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ORIGINAL: taleon

I was thinking in terms of interests, and it is in our interest to prevent such regimes from getting weapons they can use to threaten us with. I don't know if we therefor should stop them each and every way possible. I'm just pointing out that if you are looking for our interests there, I think this is one of them.

I don't think anyone is "permitted" to decide who is allowed such weapons, and who not. But, that doesn't negate the fact that unfriendly regimes with WMDs don't make for a better world for us. Which is a pretty egoistic notion, I'll agree. And those regimes can use exactly the same point of view from their perspective.

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I agree that there was no imminent threat. And again, I'm not trying to argue whether that war is just or not. But is it in our interest to have a Iraqi government less inclined to obtain such weapons? Yes, I think so. Was it worth the horrible price both sides paid for it? I hate to repeat my ignorance with each and every line, but I don't know. Even worse, I think we can not know. We can't run experiments with world politics, it obviously isn't an exact science.

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Is the Bush first strike policy better than what we had with the USSR: Mutually Assured Desctruction? Or madness itself?

That is a very good question, that I'd love to explore in depth. But any answer I could give you between two cups of coffee is not going to do it much justice. If pressed to answer, I think neither is preferable. But I wouldn't be able to present you a solution that is neither based on a get-them-while-we-can doctrine or MAD.

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I didn't want to imply that we should strike North Korea. But, to me, it is obvious we would have been in a better position if North Korea didn't have nuclear weapons. And that's my point: to prevent hostile governments of obtaining too much destructive power is, I think, one of the reasons we are out there. Is it a valid one? I'm not convinced either way.

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And Saudi Arabia is not like the old Afghan Emirate used to be......the Saudis wouldn't have hosted Osama, Islamic culture or no. IIRC they banned him from entry, or said they'd arrest him on sight or something...when he started the whole 'death to america' thing? I may be thinking of somewhere else.

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As I said earlier on, it's arguable that we could have just ignored them and waited for the movement to burn itself out...Pakistans border has always been like that, no-one cares about Yemen or Uzbekistan.....in theory 'we' could have just decided to put up with it, far fewer deaths than traffic accidents etc...even with 911, and that was pretty much a one off. But ya didn't....I don't think there was ever any chance of the us just shrugging and saying 'oh well'....

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I know the Taliban themselves didn't seem particularly focused on attacking the west beforehand....they sure as fuck are now. They are definitely 'the enemy', we are definitely their enemy....they're using a lot of guerrilla tactics, but it doesn't change that, IMO....this is a fairly straightforward war, we want to take their territory, they want to take ours. If we just thought it didn't matter and left....dya think they'd stop trying to bomb western nations.....or dya think they'd find it a lot easier to organise? What dya think would happen to the number of Islamists on their border regions in Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, the northern provinces....Somalia?

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ORIGINAL: joether
So yes, why should anyone except someone like Ann Coulter on any serious subject?

ORIGINAL: vincentML
To bad you ended with this. It was so off-putting for the reason I stated above that I can't be bothered trying to follow your math. You beat me over the head once too often with the Coulter trivia.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML


Ann Coulter wonders about this in her column defending Michael Steele against attacks from other Republicans. Steele, you might remember, said out loud that Afghanistan is a “war of Obama’s choosing.” http://www.anncoulter.com

In defending Steele, Coulter says: “I thought the irreducible requirements of Republicanism were being for life, small government and a strong national defense, but I guess permanent war is on the platter now, too.”

It is hard to find an extended period in American history when we were not at war with someone or when we did not have troops stationed on foreign soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events

According to this report in 2004 the United States had troops stationed in 135 foreign countries. http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance8.html

My impression is that the United States has been engaged in an economic imperialist and interventionist policy since the end of the Second World War, not always without provocation however.

Here is candidate GW Bush speaking out against nation-building and interventionist foreign policy in 2000 when he advocated a humbler, less arrogant foreign policy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc

Do Steele and Coulter have it right? Has Obama made a terrible mistake with his Afghanistan policy?

I think the mood of the country (but not of our Pols) favors a more isolationist policy. But that genii may be out of the bottle for good. Our military expenditures accounted fo 43% of the World’s military spending in 2009.

The United States has been in an expansionist mode since land surveyors first glimpsed the west side of the Appalachian Mountains. The question now is: “Wither Empire?”

For how long can we be protectionist for our allies, and interventionist around the globe while our resources are being squandered and our young men and women are being killed?

Is it time to pack up the old kit bag and come home to tend to our own garden? Will a competitive world permit it? Are we delusional in thinking our allies desire us to remain in this role? Are we victimized by the political madness of American Exceptionalism? What?

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
Honestly, I don't mean to be condescending here. Please believe me. But we are a day late and a dollar short on this kind of thinking. Many of us went through this very thing during the Cold War. The genii is out of the bottle. The best we can do is pursue the anti-proliferation agenda and use the IAEA inspection protocol. Ya see what happened in Iraq when we insisted the IAEA inspectors were being duped by Saddam? Oh shit, no WMDs, so sorry we fucked up your nation with all that rubble.

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The outlaw Bush/Cheney/Rummy/Wolfie failed to get an enabling resolution from the UN and so created the fiction of a "coalition of the willing" ignoring disenting reports from the IAEA inspectors and ridiculing them. The Outlaw B/C/R/W then went on to declare the Geneva Convention Accords inapplicable and instituted systematic, institutional torture in our name. Was a fucking crime against humanity all in all.

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Well, truthfully I agree with you. Neither will work. They are both doctrines suited for confrontation between great powers with a lot to lose. Not the case in asymmetrical warfare. Hurry with your coffee. we need an answer.

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The real issue is allowing Republicans to do what Coulter and Steele are trying to do. Paint the adventure in Afghanistan as Obama's war. Which it patently is not. It was not a war of his choosing or a war he wanted. It was a war brought about by one GW Bush and a Republican controlled congress.

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Inspections and surveillance might work for nuclear weapons which need fairly exotic equipment and resources. But, what if technology advances us to the point where the tools and ingredients to fabricate deadly weapons can be found in any university, any lab or any hospital? We can't stop technological progress, and inspecting those countries will get a whole more difficult. I think we need to find a solution to that problem.

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You would get no argument from me with respect to allowing torture, I share your outrage over that. However, my point is this: I don't know what kind of a world we would have lived in if Saddam (or one of his sons) still reigned over Iraq. He already proved to be willing to use WMDs on the Kurds, and I'd hate to see what he would have done with WMDs this time around if he, despite rigorous inspections, would have obtained them again at some point. Doesn't mean I think the latest Iraq war was "morally just", legal or a wise move. It means that I think the whole thing isn't that cut-and-dry.

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ORIGINAL: audioguy58

http://antiwar.com

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ORIGINAL: popeye1250


Heretic, I think Miss Ann is entertaining. And, because people like "Rulemylife", "slavemike", "Owner 59", and others in here get really angry and bullshit anytime someone brings her name up! lol See? "Entertaining!"
What do you think, I bet secretly, deep down inside "Rulemylife" would love to be under Ann's control for a day or so!
"O.k. mr rulemylife, how's about an evening of bondage and FOX T.V.!!!"
"Oh look, Bill O'Reilly's on next!"
"MFFTVFGGTTTT!!!!!!!

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk


No qualifications needed. Time table for withdrawl has been set. Would he have liked it to be faster? Yes, but there are obviously more questions on the table than simply walking away from the Taliban. As I read it Vietnam lasted for Nixon from 68 to 75. I dont think you will see combat troops in Afghanistan for another 7 years.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that he didn't create the problem. He inherited it. With all of its wrong turns over the past years. Bush and his Republican buddies bought this. Not Obama........be like you blaming a car wreck on the body shop cause they haven't fixed it as fast as you thought they should.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


You need to check your facts, we never "blessed" or supported Saddams use of WMDs against Iran in any way. Saying that picture proves as much is ridiculous, too - we send people to meet with leaders the world over all the time, and always have. The photo means they met and they talked, period. Leftist propaganda sources have been pushing such lies for a long time now but simply repeating lies doesn't make them true.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


You need to check your facts, we never "blessed" or supported Saddams use of WMDs against Iran in any way. Saying that picture proves as much is ridiculous, too - we send people to meet with leaders the world over all the time, and always have. The photo means they met and they talked, period. Leftist propaganda sources have been pushing such lies for a long time now but simply repeating lies doesn't make them true.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

All that depends on whether you trust him or not. He has done exactly what he said he would do when he was elected. Name another President that has been this much of an activist for change in his first two years of office in the last 50 years.

You don't think he knows there are lives at stake? He goes out to Dover all the time.....unlike the one before him.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife


Did the United States Supply Saddam with Biological Weapons


•National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 139 of April 5, 1984, "Measures to Improve U.S. Posture and Readiness to Respond to Developments in the Iran-Iraq War," focusing again on increased access for U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf and enhanced intelligence-gathering capabilities. The directive calls for "unambiguous" condemnation of chemical weapons use, without naming Iraq, but places "equal stress" on protecting Iraq from Iran's "ruthless and inhumane tactics." The directive orders preparation of "a plan of action designed to avert an Iraqi collapse."

•U.S. and Iraqi consultations about Iran's 1984 draft resolution seeking United Nations Security Council condemnation of Iraq's chemical weapons use. Iraq conveyed several requests to the U.S. about the resolution, including its preference for a lower-level response and one that did not name any country in connection with chemical warfare; the final result complied with Iraq's requests.

•The 1984 public U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons use in the Iran-Iraq war, which said, referring to the Ayatollah Khomeini's refusal to agree to end hostilities until Saddam Hussein was ejected from power, "The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims."


...... A letter written in 1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases.

According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory.