posted
Hitler never invaded the Sudetenland. The UK, France, and Italy told him he could go ahead and have it, as long as he didn't invade anybody.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, he annexed it then marched troops in which is an invasion in all but name. And it was so good to see America taking a moral stand and joining in as soon as we did get our act together in 1939. Oh, wait, you didn't.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Well gosh, this is timely. I hear the Spanish don't treat their subjects in Cuba too nicely. Remember the Maine!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That didn't make any sense, Liam, unless you're trying to agree with me.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Wraith: Well, he annexed it then marched troops in which is an invasion in all but name. And it was so good to see America taking a moral stand and joining in as soon as we did get our act together in 1939. Oh, wait, you didn't.
We were told repeatedly that it was none of our business... by people who were clearly wrong. Now we've stopped listening to such people.
Or,
Maybe you've forgotten the lend-lease program and the accompanying aid shipments.
Take your pick.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Speaking of how principled Mr. Bush is, I found this to be a very interesting article about how the United States was getting closer to Saddam during the actual time he was using chemical weapons. Some twenty years ago.
quote:But if Reagan and Rumsfeld were right to be cozying up to Hussein in 1983, when he was gassing Iranians and Kurds, does that mean President Bush and Rumsfeld are wrong today to be preparing a war against Iraq and citing such chemical attacks as one reason? Or was U.S. policy wrong then and right now?
U.S. presidents often present American positions in starkly moral terms, as Bush did in describing Hussein in the State of the Union address: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages. ... International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning."
But all those evils were well-documented in 1983.
At the time of Rumsfeld's visit, Hussein had invaded Iran, was seeking nuclear weapons and had used lethal mustard gas. He had harbored terrorists (though he had just expelled the infamous Abu Nidal) and had a well-established record of torturing and murdering domestic opponents.
The U.S. response? It dropped Iraq from the list of nations sponsoring terror, renewed diplomatic ties, and provided intelligence and aid to Iraq to prevent its defeat by Iran.
Joyce Battle, the National Security Archive analyst who assembled the previously secret U.S. documents, says they are a reminder that diplomacy is rarely a clear-cut campaign of good against evil.
"We published these documents as a response to the way the Bush administration is trying to describe this situation in black and white terms," says Battle. "In reality, that's not the way international relations are carried out."
The motivation for the war to come becomes more and more clear as time goes on. It's not about oil to any great extent, save Mr. Bush wants to give his supports a chance to make huge dollars off the exploitation of Iraqi oil fields.
It's not about terror to any real degree, although it's a convienient excuse and we've seen a brilliant political exercise that turned this whole thing away from the people who attacked the World Trade Center, Bin Laden and international terrorism in general, and into the Get Hussein Show.
The atricle I posted in the "Is A Potential Iraqi War About Terrorism?" thread along with this document that Rumsfeld and other close Bush advisors associated with the Project for the New American Century have been advocating war with Hussein at least five years.
And now Bush is using those same old arguments, convenient excuses and arguments about twenty year old use of chemical weapons to pursue his vendetta against Saddam.
It's personal and not about policy or security.
[ February 27, 2003, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
While you could make the argument that it's personal, though you can never have any evidence of what's going on in Bush's head, that would not lead to the conclusion that his motivations are not policy- or security-related as well. At least, not when you actually think about human nature, and that people frequently have more than one reason for any given action.
And under any circumstances, Bush's reasons in his own mind are irrelevant, because there are good reasons anyway. Namely the fact that Iraq has broken its treaty obligations. Unless you dispute that, of course.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Revenge = good reason? Yeah, some real christian thinking there.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Bush's reasons in his own mind are irrelevant....
Now that's just silly.
There are so many options available to Mr. Bush other than the diplomacy of name calling and the only thing that he has pushed for is war. And oddly enough, that's the exactly what his advisors have been pushiong for for the last five years as well.
Mr. Bush has gone out of his way to maneuver this toward a war, and to my mind, it's because it's a personal vendetta against Saddam.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Which still doesn't answer the question of whether there should be a war.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
A question that Mr. Bush is supposed to be answering, but just isn't.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Not "should." There never "should" be a war.
However, sometimes there "must" be a war.
And quite frankly, the opposition has not come up with a workable alternative. The best they have managed is "more of the same."
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, what must be done should be done, no?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
"You know, if we wanted the oil so badly, we could have taken it in 1991."
That's true, but then again, you're not dealing with the same administration. Also, you don't want to jump the gun on taking the oil, otherwise everyone would be blasting the U.S. for that. You'd want a more subtler approach. That way, we may not have the oil right now, but perhaps in, oh say, 10 years.
People also thought that Saddam would be finished after 1991. Access to oil would have been much easier had that happened. I think we're about 12 years off.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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