This is the bit that hurts me the most about all this. Don’t get me wrong; I have a ton of sympathy for anyone, from any country, who lives in a land where a war is raging, but this… I look at news stories about what our country has become (especially when it comes to intelligence / information gathering) and I wonder when the hell we became the Soviet Union we all used to tell jokes about in the 80’s. I wonder when the hell we collectively traded in our morals for victory. It shames me as an American.
To use a quote that I find disturbing, as it came out in 1998 (The movie is ‘The Siege’, about some over-zealous reaction to terrorism striking in New York):
I dunno. I hope we can get back on our feet. I hope we can learn that diplomacy isn’t a bad word, as several politicians in power today seem to suggest. I’m not optimistic, and that perhaps scares me the most.
:rolleyes: That does not mean “the respect of the rest of the world” does not matter, only that it is not a military shield. There are other things that matter, you know.
In some respects, actually, it is a shield because it gives us reliable allies.
What is the point of this quote? Those things have not happened. Or maybe I missed the stadiums of children. Or the soldiers on American streets. We do not have Americans looking over their shoulders. The law always get bent by the executive branch, but this administration has not shredded the Constitution.
And now for the important part: the terrorists do not win if we give up some civil liberties. They do not even win if we give up all our civil liberties. This is an idea that is beyond stupid. Did al-Jihad win in Egypt when the Egyptian government went go so far as raping a child and photographing the rape to use turn the child against his father?
The kindest thing, and none too kind it is, to be said for Weirddave is that he represents what you might call the Joe Lieberman-neocon wing of the Democratic Party.
The worst part, IMO, is - what the hell do we do at this point? Do we stay in Iraq and keep doing what we’re doing with the hope that somehow things will get better? Or do we leave, and leave a country without any functional government, without any infrastructure, and really without much hope?
I know nothing about military strategy or anything like that, but I can’t help but feel that we’ve created a situation where absolutely no one wins.
No, I’m not, not at all. I’m not sure where you got that, or even what you mean by it in the context of my remarks here, but I’ll take a stab at it: Nations have allies because it is in both of their self interests to form an alliance. The benefit may be military security(NATO), trade(NAFTA) or something else entirely, but the nations entering into the alliance believes that it is in it’s best interest to do so. I’m not aware of any significant long term alliances created simply because two countries “like” each other. (US/UK and US/Canada are the closest I can think of, and even then, both countries have overwhelming ties of mutual interest).
No hard feelings, but that was the primary vehicle for the spread of Christianity since it’s inception throughout most of Western Civilization. Why stop now?
See, the “respect of the world” is immaterial to this scenario. Countries will join us fighting terrorists when and only when they believe it to be in their best interest to do so. If they believe it not to be in their interest, they won’t, no matter how much they “respect” us. “Like” and “respect” are interpersonal concepts that do not exist between nations.
Oooooh! “neo-con”. you’ve pulled out your big insult! I am crushed!
I think the kindest thing that can be said about you is that politically, your masturbatory fantasy of a socialist America will remain a pipe dream, no matter how many Democrats get elected, and that your ignorance on politics and international relations is bounded only by the paranoid delusions of whichever blogger is telling you what to think today.
Pull out. Then either the Iraqis will have their own full-blown civil war, or the Iranians (who are better positioned and better qualified than we are to do so) will stabilize the situation. Either way, a stable society will result in the long run.
It’s like with Vietnam. A lot of horrible things happened after we pulled out, but it was still the most beneficial thing, in the long run, that we could do under the circumstances. Now Vietnam is a stable and prosperous and not-really-all-that-Communist country.
Well, that’s why they call it a political continuum, isn’t it? You think the US is hopelessly skewed to the right while I think that we’ve taken good basic liberal ideas and extrapolated them to absurdity, veering dangerously far to the left. Just because I think things have gone too far to the left presently doesn’t mean that I can’t see you waaaaaaaayyyy over there beyond them. If I climb a tree. And use binoculars.
My point exactly. I’m a member of the DSA who, with no illusions, always supports the Dems as the best game in town, but you appear to be of that faction that makes the damned-of-Og DLC look like respectable leftists.
The difference being, my presence in the Democratic Party makes a certain kind of sense, but yours (and Lieberman’s, and Zell Miller’s) doesn’t so long as the Republican Party exists as an option.
The invasion of Iraq was a total “fuck you” to the body of international law.
And what, exactly, do we have to show for it? We didn’t achieve our stated aim; we haven’t really even achieved the aim we made up after the first one turned out to be a dud.
We did kill a lot of Iraqi civilians and American servicemen. If that’s what you were going for, then bully for you.
While moral respect of allies might be lacking (and not a subject I’m interested in debating), have any countries ceased being our **ally ** because of the war? I confess my ignorance in this matter.
