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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (116283)	10/6/2003 6:35:50 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi John, you said: > Where and how do we start? Or are you claiming that it is only ok if we attack all of them at the same time? Simply stating that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate dictatorship off the face of the planet will be good enough for me. I will leave the order and the methods to those more qualified. But barring such a shift in our policy, the argument that we removed Saddam because he was a brutal dictator is baseless. Personally I don't think we should take up the job of removing worldly dictators. But at least such a policy would make one of the war arguments self consistent. > Bush's father did noble work in Kuwait and especially Somolia, but failed utterly when he abandoned the Shia's. IMO he used American troops as gun for hire to restore a corrupt dictator monarchy to power in exchange for oil and rebuilding contracts. In the process he back stabbed a lot of innocent people whom he had called to action when he let Saddam lose his gunship on the civilians. > In my opinion Bush gets high marks for Iraq and Afghanistan, barely marginal marks for UN support in Liberia, but if he ends his presidency as a failure it will be with Africa or North Korea, not Iraq. He got rid of the Taliban in an efficient manner. So he gets good marks for that (assuming he was doing more than just letting the military do its job). He gets terrible marks for post Taliban actions (even worse than what I give him for Iraq) because the situation in Afghanistan has been a lot worse than when the Taliban were in charge. Nor is the country any more secure than before Taliban. With regards to Iraq, frankly I don't care too much about it one way or another. It just happens that Iraq steals more headlines than other events so I am going to discuss it. Leaving aside the arguments over the necessity of war and the unilateral way in which GW proceeded (both sides have commented on this enough that I am sure we don't need to get into it now) I would like to say Bush lied to us to rush us into war. I find his antipathy towards democracy and due process appalling. He demonstrated that attitude mostly via Iraq invasion, so that is what I use to nail him for it. If you break the rules to achieve your ends, then the least you can do is to make damn sure you can carry it through to the end well. So far he has failed too short of my expectations. Believe me, if he had gotten it right, I would have given him credit for being a visionary albeit one with disregard for democracy. Among other things, Iraq has completely distracted us from NK, Afghanistan, Iran, and domestic problems. $87 B. can solve a lot of problems and I think it should have better uses. > Remind me again who speaks for the dead Their relatives. > what level of killing renders a nation states sovereignty null and void. I have gone on at lengths over the need for non-interference in internal affairs of other nations. If you don't like their governments, see to it that it does not get any help but leave the nation alone to find its own solutions. > Strangely, today we have liberals arguing against human rights and for sovereignty. That would never be I. I am simply pointing out the inconsistencies of the rationale for Iraq war. In addition, I don't our military and taxes should be used for personal gains or at least in a poor way. ST