Posted on 10/01/2002 3:13:22 AM PDT by Greybird
Of course, for all I know, you could be Higgs, and if that is the case, don't give up your day job.
Fairytale words. Freedom is worth fighting for and worth dying for. Anything of value has a high cost and as it becomes more rare in the world the cost goes up. We as a people and an ideology are what is becomming rare, but we are worth it and we will survive.
World War II --- Neville Chamberlain.
We are currently at the same state vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein as Chamberlain was vis-a-vis Hitler. See McDermott/Bonior/etc. currently in Iraq blathering "peace in our time".
Sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't. Unfortunately you can never tell until afterwards and you have spent down your military and diplomatic assets.
I'm not worried that we can't swiftly and decisively defeat Saddam, but I worry about a prolonged attempt to build a democracy afterwards. Algeria is just one example.
Roosevelt set Pearl Harbor up. Collateral damage?
After World War I, Americans felt betrayed, and they resolved never to make the same mistake again. Yet, just two decades later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began the maneuvers by which he hoped to plunge the nation once again into the European cauldron. Unsuccessful in his naval provocations of the Germans in the Atlantic, he eventually pushed the Japanese to the wall by a series of hostile economic-warfare measures, issued clearly unacceptable ultimatums, and induced them to mount a desperate military attack, most devastatingly on the US forces he concentrated at Pearl Harbor.Notice that last line, "forces he concentrated at Pearl Harbor." FDR in fact fired an admiral over that issue; the admiral judged that no significant advantage was to be gained by basing the battleships in Hawaii. Evidently the admiral was right, and his firing calls into question any second-guessing of any commander at Pearl Harbor. In fact it was Roosevelt's responsibility after he had made it clear that the commanders would do things his way or hit the highway.All very well to blame we-the-people for the fact that Americans were no more interested in getting killed in Europe than Britons were; recall that Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time" was popular in Britain. But you would probably have felt the same way, were you the parent or sweetheart/wife of a draft-age young man. 80% of the country was "arrogant."
The irony of it was that the more clearly you saw the horror of Hitler the more bitter you would be about WWI, and the failure of the armistise. The only scenario in which there is no great tragedy called WWII is if the British and/or Americans are led by a Winston Churchill in the mid 1930s.
Britain at least had the man, but didn't listen to him. We weren't even that close; we were too busy suckering for FDR's scapegoating Hoover for policies which in fact were largely indistinguishable from FDR's own. And FDR was too busy rooting for socialism--hence, for Stalin--to oppose Hitler when it was (militarily) simple.
The daunting Soviet Union of my lifetime was the natural result of FDR's hopes for socialism. FDR arranged for Soviet domination of Europe, and would have renominated Henry Wallace for VP if there hadn't been an insipient revolt in the Democratic Party in 1944 . . .
Umm, what do you think was going to remove the economic sanctions for the past decade, if not compliance with the resolutions?
Iraq would use them in a war of aggression against a neighboring state Boxing Saddam in has dealt with that threat
Uh-huh. You think we're 100% safe from Iraq-sponsored terrorist attacks right now? That's an incredibly naive assumption. The planet is far better off with Saddam not having the weapons at all, nit just surrounding him and making it more difficult for him to use them.
There's a pandora's box of possibilities after we invade. Here's just one: Iran takes advantage of the situation by increasing its support of terrorists while blackmailing our occupation forces in Iraq which are now in range of their missiles.
So we shouldn't invade, because such an act of war might precipitate retaliatory acts of war? LOL!
The fact of the matter is once Iraq has been invaded, no more countries will be invaded no matter how much they support terrorists, no matter how many of their own people they kill because we will be bogged down in the mother of all nation building and quickly lose all political support for new adventures. Terrorists will then quickly gain new footholds in new countries.
More nonsense. First, invading Iraq acts as an extremely firm deterrent to other nations who support terrorism. Second, the assumption that our military can only handle one Wisconsin-sized nation at a time is absolutely ridiculous. Third, sacrificing national security for political reasons is exactly the same moronic decision that the Democrats are supporting. Are you falling for their copy points?
How will invading Iraq deter Saudi Arabia from funding more terrorists? How will having occupation forces in Iraq deter Iran when those forces will be in range of Iranian missiles?
Second, the assumption that our military can only handle one Wisconsin-sized nation at a time is absolutely ridiculous.
Occupation will be a huge burden which is different from invading. Our defeat of Iraq was easy last time and should be even easier this time, but once the troops are there we will have no choice but to supress the Kurds and Shiites or watch the country dissolve into civil war. Leaving the country in chaos is not in our interests.
sacrificing national security for political reasons is exactly the same moronic decision that the Democrats are supporting. Are you falling for their copy points?
I would love to see the reasons for attacking being clearly spelled out so Republicans would not have to spend any political capital on this attack. The pro-attack side has only put out the same old pre-9/11 message with a new post-9/11 frosting. Basically Saddam is evil and has WMD and oh yeah, he probably wants to give them to terrorists. That's an incredibly shallow argument.
Gee, I don't know, maybe the fear that the same will happen to them? Sheesh.
Occupation will be a huge burden which is different from invading.
Please cite the source where the President is quoted as saying that we are going to be occupying Iraq. All we want is that regime out of power. Iraq can take it from there for all we care. There's more talk about rebuilding Iraq afterwards, just like we created industrial powerhouses Germany and Japan, than there is of occupying Iraq, like... ummm, like... errr, help me out here, who have we occupied and refused all requests to leave? In the last century? Hm?
Basically Saddam is evil and has WMD and oh yeah, he probably wants to give them to terrorists. That's an incredibly shallow argument.
"Basically" to make your point, you ignore Saddam's murderous past, his two invasions of neighboring countries, his open threats against the US, his firing on US and UK forces, his payments to the families of suicide-bombers, his harboring of known terrorists (Abu Nidal ring any bells?), his acceptance of terrorist training camps in Iraq, and his history of using WMD's on innocent civilians. How shallow is that?
who have we occupied and refused all requests to leave?
Somalia?
"Basically" to make your point, you ignore Saddam's murderous past, his two invasions of neighboring countries, his open threats against the US, his firing on US and UK forces, his payments to the families of suicide-bombers, his harboring of known terrorists (Abu Nidal ring any bells?), his acceptance of terrorist training camps in Iraq, and his history of using WMD's on innocent civilians. How shallow is that?
Pretty shallow. We supported one of those invasions. Firing randomly at our planes flying over his country is not "murderous". His support of Palistinian terrorists applies equally well to other Arab countries. If they are all that murderous, we need to stay out of that area, not get more involved.
Unless, of course, there is evidence of support of 9/11 hijackers or an imminent threat like a long range missile. That's all I care about, not murderous pasts.
God bless you for every word you posted, but I especially wanted these to be repeated. Thanks, FReeper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.