RochesterFalcon Wrote:Them, huh?

:rolleyes:

Herdon, you've got your revolution. It is unfolding before your eyes.

You and yours have the House. You and yours have the Senate. You and yours have the White House. You even own the airwaves.

Unfortunately, we all have to live with this. We all have to live with a trigger happy president who compensates for his lack of manhood by sending young men and women to do what he never had the balls to do -- invade countries on what amounts to a whim, regardless of international law or opinion.

We have to live with a government blissfully unaware of deficits piling up as far as the eye can see. We have to live with a government so obsessed with giving away a trillion dollars to the rich that big cuts are inevitable to a social safety net that is already the laughingstock of the industrialized world.

We even have a United States Senator calling on a journalist to be tried for treason. His offense? Speaking his mind.

The country has gone completely bonkers. There is your revolution Herdon.

The only satisfaction I get out of any of this is that I don't believe Americans will stand for this. It may take years, but I believe a counterrevolution is inevitable. People will wake up, and when they do, the Democratic Party will take our government back.

The shame is the bloodletting that will ensue between now and then. Untold numbers of poor, elderly and defenseless children will all be crushed under this runaway GOP crazy train before people come to their senses. The mangled diplomacy will take decades to clean up.

Regime change? Danged right I want regime change. Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot. I can't wait to send him back.

That was the most biased, left-wing, psycho-babble bullsh!t I have ever read. I think Teddy Kennedy could have been more objective than that. I hope you were just spouting that nonsense to combat the posters who are arguing with you. But, if you truly believe that, I feel sorry for you.

Oh, and where's the race card? You haven't played it in a couple of days. Time to whip it out.

Rochester,

Why don't you just admit that the reason you and your idiot friends have created such a backlash against Bush, is because of the abuse Clinton took while in office? You know damn well if Clinton was in office now and we were in Iraq, you would be praising the hell out of the war effort. Yeah, I'm sure you were out protesting when Clinton decided to send troops to Kosovo and Somalia. You guys are just mad that Clinton was the easiest target ever for Republicans and you're trying to get Bush back for it.

I maintain, Deac, it is easier for you and others to just write us off as Bush haters than to listen to what we are saying.

I've covered this in great detail in another thread. I've never shilled for Clinton's foreign policy. I was horrified by his missile attacks in the Sudan and Afghanistan. And if I wasn't loudly protesting the war in Kosovo, then there are at least two reasons:

1. Few, if any, mainstream politicians insisted on a UN mandate. Hence, it never became an issue.
2. We had much deeper world support for that action than we did for this one. Europe was essentially unified on the question, including France, Germany and Turkey. It was a NATO action.

What has us all talking about the U.N. right now is the fact that Bush the 41st insisted on getting a U.N. mandate for action in Iraq. He deserves a heck of a lot of credit for that. He set a diplomatic gold standard. His son hasn't come close.

I feel sorry for you and I loathe the fact that some of our troops are dying for cowards like you.

Rochester.... What about Bosnia? What about Kosovo?

I bet because Clinton was president... it was OK... but when a Repub. is president... it's morally wrong... breaks international law and the apocalypse will result from it. :rolleyes:

This is at least the FOURTH time I've answered a question about Kosovo and/or Bosnia. Thankfully, a few people here are finally getting them straight.

Bosnia was a UN sanctioned NATO action in defense of U.N. declared no-fly zones over Bosnia.

Kosovo did not have a U.N. mandate. Still, it had much richer international support and it was a response to a fast emerging threat with genocidal implications. It was a NATO action, and supportive countries included Germany, France, Turkey and Canada, among many others.

That richer international support did not make it legal. But it shows that, by comparison, this Iraq adventure is a diplomatic boondoggle.



<!--EDIT|RochesterFalcon|Apr 4 2003, 12:14 PM-->

RochesterFalcon Wrote:Kosovo did not have a U.N. mandate. Still, it had much richer international support and it was a response to a fast emerging threat with genocidal implications. It was a NATO action, and supportive countries included Germany, France, Turkey and Canada, among many others.

:rolleyes: The US has more than 40 countries backing it, including the world's 2nd best military in England, Italy, most countries surrounding Iraq, Australia AND there is genocide going on. Again... how is this a diplomatic boondoggle, but Kosovo isn't?

Quote:The US has more than 40 countries backing it, including the world's 2nd best military in England, Italy, most countries surrounding Iraq, Australia

...and Ethopia, El Salvador, Colombia, Nicaragua. You do know the world has about 180 countries, don't you?

The Kosovo action had far more support, certainly within the industrialized world.

Quote:AND there is genocide going on.

Show me.

Most people define genocide as a systematic attempt to exterminate a group of people based on their heritage or some other identifiable fact about them. The most obvious example is Nazi Germany's systematic extermination of 6 million Jews.

Yes, Iraq has ruthlessly continued to kill political opponents, even as the war has started. Is this genocide, however? I think that's highly debatable. I really do.

Quote:how is this a diplomatic boondoggle, but Kosovo isn't?

People weren't marching all over the world in opposition to action in Kosovo. Action there had much more international support.

I'm not making this up. Do the research.

Quote:You and yours have the House. You and yours have the Senate. You and yours have the White House. You even own the airwaves.

But Democrats own Hollywood and music scene. Isn't that enough?

Quote:Unfortunately, we all have to live with this. We all have to live with a trigger happy president who compensates for his lack of manhood by sending young men and women to do what he never had the balls to do -- invade countries on what amounts to a whim, regardless of international law or opinion.

To be quite honest, I've been sitting on the fence and not necessarily gung-ho over an invasion either. But one has to consider how much we should take into account "international law and opinion" (a.k.a. democratic mob rule?) when choosing a certain path. Indeed, the Bush Administration is in sore need of tact and better public relations. I think a smoother approach could've gotten more support for a removal of Saddam from the European streets and hestiant governments (except France, Germany, and Russia ... their opposition is far more "monetarily" related than moralistic). That said, while respecting the views and private decisions of other nations is essential, we shouldn't fall into a belief that a worldwide governing body is needed. The European nations, now submerged in the EU, is slowly but dangerously giving up autonomous nation-state decision-making, and giving more power to a band of bureaucrats in Brussels. Bottom line is, the concept of "international law" is a fickle one that is problematic as much as helpful.

Quote:We have to live with a government so obsessed with giving away a trillion dollars to the rich that big cuts are inevitable to a social safety net that is already the laughingstock of the industrialized world.

It's a shame the government has so much money to "give away" in the first place. Dollars don't grow on trees on the White House lawn, they're taken - via coercion - from workers who initially earned said dollars. If we are the "laughingstock" of the world because our taxes are relatively low, and the collective safety net isn't comfortable enough to create large (poor, frustrated, self-pity) dependant underclass, then so be it. I personally laugh at the bloated welfare states and centralized economic planning that stunts growth, deflates motivation, and creates a larger poverty segment than low-tax countries.

The following article in the link describes the <a href='http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_the_barbarians.html' target='_blank'>French "cit

<a href='http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=saddam+genocide+kurds' target='_blank'>Here's</a> a Google search for "saddam," "genocide," and "kurds."

-JD

RochesterFalcon Wrote:

Quote:AND there is genocide going on.

Show me.

Most people define genocide as a systematic attempt to exterminate a group of people based on their heritage or some other identifiable fact about them. The most obvious example is Nazi Germany's systematic extermination of 6 million Jews.

Yes, Iraq has ruthlessly continued to kill political opponents, even as the war has started. Is this genocide, however? I think that's highly debatable. I really do.

Quote:how is this a diplomatic boondoggle, but Kosovo isn't?

People weren't marching all over the world in opposition to action in Kosovo. Action there had much more international support.

1) So gassing thousands of Kurds isn't genocide?

2) Kosovo and Yugoslavia was about removing a leader intent on the destruction of an ethnic group. We had just as much support over there as in Iraq. People wanted us out but didn't have any "No Oil for Blood" arguements.

T-Monay: Bingo. We're on the same page....

-JD

Let me simplify Rochester's answer.

Any time a Democrat needs to use military force, it is justified and for the good of all mankind.

Any time a Republican does the same, he is a war-mongering, thoughtless bully who will trample women and children to get his way.

Rochester... why don't we let the public run the world now?

Whichever country has more protesters will get the biggest say in world affairs. Is this your logic?

When it comes to international support, what matters is the people in power. Their decisions should be based on THEIR people, our decisions SHOULD NOT be based on their people.

JD Heel Wrote:<a href='http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=saddam+genocide+kurds' target='_blank'>Here's</a> a Google search for "saddam," "genocide," and "kurds."

-JD

YOU, SIR, ARE THE MAN!!

That deserves 10 bow downs...

Big Pimpin Deac Wrote:Let me simplify Rochester's answer.

Any time a Democrat needs to use military force, it is justified and for the good of all mankind.

Any time a Republican does the same, he is a war-mongering, thoughtless bully who will trample women and children to get his way.

Exactly.

:rolleyes: As I've said, I was against Clinton's decision to fire missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan.

RochesterFalcon Wrote::rolleyes: As I've said, I was against Clinton's decision to fire missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan.

But Kosovo was much better than GW's war.

Quote:1) So gassing thousands of Kurds isn't genocide?

It likely was. Note my use of the past tense. It was 15 years ago. Saddam clearly hasn't been in a position to such a thing in ten years. He can't even stop free elections in Kurdistan. How is he going to gas the Kurds?

It's worth noting that when Saddam did gas the Kurds the U.S. government continued to support him as an ally. In fact, it has been said that the very day the U.N. announced it had evidence that thousands of Kurds had been gassed by the Iraq government, Dick Cheney was meeting with Iraqi officials discussing oil.

Any claim that this war is about preventing genocide is obviously hypocritical and secondary to the real issue. If it was germane, America would have invaded during the mid-1980s.

Quote:2) Kosovo and Yugoslavia was about removing a leader intent on the destruction of an ethnic group. We had just as much support over there as in Iraq.

This just isn't true. It isn't. Canada sent troops. Germany sent troops. Turkey sent troops.. How in the world is support for the Second Gulf War comparable to the level of support in 1998?

Look, you fellas are trying to cast me as wholly partisan and the mold just doesn't fit. Read this next paragraph slowly, please:

The first Gulf War was entirely justified. I have no beef at all with it. None. It is the foreign policy gold standard by which all other foreign interventions should be measured. And it was conducted by a Republican.



<!--EDIT|RochesterFalcon|Apr 5 2003, 09:54 AM-->

Back and forth we go...like a bad tennis match.

I am gonna go listen to Queensryche, "Operation Mindcrime" now, for a dose of realtiy.