>>>The ones who are trying to kill Americans.<<<
I bet you still believe in the boogeyman, too. On what do you base such a broad statement? People largely hate us and the sons of Saladin are just extremely easy to stir.
Gte off the high horse. By keeping the nations of Middle East in the hands of rent-a-nuts, we are also talking about making people dead. People are suffer and die either way. Horrible, but that’s the way it is. All we do is hope to decide which way leads to the probablility of less people dying, and take into consideration who dies.
Why did “A White Man’s Burden” leap immediately into my thoughts?
Allow me a bit of paraphrasing:
“Imperialism is perhaps the most inevitable force in politics and economics today. It will not be stopped. We shall confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples.”
You intended to be sarcastic, but let me compare your paraphrasing with its diametric opposite:
I’d rather see your version, honestly.
milroyj: “Or uprisings fostered by US influence and funds?”
The latter.
And do you imagine that Muslims will just not notice that the US had anything to do with it? Again, the message that is really being received here is not “Don’t fuck with the US, because you won’t get away with it” but “The US can get away with fucking with you, so we will.”
“Which ‘Islamists’?”
The ones who are trying to kill Americans. My theory, such as it is, is that we should strive to kill them first.
That’s not an answer. Which are they, where are they? For God’s sake, man, you don’t set out to kill people pre-emptively based on no better information than some random insinuations and labels.
Ogre: Well, from one viewpoint, it’s because with an arc of Western-style governments stretching eventually from Jordan, through Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, will promote pro-Western ideas enormously. Give people freedom, and watch their lives, in general, get better.
Again, sounds great in theory, has no apparent foundation in reality. After all, the “arc of Western-style governments” that has stretched for the past several decades from Israel through Turkey, India, and Indonesia doesn’t seem to have “promoted pro-Western ideas” as “enormously” as you’re hopefully predicting—and all of those countries have either Muslim majorities or very large Muslim minorities. Unless you ascribe some kind of magic potency to having all the countries in the “arc” geographically contiguous, I fail to see why you think that “pro-Western” outcomes will automatically result.
Further, I note that Iran has become much more “pro-Western” under its current repressive theocratic government than it was when it overthrew the US-supported Shah and instituted the theocracy. So I really think your theory is much too oversimplified to be a reliable guide to foreign policy.
But more to the point, I hope we don’t actually have to attack. I’d much rather see the people remove Khamenei and Co. from power.
Well, on that at least we can agree.
The trouble is that you consider economic interests to be “imperialism.” I consider them to be perfectly valid.
I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. I certainly do consider economic interests to be “valid”, in and of themselves, and pursued through economic policy. However, if they are considered a justification for an unprovoked attack on another country, I sure as hell do consider that to be imperialism.
I believe the last time Muslims invaded a place which is now considered Western civilization and imposed their religion was in the 16th century.
WTF indeed. “We have had wars and no fun our whole lives. There is no stability,” she said, weeping. No, it is not ok for the US military to be “allowing” this, or for outlaws to rape and pillage their way around town, or for their great leader to empty the prisons as a thank you to his people, among his many other episodes of supreme dickheadedness that contributed to the lack of a childhood among the Iraqis.
Your cite suggested the danger of the moment is --------------> women losing freedoms. So I answered that.
Well, to be honest, it has nothing to do with the areas being contiguous. It has more to do with dealing with several of the worst offenders as far as support of international terrorism goes. Iran supported the US Embassy kidnappings. Their sympathy with terrorism goes back years and despite the fact that Khamenei made nominal pro-US noises, he hated us and idolized the Ayatollah Khomeini, placating us while he pounded the Iranian populace into the ground. Now the Iranian populace appears to be genuinely pro-Western, while Khamenei is showing his true allegiances.
It also has to do with the fact that, yes, these are the easier targets. Hopefully, we can get a lot of diplomatic “bang for the buck” out of them without having to take the much more difficult political, diplomatic, and economic step of threatening Saudi Arabia or or others.
Pardon me. What I meant to say is that pursuant to the fact that the world needs petroleum right now like a living organism needs blood, I don’t see the stabilization of the oil supplies to be as much purely economic as politically AND economically strategic. It will end up benefitting the rest of the world too.
I assume you were speaking of the oil, anyway. If not, I apologize.
Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with Osama bin Laden’s (and thus al Qaeda’s) 30-year affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose ideas are (or were, since I’m not sure if MB is still active in its original state) centered on the establishment of a pan-Islamic state with a return to the Caliphate and active military conquest in the tradition of Ottoman expansion. Bin Laden mined the rhetoric of MB extensively for his 1998 manifesto against America and Western democracy in general.
Make no mistake, their aims are imperialistic.
Thats not gumption, thats murder. This isn’t a bunch of postureing. People die in these little games.
So that gives us the right to go in and establish our own damn pan-Arabic state? I guess since we’re not Muslim it’s okay…
When they start putting us in a theocracy, I’ll agree with you. But I see a bunch of people on the other side of the world in theocracies, and as long as they arn’t sending their armys my way I don’t think that is any of our business. Do you have any idea what an ass you sound like when you imply that the United States has the moral authority to decide the system of government for the whole damn world?
Truer words were never spoken. Oh wait, you wern’t talking about the United States, were you?
Anyway, I knew this was coming. When George W Bush implies he’s going to take down a country, he’s not going to rest until he has taken over that country. He’s never lied about his intentions. When he starts talking about “regime change”, that is a sure sign that he is not interested in diplomacy, he is interested in overthrowing another country’s government with military force. We saw it in Iraq, we’ll see it again. George W Bush has some sort of Messiah complex, and I am 100% sure that he thinks that he really can “rid the world of evil” by just taking over whatever countries catch his eye. And evil, apparently, means “Islam” This’ll make three wars against three Muslim countries in three years of presidentcy. Doesn’t that concern people?
It makes me sick to know that I am in the country that is doing wrong. We are doing the equivelent of invadeing Poland. It is disgusting. I weep for my nation. I weep that this may be the end of the United States as an experiement in freedom. Don’t ever think your country is immune to evil. There is nothing keeping us sane. There is no magical force that will keep our nation within the bounds of moral good.
Thats not gumption, thats murder. This isn’t a bunch of postureing. People die in these little games. Cowboys arn’t quite so cool when they start killing off your sons and daughters.
So that gives us the right to go in and establish our own damn pan-Arabic state? I guess since we’re not Muslim it’s okay…
When they start putting us in a theocracy, I’ll agree with you. But I see a bunch of people on the other side of the world in theocracies, and as long as they arn’t sending their armys my way I don’t think that is any of our business. Do you have any idea what an ass you sound like when you imply that the United States has the moral authority to decide the system of government for the whole damn world?
Truer words were never spoken. Oh wait, you wern’t talking about the United States, were you?
Anyway, I knew this was coming. When George W Bush implies he’s going to take down a country, he’s not going to rest until he has taken over that country. He’s never lied about his intentions. When he starts talking about “regime change”, that is a sure sign that he is not interested in diplomacy, he is interested in overthrowing another country’s government with military force. We saw it in Iraq, we’ll see it again. George W Bush has some sort of Messiah complex, and I am 100% sure that he thinks that he really can “rid the world of evil” by just taking over whatever countries catch his eye. And evil, apparently, means “Islam” This’ll make three wars against three Muslim countries in three years of presidentcy. Doesn’t that concern people?
It makes me sick to know that I am in the country that is doing wrong. We are doing the equivelent of invadeing Poland. It is disgusting. I weep for my nation. I weep that this may be the end of the United States as an experiement in freedom. Don’t ever think your country is immune to evil. There is nothing keeping us sane. There is no magical force that will keep our nation within the bounds of moral good.
Fuck you. I’d laugh about your Godwinizing this thread if it weren’t so damn offensive. You may be opposed to the US overthrowing governments (2, incidentally, one of which bore direct moral responsibility for an attack on us), but if you think this is the equivalent of running about all over the world invading countries and imposing genocidal fascism, then the phrase “moral cretin” must have been invented specifically for you. Oh, and I was opposed to the war on Iraq (probably for different reasons from you though), so no lectures please.
I bet you are one of those people who whined about everybody questioning your patriotism just because you criticized the war. Maybe you should rethink why they’re questioning your patriotism.
even sven thinks I sound like an ass.
I can live with it.
Ogre: It has more to do with dealing with several of the worst offenders as far as support of international terrorism goes. […] It also has to do with the fact that, yes, these are the easier targets. Hopefully, we can get a lot of diplomatic “bang for the buck” out of them without having to take the much more difficult political, diplomatic, and economic step of threatening Saudi Arabia or or others.
Again, this doesn’t sound as though it has any solid foundation. “Hopefully”? Sorry, if we’re going to justify the extreme step of invading another nation we need more than mere hope. We need concrete, plausible reasons for believing that a) invasion and conquest will succeed in establishing a pro-Western government; b) the pro-Western government will succeed in establishing democracy, secularism, and prosperity; and c) the net effect will be to defuse more support for terrorism than resentment of our aggression will ignite.
Those all sound like extremely optimistic assumptions to me, and I simply cannot take them as justification for launching an unprovoked attack on another country. Even if every one of them was cast-iron guaranteed to happen, it would still not be trivial to decide whether international law really justifies invading another state “for its own good”. Given how nebulous and speculative they are, it is absolute madness, IMHO, to launch more invasions on the basis of those “hopes”.
Whew. Well, this has been fun, and don’t think I’m ignoring you if I can’t come back to this thread; going out of town.
Errh, hem…
Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles,
Uber alles…
Quit yer yipping and wait for the final victory over all of our enemies…
Err, hem; yes I weep for the future.
Fang: I bet you are one of those people who whined about everybody questioning your patriotism just because you criticized the war.
What’s wrong with that, by the way? I, for one, thought it was absolutely unconscionable to suggest that someone doesn’t love their country just because they opposed launching an invasion. I didn’t tell pro-war people that they weren’t “real Americans” or “good Americans” for supporting the war, and I think it’s highly offensive that some of them presumed to apply that accusation to me. You better believe I “whined” about that loud and clear, and have every intention of doing so again if such disgusting behavior recurs.
They can have the self-determination of democracy as long as they don’t choose what we don’t want them to have?
It’s funny-
In Bush at War, Bush et al. state more or less outright that they have a list of countries that they’re going to invade one by one, with Afghanistan and Iraq at the top of the list. (The book was written between those two wars, BTW.)
As of last month, when the press was openly speculating about whether Iran or Syria was next on the list, we were treated to the spectacle of Rumsfeld snarling that he didn’t know where people were getting this idiotic idea that the White House has a list of countries to invade.
And now, we have people saying that of course Bush has a list, and it’s a good thing, too, and anyone with half a brain knew it all along.
What horrible form will the Smog Monster take next?
Kimstu, I didn’t mean to say that it was OK to impugn somebody’s patriotism over criticism of the war; hell, somebody could have even been against the war in Afghanistan and still been patriotic, though it would have been substantially more difficult. I only meant that some people (specifically even sven) have lost the right to use that as a knee-jerk defense against people questioning their patriotism, specifically when they compare the US to the Third Reich.
By supporting al queda? Well, the evidence of that is still too sensitive to show the public. (which means it doesn’t exist). Or the responsibility of not destroying the WOMD? The weapons we cannot seem to find? The evidence for which is suspect?