Iceman

Kris, you are doing the right thing!
I don't know if there were WMD's in Iraq or not. I don't care. Freeing Iraq was the right thing. And the ppl of Iraq (most of them) are happy that they were freed from Saddam Hussein and his family. I am sure that Hussein would have given the Al Qaida terrorists, or any other terrorists, asylum in Iraq. For the right amount of money Saddam Hussein would have done everything! And I am sure Hussein had plans for WMD! Afghanistan was necessary, becuase the terrorists were hiding there. And this country got freed too. Ppl are looking into a better future now.
I don't like war, but in this case it had to be done this way... IMHO...
We can't just say that it's wrong to go at war, because we might kill ppl - because that would allow terrorists to kill more and more of us and get away with it. When you do something wrong and you get caught you usually end up in prison for a while. But not them! They are hiding in other countrys and get supported by those countrys, while the regime in those countrys is doing harm to their own ppl. The only answer had to be a war against terror, IMHO.
I don't agree with President Bush that often, but in this case I do - even though I think he did it for personal reasons and for the oil. But IMHO it was the right thing to do.
Anyways, allways remember that in these times we can't live in freedom without having brave man and woman serving in the military.
I thank everybody in the military for what you do!
War or not, killing is wrong! But we can't look away when terrorists kill our loved ones!

tab545

Kris, you are doing the right thing!
I don't know if there were WMD's in Iraq or not. I don't care. Freeing Iraq was the right thing. And the ppl of Iraq (most of them) are happy that they were freed from Saddam Hussein and his family. I am sure that Hussein would have given the Al Qaida terrorists, or any other terrorists, asylum in Iraq. For the right amount of money Saddam Hussein would have done everything! And I am sure Hussein had plans for WMD! Afghanistan was necessary, becuase the terrorists were hiding there. And this country got freed too. Ppl are looking into a better future now.
I don't like war, but in this case it had to be done this way... IMHO...
We can't just say that it's wrong to go at war, because we might kill ppl - because that would allow terrorists to kill more and more of us and get away with it. When you do something wrong and you get caught you usually end up in prison for a while. But not them! They are hiding in other countrys and get supported by those countrys, while the regime in those countrys is doing harm to their own ppl. The only answer had to be a war against terror, IMHO.
I don't agree with President Bush that often, but in this case I do - even though I think he did it for personal reasons and for the oil. But IMHO it was the right thing to do.
Anyways, allways remember that in these times we can't live in freedom without having brave man and woman serving in the military.
I thank everybody in the military for what you do!
War or not, killing is wrong! But we can't look away when terrorists kill our loved ones! [/quote]
Peace may some day be achieved, but not by giving in to the greedy self-proclaimed princes of one religion who would force people and lands to bow to their wishes.

I do not like the US in far-off wars, in which our interests are difficult to define. But it was not hard to define our interests in Afghanistan. I have to say before 9/11 I didn't know just how obvious and institutionalized the Taliban's deal with bin Laden was. It was basically an official terrorist planning haven, with reasonably negotiated "rent" for the arrangement. Given what we knew pre-9/11, over the past ten years we should have struck more at known Afghanistan training camps. Oh, well. That's the fault of several past presidents not knowing just how serious the terrorists were.

Our interests in Iraq are harder to define. I actually do not believe W went into Iraq for his dad's honor, or for oil. I suspect he believed the WMD threat, as did I. I believe the Iraqi delegations to Africa were indeed investigating buying uranium. I guess that's the problem with Saddam bluffing all those years -- we finally believed him. Sometimes the guy holding the toy pistol gets shot.

I do think, more broadly, that W's wiser advisers convinced him that something had to be done to stop the growing instability in the Middle East, and the growing threat to destroy Israel, and that now was the time to strike to neutralize one of the rapacious dictators and give the rational, moderate, hard-working people of the Middle East a chance to live freely. Iraq, as I understand it, has a tradition of a relatively prosperous middle class, and is absolutely capable of becoming a healthy, prosperous country if only given a chance.

Now, I personally think it is difficult to define when a people's suffering and lack of opportunities is the problem of other countries, and tend to err on the side of not putting lives and funds at risk in a complicated foreign situation; but I do understand the thinking of those who think the US has an obligation to be more interventionist. The compelling reason is not that Iraqis were unhappy, but that Saddam was exporting instability to the rest of the region. I, too, believe he would have harbored terrorists, and it seems possible at this point that some non-bin Laden terrorists, like Syrians, actually had some support and/or shelter in Iraq.

But to me the question is not whether W's motives for Iraq were evil, because I think that is just not true. The only true debate is whether it was a good idea, and worth the lives. But demonizing Bush for making this call (a friend asked recently, pressing as if the answer were obvious, "But don't you believe that Bush is evil?") is childish and emotional. It is more complicated than that, and it is a matter of history and politics and global and regional interests, not psychological complexes and monetary greed.

I am not moved by people waiting for Europeans to agree on action. The European countries are not good at acting militarily. The French do it impulsively in their former colonies, but have nothing to be proud of in their record overseas. The Europeans ignore major ethnic wars on their own territory in the Balkans. So while I wish "The West" could coordinate itself a little nicer, it is not a good idea to wait for all of Europe to unite with the US before doing anything. I do not fault the French, for example, for going their own way. They don't owe the US anything. They were denying us rights to overfly their land long, long ago. They do what they want, they have their own nuclear store, they don't play nice with NATO, whatever. Their obstinacy and proud Frenchness seems to have gotten them an unjustifiably large role in world politics. The Security Council role was just because people felt sorry for them and respected their heritage, and because we probably wanted somebody from the otherwise quite forlorn Continent, not because they were ever an important power. We shouldn't wait for them to agree with us, nor is their failure to agree proof that whatever we do was a bad idea. (The Germans, on the other hand, have now and will long have an uneasy relationship with military power and the burden of being a global leader.)

I think we need to re-think some of our support of Israel, and make Israel find a way to prosper in a pluralistic region, as a pluralistic democracy. It will need to defend itself militarily, but not to antagonize those with legitimate competing interests. Some say this means Israel will be destroyed, but I don't believe that should or needs to happen. (I still wish some day the UN could be given a couple-hundred-year lease to Jerusalem, to administer it as a de-militarized zone/ theme park under the management of some French-Belgian-Dutch consortium imitating Disney. Not likely.)

We also need to be prepared as Saudi Arabia gets more and more radicalized, as their ruling families get more and more decadent and distant from their people.

We all know the rich science and culture and art the Middle East has given us, and that it is capable of continuing to contribute to the world. The radical Islamists have to realize they may thrive in a pure spiritual world of their own souls, and in societies that respect their faiths, but that the temporal world is not going to be all Islamic, and does not need to be.

I look forward to the day when people do not look to the US to solve the Middle East problem. But right now they do. When people (the Europeans, for example) aren't busy faulting the US for meddling, they are faulting the US for missed opportunities to broker a peace. So we do have to lead. But it's like pushing a rope, as they say, when it seems neither Israel nor anybody else really has any interest in peace. They don't want peace, they want to win. I would have said 20 years ago that the region would get tired of war, but that isn't true.

How's that for a rant? Sorry.

So I, too, honor the victims of 9/11, the tragic victims of terrorists that thought they had learned through the years -- Beirut, African embassy bombings, early WTC garage blast -- that they could act with impunity. May it never happen again, not in New York, or Madrid, or London, or Rome, or the Middle East.

Flowerfred

That's ok.

Just keep in mind that Europeans (if there is such a thing) don't see Americans as the superiour beings they like to think they are.

They are just easier to tolerate than muslims.


*flame suit on*

tab545

Oh, I know. Americans aren't superior, but we are trapped between not doing enough and doing too much. I know that we do much of what we undertake badly, too. No flames. It's just all depressing, but my views on the futility of our "helpful" interventions overseas tend to get me called an isolationist, with reminders of how bad that was for the world before WWI.

tab545

BTW: Brits don't consider themselves Europeans, do they? I've had Brit friends differ on that. It depends on context, they eventually decided.

Flowerfred

They don't. They are much more focused on the US.
The Prime Minister is known as governor Blair..

But then again, most island cultures are a bit 'different'.

BTW, I'm Dutch, not British. I just live in the UK at the moment.. My wife is American(ish).

tab545

They don't. They are much more focused on the US.
The Prime Minister is known as governor Blair..

But then again, most island cultures are a bit 'different'.

BTW, I'm Dutch, not British. I just live in the UK at the moment.. My wife is American(ish). [/quote]
Ahhhh, de Dutch. I spent a short while in den Haag as a student (for a month), and loved it. The Dutch I lived with were very open, interesting people. Very fascinated by the world, intending to learn from others and enjoy the variety. Not the same need to be right and better at all times (not that I'm saying Germans, for example, are like that, after living there for a year....). I've always thought Holland would be the best place in Europe to live for an American.

Flowerfred

hehe, just don't confuse our indifference with tolerance..

tab545

I like that. I may quote you on that.

Rudy

Although this topic is a bit old and ended a little off topic, I thought it would be a good idea to resurrect it on this day to commemorate the sixth anniversary of tragic events of September 11th, 2001.

Never Forget...