is a scary scenario that could develop out of this. if anything the japanese will fire a missle at the north koreans before we do.
Come on, MacBeth, my post was about North Korea. And yes, I don't think it was a rational act by Saddam. The word insane was yours, not mine... although I wouldn't argue that it applies. And I know the history we have with Saddam. I only brought him up to highlight how the government of North Korea is even more irrational... far more irrational and has the history to prove it. That it is a far more dangerous threat to the world and to us and has a history to prove it. Yes, we have propped up tin-pot dictators when it suited our national interests. And I've frequently disagreed with those decisions. But how would you know that? This is the wrong military buildup at the wrong place at the wrong time. To repeat myself, we should be doing this in the area of the Korean Peninsula... should have been doing it some time before this... and perhaps we wouldn't be having the crisis we're having now with N. Korea. Perhaps they would have decided that it wasn't such a good idea after all. We'll never know. Perhaps stopping the food and fuel shipments to North Korea wasn't such a good idea either. I think it was a mistake. So was refusing to talk with them. Hell, the Bush Administration's policy towards North Korea has been one mistake after another. In my opinion. And what's up with taking a quote out of my post and managing to include a winking smilie face that was at the end and had nothing to do with what you quoted? Must have been a typo.
1) I was addressing your first point, and I thought made that distinction by only quoting that. I had no idea it was only window dressing for your later points, nor do I see how that means I shouldn't have questioned it. 2) I am glad to know that you questioned those actions at the time...I don't see how saying that invalidates my points, however. 3) Yes, the wink-face thing was a typo...when you're quoting it it onll appears as puntuation, and I'm not very good with this stuff...I am being sincere, it was an accident. I quote the point I am addressing, and then slowly delete the rest, but stop before the end so that it stays in bold...obviously I stopped a character or two too soon.
I don't think that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was an 'insane' action and it was actually well calculated. Iraq had been in a long costly war with Iran for quite some time in which the US simply fed both sides and profited. Iraq revealed its plans to the US and recieved no information to the contrary that the US cared. The Iraqi people were also upset about the stalemate of the drawn our Iran-Iraq war and this would help public sentiment, increase wealth substantially and take back Kuwait, which was once part of Iraq and which had significant meaning to many Iraqi's. The original blame was based on horizontal drilling, but I don't think that was enough alone. But the horizontal drilling coupled with the factors above made it a strategic move to take Kuwait. Unfortunately for them, the US and the world thought otherwise and blew Iraq back to the stone age.
Maybe we can propose a backroom trade to China to have them take out N. Korea. If they do the dirty work for us, they can have N. Korea, and then we will stand idly by and let them take Taiwan after they overrun N. Korea.
china doesnt want korea , korea is our freind we want to see korea in 1 peice , the chinese have no intention of controlling another country like north korea for our interest like the american want to control the oils in iraq!! n who do u american think u are saying lety us take back taiwan ! taiwan is not yours , taiwan is part of china n is chinese territory, do u american get thjis, this is not native indian n white people issue, peoples in taiwan are chinese peoples in main land are chinses , we speak the same language , the same culture, the same traditon , same color of eye , color of skin and color of hair !! a billion of chinese are willing to sacrafice to die to fight any one trying to seperate taiwan from motherland include myself! are u american willing to die to fight to keep taiwan away from its mother?!! there is not much oil in there!
No fatfatcow, I am just joking around with you. I don't want war. I have been to China and I loved my visit to your country. I have great faith that China will one day be a benevolent socialist democracy within our lifetimes. This political movement is undeniable. One day, Taiwan will want to be part of Greater China.
