No, it wouldn't. Not even close. The economy of a dictatorial regime would easily be in a shambles and wouldn't amount to much to do business with. I sure don't see a lot of European or Canadian investment in Cuba right now. Amazing, since it has the potential to be a great beach resort location. Besides, I can imagine a salesman from a US corporation walking across a factory floor in Saddam's Iraq in total shock when Iraqi guide says.."Oh, don't mind that guy in the corner being put through a shredder, he's just a low-level political opponent. It only happens a few times a day." LOL.
Didn't Congress authorize the use of force against Iraq? Yes, they did, and that is quite different from declaring war.
Oh, now we see you are equivocating and getting ridiculously technical. Your demolishment continues.
We haven't declared war on anyone since 1941, and I don't think it is a coincidence that we haven't been very successful since then when we have invaded other countries.
Really? Name some! Vietnam doesn't count because we were hamstrung by the weenie Democrats who pulled the plug and defunded the war, hence our retreat.
The only way we were able to attack Iraq was to say we were enforcing UN resolutions.
Total Bullcrap. Saddam violated the terms of the cease fire of the first Gulf War, so in actuality, this second Iraq war was a resumption of hostilities of the first Iraq war. That's a fact. Besides, Saddam shooting at our planes in the no-fly zone was an act of war in and of itself.
I'm talking about a resistance within a country against the tyrannical rule of its own government, not one country against the occupation of another (the Iraqi insurgents come to mind).
There you go equivocating again! You have evaded my point. Whether or not is was the sovereign government or an occupational one is besides the point of a victorious resistance movement that you foolishly assume is so capable of victory.
You need to get real and admit you are wrong.
Our Revolutionary war is an example of a successful resistance. Only between 3 and 5 percent of our population fought against the British.
And there are many, many more examples of resistance movements in history that were crushed. History says your position of a successful resistance movement is a longshot.
Having free run of the planet assumes that no other nation in the world has the capability to defend themselves, and it assumes Saddam had the drive and the means to conquer the world.
With your logic, we don't need a local police force anywhere in the USA because the people should defend themselves against criminals.
We decided to make it easier for them to attack us by coming over to their side of the world. Now they don't even have to worry about crossing our border undetected! Your logic has no credible sequence.
Oh..my..God! This is unreal. Boy you are dense...at least our citizenry and communities are not put in dangerous risk by taking the fight to them (with heavily armed US soldiers) instead of waiting for them to come here and nuke our cities with biological, chemical or nuclear weaponry. Demolishment continues.
I don’t believe they have or ever had the ability to hit us with ballistic missiles. As for something like a suitcase nuke, our porous border makes it just as easy as before 9/11 to carry out such an attack.
As far as resistances go, many may be unsuccessful, but many don’t have the will or popular support to persist. Eventually dictatorships will do something to cause a change in the government, even if it’s another dictator. They impoverish their county beyond repair or piss off enough people that a coup or a successful resistance pops up. Again, the result isn’t always desirable and sometimes makes things worse for the average Joe, but the resistance was still “successful” (in so far as its goal was to depose so-and-so dictator).
The L Ron Paul, Bobby Barr & Chuck Baldwin
anti war supporters, legalizing drugs, gay marriage, & 9/11 truthers, along with Allen Keyes who has never nor will ever win a major election supporters have driven Free Republic into the Kook zone.
Their constant threads to divide Conservative voters only make it possible for an Obama victory.
If a person is conservative, why allow this.
The harm Obama and his Marxists will do to America will
be the final blow.
Also what he will do to our Military with a pull out will crush our men and women as it did in Viet nam only worse.
There will not be a next time to rebuild.
My candidate was Duncan Hunter. Since McCain is the candidate and at least he realizes the IslamOfascists is the enemy and he has two sons in the military, I will vote for him as he has the only chance to beat Obama.
The constant Third Party and McCain basher spammers only bring a Marxist Obama victory.
Is this your idea of analysis?
Police have never protected anyone, nor prevented a single murder. They come in after the fact, and establish symbolic power. If you wish to live, you have to be prepared to defend yourself by whatever means are available to you.
Your huffing and puffing provides no answer to anything; you haven't a reasonable understanding of current nor historic events.
I'll take this one in two parts. The first part being free trade. Dictators love money; we all know this. And since you mentioned Cuba I'll use it as an example here. The reason you don't see European or Canadian trade toward Cuba is because of the Helms-Burton act of 1996, which said any non-US company that deals economically with Cuba can be subjected to legal action and that company's leadership can be barred from entry into the United States. Plus, sanctions could be applied against any country who went against the act. This act was condemned just about worldwide. It cut off about $700 million bucks worth of business that Cuba was enjoying with the European Union, Britain, Mexico, Argentina, and Canada. So it's not a dictator's fault that they aren't trading partners with other countries, it is our fault for imposing increasingly stringent sanctions on them since the early 60's. Cuba wants our money, and the rest of the world's money, and they want it bad. But we have stood in the way all this time.
The second part of this is the part you mostly dropped from your response. I had stated that a policy of non interventionism would accomplish trade relations without killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing the world to look at us as a bully. The focus of your response was simply this: "No, it wouldn't. Not even close". So is it your opinion that hundreds of thousands of people have to die and the world must view us as a bully in order for trade relations to exist?
Didn't Congress authorize the use of force against Iraq? Yes, they did, and that is quite different from declaring war. Oh, now we see you are equivocating and getting ridiculously technical. Your demolishment continues.
Technical? Perhaps you simply don't know the difference between declaring war and authorizing force, otherwise you wouldn't make such a statement. A declaration of war is, for one thing, Constitutional. Secondly, it is very precise in its objectives. It states when, where, why, and how the war is to be fought, and the goals for victory are clear. In contrast, an authorization of force is where a cowardly Congress passes its authority to declare wars on to the executive branch. It allows the President to decide when, where, why, and how the "war" is to be fought. This is exactly the kind of thing the Framers were afraid of, and is why they gave Congress the power to declare war. They had just come from a form of government in which one man had to power to drag the whole nation into war, and they didn't want a repeat of that. Perhaps now you understand the difference between the two, and maybe you will drop the preposterous notion that I am equivocating.
Really? Name some! Vietnam doesn't count because we were hamstrung by the weenie Democrats who pulled the plug and defunded the war, hence our retreat.
I'm sorry, but Vietnam does count. It goes to the very issue we are discussing, which is the failure of authorizations of force. In addition to Vietnam, add Korea and Iraq.
Total Bullcrap. Saddam violated the terms of the cease fire of the first Gulf War, so in actuality, this second Iraq war was a resumption of hostilities of the first Iraq war. That's a fact. Besides, Saddam shooting at our planes in the no-fly zone was an act of war in and of itself.
It's funny that you mention the no fly zones. The no fly zones were established by the US, UK, and France, and cover about half of Iraq and of course Iraqi aircraft are not allowed to fly in them. They cited UN Resolution 688 as their authority to establish the no fly zones, but it says nothing about them, and the UN Secretary General declared them illegal. So what you have here are illegally enforced no fly zones over a sovereign country, and you are telling me that Saddam was the aggressor here? We bombed Iraq pretty much constantly for twelve years, flew some 40,000 sorties, and Saddam is to blame for firing at (and missing every time) our fighter planes?
There you go equivocating again! You have evaded my point. Whether or not is was the sovereign government or an occupational one is besides the point of a victorious resistance movement that you foolishly assume is so capable of victory.
I actually have not evaded anything. You're trying to say the French resistance during WWII is the same as the resistance that resulted in the American Revolution, all the while ignoring the very nature of and motivations for the two. And furthermore, I never said resistance movements are "so capable of victory". This is just one example of your dishonest tactics. It's called a straw man argument and you make liberal use of them. I said if enough people want change and they want it bad enough, they will make the change happen, and that is a completely true statement. Your argument is simply that they don't have enough guns, but even that doesn't invalidate my argument. If enough people want to overthrow their dictator, they will overwhelm any dictatorial force in front of them. Does this happen all the time? No, and I never said it did.
And there are many, many more examples of resistance movements in history that were crushed. History says your position of a successful resistance movement is a longshot.
There's that straw man again. It seems you really pulled this out of thin air. Where did you get the idea that I believe all resistance movements can be successful? Because that seems to be what you're saying here. What I did say is that if the people want it bad enough, they will take care of business. And the people wanting it bad enough means enough of them are mobilized to do it. I used the example of the American Revolution as an example because such a low percentage of our population actually got involved and we still succeeded. Perhaps that is why you drew the conclusion that I believe all resistance movements can be successful. Quite a jump in logic, but based on the rest of your argumentation, it seems like the norm.
With your logic, we don't need a local police force anywhere in the USA because the people should defend themselves against criminals.
You are absolutely right for once. I open carry in the small town where I live. When I go to the bigger town about half an hour down the road, I conceal carry. I am always armed wherever I go, because the police inherently are not everywhere I go, so it is my responsibility to protect myself, and if necessary protect others. Since this nation has been effectively disarmed through "gun control" laws, a very low percentage of the population are armed and instead rely on a police force that cannot possibly be everywhere at once to protect everybody. I don't deny that police presence does deter some amount of crime, but the fact is that if the citizenry were armed, criminals would think twice before assaulting someone. And you still didn't answer my question: Where do you get these ideas?
Oh..my..God! This is unreal. Boy you are dense...at least our citizenry and communities are not put in dangerous risk by taking the fight to them (with heavily armed US soldiers) instead of waiting for them to come here and nuke our cities with biological, chemical or nuclear weaponry. Demolishment continues.
I'm sorry, perhaps I missed the part where you presented evidence showing that the third world country known as Iraq, who couldn't shoot down a single one of our planes over the no fly zone, had the intent and capability to come over here (undetected, mind you) and shoot nukes of some type at us. Methinks I am not the dense one here.