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I gotta shake my head at that... I am almost angry at your term about 'political convenience' as if 200,000 human lives are just a talking point. ggrrrr.

If we cant stand up to to one wrong, we cant stand up to other wrongs, you say.
Yet you wont stand up to this wrong. So I come back later and talk about North korea and you'll conveniently say 'heck, we didnt do anything about them kurds, why start now??"

So, in the end, you will do nothing here ... and everywhere.

And the evil doers will have one more lever to destroy freedom unhindered.

That's like saying homocide police are useless since you cant catch all the murderers

There is another way: recognize that *ALL* the Communist regimes and tyrants are evil *because* they do this kind of crap, *then* use our power to end it. Recognize that it is their regimes of violence that spill over into hurting our nation
Guess what - we will NEVER catch Joe Stalin .. too late.. he died... but it's not too late for Castro,, Mugabe, Kim jong Il, and *saddam*.

"the Cambodian, the South Vietnamese, Laotian" note that the same idiots who are saying we should do nothing now ensured defeat in those nations, which led to said crimes against humanity. The Left was wrong - again.

"I'm a cynical old vet who's seen too much to care much else except for our interests at this point in my life. "
Sad if true. You are "shocked into impotence", like Powell said of the French. Our *interests* demand ending genocide worldwide, and getting tyrants like Saddam out of power, and democratizing countries that before have supported terrorism. Our ideals and our interests are aligned!!! What interests do we have, anyway? Freedom? You think our freedoms are more secure with tyrants colluding out there? of course not. they hate us for our freedom, and actively undermine it. We can end it one tyrant at a time. It's not like you have to do everything to do good; you just have to stop the evil and tyranny that you can, before it grows like a cancer to threaten us directly. "Yawning" at 500,000 kurds killed through Saddam's genocide is just a step away from ignoring threats that could kill 200,000 Americans.

Absolutely not. I want consistency at the top. We do not have it and have not since Reagan. We allow these slaughters to occur worldwide. We did not admonish the French as their soldiers watched 500,000 Rwandans get slaughtered. We do business with the Chinese and hell, teach them how to MIRV warheads over our west coast. We have a foreign policy with the consistency of jello. Personally speaking I've met Kurds. Most are just backwards people trying to survive. I would love to protect them. But within a structured democratic and unified Iraq. No seperate nations, no Balkanization of the Middle East. Yawn is right. I know that our State Department will find some way to screw this up. We'll send Albright or Jimmy Carter to "teach" democracy so we'll have a warm fuzzy pc campaign of looking good to the commies in the UN. Just once I wish someone with some balls would stand up and say this is how it will be done.

As far as North Korea, I have an answer for that. Blockade the nation and advise them there is a Trident II 300 miles away, loaded and ready to rock and roll. If ONE missle leaves North Korean airspace, every citizen of that nation becomes a crispy critter.

No, I believe we should do more. But we had best have a doctrine of consistency and not let the morons in the UN have ANY input from this date forward. We need to shut out the ChiComs, Ruskies, Frogs and Germans. If the Turks want input it will be to seal their border and shut up since they don't want to work with us on a political level. But if we finish this and then invite the UN to help, I will wash my hands of this administration also. More people die because we turn our backs worldwide on the true abuses of power and fail to defend our allies to the end. We sold out so many friends and let the slaughters commence and how much did you see about this on the news in the last twenty five years? Not one hell of a lot. And so this is the test for W in my book. He can make this a Pax Americana again, or he can be a waffle and "invite" the UN in to screw it up. It's his call and I'll withold judgement until then.

One more thing about your "comment" about the "communist" regimes. One of the heads of the former organizations that enabled thousands, hell probably tens of thousands to dissappear in gulags went to a BBQ at W's ranch in Texas:

Putin.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. His last name is not "Stalin" but he sure as hell has a history quite similar when he was head of the KGB.