This is a sarcastic comment along the lines of George Bush's preposterous assertion -- which too many people fell for -- that John Kerry would've given other countries veto power over our ability to defend ourselves.

Or, to rephrase it, he doesn't give a damn what any other countries think.

Clearer now?

I'm not sure that's right - I'd say it was a serious comment on the lines that if other nations have no quarrel with you, then your nation is likely to be pretty secure, while if they think 'we' are a threat, then our security is going to be damaged. Quite simple really.

e.g. How many times has Switzerland been invaded in the last 150 years?

Re: Switzerland

Would be a credible argument if they hadn't been in collusion with the Axis powers (our enemy at the time).

From Switzerland's website:

LINKY

The Swiss had to deal with many fallouts after the war. The concept of "Swiss neutrality" is a misnomer.

What if the quarrel you have is with someone that has no country? How do you then defend yourself?

My original comment was sarcasm.

I've said it before, am saying it again. America or any country has the right to do whatever it deems necessary to protect it's population.

When was Switzerland a super power and the sole hyper power?

When did Switzerland have a crippling balance of payments deficit coupled with an increasingly overstretched military?

But I accept your point. Any country does have the right to protect its population. Even if its being invaded by a global hyper-power. And that protection might take the form of guerrilla action directed at the hyper-power's population either in order to cause discontent in that population and so divert its government away from foreign policy and back to home matters, or by forcing the hand of that hyper-power to crystallise disparate nations into forming an alternative power-block and so to form an effective opposition.

If your quarrel is with a group that has no country (do you mean the Palestinians, or Al Quaida?) then invading 2 countries isn't necessarily going to make you any friends.

Sometimes might is not the best way. Switzerland has certainly benefited from its neutral status, and global hyper-power's might benefit from a more softly-softly approach too.

Then you deal with the countries that supply them safe haven.

Well, duh.

However, it would smarter for us in the long run if we convinced a chunk of the world -- or at least our allies -- that a particular course of action was both necessary and the best way to do it.

We chose to act pretty much unilaterally in Iraq (please spare us the "coalition" argument, because this one was primarily composed of tiny countries). We ignored the countries that tried to dissuade us. And now we're demanding that they help us.

Ignoring the advice of your friends and customers and then demanding their help just isn't smart.

Switzerland hasn't been a global target of terrorism since 1978, we have. Do I need to remind everyone of the mess Carter got us into? The mess that has progressively gotten worse since 1978?

Zen, I can appreciate your position, but it just isn't plausible. There is nothing we can do to appease our enemy. They don't want peace. They don't want compromise. They want all of our deaths and they have made this fact public on many, many occasions.

You can only compromise with someone that is willing. Radical Muslim's do not want any form of compromise. There is absolutely nothing we can do, except take them out.

Anyway, we tried to appease them in the 90's and it didn't work. The attacks just increased in quantity and quality.

Sometimes you just have to fight. And, when there isn't an official "front" to fight at, then you make one. Wherever and whenever you can. We are fighting Al Qaeda right now in Iraq and that is a good thing, in my opinion. Let our soldiers fight them rather than worry about civilians dealing with terrorists on a plan. This is what they are trained to do and what they want to do. Take it from an old salt, training and training and training only make you drool for the real thing. Made up scenarios get old real quick.

Did you happen to catch the article about the Al Qaeda HQ found in Iraq? The damn thing even had a sign.

Even though invading Iraq has inflamed the Islamic world and encouraged more of them to become terrorists?

Can you say "counterproductive"?

Osama bin Laden claimed we were going to invade a country in that region. It was a preposterous idea -- until George Bush decided to invade Iraq. We gave bin Laden's arguments credibility that they didn't have.

they have been "inflamed" for quite some time now. I dealt with this personally, back when most of the people here were still in grade school and high school.

So they are more inflamed now, I don't care. They were a viable threat to us even before 9/11. This was going to escalate whether we invaded Iraq or not. All invading Iraq did was given us a second, real front to fight on.

Hell, we were at high-alert anytime we were anywhere near the middle-east. And that was well over a decade ago.

I guess I see it this way. They choose us as an enemy. They chose to attack us numerous times over the last 2 1/2 decades. Now, we are taking the battle to them, wherever we can. It is not as clear cut as battles past, but we are doing our best. I would be much happier if Al Qaeda was a 'real' country, with 'real' troops and a 'real' border, but they aren't. We are just gonna have to go after them wherever we can, and we are.

Those 'allies' were offered the opportunity to join us, however, they declined and vetoed ANY action because they had direct, and potentially illegal' financial interests in Iraq that went against the sanctions in place.

when did OBL state that we would invade a country in the middle east? before or after 9/11?

I'm not sure about the timing, in all honesty.

Look, everyone understood when we went into Afghanistan after 9/11. It was clear what had to be done and why. Almost everyone was on our side. Then, before we finished the necessary work in Afghanistan, our esteemed president decided we had to invade Iraq ... where it wasn't at all clear why we wanted to invade. Nobody found our WMD arguments convincing, and for good reason, as it turned out.

As to your other point ... yes, it's true that some of our traditional allies were making money off the Iraq sanctions. But guess what -- so were American companies. Only gosh darn it, the law doesn't allow them to reveal which ones. Isn't that convenient?

we've already acknowledged bad intelligence, this bad intelligence even went back as far as clinton so why are you only jumping the bush administration?

I would hope that there are conservatives/republicans who are just as displeased and disconcerted about that as I am.

The bottom line is this - Regime change has been US policy for over 10 years, thats back when clinton was president also, and it wasn't going to be done by continuing UN sanctions. All that would have done was allow Hussein to gather with his new european allies (france, germany) and restart his weapons programs again. It would only have been a matter of time before Israel would have had to nuke the weapons sites for their own national security and then there'd be a lot of hell to pay. I'd say we nipped that in the bud pretty well now.

Look, I agree about the importance of going after the bad guys. My argument is with how we're doing it.

They would say that we chose them as an enemy. I'm not saying that they're right, you understand -- but I think it's important to understand the enemy's motivations.

Michael Scheuer, the CIA analyst who just resigned, makes the same arguments:
To sum up, I'd argue that brute force alone will not win this struggle for us. We need to reach out and convince the Muslim world that we are not warring against them, but against the minority within their ranks who wish to do us harm.

Thats been done many times also. I think that their majority should reach out and bitchslap the minority of their religion who wish to do us harm.

This whole war was far more political than any one admits oil for food was not the only reason for France and Germany to oppose us. It was also jockeying for position inside the EU Britain had joined us on an administrative level and they did it first. This put two other major factors in the EU in a strange position that was convenient to blame on America. This war has very little to do with terrorism or human rights it was about our economy. The people that bankrolled GWB presidency needed to make the money back a strong economy does this for the big heads and easily available oil makes a strong economy. Oil creates jobs makes people money and lets people fill up there SUV’s with nice available gas keeping the middle happy. Politics, politics, politics it all came down to reelection unfortunately there were some minor backfires.

Regime change was not US policy until GWBush saw his approval rating in the toilet in 2002. Regime change was not the policy of his father GHWBush, he understood that although Hussein was a contemptible tyrant but also better than almost any feasible alternative. France and Germany were not "allies" with Iraq, they wanted to open their markets to trade--just like many American businesses. Europeans had sympathy for the Iraqis living under the U.N. trade sanctions, which we now know were completely effective in keeping Hussein from producing weapons. The sanctions were also very effective at keeping things like baby formula and medicine out of Iraq. Israel has showed no signs of attacking Iraq since 1981 when they bombed the Iraqi nuclear facilities. You honestly believe that after the 1991 gulf war in which Israel didn't retaliate for scud missle attacks that it would've unilaterally attacked Iraq without our permission?

I think you meant to insert a "in Iraq" in between 'US policy' and 'until'.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few regimes we changed in the last decade, two decades, etc.

Believe it or not, the American call for "regime change" in Iraq didn't start with George W. Bush. For that, we must return to the days of the 105th Congress, when Bill Clinton occupied the White House. Recall a piece of legislation dubbed the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" (Public Law 105-338). Not only did it call for Saddam Hussein's ouster, it also spelled out the goal of replacing his regime with a democratic Iraq.

Here's what the law says: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

You may think the Iraq Liberation Act was ramrodded down the throats of reluctant Democrats by a House and Senate dominated by conservative Republicans. Consider the final tally: The House passed the bill by a vote of 360 to 38, with 157 Democrats joining 202 Republicans and the House's one independent to back the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. The act, with bipartisan cosponsorship of two Democrats and six Republicans, also passed the Senate by unanimous consent. And Bill Clinton signed it into law on Oct. 31, 1998, declaring at the time that the evidence was overwhelming that freedom and the rule of law "will not happen under the current Iraq leadership."

Yes, regime change has been articulated by the administration, world without end. Bush did it again during his televised news conference on Thursday night. But that policy, along with support for a defeated Iraq's transition to democracy, was embraced years earlier by Bill Clinton and a bipartisan Congress.

I have no problems with "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." If this had been GWBush's goal from the beginning I might have supported the war. Instead the reasoning we were given was paraphrased: "It is the policy of the United States to preemptively invade Iraq to ensure our security without a clear successor for Hussein or any semblance of an exit strategy for our soldiers." A democratic solution was only mentioned by Bush after it was painfully clear to every last American that the WMDs used to inspire so much fear and support for the war were non-existant.

"Support efforts" is somewhat different from "unilateral invasion" in my eyes.

There were many mistakes made, for that there should be accountability. I don't see it happening with a republican majority in the government but we really only have the democrats that protected bill clinton from conviction to blame for that, wouldn't you agree?

So, in light of the fact that we will never see the accountability we should, should we not be promoting what remnants of US policy for Iraqi Liberation remain?

As far as unilateral vs. support, theres no argument to be made. Countries were given an opportunity and instead those countries chose their finances over the lives of the Iraqi's.

Huh? Agree with what? That because the Democrats failed to support a right-wing coup attempt centered on an oval office blowjob that they weren't a strong enough dissenting minority to sway military policy? huh? I don't follow or agree.
And the lives of their own soldiers let's not forget. This "ends-justify-means" logic doesn't exactly sit well with me. An allegory might be your drunk uncle who wrecks on the interstate killing 5 people and propels himself throught the windshield onto the grass where, looking up through his blood-soaked eyelashes discovers a four-leafed clover and we're all expected to be happy for him and all the good luck coming his way. yeah right.

So you don't consider lying to a grand jury an issue as long as its about a blowjob? Glad to know that you feel there are times when lying under oath is ok with you.

Thats an exremely inaccurate 'allegory'.

Of course there are times when lying, even to a grand jury, is justified, heroic, or even in the case of a blowjob--inconsequential. ;)

Lying to your nation and the free world about motivations to invade a soverign nation resulting in the deaths of 1300+ soldiers and thousands of citizens--consequential.

You're right it wasn't an allegory strictly, "symbolism" would have been a better word. Are you not arguing to me that the ends justify the means?

lying under oath, period, is consequential. legitimizing it under 'certain circumstances' is wrong.

No, although it certainly does look like that. What I'm arguing is that just as with clinton having a democratic majority to protect him from an impeachment conviction for lying, Bush has a republican majority to protect him from impeachment. In light of this, there will never be a charge against bush, or his administration, so instead of whining and crying about it now, why shouldn't we focus on the fact that regime change was still US policy (which it was) and support the democratization of Iraq?

I do support the democratization of Iraq. I also think it would be foolhardy to consider this the reason we invaded. I'm also not entirely sure it's feasible, Iraq is composed of disparate factions who would really rather have nothing to do with each other. Will a democratically elected leader, with all the checks and balances a democracy places on her power, be strong enough to keep the factions in line? We'll see I suppose.