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Where Were You in 2002? Where are you today?

What Best Describes Your Positions?


  • Total voters
    50
Strangely enough I was an ardent nationalist at the time and a psuedo-conservative. I was also in central asia.
 
Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?

Where are you standing now, when Obama has decided to intervene in Libya?

Are your positions consistent or blindly partisan?

Mayor Snorkum opposed both because in neither case was a definable US interest served.

Mayor Snorkum is also a US military veteran.

Mayor Snorkum is neither Republican nor Democrat, but a Libertarian.

For me it's not so easy to peg - my awareness of things back then was null. I didn't really care, didn't have an opinion, it didn't affect me until years later when my boyfriend 'deployed'
Then I married - and years after that - my husband deployed. And only then did I start to understand things.

I supported it for a while - but that faded - and now I oppose our reason for going into Iraq. I now am started to not support any treaty-based measure that might force us into a show of force to get the other end of the treaty to cooperate.

Such an important and serious issue shouldn't be hinged on the decisions of a previous administration quite as much.
 
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I supported Afghanistan. I opposed Iraq, I support the actions today. Each is an entirely separate issue so how do you be consistent, unless you are opposed to war in general, or support heavy intervention? You are creating an entirely false dichotomy. You can have different views on different issues without being blindly partisan.

Don't agree with you on Iraq, but your point about each being a separate issue and needs to be assessed independently is spot on...
 
I refuse to talk to someone who refers to themselves in third person, its a matter of principle and a good way to keep the stupid off me.

Then you have never participated in Model United Nations, have you. No first or second person pronouns allowed...
 
It is unfair for me to judge the two because during the year 2002 I was either in the 7th or 8th grade. If I wanted to watch the U.S. military blow **** up I just played Red Alert II or Yuri's Revenge.
 
Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?

I supported the war in Afghanistan,Iraq and now this intervention in Libya. Perhaps the death of the Lockerbie bomber will be as a result of our intervention in Libya .
 
If the law is incorrect, the correct process is to alter the law, not break it.

A simple answer by someone who thinks inside the intellectual box. I guess as soon as nations like China or Russia or the many others who don't represent their people tell us its ok to change the laws that protect them, then we are clear to change it? In the meantime, we in the free West will heed to ancient laws of dictator preservation no matter the cost of future consequence?

The rest of what you posted was just more of the same defense of a ****ed up position where you want to believe -in vain- that each one of these unnatural borders on the map matter to the regional problem at large. I call it intellectual habit, which is the fear of thinking outside of the box that the status quo hasn't provided for you. It's the same level of thought that thought nothing of a silly religious group called Al-Queda before 9/11 when they were merely murdering military personnel. Or the notion that three hundred years of European colonialism and Cold War prescription couldn't possilble have unintended consequences. Or the notion that the fall of the Berlin Wall meant that "our wars were over." Or the notion that every single one of these Frankenstein's Monster Arab nations aren't tied almost absolutely to the same phenomena that would create 9/11s.

The correct process is to insist that surgery be performed by 21st century standards and not the standard of surgeons in the 18th century. International behaviors are no different. Why would international rules of soveriegnty made by dictators like kings, czars, and kaisers be outdated in the democratic 21st century? As you should have been able to pick up since Clinton rolled into Bosnia, nobody really cares about these international laws until they suit the political need of action or inaction. Don't get caught defending what no one takes serious anymore. Have younot seenthejoke about Libya yet? How it is being defended as "right" because theirs an international coalition? I guess beside the approval of the decrepit UN, which looked away as blacks were massacred in Rwanda and Sudan, Iraq only needed France to make it a true coalition. Outdated International law "upheld" by the security council of France, Russia, and China is a joke and you are struggling to defend a losers argument.

Behind your keyboard courage you know absolutely what I'm talking about. You just like to pretend otherwise because deep down you merely want to argue that blind selfishness and a roll of the dice should be our international policies - (just as long as your family members aren't in any New York standing towers, right?)
 
....., but your point about each being a separate issue and needs to be assessed independently is spot on...

It's only half the truth. The other half of the truth is that all of these regional events are unitedly themed and very much about the same problems. The decrepit politicians and diplomats who are pretending that each event from Tripoli through to Islamabad is so very different will only ensure that those, who are actually tasked with dealing with these "individual" issues, will have a far deadlier and tougher time.

We fought an entire 45 year Cold War that themed all of our international issues around the same communist beast. I would submit that this poorly named "War on Terror" is also very wide and absolutely themed. Where once our enemy was Moscow we now face Riyadh. Where once we denied ourselves invasion into the Soviet Union and fought "wars" in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, etc., we now deny ourselves invasion into Saudi Arabia as we fight "wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.
 
Where once we denied ourselves invasion into the Soviet Union and fought "wars" in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, etc., we now deny ourselves invasion into Saudi Arabia as we fight "wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.

The difference us that we denied ourselves invasion of the Soviets because of the threat of nuclear retaliation. We deny ourselves invasion of Saudi Arabia because of the business interests of our political class.
 
Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?

I thought LONG ago that GW #1 should have taken Saddam out the first time we were over there. Why would we leave an evil dictator in a position of power IF that was our motivation to invade Iraq? Bingo. It wasn't. We went looking for Bin Laden and our beef was with Afghanistan. I supported that effort, I did not support the invasion of Iraq.

Where are you standing now, when Obama has decided to intervene in Libya?

I am standing firmly on the side of non-intervention. I feel badly for the people of Libya and I wish them the best. However - we have enough problems here in our own country that we should be addressing and we should NOT be involved with Libya - I get so sick and tired of the United States being pegged the world's police every time something goes awry. If our motive was pure, that would be one thing. But the only message this sends to me is that we are not over there for the people of Libya. There is another reason.

Are your positions consistent or blindly partisan?

My position has always been one of "take care of our home front first" and while showing humanitarian concern and support is important among the world community - that does NOT necessarily mean we need to invade every time there is a wrong committed. Why aren't we involved in the political chaos in Africa if we are so humanitarian in our invasion efforts?
 
I opposed the military action in Iraq and I oppose the intervention in Libya. That's not how I voted though, because it's early and I hit the wrong button.
 
Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?

I opposed the invasion of Iraq. The Bush Administration invaded Iraq because it proposed that Saddam Hussein's regime was acquiring weapons of mass destruction with which to target the United States.

This was a lie. I do not support the U.S. military being sent to conflicts based on lies.

If the Bush Administration wanted to invade Iraq based on the internal killings of Iraq's citizens by it's government, then Bush should have garnered support that way.

Where are you standing now, when Obama has decided to intervene in Libya?

I am standing in support of U.S. operations in Libya to protect the citizens from the Khaddafy regime. I also support UN or NATO peacekeepers to protect citizens from Opposition militias should in-fighting occur. I do not support the U.S. taking unilateral action in Libya; however, I support multilateral action instead.

Are your positions consistent or blindly partisan?

My positions are not blindly partisan. Bush sent us into Iraq based on a lie, and the military operations in Afghanistan, which was where Bin Laden attacked the U.S. from, suffered for it. If Bush wanted justice for 9/11, he should have focused on Afghanistan to bring down Al-Quaeda and the Taliban first. Instead, they focused on Iraq based on a lie.

If Bush wanted to take on Iraq because of internal human rights violations, then he should have based his case on that. If Bush had focused solely on the plight of the Iraqi people and done so after we had more success in Afghanistan then I may be less critical of the Bush Administration's actions.

I am not as critical as Obama pursuing military operations in Libya. The reason for this is because Obama is not sending our military there based on a lie and our other military actions elsewhere, such as in Afghanistan, won't suffer too much because of it.

If Obama did then I would be more critical of him and his actions.
 
I thought LONG ago that GW #1 should have taken Saddam out the first time we were over there. Why would we leave an evil dictator in a position of power IF that was our motivation to invade Iraq? Bingo. It wasn't. We went looking for Bin Laden and our beef was with Afghanistan. I supported that effort, I did not support the invasion of Iraq.

To be fair to GHW Bush, he wanted to go in and take out Hussein. However, he had formed an international coalition that included many Arab states with the understanding that he didn't.

The reason why the Arab states did this was because they didn't want the West to develop a taste for initiating regime changes in the Middle East. Those Arab states favored the liberation of Kuwait, but did not want Iraq to be the first domino to fall to Western powers.

So in order for GHWB to get the endorsement of the rest of the Middle East's Arab nations and to get them to work with Israel he had to hold back on actually invading Iraq.

It wasn't his fault, and there was little he could do about it. If he had, we probably would have had an entirely different set of problems from the other Arab nations as a result of it.
 
There are distinctions between our intervention in Iraq versus our intervention in Libya.

For one, the U.N. authorized the intervention in Libya by “all means necessary” short of the introduction of ground troops to protect the civilian population; not so for the intervention in Iraq.

Contrast:


With this:


While the U.N. is not the boss of us, it does provide legitimacy of our action. When America is perceived to act unilaterally people around the world see it as a threat and tyrant; when it acts in league with a wide (read, authentic) coalition it is perceived as a principled advocate for democracy and self determination.
 
I support limited intervention, with us acting as more of a supporting force. Mainly for humanitarian reasons, and as I think it will help our standing globally.

I opposed Iraq because I felt that we were there under false pretenses and because we tried to enforce our culture onto a people that weren't particularly asking for it en-mass.
 
The difference us that we denied ourselves invasion of the Soviets because of the threat of nuclear retaliation. We deny ourselves invasion of Saudi Arabia because of the business interests of our political class.

Sure. But oil is far more imprtant to this world than a few political pockets. I don't think most people realize how much of their life is oil based.
 
While the U.N. is not the boss of us, it does provide legitimacy of our action.

Not only that, but it allows the possibility for the UN to provide support in other areas, such as peacekeeping forces or parliamentary scholars to help the Libyan people draft a new system of government, and to use UN programs to re-develop the Libyan infrastructure after the civil war. This is opposed to what was done in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the U.S. bore most of the costs of doing so.
 
Sure. But oil is far more imprtant to this world than a few political pockets. I don't think most people realize how much of their life is oil based.

Once a person realizes how much food is grown and cultivated by tractors running on diesel, they realize how important petroleum truly is to their ability to live with a modern standard of a quality of life.
 
I opposed Iraq because I felt that we were there under false pretenses and because we tried to enforce our culture onto a people that weren't particularly asking for it en-mass.

I have never understood this. What exactly is it about our culture that we have imposed? The default here is to insist that democracy is a Western thing. But this isn't true at all. Just because it started here doesn't mean it only belongs here. Democracy isn't for old white people and any colored folk that happen to escape their former oppressive regimes.

Are you aware of the demand for democracy at the onset of European colonialism in this region? And how they were denied it because it meant less power for the Europeans? Are you aware of the "Age of Revolution" in the 1950s where all these Arab nations wanted freedom from their European colonial powers, but fell victim to the local military coups that merely made their oppressions worse? And how the Cold War game maintained this "stability" at all costs? And what about the Persians who were denied their chance at democracy because the British fooled the Americans into thinking that they were leaning towards the Soviet Union (enter the Shah.)? Democracy is hardly alien to their culture. In fact, the SUnni elders practiced democracy to elect the early caliphates long before the US even existed and while Europe was celebrating their dark age. So what is it that we "enforced" from our culture?

As for asking for it, they did. They rebelled against Saddam Hussein at our request more than once during the 1990s and we simply watched them get slaughtered. We merely maintained the UN game of starvation for "stability." And the "en-masse" is the Shia nd the Kurd, not the Sunni who oppressed them under UN facilitation. And how do you see false pretense? The argument to create democracy was clearly made before the invasion. If you chose to focus solely on "WMD" then you duped yourself. After all, it wasn't called "Operation: WMD" was it?
 
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I have never understood this. What exactly is it about our culture that we have imposed? The default here is to insist that democracy is a Western thing. But this isn't true at all. Just because it started here doesn't mean it only belongs here. Democracy isn't for old white people and any colored folk that happen to escape their former oppressive regimes.

Are you aware of the demand for democracy at the onset of European colonialism in this region? And how they were denied it because it meant less power for the Europeans? Are you aware of the "Age of Revolution" in the 1950s where all these Arab nations wanted freedom from their European colonial powers, but fell victim to the local military coups that merely made their oppressions worse? And how the Cold War game maintained this "stability" at all costs? And what about the Persians who were denied their chance at democracy because the British fooled the Americans into thinking that they were leaning towards the Soviet Union (enter the Shah.)? Democracy is hardly alien to their culture. In fact, the SUnni elders practiced democracy to elect the early caliphates long before the US even existed and while Europe was celebrating their dark age. So what is it that we "enforced" from our culture?

As for asking for it, they did. They rebelled against Saddam Hussein at our request more than once during the 1990s and we simply watched them get slaughtered. We merely maintained the UN game of starvation for "stability." And the "en-masse" is the Shia nd the Kurd, not the Sunni who oppressed them under UN facilitation. And how do you see false pretense? The argument to create democracy was clearly made before the invasion. If you chose to focus solely on "WMD" then you duped yourself. After all, it wasn't called "Operation: WMD" was it?

I can't argue with much of what you said.

However, you do realize that the way that President G.W. Bush was able to mobilize Congress and the American people and foreign nations to support the military operations in Iraq he put forth was by making the claim that Hussein was acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary Colin Powell did go before the United Nations and focus on the plight of the Iraqi people under Hussein's regime. He went up there and claimed that the world was in danger of the weapons Iraq was acquiring and willing to use.
 
I can't argue with much of what you said.

However, you do realize that the way that President G.W. Bush was able to mobilize Congress and the American people and foreign nations to support the military operations in Iraq he put forth was by making the claim that Hussein was acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary Colin Powell did go before the United Nations and focus on the plight of the Iraqi people under Hussein's regime. He went up there and claimed that the world was in danger of the weapons Iraq was acquiring and willing to use.

Oh, he absolutely harped on WMD. No doubt about it. But people seem to pretend that's all that was spoken. And when WMD was not discovered, everyone pretended that "Operation: Freedom" didn't imply other reasons and that they were left entirley in the dark. It's this root ignorance that denies them clarification as to what they are witnessing across the MENA region today. While they ignorantly see borders on a map, which must mean that each and every single nation hasnothing to do with their neighbors, Arabs in the MENA see a civilization full of divided and carved out tribes voicing for the same new path.

At this point I have to call it sheer stupidity rather than ignorance. These tribes are divided between European borders that simple donotmatter. Part of the tribes in Libya rests in Egypt. Parts of the tribes in Afghanistan rests in Pakistan, Iran, Tajikstan, China, Uzbekistan, etc. Parts of the tribes in Iraq rests in Syria, Iran, Turkey. This is a regional problem and none of these individual states can make a move without affecting the rest. Iraq was never solely about Iraq. Afghanistan was never going to be about solely Afghanistan. What all of this means is that the health of part of a tribe means the probable lean towards health of the rest of the tribe in another country. It also means that if part of a tribe sees us as hypocrits or unwilling to go the distance to practice what we preach, the rest of the tribe across the border will lean that next nation against us too.
 
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Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?

Against it.

Where are you standing now, when Obama has decided to intervene in Libya?

Against it. A civil war is the business of people that are fighting it. Some are going to die if they are going to win, so Obama or anyone else crying about the people dieing over there is not something worth mentioning but sadly it will get him or anyone else support for the unsupportable more times than not and this is no different.
 
There are distinctions between our intervention in Iraq versus our intervention in Libya.

For one, the U.N. authorized the intervention in Libya by “all means necessary” short of the introduction of ground troops to protect the civilian population; not so for the intervention in Iraq.

Contrast:


With this:


While the U.N. is not the boss of us, it does provide legitimacy of our action. When America is perceived to act unilaterally people around the world see it as a threat and tyrant; when it acts in league with a wide (read, authentic) coalition it is perceived as a principled advocate for democracy and self determination.

If you go back and read the relevant resolutions, you will find that force in Iraq WAS IN FACT authorized by the United Nations Security Council...
 
If you go back and read the relevant resolutions, you will find that force in Iraq WAS IN FACT authorized by the United Nations Security Council...

I would be interested in anything you can point to that demonstrates that the United Nations Security Council authorized the Iraq invasion in 2003. Thanks in advance.
 
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