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

To: neolib who wrote (155687)	1/9/2005 1:54:13 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 281500

"After all, freedom of expression is the most valued attribute of the democracy we are trying to export. So how in the heck can the proponents of spreading democracy to the ME bitch about expression of dissent in the USA?" You expressed this so well, and the above has ALWAYS puzzled me about the "shut up and support the president" people. The people who say that just don't seem to get out society and its benefits at all. Of course the same people who say that didn't shut up when Clinton was president, so it's probably just a little poltical game they play, rather than a real lack of appreciation for the ability to criticize- or if they do lack for appreciation, at the very least they do take advantage of the ability, even if they don't appreciate it.

To: neolib who wrote (155687)	1/9/2005 4:45:19 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The argument about a united front in the face of a dangerous foe has some merit, but our society is WAY to open (thank goodness) to effectively obtain that, so we just have to deal with that fact. Addendum to that: you don't go to war before you've mobilized a large majority behind you. If the threat from Saddam had truly been imminent, few if any would have objected to war. Despite what Nadine said in an earlier post, not many people objected to the air strikes on Afghanistan after the Taliban wouldn't give Osama up. We wouldn't have "won" in Vietnam even if there hadn't been protests against the war. The North and their [many] allies in the South (a "country" that we invented along with a few Frenchified Vietnamese, in direct contradiction to the Geneva Accords of 1954) wouldn't have stood for it. They were willing to fight to the death, while we weren't willing to destroy completely indiscriminately to achieve our "goal" (whatever it was), though we did manage to inflict a huge amount of damage with our bombing and defoliating the countryside.