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.
Once again you are wrong, wrong, wrong. It's getting tiring educating the Paulites. First, even before 1996, there wasn't much European and canadian investment in Cuba, so your reasoning is shot down right there. I sure didn't hear of any lavish beach resorts closing in Cuba in 1996! Second, just a few months after the H-B Act was passed, Mexico and Canada and England passed laws to neutralize it. In addition, the EU passed a regulation declaring it unenforceable and permitted recovery of damages. So, your rebuttal is shot down. Nice try, though. Learn the facts next time, OK?
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?
You are misquoting my rebuttal. I said that there wouldn't be any trade at all with a dictator because his economy would be in a shambles, so we wouldn't be missing much! You seem to think that we are passing up a great trading partner, which is ridiculous on it's face. How's that great Zimbabwe economy doing? Check it lately? LOL! Boy, we sure are missing some great trade there, arn't we!
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.
Nope. You said it was a "unconstitutional undeclared war", I said that the Congress firmly expressed it's will to use the US military in a foreign offensive. Whether they passed off the details of the invasion to the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces is really besides the point and shows a lot of weakness in your rebuttal argument.
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.
Wrong again! You said.."and I don't think it is a coincidence that we haven't been very successful since then when we have invaded other countries.". Huh? We held the line well in Korea. South Korea is a large bastion of free market capitalism, last I checked. Iraq is also looking quite well these days. That's looking quite successful as compared to Saddam's mass graves, rape rooms, etc. Even small countries that we invaded like Grenada are much better off than the marxists who tried to take over. Your argument is silly and stupid and is not fact-based. And for Vietnam, it's disingenious for your argument to include a case where we purposely withdrew when we were actually winning the campaign!
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?
Wrong yet again. Stop getting all your info from wikipedia and you'll do better on this forum. The facts are that Saddam did recognize the validity of the no-fly zones until 1998 when he kicked out the weapons inspectors and then we and England responded to that by starting the Desert Fox attack campaign at which time Saddam then said he would no longer abide by the no-fly zones. Of course Saddam was shooting at our planes well before all this Desert Fox happened. I think you need a refresher in history.
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 my point was that it was quite a longshot and history is littered with failed resistance movements. You then waffled in your rebuttal by saying that "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". That statement is really ancillary to our argument. You clearly meant to say that those people are on their own and they should take up arms themselves with NO HELP from us. Well, with all that civil unrest from a long, protracted resistance movement with no help from us, the economy of that country is going to take some serious lumps, and that dovetails nicely (for me) into our other argument about economic trading conditions with a dictatorial regime! You are actually shooting down your own other argument!
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.
No, speaking of straw, you were grasping at straws and attempting to depict a rare occurence of a successful resistance movement as commonplace in order to buttress your argument. I pointed out that it is very rare indeed to have a successful resistance movement and your evidence for your argument is quite thin (and selective) and history is littered with so many failed attempts.
And you still didn't answer my question: Where do you get these ideas?
You said.."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. Where do you get these ideas? I would fight anyone who would try to take my freedoms away."...I get those ideas from history, something that you need a refresher course in. Hitler started small, in a country the size of Montana and found the means and drive to conquer a good chunk of the planet. So did the Romans. How about Alexander the Great?
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.
No, you are the dense one. Dirty bombs are not that complicated and Saddam wouldn't have had a problem finding some suicide kook to bring one in, expecially before pre-9/11 security. As for "intent", don't make me laugh. Surely, you must know from Saddam's FBI handlers while in jail(CBS 60 minutes show) that Saddam was hell bent on reconstituting his WMD program if we didn't invade in 2003. Since he had all those very experienced terrorists living in Iraq to help him, (my post #35 on this thread) spelled out in
http://www.husseinandterror.com/
That's the problem with you cower-and-hide Paulites, you don't face any threats until too late and the enemy has amassed great power. Germany was crippled after WWI, they made a strong comeback pretty quick didn't they? There's my evidence, I didn't think I would have to spell out such elementary history lessons, but then again, you are quite dense.