Who gets invaded next?

[Ian]

** This is a continuation of the civil part of the discussion from the thread on Israeli violations of UN edict. It's getting aggravating to get into a good discussion, and then have some jerks get the thread closed by being jerks. So if your comments involve calling people Nazis, go post on Free Republic instead or something. **

cuchulainn:

I see. We are going to topple all the dangerous or egregiously abusive governments we know of, and we just happen to be starting with Iraq.

According to Amnesty International (a bunch of lefties, but they are something of an authority on this subject), the following countries have particularly abusive governments (citizens arbitrarily arrested, tortured, murdered, raped, and/or "disappeared" by government agencies): Angola, Burundi, Central Africa Republic (CAR), Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Columbia, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Albania, Georgia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Sri Lanka, China, and North Korea.

Furthermore, the following states have or are pursuing at least one type of WMD (bio, nuke, chem):
Algeria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Serbia,
South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and Vietnam (source: http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/wmd_state.htm)

I'm looking forward to our "dealing" with all of these 55 countries. Are we going to invade them too, or use diplomatic measures (like we did with Iraq)? I hope you'll forgive me for worrying that declaring war on 55 more countries would be a bit counterproductive to our safety, not to mention abhorrent to this nation's founding principles.

 

[Lord Grey Boots]

Hopefully no one.

By taking down the biggest and arguably worst of the badguys, that will send a REAL LOUD AND CLEAR message to the rest of them.

Despite some of the public rhetoric, it appears that to some degree Syria and Iran are cleaning up their acts. Probably not as much as they could or should, and I bet there is lots of nasty back room fights going on in their political and military organizations as they do it.

 

[cuchulainn]

I see. We are going to topple all the dangerous or egregiously abusive governments we know of, and we just happen to be starting with Iraq.

Well "in our own time" could be "never, if we don't feel like it."

"Dealing with" does not necessarily mean "topple."

Don't measure U.S. actions by rules of fairness that simply do not exist. We do what is best for us, whenever and however we see fit. We never claimed to treat each nation the same. We never claimed to treat each sitiation with the same "rules of engagement."

Our actions are "hypcritical" only if we claim to be consistent. We do not. We are quite open about refusing to be boxed in by a false and dangerous notion of consistency.

We make up the rules for each situation, regardless of whether those rules are 100% opposite in similar situations. That is the logical thing for us to do. That is the ethical thing for us to do.

You know how the military keeps bragging that "we don't fight fair"? Well neither does our state departement, and that's a good thing. Just as it would be illogical and unethical for our military to limit their weapons and equipment to make the fight more "fair," it would be unethical for our state deparment to limit itself to cookie-cutter responses to similar situations -- and for the same life and death reasons.

 

[Chris Rhines]

- Chris

 

[foghornl]

PARIS ! ! !

 

[Bahadur]

No one, provided that the current war wraps up relatively quickly and painlessly.

Provided that the domestic reaction is positive at the end of this war, the administration will have demonstrated a tremendous willingness to obtain American objectives by force.

Remember, you only need two bullets to hold a mob of 100 back - one to shoot the first one who tries to rush you (as a demonstration of your willingness) and the second for "who's next?"

 

[telewinz]

Somewhere in the Middle East. Take a number.

 

[Bainx]

As I recall in one of his speeches immediately following 911,
President Bush stated that we [U.S.] are going to be at this [erradicating terrorists] for the next 100 years.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on the number.

Sure sounds like an ajenda to me.

 

[El Tejon]

Saudi Royal Family! Come on, Saudi Royal Family!

[to the tune of "Bluebird Through My Window"]

"SEAL Team, SEAL Team through their window.
SEAL Team, SEAL Team through their window,
to kill the exchequer of the New Barbary pirates."

 

[MrAcheson]

Yeah, I believe he said that combatting terrorism would take decades. I've heard it referred to as his "Unforgiven" speech. (Unforgiven because if you harbor terrorists we'll kill you, your wife, your kids, your dog...)

I believe Bush hopes that with Iraq out of the picture we will be able to diplomatically deal with Syria and Iran (because our army will be next door and they don't want it to make a house call). We will be able to treat terrorism as a criminal problem again because the Islamic nations will cooperate under threat.

 

[Apple a Day]

I'm with foghornl,
Invade France!!!
Seriously, though, I don't see us invading anyplace else anytime soon. Properly contained, N. Korea will collapse under its own rotten weight. Iran is the iffy country. From what I understand after hearing Iranian immigrants, where is a serious undercurrent of young blood who think that the old coots are out-moded in their extreme fundamentalism. When they start kicking off there will be change. The question there is if we can wait that long and how far Iran is willing to go to foment terrorism against the U.S. The ball will be back in Iran's court. We'll see how those nuclear reactors are coming along.

 

[TallPine]

May I suggest Mexico ...?

 

[jmbg29]

What Bahadur said.

 

[Schuey2002]

Canada is right there for the takin'.....

 

[cratz2]

Tactically speaking, our best next target in the war against terrorism would be France. Seriously!

Of the more likely candidates, Syria seems like a little target that trys to start a lot of poop.

Personally I hope we don't invade any more Muslim countries anytime soon unless we have really good reason and can demonstrate that reason. Indonesia scares the hell out of me. I don't know what their level of training is like but that many people, hating the US as much as they do, with as much money as they have and all those darn islands and that much total surface area... that'd be a scary target to try to take out.

 

[Preacherman]

foghornl, the crew of this M1 would seem to agree with you...

 

[twoblink]

Of course Paris is on the top of my list as well; but truthfully; people better start watching out for the N.Korea / Japan activity.

NK just test fired a few missiles into the ocean (ooops.. near Japan.. imagine that!) and the Japanese government has made it pretty loud and clear that they are edgy at worst, and will have no problems "Striking back" at the first sign of aggression.

NK is high on the list.

Pakastian is high on the list as well...

 

[Azrael256]

I don't think we'll invade N. Korea. It would be the biggest charlie foxtrot in the history of mankind if we loaded up from Iraq and went after them. South Korea would be a giant nuke/chem/bio wasteland for a VERY long time, and Japan would take it in the shorts pretty hard, too. Maybe wear them down somehow economically or diplomatically... that doesn't make much sense, but an invasion doesn't seem wise at the moment.

My list:
Syria - This one could come tomorrow. They're being a royal PIA, and I can see that flaring up into another war. This would be an ugly thing, but we can take them. This one would be all kinds of fun because they would probably attack Israel as well. I suppose that's one way to solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

Saudi Arabia - They aren't a current danger, but my gut says we need to watch out in a couple of years.

Iran - Iran and nukes... why does this seem like a bad thing? I don't see a full-scale invasion, but some pounding here and there will probably have to happen.

Egypt - I'm just waiting for some kind of revolution in Egypt, possibly because of a big flare up between them and Sudan. That might not be the cause of it, but the gut is telling me something is up there.

Ethniclashistan - I see another war of some kind, perhaps with only limited US involvement in the wild world of Central Asia/ME.

France - I don't see another landing at Normandy, but I do see the french trying to pull the "proxy war" BS with us like Russia did (Iraq might even be one, we'll soon know). I don't anticipate a trans-Atlantic slugfest, but I'm all for it if they want to play that way.

Of course, I don't have any shiny things on my collar, so take it with a grain of salt. It's just the way I see it.

 

[Khornet]

They're ALL next!!!

All! We want it ALL! Aren't we imperialists? Then we need an empire! Aren't we hegemons? Then we need to get us some hegemony!

 

[Silent Bob]

Can I put in a vote for Syria? Basher Assad is one mouthy sucka.

 

[4v50 Gary]

I hope we can starve North Korea into submission rather than invade.

 

[10-Ring]

Once we finish w/ Iraq (which was at one time the 6th largest military in the world & one of the most feared), I'm thinking there'll be a few countries not prepared to take on the US & GW

Plus, I think if we do have to get into another conflict we'll be able to pick & chose coalition partners after we show the world what happens to those that oppose us

 

[Mike Irwin]

Please let it be New Jersey, Maryland, and California!

Those people have been repressed by their governments for far too long.

 

[Shooter973]

Who's next?

HollyWood!!!!!!!! HollyWood!!!!!!

 

[Spot77]

>Please let it be New Jersey, Maryland, and California!

Those people have been repressed by their governments for far too long<

Amen to that. Thank God the Clintonites are on hiatus.