John Re..Can't you read? The sentences before are the qualifiers that lead to the conclusion that "There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened." "Such action" is defined in the previous lines.
Whoooa. Lets go back over the posts, and see what we are talking about. In post 3992, in reply to post3942, I said this.
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<.."There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened.
LOL Really. Name me one war or action, the US has been involved in, since WWII, that was a direct threat to the US. It may be hard for you to believe, but Bosnia, wasn't the threat, he make it out to be. In fact, oil itself, or, the ability of Saddam and his ilk, to use oil for blackmail, makes the ME a direct threat
To which in post 3992 You said
hmaly,
Taken out of context, as usual. The lead to that sentence was:
"Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace.
"Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.
Then - "There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened."
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It's funny the way you furtively search for a sentence you can argue with, while ignoring the central point of the article, which you can't argue with.
You will notice, in post 3992,you said that I didn't refute the central point of the article, you posted in 3942. If you read my answer in post 3992, you will note that I did respond to exactly that sentence. Now in post 4016, you say it is the qualifiers which make his sentence true. However read the sentences, and trade one enemy, communism, for terrorism, and we come up with.
"Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against communism while being placed on the defensive in a single country, (South korea,Vietnam, Lebanon,Nicuagra,Afghanistan,) that never will fully accept its presence.
Then - "There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened."
You will note that if you substitute enemies, communism for terrorism, you could put in several countries, we have fought against, while engaged against the bigger threat, communism. Therefore, there are precedents, where we have done just that. Also, we are fighting Iraq under the same premise; as we have never, since WWII, taken over any country, as much as installed democracies, which were friendly to us, and invested money to rebuild the infrastructure, assuming the final product would be to our liking.
In that regard, whether the new Shia gov. accepts us completely,I would contend, isn't the main goal. The main goal is to fight Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is financed by the Sunni sect, Wahabbism. However, the Wahabbi hate the Shia, just as much as they hate us. Getting rid of the Sunni Bath party in Iraq, and having the Shia gain majority control, would put Wahabbi's natural enemy, right on their doorstep. Saudi Arabia, funded Saddam to keep Iran, and its fundamentalism at bay. Now SA and Syria, two Sunni states sponsoring Al Qaeda, will have to contend with a Iraqi army trained by a far more powerful US army, using US methods, and US equipment. And with enough money, any gov, democratic, or not, will prosper in Iraq. And you don't see how a democracy, and capitalism,in a prosperous Iraq, would scare the hell out of Al Qaeda's sponsors. Why not. That is precisely, how we defeated communism; using similar indirect methods. And the fact that terrorism incidents have fallen dramatically worldwide, shows, the theory is working. |
