Mehyam wrote:I don't think the debate is so much about not being aggressive. I think it's about how you go about doing it.
Wow, you're pitching me a lot of softballs here.
Mehyam wrote:You can't tell what the future holds, but right now it's looking like the invasion was a mistake.
Says who? On what basis? Was it a mistake to declare war on Japan? Sure looked like it, six months into the war, when we had been doing nothing short of getting our clocks cleaned nonstop. The Japanese navy owned the night. They owned every major engagement. They were gaining territory. They mopped the Phillipines with our soldiers' uniforms DESPITE our best commander controlling our troops there.
And yes, at that time, there were people not unlike you claiming it was a mistake. Four years later, the commander who fled the Phillipines on a small boat and barely snuck out of there was the virtual emperor of Japan, cracking down a hard line on OUR troops to treat the occupied Japanese people with respect and honor, as they were allowed to devise their own constitution and representative forms of government.
Short of historic rout, every sports fan knows that you don't judge a ball game while the clock is still ticking. You can't tell where it's going to go. You think war ought to be a cakewalk? Doesn't work like that. The enemy always gets his say. Enemies are serious business. Human beings can be very clever. This is something you ought to appreciate first hand, having played so much Descent. You know what it is like in the mines. Well, imagine doing that, only it's not a game and you don't know all the rules, and the losers don't get to play again the next time.
War is a test of will. The colonists lost nearly every major engagement during the American Revolution, but history marks them the victors. Why?
You could have made an argument for how badly things were going for the Union during the American Civil war. We quite nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory by fielding one incapable general after the next and watching Lee chew them all to pieces. But even the mighty Robert E. Lee stumbles now and then, as he did on a field in Pennsylvania, and there went his one chance to win. The rest was just a matter of persuading him of the inevitable.
Fortunately, we have folks made of sterner stuff in important leadership positions. Sometimes the enemy is going to meet with success. That doesn't mean that he's winning or going to prevail.
Mehyam wrote:You can't tell what the future holds, but right now it's looking like the invasion was a mistake.
Ridiculous.
Mehyam wrote:don't compare the current situation to appeasement movements of WWI and WWII. There's been no Hitler building a new army in Iraq.
Not for lack of trying. He was fifty years too late. And still, if not for Reagan's Navy, we could not have dislodged his force from Kuwait in 1991. That was a military feat the likes of which the world had never seen before. Likewise, he had the fourth largest army in the world and we cleaned his clock, but don't let the degree of victory fool you. His force was not weak. We were simply that much better with the strategy.
By all rights, we should have taken him down in 1991. History proved that it was a mistake to sign a cease fire with him. He never intended to honor it, and we played diplomatic patty-cake with him for a dozen years, then went in and took him down anyway. We would have saved at least tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand or more, who died by his orders in the intervening years. Such is the benefit of hindsight. Bush believed the Shiites could take him down from within, with him in a weakened state, but we underestimated Saddam, and then we stood by while he slaughtered Shiites by the thousands.
Mehyam wrote:don't compare the current situation to appeasement movements of WWI and WWII.
If the shoe fits, you wear it.
Mehyam wrote:Some of the big ones, in Iran, now see the physical and political hurdles armed forces are having in Iraq, and are emboldening their position by developing nuclear weapons.
They were developing the nukes anyway. HELLO? Do you think North Korea started cheating on its deal with the Clinton Administration as a PRE-EMPTIVE move against the Bush Administration that would come into office six years later?
Do you think India and Pakistan developed their nukes because they could foresee the difficulties that the US military would face in Iraq half a decade later?
If you seriously believe that Iran wasn't already doing its best to develop nukes, then I really do not know what to say to you. What are you smoking?
There. Now you've been flamed.
Mehyam wrote:What if a result of the Iraq war is a new cold war with terrorists linked to Iran? The potential of that cold war scares me much more than that of the one with the Soviets, because the Soviets cared about whether they died or not.
We agree on this point. However, where you seem to think that WE are provoking/causing these actions by our adversaries, I believe you have your head in the sand. The world doesn't revolve around us like that. Despotic governments seek to dominate. They will dominate all that they can. They will seek out whatever tools, resources and weapons they can get their hands on, and they will use them to whatever extent they believe will benefit them.
Mehyam wrote:Look... there will always be reports that conflict the reports that conflict the reports.
Meaning what? That truth does not exist? That we can never draw reliable conclusions because we can't trust what we are told? That it's all relative and one opinion is the same as the next?
Your side is happy to cite only CERTAIN facts, the ones that support your position. Kerry pointed to the Kay report over and over. "Look, SEE, no weapons stockpiles." Um, yes, but Senator, that's pulling one fact out of context. The report on the whole, with ALL the facts on the table, says that the Bush Administration got it wrong by UNDERestimating the threat posed to the United States by Saddam's regime. Any comment, Senator Kerry? What? Ten more repetitions about how Bush "misled" the country? No wonder you lost the election, Senator.
Mehyam wrote:The very truth is that the war/invasion was a gamble, with risks on all sides.
We all agree on that. Where we disagree is whether NOT going to war was the bigger gamble, the worse move, involving the greater set of negative consequences.
Bush speaks to the nation and says, "We need to do something about Social Security. The costs will be high, but the costs to our children will be much worse if we do nothing. I start nodding my head. While the Democrats play fearmongering with our elderly, for bald political purposes, the GOP faces up to the facts and rolls up its sleeves to look for a solution.
Same with the war. The costs of doing nothing are understood by the folks on the GOP side. Judging by the results of the election, a majority of Americans see it that way, too.
Mehyam wrote:Some of us believe that a little more investigation would have been a good idea
That makes sense on the first or second, or fourth UN resolution. By the time we get to seventeen, sorry, that's a laughing stock.
Those of you who believe that what the USA has done in Iraq has emboldened the terrorists are smoking some serious $#!+. September 11, 2001, was quite the bold move, and it had nothing to do with us being in Iraq, because we weren't there yet.
Since we went in to Iraq, we have mopped up Saddam's entire army in three weeks, taking down his murderous regime. Any time we engage on our terms, we're killing them thirty or more to one. They can't do anything besides attack our convoys along the roads, so they've had to resort to attacking their own people at the police stations and army recruitment centers. They are killing ten of their own or more for every one of ours they manage to kill with some booby trap or other. The hostage taking is their latest weapon, and they have been emboldened by their successes on that front, as some nations cave outright to barbarous thugs. But as folks around the world see that giving in to the demands of hostage takers only leads to even more hostage taking, the jig will run its course and then our outrage at this behavious begins to embolden US.
Take a look at Belgium. The murder of Mr. Van Gogh has opened a few eyes over there. Islamic fascists are VERY MUCH like Adolf Hitler, and woe to them that stick their heads in the sand, not wanting to believe it.
- Sirian
If I didn't know any better I'd start to think you're throwng a tantrum. yikes.
