Your War Policy Please...Draw You Plans

[vvv]

i think this is the main problem with dubya: the plastic surgery was only external, they forgot to implant a brain able to handle more than one issue at the same time, and that's probably being rude to chimps

dubya:

"We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans."—Scranton, Pa., Sept. 6, 2000

"...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas."
-- On NPR's Morning Edition (9/26)

"I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy."
—Redwood, Calif., Sept. 27, 2000

"I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself,
but for predecessors as well."
—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2001

"I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure."
—Interview with the Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001

"I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them."
—Washington, D.C., Dec. 18, 2000

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take
dream."
—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

 

[Madison]

Originally posted by TM_Direct
Remember the Yugoslavian problem of the early 1990's?? Don't you think European nations could have handled that problem w/out America?

we honor the geneva convention and do not use them anymore...don't you think we could have just dropped a few nukes on Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and sparred every american life?

I thought Yugoslavia was an example of the U.S. *not* getting involved (ostensibly because there was no profit motive in helping those particular people) - what did the U.S. do there outside of clinton's throwing in a few last minute bombs?

Do you really think the U.S. avoided nukes in Korea and vietnam because of the Geneva convention? Or maybe it was to avoid escalating the conflict to the point of direct intervention of China and/or the USSR? and by the time of gulf war I, nukes were out of the question politically. Can't see how a convention had anything to do with it -- the present Iraq situation demonstrates the U.S.'s readiness to completely ignore conventions when it thinks there are better options.

 

[TM_Direct]

America makes a world wide announcement:

We are leaving the middleast. europe and Asia....we will not get involved in any other affairs or countries...All we ask is that Gas prices stay around 1.50 per gallon...we don't care who controls the oil as long as we get it at $1.50....same with Asia and Europe...We don't care who does what as long as you leave America out of it.....How long before the rest of the world is at war? If we told Iraq we were leaving the middle east, how long before he builds a turnpike through Kuwait so he has easier access to Saudi Arabia? Truthfully, i think it would be great...we can sit back and watch weaker nations get slaughtered and watch women and children get massacred on the street like what was happening in Kuwait, Croatia, Europe in WWII, Somalia ect...We will just keep out nose out of everyone elses affairs but also keep out check book here too. Im sure france can handle everything in europe. Im very sure that Iraq will conquer the surrounding nations in a matter of weeks. And then we can sit back and watch a holy war between most likely Iraq and india....that's assuming pakistan and India don't nuke each other to death first...

 

[TM_Direct]

I don't know how old you are, but years ago there was a senator from Arizona named Barry Goldwater and he ran for President and one of the reasons he LOST was because he said plainly he would drop the nukes on Vietnam and end the war, other wise he would leave vietnam. As far as Yugoslavia, the united states of america picked up the majority share and bulk of the bill for the conflict..American jets were shot down as well. WHat Im trying to point out is that innocent people get butchered all around the world, no other country does anything about it and they all look to us for help and leadership, then when we do something they complain we are meddling...

 

[vvv]

Originally posted by TM_Direct
America makes a world wide announcement:

but, that's exactly what we are doing already, when we're not engaged in active state terrorism.

 

[vvv]

Originally posted by TM_Direct
states of america picked up the majority share and bulk of the bill for the conflict..

no, the allies carried most of the costs, gulf I, sthg we may have brought upon us ourselves, we only had to carry about 15% of all costs.

we couldn't even afford it, not with our total debt @ 3 times GDP.

 

[vvv]

Originally posted by TM_Direct
WHat Im trying to point out is that innocent people get butchered all around the world, no other country does anything about it and they all look to us for help and leadership, then when we do something they complain we are meddling...

no no, we rarely intervene on humanitarian grounds, it's normally propping up evil dictators like saddam because he's a bastard we like, watching them play with our biological and chemical weapons, or furthering our hegemony.

dubya:

"We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans."—Scranton, Pa., Sept. 6, 2000

"...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas."
-- On NPR's Morning Edition (9/26)

"I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy."
—Redwood, Calif., Sept. 27, 2000

 

[Madison]

Originally posted by TM_Direct
I don't know how old you are, but years ago there was a senator from Arizona named Barry Goldwater ...

Goldwater was before my time

you may be right about the funding of the Yugoslavia operations, especially via funding of the UN - my knowledge on that tragedy is poor.

and I agree that the U.S. is criticised no matter what it does - but that's due at least in part to it being decidedly partisan in its intervention, supporting and paying for some abuses, while condemning and punishing others of equal magnitude.

 

[TM_Direct]

I don't know why you are putting up pictures of monkeys and making some of these far out statements, but if you want to talk intelligently about these subjects i m game but it seem to me you are either anti american or an ultra liberal extremist. Let me ask you a question: What should we do about Iraq? Do you like my idea? Do you think we should lead the world or just isolate ourselves and say "it's not problem"...That's what most of Europe did prior to WWII and 6 million innocent civilians were put to death. What would be your plan?

 

[vvv]

how ridiculous...

a "new" name comes up, now, who could be behind that, hello, canyon, is that you, yoohoo, the plan bit seems a dead give away, and then here we go roller coasting along with the same old arguments?

anyway, for the umpteenth time:

do what we're doing with syria, libya, north korea, iran, pakistan, and saudi arabia etc etc, or what we did for decades vs the ussr:

contain and deter, and, specifically concerning iraq, send in the inspectors.

that's it.

saddam has obviously understood that things have changed since the iraq/iran war, when we full heartedly supported his war of aggression, even though i'm sure he's hurt at the fickleness of his former staunch ally.

anyway, no way would saddam now ever attack the us or his neighbors, not when he knows that full scale retaliation would ensue.

that is just common sense.

everything else is no more than warmongering with the intent to detract from national problems, and maybe even just vengeance for the bush family, i really wouldn't put that past them.

but, and that is the main point: this artificial crusade against iraq is absolutely useless in what should be our priority, fighting terrorism and its causes, not going after imaginary dangers that in no way warrant the response dubya is trying to sell, albeit with ever decreasing success, happily.

of course, bush doesn't care about fighting terrorism, that is not his agenda.

What's clear is that the biggest terrorist threat we face is that one or more big Muslim countries will be radicalized. And yet that's a threat hawks advising the administration don't seem to take seriously. The administration adviser Richard Perle, quoted by Josh Marshall in The Washington Monthly, brushes off concerns that an invasion of Iraq might undermine the stability of Middle Eastern regimes: "Mubarak is no great shakes. Surely we can do better. . . ."

Meanwhile, plans to invade Iraq proceed. The administration has offered many different explanations, some of them mutually contradictory, for its determination to occupy Baghdad. I think it's like the man who looks for his keys on the sidewalk, even though he dropped them in a nearby alley, because he can see better under the streetlight. These guys want to fight a conventional war; since Al Qaeda won't oblige, they'll attack someone else who will. And watching from the alley, the terrorists are pleased.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/15/opinion/15KRUG.html


The Independent

The Bali bomb proves the need for a war on terror, not a war on Iraq

the US signally failed to capitalise on the vast wave of solidarity that surged towards it after 11 September. Its treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan, its seemingly cavalier attitude to civilian casualties, the enduring belligerence of its language and its high-handed attitude towards its allies resulted in a squandering of international goodwill. President Bush's warning after 11 September that "all who are not with us are against us" now rings all too true.

But nothing has undermined the collective war on terrorism more than the way in which the Bush administration has caused it to mutate, before our eyes, into preparations for an old-style US-led war on Iraq. The US may not yet have given up on an international effort to combat terrorism – it has forces deployed in anti-terrorism operations in places as far apart as the Philippines, Georgia and Kuwait – but the thrust of its military and propaganda effort is now Iraq. The deadly terrorist attack in Bali, once described as the most peaceful place in the world, shows the folly of that approach.

http://argument.independent.co.uk/l...sp?story=342672


in the same vein:


The Guardian

Bali proves that America's war on terror isn't working

The US made the mistake of taking its eye off the main target
Like the rulers of Orwell's 1984, our leaders have urged us to switch our hatred overnight not from Eastasia to Eurasia but from al-Qaida to Baghdad. Now we are to believe Saddam is the urgent, number one priority.

Bali has proved why that is a woeful error. A war on Iraq will win yet more backing for jihadism in the Muslim world, apparently concerning all Bin Laden's most lurid predictions of a clash of west against Islam. A prolonged US occupation of Iraq will be the greatest provocation yet. But it will also be a distraction from the struggle we were all urged to join a year ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia...,812084,00.html