Posted on 02/24/2006 7:12:07 PM PST by CometBaby
saw this:
El Rushbo Analyzes Buckley’s Iraq Column
February 27, 2006
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_022706/content/institute.guest.html
If I'm understanding Rush correctly, he seems to be saying that after 9/11 [which made apparent the impossibility of having a perfect security defense to asymetric warfare with WMD and terror as their means, augmented by rapidly growing and increasingly radicalized and internationalized Muslim populations under failing authoritarian governments, (short of dramatically curtailing our liberties) thus demonstrating the necessity for a pre-emptive anti-authoritarian and possibly freedom-establishing policy option] the foreign policy "realists" of which Buckley may have been one (including Baker, Scowcroft and Buchanan?) were no longer realistic. Thus premature pronouncements of failure from this quarter can be somewhat discounted as coming from a less committed wing to the policy to begin with among conservatives.
Do you get this reading (albeit somewhat between the lines) from Rush?
Excellent points, Dr. Frank. We must win there. Al Qaeda cannot be allowed a stronghold, or it will be worse the next time.
Nobody's asking you to "commend" anyone, just to look at the current situation objectively. To try to fit in with your rather cartoonish analogy, your position amounts to saying that if the police break the windows of a business, they shouldn't defend that business from thieves, they should only defend businesses with broken windows if the windows weren't broken by them.
do you understand that like Hussein in Iraq, WE put the Taliban into power?
You're saying that you think the United States "put" the Taliban into power in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein into power in Iraq? Oh boy. Appears I overestimated how seriously I should take you. Sorry, my mistake.
"All those who warned going to war in Iraq would cause hundreds of thousands of American deaths .. guess what? they were WRONG!"
I vaguely recall apocalyptic predictions of this sort, but I can't remember who made them. Who was saying this?
I don't think its over until its over and it isn't over.
What conerns me is that we are bogged down in Iraq while we should be moving on to Iran and Syria where most of these nutcakes are originating from. WIthout a draft and/or real support from other Countries that would be difficult.
Hoepfully the Iranians will wear the patience of the Russkis thin or they will provide the Chechnyans with some military assistance.
Yes, whatever. Nothing there supports "put". So, bye,
Piece of advice: don't say silly over-the-top things (all the hijackers were Saudis, we're not installing a new government in Afghanistan like we are in Iraq, we "put" Hussein & the Taliban into power...) and you won't find yourself having to backtrack (&pretend you never said those things) so often.
Bye,
Good advice.
(all the hijackers were Saudis,
Over 90% of the hijackers were Saudis.
we're not installing a new government in Afghanistan like we are in Iraq,
Yet.
we "put" Hussein & the Taliban into power...)
We gave them funds, weapons and trained them militarilyto defeat the Soviet presence in their respective countries (and then *who* should come to power but the ones We funded, hmmmm.)
and you won't find yourself having to backtrack (&pretend you never said those things) so often.
Sorry, I'll try not to engage in hyperbole, and I Never pretended that I didn't say what I said, however, it would be nice if you'd stop pretending that you didn't willfully misread what I wrote.
No, please don't leave. One day there will be a President with no philosophy or principles, as we have had for 18 years now, but without an R after his name. Then the gullible will need someone to object--someone who can do so without being ridiculed as a hypocrite. There are few on here who can still meet that requirement.
Sorry. I did say I was going to try to avoid hyperbole and I've failed yet again. Over 75% would have been correct.
Yes yes yes already, most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi; are you saying we should therefore invade and conquer Saudi Arabia?
No.
If not, what is your point? Do you have one?
My point is that 9/11 is Quite Often used as the justification for going into Iraq. In fact that was NOT the original justification for it; the non-compliance with the UN was.
My larger point was that we should not involve ourselves unnecessarily with foreign entanglements. We got involved originally to defeat the evil empire, now we have other reasons for being there and it seems more and mopre likely that we will always have "good" reasons for having our troops occupy other countries. Yet neocons can fathom no genuine cause for resentment at us for meddling in mideastern affairs except thatr They are somehow jealous of us and our standard of living. Reality check: how would You fell if Iraqis were occupying our country and telling us how to run Our government? I know, I know...But, But, but We're Right!
I've honestly never heard or known of anyone who actually "used 9/11" as "the justification" for going into Iraq. This is a straw-man you made up to attack.
There are plenty of people (Bush included) who made/make the point that 9/11 has taught us we need to be more pro-active when it comes to threats, and then applied this principle to Iraq, but that's not the same thing by a long shot, and no one with both minimal intelligence and intellectual honesty would claim that it was.
In fact that was NOT the original justification for it; the non-compliance with the UN was.
It (9/11) was neither the "original" justification nor "the" later one. Again, you made up this idea of people "using" it as "the justification".
My larger point was that we should not involve ourselves unnecessarily with foreign entanglements.
I agree: We should only do so necessarily. And I happen to believe Iraq was necessary. I guess you disagree. *shrug*
We got involved originally to defeat the evil empire, now we have other reasons for being there and it seems more and mopre likely that we will always have "good" reasons for having our troops occupy other countries.
I tend to agree. I think that's just a natural result of being the world's lone unchallenged superpower.
Yet neocons can fathom no genuine cause for resentment at us for meddling in mideastern affairs except thatr They are somehow jealous of us and our standard of living.
Not sure what or who you're talking about. Never been too clear on the definition of "neocon" for that matter. Speaking for myself, I can imagine that there are plenty of reasons why this or that foreign person might "resent" us, my only responses would be (1) I don't give a rat's ass, and (2) "resentment" as such, justified or not, is not really the issue we are dealing with. The issue is an expansionist totalitarian ideology.
For example: Osama bin Laden doesn't/didn't hate us "because we meddle". He hates/hated us because we stand in the way of him increasing his power. He wants to increase his power because his totalitarian ideology (oh sorry, "religion") tells him that's the way things should be. This is not a downtrodden, crippled, poverty-stricken Third Worlder reacting to the bad effects of US meddling. This is a skinny, soft, multimillionaire mama's boy playing at living out a grandiose political fantasy.
When you characterize the motivation of him and those like him as being a reaction to our "meddling", one can only conclude that your solution is not to "meddle". But what if you're wrong and I'm right? What if the problem is not our "meddling" but their ideology? Then telling us not to "meddle" is, instead, really telling us to let the totalitarians have their way - at least, "over there".
That what you want? To let the totalitarians have their way? Any alternative or attempt at hindering the totalitarians is "meddling", I guess. Well, so be it.
Reality check: how would You fell if Iraqis were occupying our country and telling us how to run Our government?
Reality check: we are not "telling them how to run their government". We are enabling them to - for the first time - have the opportunity to run their government. Before we got there, "Iraqis" weren't allowed to run their government. Saddam Hussein took that power all to himself and his cronies. (Reality check #2: Saddam Hussein and his cronies are not "the Iraqis", nor vice versa.) The only people we are "telling" anything to are Iraq's government officials: we are telling them that they must demonstrate that they represent and respond to their people, by standing for and getting elected.
Yes, we are telling Iraqi powerful men that they cannot squat in power positions without answering to the citizens around them. Oh, how horrible of us! Yes, you're right, "the Iraqis" should hate us for "forcing" their leaders to actually get elected by them.
So a more realistic version of your analogy would be to ask: How would I feel if my country was led by a near-Stalinist dictatorship, and then Iraqis dethroned the dictator and set up elections so that would-be governors now had to answer to the people of my country, abide by a written constitution, and so on.
Guess what? I'd feel pretty damn grateful. Flowers and everything.
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