Well, I beg to differ. I have spent virtually days arguing this particular subject and have no desire to do so again. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
I will say however, that I have no doubt your scorn and contempt for GWB would be just as strong had he not invaded Iraq and we eventually suffered an attack that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans as a result of current or future Iraqi WMD falling into the wrong hands. I can hear the crys now: “Why in the hell didn’t that dumbass recognize the threat? What an ignorant dipshit! Now a quarter million of our people are dead thanks to that stupid ass! What a moron! What a stupid idiot! He should be dragged through the streets by his ankles till dead, that’s what! Why didn’t he do something about it before it was too late? How could we ever put our fate in the hands of such a weak-willed moron? I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!”
And I have no doubt that if, because of our incredibly poorly planned invasion and the lack of troops to secure suspected WMD sites, WMD had fallen into the wrong hands, and we eventually suffered an attack that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans you would still continue your blind support for Bush, no doubt explaining how there was no way anyone could have known that we had to secure the WMD sites, and after all it’s hard work being president!
You have managed to cowardly duck the issue and put up an irrelevant strawman in the same post. I see no reason to offer even ironical congratulations.
Now wait a minute. I thought according to your guy we were supposed to have done an excellent job planning the war and it was the “peace” we had no “plan” to “win.”
Well, if such an unlikely scenario had ever occurred, perhaps not. But this is a pretty lame analogy, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. I’m sure that had WMD been found it would have been guarded quite well prior to its destruction. I have a lot of trouble imagining, even if Bush were as dumb as folks like you like to portray, that after going to all the expense, trouble and lost lives that we have in order to secure Iraq and determine whether WMD did actually exist, that we would only protect the site by having some Pfc marching around it with a rifle.
While it is true that military action or threat of military action is the most commonly accepted basis for “threat”, it is equally true that it is not the only such basis. Vibes and attitude, for instance. No doubt about it, Saddam was giving off some really negative waves, and had a really pissy attitude going on. Pretty much 24/7.
Of course, they were hardly unique in this regards, many countries have difficulty in acknowledging rightful American hegemony in its proper context: that is, global. Clearly, this involves a failure to commuicate. When it comes to clear and unmistakable communication, its hard to beat shrapnel.
Take Pakistan, for instance! There’s a perfect example, they weren’t all that cool until GeeDubya showed them the error of their ways, and now they are in the very front ranks of military dictatorships committed to freedom and liberty! And notice how they instantly abandoned their sales of nuclear weapon technology the very minute they got caught!
OK, so they straightened up their attitude, and now they’re True Blue Oddy Colognny, our bestest buds ever!
Now, its true, there’s nothing in the UN Charter that explicitly states that a pissy attitude is a legal basis for pre-emptive war. But it would have been obnoxious and pushy to insist on a codicil that says “America can do whatever it wants to whomsoever it wants whenever it feels like it.” But everybody pretty much knew that, and if they didn’t, well, they by God know it now, don’t they?
We don’t care, we don’t have to care! We’re the Americans!
Ah, luci, I gotta love ya. You are the funniest, wittiest, and most intelligent of the loyal opposition, but as usual, you’re full of shit. If the U.S. could do whatever it wants to whomsoever it wants whenever it feels like it, we would be doing a hell of a lot more than we’re doing now.
Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing and whether it were to go far enough or too far is a matter for conjecture, but there is no doubt we are constrained by many factors, including global opinion and economic impact, various and sundry treaties, our own political process and population, and our innate sense of right and wrong.
I could easily envision a scenario where if the U.S. were totally unfettered by any of these constraints that the entire Middle East would be under our control, and North Korea would probably no longer be a problem either.
But that isn’t the case, because we always try to do the right thing here in this country, admittedly for reasons both noble and ignoble, even if it means putting ourselves at risk in order to do so.
Still, it’s good to hear from you. You’re always good for a laugh if nothing else.
Well, congratulations. It wasn’t my side that has tried to portray WMD as the sole or even overriding reason we went in there. It’s nice to hear someone on your side acknowledge that he’s aware that there were other reasons, as well. But this has been the area in which the opposition has found it the easiest to critisize Bush and try to sucker people into thinking of him as a lying, manipulative murderer.
There were many reasons we went into Iraq, but all of them boil down to creating a safer world, even though it may be decades before the long-term benefits are realized.
Why, bless your heart, we have no such thing! We’ve been throwing our weight around since before we had any weight to throw around! We issued the Monroe Doctrine when we were an international punk, claiming the entire fucking hemisphere.
What “innate sense” are you talking about? The one where you don’t cook up a war with your neighbor so you can steal about half of his country? Like Chris Rock pointed out, if it was ours to begin with, it wouldn’t be called “San Diego”, it would be called “Gus Johnson”.
The one where you dont come stomping down on some helpless little island for no real good reason, except maybe Cuban bulldozer drivers are a bad influence? Grenada ring any bells?
Or you don’t align yourself with a native liberation movement, struggling to free itself from colonial oppression, and then butt-fuck the natives first chance you get? Phillipines ring any bells? Google on “Aguinaldo” and “Mark Twain”, get yourself some history.
Or is it the innate goodness that directs us to set up brutal and murderous kleptocracy whereever we have even the remotest interest. We sent the Marines to kill people for bananas! Bananas!
“…our innate sense of right and wrong…” Oh, thats droll!
My, my, my…we are getting our panties in a twist, aren’t we? The exchange between us started out pretty civilly and I was quite surprised. I guess it was the forum that was keeping you reigned in and not some newfound maturity as I at first hoped.
You’re an attorney, right? If so, you’ve certainly been trained in skirting the rules. But I’d be careful if I were you. You could still get spanked if a mod gets wind of this little tantrum of yours. (And no, if you get reported it won’t be by me. Still, I’d try to show a little more ability to discipline myself if I were you.)
Yeah, I knew that one would set you vibrating. But believe me, your innate sense of national scorn notwithstanding, we could have done much, much worse than you claim…most of which is as inaccurate and one-sided as the rest of your viewpoint…if not for this sense of right and wrong that you choose to pretend doesn’t exist. No other country has done anywhere near as much for its allies and its former enemies than this country has, and no one has saved and/or freed anywhere near as many people as we have. In world affairs there will always be glitches and mistakes, but this country is the best and most generous one that has ever existed. But, just like is the case with the children of generous and permissive parents, it’s the ones who receive the most benefit from the parents’ largesse who are the most scornful and derisive of them.
Post #153 is directed at BrainGlutton. This would be more apparent had not elucidator horned in on the conversation with his allegations of genocide for bananas.
I would say just the opposite, by a factor of about a million to one, for the reasons I mentioned above. Many, many, many more people have lived vastly better lives because of the United States than have ever been harmed by it.
Look, a true leader could overcome such minor adversities. Even with someone holding policies with which they disagreed, after 9/11 a huge majority of the people in this country were crying out for a leader to unify behind…
Bush failed to be that leader. Period.
Are you just too damn partisan to see that?
I can’t believe you’re trying to suggest that if it weren’t for the Internet, Bush would be happily looking forward to reelection.
That mightily deserves a :rolleyes:.
And guess what, without adversarial political parties, you have a single party system. What do you think you call a state with a single political party? If a president can’t overcome that adversarial relationship to a significant degree, he is no leader, and does not deserve to be reelected.
I keep hearing about this block of “undecided” voters and I can’t imagine who these people are. What scares me most are the people - many of them young - who are so disgusted by the politics, smearing and pandering that goes on in the campaigns that they don’t want to vote at all. For God’s sake, pick ONE issue you care about and compare the records or positions stated by Bush and by Kerry and vote based on that. You care about drilling in Alaska and other environmental issues? Support for education? Health insurance? Women’s rights? These two candidates are two VERY different people on most of these issues.
Sure Kerry initially supported the war in Iraq. That’s because he - like 70% of the American people - believed
