What a ridiculous thing to claim; everyone knows Iraq had no WMD.Let's not forget where the original Iraqi nerve gas came from.
By that logic, there is also no reason to stay in Iraq.SirPorl said:They already got what every first term administration wanted........a second term. No real point of the dog and pony show now is there.
Lobotomy Boy said:I'll give the professor the benefit of the doubt. She may well think she's telling the truth and at some level even sort of believe it herself. That's because the most effective way to lie is to tell the truth, or at least some version of the truth that a group of people have convinced themselves to buy into.
Take this example. There was no way the Bush administration was going to whip the masses into a fearful frenzy over something as abstract as the Iraqis threatening the hegemony of the petrodollar, even though that may well have been the most legitimate threat the country faced. It was much easier to use hyperbolic imagery of a vague threat that "might come in the form of a mushroom cloud." And even if the neocons were cynical enough to believe that we needed to fight a war to preserve the dollar while convincing us that it was about WMDs, they weren't good enough actors to pull it off.
The solution was to convince themselves that the war was about WMDs. Once they bought into it, at least on a superficial level, convincing most of the rest of us was easy.
But a Republican pushed for it. That makes it wrong.The interesting thing about Iraq is that we're taking probably the MOST oppressive country in the middle east, and turning it into a representative democracy. With the approval of the vast majority of the citizenry.
I guess that might all work if only Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy would get with the program.bogie said:The interesting thing about Iraq is that we're taking probably the MOST oppressive country in the middle east, and turning it into a representative democracy. With the approval of the vast majority of the citizenry. When they're able to take care of themselves, we're outta there.
This is a message we've sent. And it has come through loud and clear. The terrorists are losing their support, and are becoming more desperate.
Interesting too - we now have a staging area should we need to go into Iran. I suspect that may have been the plan all along.
bogie said:The interesting thing about Iraq is that we're taking probably the MOST oppressive country in the middle east, and turning it into a representative democracy. With the approval of the vast majority of the citizenry. When they're able to take care of themselves, we're outta there.
This is a message we've sent. And it has come through loud and clear. The terrorists are losing their support, and are becoming more desperate.
Interesting too - we now have a staging area should we need to go into Iran. I suspect that may have been the plan all along.
Middy's answer? "America-hating fundamentalist Moslems forever!"middy said:LaVeigh's answer? "Ba'athists Forever!"
Malone LaVeigh said:2) The "representative democracy" in this case means the majority fundamentalist Shia gets to institute a Theocracy. One friendly with Iran, BTW. Nice going.
John Derbyshire said:Andy: You are of course right that open societies are fertile soil for terrorism. The War on Terror, though, is not really a war to stamp out terrorism, a thing that probably can't be done, as our leaders very likely know. It is a war on terrorists getting nukes. ("WMD" if you like, but that is really just a synonym for nukes. Chemical and biological terrorism, in the present state of the dark arts, are minor threats by comparison.) Nukes can only be made by biggish, stable--whether under dictatorship or law--well-organized nations. Any such nation friendly to terrorists, hostile to us, and looking as if it is on the way to getting nukes, demands action.
The question is: What action? My answer would be, has always been: Attack them, smash up their assets, kill their leaders if you can, cripple their military. Then leave them in rubble and chaos. They're not going to be making any nukes in that condition. Mission accomplished. That was what I hoped we would do to Iraq, and why I supported the war. It is what I believe we should now do to Iran. The reduced-to-rubble nation might indeed "breed terrorists"; but then, as you pointed out, so might New Zealand or Spain. Rubble nations are not a threat to us. Africa has a score of them; none threatens us.
The administration has taken another course, one of "spreading American values," "building democracy," and so on. This won't work. It will end in tears. Any leaders of Iraq installed under any system we set up will be lynched by ululating mobs within a month of our departure. We can't export our system, even to small, cheap, near places like Haiti (where we have been trying for nigh on a century).
This is bad news for the many people living in the sphere of barbarism who would like a quiet, middle-class, law-governed, Western style of life, but it's not especially bad news for **us**, if we can just acknowledge it frankly and act accordingly.
Incidentally, the best argument for the proposition that democracies don't make war on each other is Spencer Weart's Never at War. Weart patiently chronicles every counterexample you could come up with, trying to prove that proposition, mainly by slicing'n'dicing the definition of "democracy" to make it fit. I wasn't 100 percent convinced; but it is clear at any rate that free nations go to war with each other only grudgingly, under exceptional circumstances, and never with the annihilatory total-war mindset.
Quote:
Originally Posted by middy
LaVeigh's answer? "Ba'athists Forever!"
Middy's answer? "America-hating fundamentalist Moslems forever!"