I agree; I think the Bush administration woefully missold the good reasons for the war, and should have stuck to philosophy; unfortunately, they were more interested in getting the war to happen with a good selling point than in making good points to the American people and convincing them.
Anyways- my principles for supporting the war is that the Middle East needs to be reshaped. So long as government by kleptocracy is the norm, not only is suicidal action for political gain encouraged de facto (after all, what’s there to lose in death when you’ve got nothing?), it is also encouraged de jure (as the kleptocracies shore up their support by demonzing Americans and the Jews). Gentle nudging and pushing has worked marginally in some cases, but not well enough. The Middle East needs to be turned into democracies with stable economies, and if that needs to be done by force, well, nothing else seems to be working. Iraq was the one place we could do that change- its oil has little direct input to our economy- and once that change was made, we would be freer to place more leverage on the other states in the region.
I also feel that America needs to have the right to act unilaterally in its interests. And pushing out dictators in the Middle East to replace them with democracies is definitely in our interests.
I think Bush has a clue it’s a huge mess, but can’t acknowledge that for fear his campaign will fall apart- once he starts stating that this was a mistake, or that this was handled badly, he hands mountains of ammo (no Al Aqoqoq puns, please) to Kerry.
And while Kerry says he’ll find a way to make the best of it, I don’t believe that his “best of it” will be anything other than abandoning the very reasons I wanted us to go in in the first place, and declaring the issue dead. And I don’t want that.
You sure?
Anyways- the reason I ask is because I think I’m in the exact position as any moderate or liberal was in 1980. On the one hand, I have an incumbent who generally supports what I do, and is an intense incompetent. On the other hand, a challenger who probably is more competent, but espouses an agenda I do not come close to agreeing with. There is, of course, a third party with a competent who has an agenda I can tolerate, but he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
That’s where I stand. I figured, if you voted for Carter, you’d have a general understanding of where I’m coming from.
But if Bush is President, the woman won’t have a choice, and so my life is saved, because I have to be allowed to be born.
I am sorry, what exactly was I supposed to rebut? The thing I had issue with was all of the left wing glurge about the war that gets bandied around so frequently, about how Republicans are warmongers, or started the war for Haliburton or how they wanted revenge for Bush Sr. or any one of a number of other steaming piles of bullshit paraded about by the blog crowd. I advanced the possibility that maybe the Bush administration went to war because they believed that it was the right thing to do based upon the information they had at the time. You conceded my point with the first two words of your reply, and then went on to talk about the nature of beliefs as a basis for policy decisions for a couple of paragraphs. What was I supposed to rebut? You made a few interesting points, but failed in any way to demonstrate that they were unique to the Bush administration, I think what you said was pretty broad and applies equally to any administration. As to the post war period being handled badly, that’s a point I’ve been making since before the war started: The aftermath was going to be the hard part and I didn’t see Bush as having a legitimate plan for it. The fact is that I have been proved right. Was I supposed to rebut that?
This scares me. You believe the United States should have the right to invade foreign countries and instill democracies whenever they feel it is in their best interests? Regardless of whether that country is a direct threat to our country? Isn’t this a bit, oh I don’t know, imperialistic for lack of a better term? This kind of thinking, that the United States has the right to change how other countries are governed, is specifically forbidden by the UN Charter and international law, not to mention Bush’s original promise not to become enmeshed in “nationbuilding”. Every president before Bush had roughly the same policy toward the middle east…containment. Allowing the United States to unilaterally conduct violent “regime changes” whenever it sees fit will not be successful and will only continue to harm our standing in the international community and will only serve to create more terrorists faster than we can kill them.
Yes. Indirect threats are threats as well. As well as governments that are horribly brutalizing their people or the people around them, such as Sudan, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia.
No. If we were installing governments that we insist to be friendly towards us no matter what, that would be imperialism.
And I thought is was wrong when Bush promised that in 2000.
Which has achieved… what? Not merely continued terrorist attacks, but more and larger terrorist attacks. Containment is not containing. The hatred and fanaticism of the terrorists- aided and abetted by demagougic governments that take our money and use it to fan the anti-American and anti-Israel flames- is not contained. It is exploding.
That’s your opinion. It is different from mine. My opinion is that, when people have free choices and decent lives, the desire to risk their own lives to destroy that of others will be dramatically lessened. We will face hardship and increased anti-Americanism in the short term, in exchange for peace and security in the long term.
We can agree to disagree. Personally, I think yours and Bush’s thought that America always knows the correct way to run a country and should have the ability to use war and violence to force their ideals on other countries is not only a violation of sovereignity of nations and the UN, but also a very poor foreign policy choice. And one that will have long-lasting, potentially harmful consequences around the world and here at home.
I also would like to point out another problem that underlies both yours and Bush’s concept of the Iraq war. There was no ties between Iraq and the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. I had no problem with Bush Sr going to war against Iraq to protect Kuwait’s sovereignity. I had no problem with attacking Al Qaeda and the Taliban that supported it in Afghanistan. I do have a huge problem with taking that next step and deciding to invade a country because we didn’t like the leader and wanted to effect regime change, especially when that country was properly contained and was not an imminent threat to the United States.
Would you support an invasion of N.Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, or any of the other nations in the world that are not democratic? Is it really our place to try and be the Soviet Union of the 2000’s and spread our political ideals to the entire world, even if it requires force to do so? And doing so while ignoring domestic issues, running up a record deficit, and using all the fiscal responsibility of Paris Hilton. I have no problem with attempting to spread democracy and liberty to all the countries of the world, but doing so by invasion, occupation, and war is absolutely unconscionable, morally, legally, and, as we’re seeing now, practically.
Considering how much of “the information they had at the time” was the information they set up shops like the Office of Special Plans to give them, so that there’d be someone to give them the answers they were looking for, it does kinda come back to belief.
Let me take a simple example: Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds. So far, our rather significant presence in Iraq has kept these divisions from looming as large as they might have otherwise, but it’s hard to see exactly how “democracy” is going to work there, given these rather intense divisions. Bush has waved them away with his magic wand by claiming that doubters believe that Iraqis are somehow less able to handle democracy than we are - the subtext being that those of us who see this gaping problem are really racists.
That’s what I mean by belief. If George W. Bush has ever said a single thing that acknowledges the very existence of these divisions as an obstacle on the road to Iraqi democracy, I’ve missed it - but it’s always been sitting there as a potential (some would say likely) deal-breaker. But unto those who believe, it doesn’t exist. Oh, me of little faith!
OK, give me an example of an instance where we went to war, but the principals in the Administration had such diverse goals that undermined the war effort in the way these bozos have. Vietnam? No. We lost Vietnam because it was unwinnable. If Johnson and McNamara and Bundy (your pick) and Rostow were all pulling in different directions, I sure missed it. WWII? Hardly. Bosnia? Kosovo? Riiiiiight.
No, but I’ll ask for a cite. I was in an awful lot of debates with you before the war, and I don’t recall your making much of a deal about that before we went in. In fact, I remember your calling people “appeasement idiots” because they believed the aftermath wasn’t going to work out.
Well, there’s the problem: there may have been “good reasons” for the war, but unless they were united behind the goals those reasons implied, the goals weren’t going to be achieved - assuming they were achievable anyway.
Maybe. You think it’s amenable to top-down reshaping? Whoa!
One reason among many to vote Bush out. We cannot have government by kleptocracy here.
Snarky, I know, but it’s the elephant in the living room.
Well, what else had we tried?
Wow. That’s a rather long arm of the ‘interest’. If it’s in our interest to do anything, anywhere on the globe, we can just do it. Pretty awesome.
You’re shitting me, right??
Another problem is that what’s in our interest isn’t always do-able. As we’re finding out.
Well, with four days to go, you’re surely right. But last November would have been a good time to acknowledge that things were going a bit haywire. Or this April. Or after the Abu Ghraib pictures came out at the beginning of May.
OK, I understand you now. Kerry will definitely not adopt the outlook that we can remake the Middle East by force.
You’re crazy, of course. But it’s an honest disagreement.
FWIW, I worked on Anderson’s campaign in 1980; I believe I’ve mentioned that at various times. I was hoping his candidacy, as a place in between what was then the ossified liberalism of the Democrats (and a singularly ineffectual President) and the pie-in-the-sky economics of the Republicans (“these tax cuts will pay for themselves!”) would be the beginning of a political realignment. And for a good part of the year, the polls seemed to suggest that potential - Anderson wasn’t running that far behind Carter until after Labor Day. But I was younger then, and didn’t realize that it would take a good deal more than John Anderson to spur that sort of realignment.
No, because you can’t talk. You’re a fetus. Non-smart-ass answer: No, because John Kerry is not going to pass any legislation requiring women to get abortions.
Yes, actually, but my point was that the reason people are getting so emotional and nasty in debates is because people do feel this way. It’s not constructive, but it is real.
To quote another doper:
I think so. I think your point is that if a person sounds hysterical about the issues, they can be brushed off as unreasonable and may even hurt their own side. Am I right?
This is one of the most chilling things I’ve read recently. Not because I haven’t heard the sentiment expressed before, but because until I read it, I didn’t see what was behind John Corrado’s words.
Why is it that you always try and widen the discussion? Unless you can show me evidence that every professional intelligence officer who served under Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, etc…was replaced with Bush sycophants, I’m gonna have to call bullshit on this one. The debate at the time wasn’t if SH had WMD, it was the best way to deal with that fact. Quite a few people on your side of the fence argued against the war not because SH didn’t have WMD, but because they though it should be handled other ways, including you. I think almost everyone was surprised that he didn’t. He had them. He’d used them in the past. Why would he get rid of them and then still refuse to show the UN that he’d done so? Beats the fuck out of me.
I agree that it’s a big, big issue, however you always bring it up as a reason to do nothing “It’s gonna be hard, we shouldn’t try”. I disagree, I’d rather try and fail than do nothing. I think the terrorists themselves are going to be the answer to this one (I refuse to call them insurgents, because they are being run from Tehran). For all of our concern over U.S. loses in Iraq, for every one of ours, dozens of Iraqi citizens are being killed. As time goes by and the U.S. pushes ahead supporting the elections, continues to rebuild Iraq (which is going on all the time, in spite of the press’ reluctance to cover it for some reason), supports the newly elected government and continues to fight the terrorists, we will be come to be seen as more of an ally and less of an invader. The key to this is going to be how we deal with the Iraqi government when it’s elected. We MUST,MUST,MUST take a real attitude of treating them as equal partners and NOT an attitude of treating them like puppets. If we can do this I am cautiously optimistic about the prospects for a long term stability in Iraq. The Iraqi people themselves will drive out the terrorists amongst them. That is a base from which a coalition between Kurds, Shi’ites and Sunnis can be built. ( unfortunately, I think the Sunnis might get rather the worst of it, being as how most of the “insurgents” are Sunni. )
Good for Bush. As I am neither a Bush supporter nor apologist, I am not sure what you want me to say here.
Again, take it up with George W, but also realize that he is a politician in an extremely close election. Saying what you want him to say would be political suicide for him. It might give you warm fuzzies to hear him say it, but don’t hold your breath.
You did miss it, because Viet Nam was eminently winnable, if Johnson had just let the military run the war. He “pulled in another direction” for political reasons (wasn’t willing to fully commit to fighting the war), and left us in an unwinnable situation. In fact, Johnson’s solution was very Kerry like: Commit enough troops to keep from losing, try to rally international support for the peace talks while at the same time being careful not to offend the Viet Cong and the north Vietnamese. Look what finally kicked the peace talks into real motion: Nixon stepping up the bombing campaign. If we had gone in according to plan in the first place, the war would likely have been over by 68-69.
Now you’re trying to change what I said. I called people “appeasement idiots” for advocating that anything substantial could be accomplished in Iraq just by talking to SH and helping the UN continue to chase it’s tail. If we’d done that, SH would still be in power (and I bet he’d have some ties to Al Queda now, outcasts of a feather flock together ), Lybia wouldn’t have disarmed, Pakistan would still harbor a lot more terrorists cells than they do now, and we’d be sitting here waiting for the next terrorist attack, hoping that the rest of the world would give us permission to respond when it comes. All along I said the war part would be easy, but what happened afterwards would be hard. See that paragraph above where I outlined my hopes for the future of Iraq? We should have been there last year. The war was the right thing to do, but the execution of it, particularly the aftermath, has been extremely flawed. Most of the people with whom I’ve argued about this here fixate on the first half of that statement to vilify my views, and conveniently forget that the second half has been there all along.
You think the Middle East is unamenable to democracy? Whoa!
Nope. Every nation has the right to act in its interests. Every nation has the right to oppose other nations’ actions. If we want to invade Iraq in order to bring democracy and stop the flow of terrorism, that’s our right. If other nations want to oppose us through diplomacy, embargo, or force of arms, that is their right as well.
Won’t deny that.
RT, please stop treating me like Shodan or Brutus. I agree with you that the Bush administration has fucked up. I agree with you that they should have admitted the fuck-up earlier. I agree with you that they should have changed course after admitting the fuck-up. Please stop assuming that I am a mindless drone who will defend the administration to the death.
My apologies; I did not realize that you worked on the Anderson campaign.
If there were any candidate close to Anderson this year, I’d be working for him. But no third party is outdoing Margin of Error in the polls.
But by passing legislation allowing women to get abortions, and funding abortion clinics, de facto the abortion rate will rise, and fetuses will die.
But it’s not constructive. And in a public forum, where the only thing you can be judged by are your words, why would you want your words to paint you in such a nasty way?
Exactly.
Huh.
So it was chilling when Clinton sent planes to bomb Yugoslavia?
If we had intervened in Rwanda to stop the genocide, would it have been chilling?
I am, simply put, an interventionist. I don’t believe America has the wherewithall to help out every nation on earth, and in some places- North Korea- military action isn’t feasible due to the possible consequences. But I do believe we have the right to use our military to help make the world a better place.
Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about? There is no legislation left to be passed. News flash: abortion is currently legal in this country. Why should it rise?
Sigh. I think you missed the point this time. It may not be constructive, but it is an emotional response. THATS why people do it. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
It seems that you are not just an interventionist, as you so pleasantly put it. You are a military interventionist. What is chilling about that is that by so quickly claiming that position without any (stated) reservations, you could easily be a closet “might makes right” proponent. As is indicated by your “isn’t feasible due to the possible consequences” snippet. Hey, as long as they can’t fight back, we’re all good. I don’t know what you consider acceptable limits for intervention, but I’ve heard some people argue:
“Every country has the right to protect its interests. Oil is necessary for the operation of the US economy. Unrest in the middle east (or strained tensions with an oil-producing nation, or whatever…) is hindering our oil supply. Freeing up the availability of oil is in the US’s interests. A US military invasion is therefore not only justified, but it is the US’s right to do so.”
Now, I’d expect you will qualify what you mean when you say “US interests”, dissembling and disclaiming “that’s not what I meant” and “of course not, in that particular case” as you do so. And, on some points, we may even agree that some particular “interest” is indeed worthy of military force (though I’d suspect those instances are few and far between). However, to bandy interventionist policy about as haphazardly as you seem to be willing to do is, IMO, chilling to the core.
Then you take it even further, beyond just “US interests”, to “make the world a better place”? As if they are equivalent! Gah - perhaps this really reflects what some see as the “American Way”, but the messianic hubris is galling.
All right, Digital Stimulus, riddle me this, why don’t you? With the exception of Viet Nam (where the fault was in refusing to fight the war to win, instead we only committed enough troops into the meat grinder so as not to “lose”), and Iraq( because it’s way to early to see how this one is going to turn out), how many times in the last 100 years has U.S. military intervention resulted in a situation where the consequences were worse than before we went in? Worse for the U.S. and worse for the people living in the area we intervened in? Europe in 1917? Europe and the Pacific in '41? Korea? Somalia? (maybe, I don’t really know what the situation there is currently), Bosnia? Grenada? Kuwait? Where? Viewed objectively, has U.S. military intervention usually made things better, or worse?
Perhaps you suffer from the messianic hubris I mentioned in a previous post. Perhaps not. Perhaps you conveniently failed to include US support (military and otherwise) of Iraq and various other countries in the past in support of our interests. Perhaps not. At any rate, you seem to be attempting some debate jiu-jitsu. If Derrida weren’t dead, I’d ask you what measure you use to objectively decide what better and worse is. However, I have a low tolerance for deconstructionism. Instead, I’ll try to refocus the issue on the contents of my comment.
In general, I do not believe that pre-emptive military action is ever justified, much less any nation’s right. I say “in general” because, although I believe it is never justified under some ill-defined concept of “interest” (as given above), there may be situations that require it (see imminent threat, but avoid the definition used by the current administration. <feszik>You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.</feszik>). After all, we do have a Department of Defense, not a Department of Offense. (I’ll avoid the obvious offensive pun.)
That is what I find disturbing - not that the US has “done good” in the past (which may be up for debate, but which I’ll cede entirely at this point), but the stance that the US has the right to invade foreign countries and instill democracies whenever they feel it is in their best interests, regardless of whether that country is a direct threat to our country (quoted from above). No qualification, no hedging, just a flat-out yes, we do.
This serves as the foundation of John Corrado’s position; what I find chilling (beyond the content) is that it would’ve slipped by me had Hamlet not put his finger on it. I sort of thought that I was more adept at picking up on these things; I suppose the state of current US policy has made me dialectically soft, as these days there is such a disconnect between words and actions.
Just remember - We’re spreading freedom. Even if we have to imprison, maim, and kill to do it. And you know what? It’s hard work…
Sarcasm aside, you seem to be implying that what we are doing is analogous to the old saying “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. You couldn’t be more wrong. What you seem to be missing is that this isn’t imperialism (no matter how much anti-war folks love to throw out that term). We got rid of a dictator, we are in the process (hopefully) of setting up the conditions where the Iraqi people can form their own government and elect their own leaders, we’ll give that government as much support as it needs to get on it’s feet…and then we leave. Whatever the Iraqis decide to do with their new government is up to them, and they’re totally free to do something that may not be in the US’ best interest-give a contract to Airbus instead of Boeing, for example. The US and the world benefit from having a secure democracy in the heart of the middle east, reguardless of weather or not they support or oppose US policy in the future, and it’s their choice, they have the freedom to do either.
