So there goes that theory.
Care to come up with another one? 
I wondered when ETF was going to get here with that leash… 
There, ETF.
Coding fixed in the colors of the Spanish flag as a salute just for you. 'cause as much as I despise the Bushbots, I have a great deal of respect for 'murricans living in the reality-based community.
'fraid I’m the one not ‘capiscing’ this time around.
I mean is that good or bad? :dubious:
Lives in Holland. Giggling is legal there.
Hehehe…good joi…er…point!
Guess we’ll just hafta keep giggling illegaly.
Feliz Año, 'luc!
Y muy buena suerte, companero!
¡Oye, bastantes con los idiomas extranjeros!
Vaya con dios of your choice, RedFury!
Physician, heal thyself!
Objection your honor, assumes facts not in evidence!
C’mon, that was UrbanChic’s line, and it was better than yours.
No shit. You must be a genius to have figured that one out.
Now see, this is what I was talking about. Now if this were so, why are other posters able to endorse insurgents killing US troops? Your logic here is flawed. Hell, perhaps it’s a “ME Oriented Blog”, my thread was shut down when it shouldn’t have been!
You are mixing me and your vision of this board up. Where did I say I wanted to be ‘international’? Et qui la langue vous suggèrent? Ich spreche bereits einige.
I’m not the one who can’t follow simple logic here. C’mon, work on your spelling before your critique my brain cells.
Wow, I guess if someone else does it, that makes it alright.
How very two-faced of you.
Me gusto Sabado Gigante, especialimente Miss Colita.
They are if they are trying to defend tyranny, and a monsterous one at that.
So I suppose that the values of tyranny, oppression and hopelessness are clearly an Arab trait? And we shouldn’t oppose that?
No, that isn’t really what I think at all. I think the U.S. is bringing the opportunity for democracy to Iraq. If democracy takes hold and flourishes, it will be a unique one with characteristics unique to the Iraqi people. I don’t think Iraq will, ipso facto and as a result of having a democracy, have a culture shift that will make it indishtinguishable from the U.S. and Europe. If it doesn’t take hold and some other type of governement emerges, I feel it also will be one of Iraqi creation. All I’m thinking the U.S. will necessarily bring to Iraq in terms of the type of government it will have is the ability to decide that for itself…something it certainly didn’t have under Hussein.
Yes, but do you not see how I can view this occupation as temporary? The Iraqi people have an election coming up; the U.S. population would never stand for a permanent, governing occupation; and the U.S. has never been one to roll into a country, ala the U.S.S.R., and take it over and itstall its own people. I simply don’t believe, and never would unless I saw it happen, that such a thing could ever take place.
Sorry, but I don’t believe this, either. Our motives are the same as they’ve always been: Hussein’s Iraq was a threat to the safety of the U.S. I know you don’t believe this, but I do. Our primary objective was to remove that threat, which has been accomplished. Secondary motives such as the discovery and distruction of WMD proved fruitless, but Hussein had a long history of acquiring and using them. He was also known to be trying secretly to obtain more, and given his success in kicking out U.N. inspectors during the 12 years of impotent U.N. oversight, there was absolutely nothing, in my view, standing in the way of his kicking them out again should the opportunity to obtain WMD become available. Another motive was to promote democracy in Iraq in the hope that a free Iraq would serve as a model to promote democracy throughout the region. And there are other motives as well, but these are matters for other discussions. For now, our motives are the same as they’ve always been: to remove the potential threat Hussein posed and to give the Iraqis a chance to govern themselves.
These are good points, elucidator. I can understand how they would feel this way. But would it not be better, given that these things are not the case, to try to take steps to show how these fears are baseless than it is to agree that the U.S. is a vile and evil would-be usurper of Iraqi soverignty acting out of its own nefarious purpose?
I disagree, as you might expect, that we went to war under under false pretenses. But I readily acknowledge how it can appear to others, particularly Middle Easterners, that this was so. For all practical purposes, perception is reality, and the perception among many is that we went to war for false purposes. Only time will prove that our intentions toward Iraq and its people are as we say they are. There is also no way to prove that the U.S. would have come to harm had Hussein remained in power, and there is no way to prove that Iraq will be self-determining until it actually becomes so.
But your point is very well taken and I have no trouble at all accepting that you are correct in your assessment of how people can misperceive our intentions. All I can say, again, is that time, and only time, will tell. There is simply no way, with words, to allay these fears and show them to be baseless.
Thank you. I do appreciate your saying that. 
No, I wouldn’t put it that way. For example, no matter how much I would have liked to see the Iraqi people freed from the oppression and cruelty of the Hussein regime, I would not have felt that going to war with Iraq for the sole purpose of freeing them would be a wise thing to do. I might personally have been in favor of it, but I would have recognized that you can’t successfully have a world in which one country summarily invades another in order to “free” its people. For one thing, such a situation would be fraught with opportunities for wrongdoing. The only way I’m justifying Iraqi deaths, and comforting myself in regard to them, is by recognizing that for ever Iraq death now occurring, many more would be taking place this very day were Hussein still in power, and also by recognizing that for every death taking place today, many fewer will be taking place in the future when Iraq (hopefully) is governing itself.
I’ve already answered this supposition, but now seems like a good time to repudiate it again. Apart from the many other motives for our action in Iraq, our “quest,” as you put it, for democracy in Iraq existed last year just as it does today. The only thing that has “vanished” is Hussein’s ability to do us harm. Had he cooperated properly with the weapons inspectors all along, or if he had fled the country when he was given the opportunity to do so, we would not be there today.
I know why they should believe us; I just don’t know how to convince them. But people like you, friend elucidator, running around and bolstering their fears and agreeing with their misconceptions about our motives, certainly isn’t helping. I know you have the right to speak you mind, just like me or anyone else. I’m not saying you are behaving wrongfully from a moral standpoint…but I am saying you are behaving wrongfully if your desire is to persuade them that our motives are admirable, as your question suggests.
Regards,
SA
I’m afraid that friend (or uncle, if you will) elucidator has gaps in his understanding. But he’s a good sort nonetheless, and I don’t hold it against him.
Is this some of that droll post-modernist irony I’ve heard so much about? Grenada? Panama? Less overtly, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Iran, Phillipines, Cuba…no, I haven’t time to recite them all, doctor says I only have about 40 more years to live…
More later. But this floored me.
:: sigh ::
Friend luci, some battles are lost from the git-go.
Perhaps we should adjourn to that tattoo parlor in San Berdoo, for the inscription of some mutually complimentary sentiments, followed by the washing of dust from parched throats with ambrosial (or at least amber) fluids?
6 out of seven of those have democratic governments, explain how to me elucidator how.
Well, take Nicaragua. After all the years of bloody conflict, a large part of it funded by the commiephobic USA…Iran/Contra?..the Sandanistas, those dreadful godless, powermad Marxists, held an election. And lost. To a center right coalition. And handed over the reigns of power on the spot.
The notion that America has historicly been an avid proponent of democracy is unsupportable. That’s as politely as I can phrase that with a straight face.
Ain’t enough beer in California to accomplish the task. We’d run out, and end up drinking Coors.
FuriaRoja, hermano mio …
I know how you detest anything remotely Republican, but still…
I don’t agree with most of the things SA, writes, but I do think he’s trying to bridge a gap, or at east establish something remotely like a meaningfull dialogue. I think his effort is sincere.
There are other conservative posters here deserving your mockery, save it for them. With people like Starving Artist, it’s possible to debate. Have you ever tried that with Ryan_Shitfbrain or Bubkus?