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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.
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.
Are you equally supportive of invading China?
Burma?
Zaire?
Saudi Arabia?
Iran?
Cuba?
Venezuela?
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.
Where were you standing when GW Bush decided that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power by US military action?
If the law is incorrect, the correct process is to alter the law, not break it.
....., but your point about each being a separate issue and needs to be assessed independently is spot on...
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 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?
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?
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.
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.
While the U.N. is not the boss of us, it does provide legitimacy of our action.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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:
“The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.” — President George W. Bush, March 17, 2003
With this:
“Our military action is in support of a international mandate from the Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qaddafi to his people.” — President Barack H. Obama, March 21, 2011
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...