The *real* reason the U.S. is on Iraq’s case?

[Neurotik]

Ah. I only ask because I will likely be starting in the Foreign Service soon and will have to do that, but in another country.

OK, enough with the hijack.

[Boo_Boo_Foo]

*Originally posted by Eva Luna *
**These days I draft employer petitions for work visas, for a private law firm which specializes in employment-based immigration issues. So you can imagine just how fun and predictable my job has been the past year or so, between 9/11 and the recession. I’ve got experience in other areas of immigration, though; I used to work for the Office of the Immigration Judge, as an interpreter in just about any kind of deporation case you can think of. Asylum, marriage fraud…never a dull moment. **

Forgive a dumb Aussie musician a slight quick hijack here…

And please feel free to respond via email to this question to prevent the hijack going any further…

In essence, shortly I’ll need to travel to the US from Australia to do some work issues relating to my music. Obviously Australians have a very healthy and liberal travel arrangement with the US these days, but suppose I have to stay for longer than 6 months in the future? Anything I should know?

End of hijack folks!

Great thread by the way! I’m loving every bit of it…

[El_Kabong]

Further proof of the sheer stupidity of your average Global Domination SuperVillain–the clueless dweebs have actually posted it on the Internet. Is that dumb or what?

Thanks, Ducks, but wrong strategy. The one you link to deals entirely with Homeland (why do I always want to say “fatherland”?) security. It turns out (duh, on my part) that Bookman’s article links to the strategy document that discusses dealing with threats outside US borders:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html

Anyway, as you said, not very smart to post their plans for global conquest on-line.

Meanwhile to hijack the thread still further, one paragraph that stuck out at me from the document was this one:

The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.

OK, so we know that this is policy now, but is it true that the option to make preemptive strikes has always been official policy? I was under the impression that even during the Cold War years, the US had a “no first strike” policy.

[SuaSponte]

*Originally posted by El_Kabong *
OK, so we know that this is policy now, but is it true that the option to make preemptive strikes has always been official policy? I was under the impression that even during the Cold War years, the US had a “no first strike” policy.

Panama
Grenada
the Dominican Republic

I’m sure there are other examples of preemptive strikes by the U.S. since WWII that I’m forgetting right now.

The “no first strike” policy to which you refer concerned only the use of nuclear weapons.

Sua

[El_Kabong]

Panama
Grenada
the Dominican Republic

:smack:

[Eva_Luna]

*Originally posted by Boo Boo Foo *
**

Forgive a dumb Aussie musician a slight quick hijack here…

And please feel free to respond via email to this question to prevent the hijack going any further…

In essence, shortly I’ll need to travel to the US from Australia to do some work issues relating to my music. Obviously Australians have a very healthy and liberal travel arrangement with the US these days, but suppose I have to stay for longer than 6 months in the future? Anything I should know?

End of hijack folks!

Great thread by the way! I’m loving every bit of it… **

**Boo Boo Foo, ** I tried to e-mail you, but there’s no e-mail in your profile. I don’t have one posted either; I’d be happy to e-mail you, or others on individual matters, but I like to have some measure of control over where my contact info is accesible. So please either post here ir start a new thread with your question, and I’ll take a shot at it (although IANAL, I’m a paralegal).

Everyone else: I haven’t forgotten you, or this thread, it’s just been crazy at work and so I haven’t had the time and brain energy left over to compose a cohesive response Part of the reason is that I sincerely haven’t made up my mind about various aspects of this issue, and the OP was meant to elicit some serious discussion from people with a wider range of opinions than those I normamlly have access to from my IRL friends.

[I_am_Sparticus]

Its the oil. All of the administration folks are former oil execs except Colin Powell. Colin Powell is not a big supporter of an invasion. These guys have oil on the brain, 24/7. Iraq has huge reserves of oil.