In his speech tonight, Bush said something along the lines of “this war won’t be easy”. He’s made similer statements regarding the “war on terrorism”. He has never refered to making a clean and quick victory. Instead he has emphasized the fortitude and…ummm…blessings that we’re going to need.
So let me make this prediction now: The wars arn’t going to stop.
Should we win the Iraq war quickly, we will move on to somewhere else. Our new standards for making war are so loose that they could be applied to almost any country we choose. And if things go well, it’ll quickly become apparently that one good war can do more for making a country serve American interests then years of diplomacy and economic policy.
George Bush is a driven man. Unfortunatly, his drive seems to be directed at the endless task of “ridding the world of evil” and his methods lean towards the “attack and take over” method. I strongly believe that if he remains in office, we could soon find ourselves in perpetual warfare. I’ll be surprised if Iraq is our only war of this year.
Who else can we bully, though? I’m not saying that war is ever easy, but invading, say, North Korea is a far cry from invading Iraq. NK would be the logical next choice for someone bent on ridding the world of maniacal dictators with powerful weapons, but I do not at all like our chances in a ground invasion of North Korea.
[quote]
Should we win the Iraq war quickly, we will move on to somewhere else. Our new standards for making war are so loose that they could be applied to almost any country we choose. And if things go well, it’ll quickly become apparently that one good war can do more for making a country serve American interests then years of diplomacy and economic policy.
[quote]
What are you saying? That Bush will somehow become king and have the power to go to war whenever and wherever he wants? Bush will remain exactly were he is now, subject to the will of Congress, for his warmaking capabilities. And considering how hamfisted his PR campaign has been for this war, I don’t imagine he’ll find it easier for future wars.
Personally I’d have more respect for the man if I thought he was driven to the endless task of ridding the world of evil. It worked for Batman after all. But the reality is that Bush seems to lack a drive in any direction. He’s just muddling along, often the wrong way but occasionally the right one.
I think Iran is next. They are part of the “axis of evil”, and it looks like they might be getting in on some of the Iraq action- massing troops at the border and stuff. We’re already seeing news reports that they have nuclear facilities and might be seeking out WMDs. If they do anything at all during this Iraq war, it’ll be the perfect segue into a war with them, and in the end we’d control a hefty chunk of the Middle East.
Surely perpetual war, or ‘pure, acquisitional imperialism’ (love the phrase Diogenes) is a sure way to ensure a Democratic winner in? After all Bush only just scraped in to start with and don’t incumbents usually lose support?
So you should only be looking at less than two years of war. And you’ve got the full support of Micronesia in the Iraqi adventure…
kiwiwboy, in the US, incumbency is seen as a big advantage. A President can only serve two 4-year terms*. People have proposed changing that to one 8-year term, so as to avoid the trouble and expense of holding an election in the middle of the 8 years it’s assumed that just about anyone who is elected President will serve.
Personally, I’m hoping that when the 2004 election comes along, at least a few Americans will remember that Bush wasn’t actually elected…
*Law passed after President F.D. Roosevelt was elected to uh, I think it was a 4th term?
Well I wore black armbands to my high school classes, if that’s what you mean.
That said, there are major differences between W’s policy and the policies of previous presidents. Previous presidents did not set up far-reaching act like the Patriot Act that have a major impact on American society and the freedoms we enjoy. Previous presidents acted in accordance with world and UN opinion, and did not strike out on their own when huge portions of civilized society considers this to be a mistake. Previous presidents launched attacks which led to people being taken to International courts and dealt with in a legal matter while leaving the country to govern itself. They did not embark on missions to make “regime changes” while using a “dead or alive” mentality and presenting no plan for the future of that country except perhaps occupation. Previous presidents did not say “God” every five minutes, and did not use “crusade” rhetoric about “ridding the world of evil”.
Remember, we were just at war in Afghanistan. Now we’re hopping right on over to Iraq- citing our ease in Afghanistan as justification! It’s happening already. This time it’s different. We are seeing something new in the history of our nation and of the world, and I don’t like it.
Statements such as the above make easy popcorn responses, but surely more is expected around here.
It would be a grave error to view the Iraq situation under the same terms as, say, intervention in Kosovo–which, I remind you, was not confined to the Kosovo region but included carpet-bombing Serbia, a long-time ally of the West who ended up deposing Milosevic by itself well after the US bombs had stopped falling (there’s a lesson in regime change there!). Nonetheless, intervention in the Balkans was a legitimate move that did not meet with the disapproval of NATO, the UN, and pretty much most of the planet, as the current push for a war against Iraq does.
So you think Lincoln never suspended the right of habeus corpus? FDR never sent any Japanese to internment camps, or set up the National Recovery Act (later found unconstitutional)?
See Wilson and the League of Nations, and reparations after WWI. See also Johnson and JFK as regards Viet Nam.
Of course, if we had acted “in accordance with world and UN opinion”, we would have nuked Israel by this time.
So you think we left Germany and Japan to themselves in 1945? I seem to remember a certain McArthur, who had some influence on their society for a while thereafter. It didn’t seem to affect the trials at Nuremberg.
I recommend you do a bit of reading of the speeches of FDR during WWII. Or practically any other President in wartime.
The National Industrial Recoverty Act had nothing whatsoever to do with WWII, it was not held to be unconstitutional, and the case that you seem to be referring to was quickly repudiated by the Supreme Court. From this thread:
There seems to be some disagreement that the NRA was not found un-Constitutional.This one, which states rather directly
Along with your own cite, which states that
Unless you are making some distinction between being “knocked down” and being found unconstitutional.
Although you are correct that the famous “switch in time that saved nine” allowed many of the provisions of the NRA to be enacted in later legislation.
Of course, the Patriot Act has neither been “knocked down” nor declared unconstitutional, so this part of the discussion may be pointless, but I mentioned the NRA as an example of Constitutionally questionable legislation proposed by a President during times of national crisis.
So what is so wrong with tryig to rid the world of evil? its messy and all, but at least its a noble cause. Personally i will be very satisfied when Saddam has been incinerated as America liberates Iraq. Will he try Iran? Please. If he keeps going like this we could have a democratic middle East before he’s out of power!
I’m getting annoyed with these allies of ours. Like in Europe they’re calling the United States “The bully of the world.” You think so? When you were a kid, do you remember the bully taking a vote before he kicked your ass?
Here’s my question: If we’re the bully, how come everyone else gets to tease us, call us names, threaten to kill us and then we have to give them our lunch money?
For accurate information, it’s generally best not to rely on sources intended for schoolchildren, Shodan.
You may read the Schechter Poultry decision itself here. That reading should confirm exactly what I said above: A single set of regulations, among untold thousands enacted pursuant to the NIRA, was held to be unconstitutional. The case never states that the entire NIRA is unconstitutional, and it doesn’t say anything at all about the National Recovery Administration your cite incorrectly claims was declared to be unconstitutional in 1935.
In fact, if you search Findlaw’s Supreme Court opinions database for “National Industrial Recovery Act,” you will find any number of cases from around that time period involving the Act, but none of which hold it to be unconstitutional (although the Panama Refining case did strike down another regulation enacted under authority of NIRA).
See, the problem is this; if you really believe that this is about ridding the world of evil, you are deluding yourself. Assuming that we are willing to throw the idea of the sovereignty of other nations out the window (which we seem willing to do, by the way), there are injustices far more deserving of our attention.
Iran is also kind of troubling. My impression is that they are slowly pulling out of Theocracy on their own, and actually have a vibrant and emerging youth culture. It seems to me that if we play our cards right, that they are a potential solid ally in the area.
All things being equal, most of the acts of our current administration seem rather random, ill informed and damaging.