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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (4177)	1/28/2003 8:10:00 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

..rather than protecting US citizens against immediate threats. What is a "clear and present danger" and an "immediate threat - troops invading on our beaches? I have a different opinion on the Constitution on this issue. I think its much more flexible. A glance at our military history would demonstrate this. Has our ability to make war ever been as limited as you describe? I don't think so. It seems to me that you should have been just as opposed to the bombing campaign against Serbia. Is that the case? There seemed to be a lot less objection to that and there was no "clear and present danger" or "immediate threat" to us. The threat was to the general peace of Europe. History has shown that when war breaks out and spreads we are usually unable to avoid being drawn in. Think of the past two world wars. It was better to nip it in the bud before the flows of refugees across borders and formation of rival coalitions spread conflict throughout the region. As far as nuclear blackmail - inspections make sense. Of course, inspections are only taking place because of the serious threat of imminent war which Saddam faces. And even though Saddam is allowing inspections, he is continuing to give only surface cooperation. That was the gist of the recent testimony of the inspectors. Nothing Saddam does, regardless how much oil he owns, can prosper without US purchases, since no other country can replace that portion of world consumption. It's a mistake to think if we just wash our hands of the Persian Gulf, oil will continue to flow. Saddam would continue his aggressions against the oil countries in the region. He is unlikely to be able to peacefully seize control of the Persian Gulf even if we are not involved. Witness the Iran-Iraq war. Iran would certainly fight again. And countries like Saudi Arabia, if they did not have the US to defend them, would search for and find other protectors - China, Pakistan, India - its hard to say who. Inducements would be made and someone would step up to the plate. So there would eventually be more war(s) in the Persian Gulf even if we weren't involved. Oil isn't going to keep flowing when WMD's start flying around that area. This is another "nip it in the bud" situation. The Persian Gulf oil is to a large extent what the world economy runs on. And we have been the imposer of order in that part of the world - kicking Iraq out of Kuwait in '91, preventing them from invading again in '94, protecting the flow of oil during the Iran-Iraq war (remember the Kuwaiti vessels we reflagged), and even giving covert aid to prevent one side of that war from overcoming the other. It's all well and good to say the US shouldn't be the world's policeman. But if we aren't willing to impose order in certain vital parts of the world, the most likely result is that we'll have to live with the consequences of spreading disorder and war. We shouldn't assume those consequences would be smaller than the effort to "nip conflicts in the bud" early on. The opposite is more likely.