Quote:
|
Originally Posted by aceventura3
Yes, my position of the Iraq war is well documented on TFP. I am not sure how you make the argument that the Iraq war was based on personal gain for Bush. Wait...oh yea, I remember - that theory was in that movie Fahrenheit 911 - the theory must be true since it was in the movie.
|
It's been made for 4 years by hundreds of people across TFPolitics. Look back across the posts of host or roachboy. Even mine.
Without going through the whole song and dance, again,
this is an article that echoes my take on the invasion.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by aceventura3
We failed in Vietnam. When we left hundreds of thousands died. What we should have learned from Vietnam is to never start a war we don't intend to finish with victory.
|
Precisely, and we should have determined that Iraq couldn't have been a win no matter what we did. The only real way Iraq could have been free of Saddam would have been an armed revolution from within Iraq. Once that started, we could have supplied the rebellion with financial and arms assistance. The real problem was, of course, that those in power in the US want control over the region. So even if Saddam was overthrown, we'd want to control whoever was in a leadership position replacing Saddam. This would have gone one of two ways: 1) they would have submitted to our economic control and would owe the world bank billions or 2) they would have resisted and the new leaders plane would be mysteriously shot down.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by aceventura3
How can we make peace with Iran and support Israel's right to exist? Should we abandon Israel? Where do we fight organized terrorist groups? Should we let the ME disintegrate into chaos? I am not suggesting your 4 points are wrong or how anyone should answer the few questions I presented. I do suggest we have a serious debate on these issues. Simply saying we are at war because of Bush's oil buddies is not helpful.
|
We can't. The ties between the US and Israel are unhealthy, and it was a mistake by the UN to establish a Jewish state, especially one that they planned on arming to the teeth for the next half a century. Israel is the second largest source of instability in the ME behind oil. What should have happened is that we would have allowed a joint Jewish/Muslim state to be established, if anything. The Ottomans left behind a lot more Muslims in the area now known as Israel than Jews or Christians. The area would have naturally been under the control of a government that was either secular or muslim, like Lebanon or Iran. This would have prevented the extreme tension between Jewish and Muslims that we see today.
Speaking now as the bell cannot be un-rung, we should be supporting one of two things: unification of Palestine and Israel, giving equal representation to each people in a government that services both people separately but equally, Or the permanent establishment of an independent and unoccupied Palestinian state with a dmz separating Israel and Palestine, and have Jerusalem as international land. Open support of Israel's war crimes against Palestine feeds the fire between both sides of militants, be they Palestinian guerilla fighters or the Israeli army. The idea would be to promote peace as much as possible, throughout not just Israel but the whole region. If, for example, we were to have sent humanitarian aid to Israel and Lebanon last year, it would have sent a strong signal that we care about the well being of the region, not just our ally/butt buddy Israel. Lebanon was just getting on with it's existence after the civil war when this serious setback actually galvanized support for the Hezbollah. That's a bad thing.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by aceventura3
O.k. the DOJ should have no agenda. If person A breaks a federal law they should receive the same treatment as person B. So if person "A" misstates their income on their federal income tax and person "B" (Libby) misstates when he first heard that Plame was a CIA agent, they both should get the same treatment for being untruthful in a sworn statement to the federal government? So, we should have a special prosecutor for every tax case, and a mistake should lead to the same treatment Libby received. I think the DOJ should have an agenda, an agenda set by the voters based on who we put in office.
|
Don't pretend we live in a democracy, we live in a constitutional republic. The job of the DOJ is simple: to be the unbiased, impartial law office for the executive branch. Obviously, they don't have the manpower to cover everything, as you and I both stated, but consistently perusing one type of litigation while consistently ignoring another is against their mandate.