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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 12:33:24 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 09:49:34 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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m...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:04:07 -0400, Secular Humoresque
wrote:


I agree we had no business being in Iraq but Clinton and Bush 1 were
there keeping the fire stoked. We should have come home in 1991.

Nope. They were containing Saddam. It worked.

What the hell does that mean? The sanctions were largely ineffective
and he was in the process of pushing us out anyway. Most of western
Europe had abandoned the effort. It was basically just Clinton and
Blair against the world.

They were working. They weren't perfect, but they were working, and he
wasn't a threat to the region.

How were they working? The sanctions were not working (similar to the
Iraq sanctions)

How many countries did he attack? Did he go after the Curds during the
sanctions and no-fly zone enforcement?

Was the plan to keep flying over them and bombing them for another 10
years? We were about to be kicked out and we would either leave
quietly or we would escalate the war. That idiot Bush decided to
escalate the war, using the same phony WMD argument Clinton used for 8
years.

Clinton didn't use a WMD argument to contain Saddam. He was preventing him
from attacking his neighbors. Eventually, he would have been overthrown, one
hopes anyway. In any case, it sure was cheaper than war.

The word "containment" did not get used until after the invasion.

Well, what was it called then?

This was still all about Israel. If we didn't take out Saddam, Israel
was going to try to and we would have been drawn is as Israel's ally
when the war escalated, a far worse position than just being the
cowboys with bad intel.

This has little to do with Israel, even though that's a convenient
forgetting of the facts.

OK let's just jump ahead 10 years and look at Iran. What is going to
happen there if we don't act?

I don't know. It's not clear that Israel can do much, but ultimately, we
don't need to attack Iran unless they do something truly aggressive.

What is the "over/under" on the date we attack Iran? I probably want
the under.

Attacking another country... launching missiles... who knows. Not sure what
you mean by you wanting under though.

Unfortunately our Afghan war has still put is in the position of being
at war with Islam.

Only in the eyes of the radicals. Unfortunately, they're very good at
spreading that lie. Look at the hatred people in _this_ country have
toward
Muslims.


You see the same thing in every war. You have to dehumanize the enemy.
That is the nature of war. It is the only way you can convince young
people to kill their fellow man and convince their parents to pay for
it..
In this case it is a double whammy since we are not paying for the
war. We are borrowing the money from the same generation we are making
die for the war.



Well, maybe we should stop hating Muslims. That would be a good start.


The best way to do that is to withdraw from the Crusades.

The best way to do that is to stand up to the extremists in this country...
like the fake mosque controversy.