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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (108400)	7/15/2007 5:04:20 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

>>I was 50-50 on the war before it started. I'm about 85-15 against now.<< i was 100% for it then. then again, i didn't have an unlimited budget to find out what the heck was going on, either. the story sounded reasonable and i was misled. in that light, our opinions didn't matter. these guys went to war under false pretenses and it was their responsibility NOT TO DO THAT. the fact they attacked anyone who didn't go along with their erroneous view just tells you more about their total lack of ethics and / or understanding. >>I knew before we went in that the neo-cons pulling the strings were a bunch of lying scumbag traitors. I also didn't like the influence some religious sects were and still are having on US middle east policy because they want to pave the way for the "second coming".<< the brink of world annihilation comes before christ is said to return. i think we ought to let that occur on its own rather than try and force world annihilation. >>One of the problems with an analysis like this is that we know where we are now (and it sucks), but we don't know where we would be now or be heading had we done nothing.<< the problem with that argument is that you never know what happens for a plan you didn't take. i can make some reasonable assumptions, though. i think you can, too. i can think of few situations where things would be worse having not breaking and owning iraq. i do have empathy, too, and i have to say that i do feel good for the people no longer enslaved by saddam. the problem comes in as many of those folks are dying every day in the civil war that won't go away. with all the resources we spent in iraq, we'd have to be total retards not to have captured bin laden by now. okay, even total retards could have caught him with those resources. >>Part of the answer to that question is whether you believe Al Qaeda is a handful of loons that should be dealt with as such or whether they are a violent terrorist part of a larger movement to take control of the major governments of the Middle East and elsewhere and put them under Islamic anti-west control.<< the problem is that iraq had basically nothing to do with al qaeda. well, not then, anyway. al qaeda recruits are now pouring into iraq to get some american blood. i'll bet there's plenty more al qaeda in iraq now than there were under saddam. >>If you believe the latter, then it's almost like a battle of ideologies between the west and the communists where sometimes taking action "might" (stress "might") be the "least bad" of "two bad" options.<< again, al qaeda didn't have anything to do with saddam's iraq. are you suggesting that the usa invade every country that doesn't like our country and with people would like to kill americans and take their wealth? beyond plenty of people in the usa willing to kill americans and take their wealth, you'd have to invade well over half the world. i don't think that logic holds weight - at least not in my mind. >>Unfortunately, the "world" is still very dependent on middle east oil. Personally, I also think the world would be a much less safe place if a bunch of radical Muslims slowly started taking control of places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, etc... and started accumulating WMDs.<< so we invade them all? >>You may ask what did Saddam have to do with any of this and don't those that are angry at us have a lot of legitimate complaints? The answer is, absolutely NOTHING and absolutely YES. However, those are different stories and they go further back. Saddam was hostile to the U.S.<< would you care to list all nations hostile to the united states of america? in which order do you suggest we invade... Tthem all? >>In a world where a bunch of crazies are running around flying planes into buildings and blowing up innocent people you have to at least think about the risks carefully. He was a leader in the region that was also hostile to the west and that at least had the capability of producing WMDs.<< but he didn't have them. we said he did. we are capable of misleading the world and invading other sovereign nations under false pretenses. did more americans die in 9/11 or in the busheviks' false pretense war? >>So it wasn't crazy to at least think about the "risks of inaction". That's the thing that people are failing to consider.<< i consider the cost of doing nothing and i'm convinced we've made the world a more hostile place. ask london. they have one or two or three terrorist attacks on an annual basis after we invaded iraq. i don't recall that many prior to the invasion. a handful of nut job extremists shouldn't allow another nut job extremist to make the matter much worse, imho. >>You can understand the "risks of action" and then evaluate the "results of your actions" once you've taken them (the results have obviously sucked), but the results are not always equal to the risks you can't evaluate the risks of inaction once you've eliminated the risk.<< i think that's a justification for the wrong decision. we have many, many, many years of history with saddam's iraq. to say we have no clue just isn't right. we have a history with this guy and the history was much better than the present for the interests of the united states of america and britain. >>IMO, Bush and his group have been pretty horrible in their planning and execution of this and lied through their teeth to get us into the war to begin with. Despite all that, I don't think this is all as clear cut as most on the left would have you believe.<< invading sovereign nations under false pretenses is rarely the best course of action. especially when the guy that attacked you is free to rally his troops and attack again. right now, britain's number of terrorist attacks has ballooned in the post gwb false pretense war era. i'm all but convinced it would be lower had he not broken and bought a sovereign nation. yes, there is unknown, but that doesn't justify an ignorant or dishonest decision with a price tag of more american lives than 9/11 and a trillion or so dollars. imho, anyway. ps - Wayne, sorry if i sound crabby - it isn't meant toward you. i'm just disgusted with the busheviks and anything dealing with their manipulative ways brings out my worst edge.