i apologize, didn't meant to insult you cubano, in fact wasn't even really directing that post at you specifically... there are no easy answers to the questions we face, and hard choices to be made no matter what and regardless of what happens... i just lost patience with the popular notion that there IS an easy answer and it's that bush is just ___ (fill in the blank) or that it's all about ___ (fill in the blank) and that's all there is to it, or that doing nothing is somehow a valid solution, or that it's even possible to be 100% consistent in all aspects of foreign policy in a world as screwed up and muddled as ours.... i was letting off steam at the end of the post, and you're right it wasn't because of anything you said specifically, but a buildup of frustration with some of the more baseless and brainless generalizations thrown out there- again not statements you have made, so again i apologize to you p.s. to continue the debate, i do want to suggest that whatever decisions we make should be based on what is right, what is prudent, and what the long term consequences of our actions will be... for these reasons i don't think fear of a terrorist backlash is a valid concern, because as I said before, mongrels prey on weakness, not on strength... those who hate us will always hate us as long as we are prosperous and they are not, and the consequences of backing down on our commitment to enforce disarmament- which was decided by the international community more than a decade ago- could potentially have consequences just as disastrous as that of a 'backlash'... the way to rid the world of terrorism is to enforce the rule of law on an international level and encourage democratic governments to do so on a local one as well- to bring peace, democracy and free market capitalism to the middle east- not to cower in fear of those who are going to hate us anyway regardless of what we do- your signoff says it well- freedom, i have much love for ya- we have to export that freedom and enforce the rule of law designed to protect it
No problem amigo.....I agree 100%, this isnt going to be easy. Lets hope we as a country make the right chioces; in the end only our children really matter........I think our focus should be on overconsumption, but hey thats another thread another time......peace
Bung, I appreciate your response despite disagreeing with it. At least you have gone beyond mere slogans. Algeria is not (yet) the threat Iraq is. Algeria hasn't invaded an oil-rich neighbor, gotten its ass kicked by the US, and gone on a decades-long pursuit of WMD. Yeah, it's oppressive and they support terrorists. But PRESENTLY they do not represent the threat to us that Saddam does. Algeria may very well get hit by us in some way, same w/Saudi Arabia. What form it will take I don't know, but I take Bush's word for it when he said last year that we'll hunt down terrorists wherever they may be. Iraq is far from being the end of all this. Hey, a friendly regime in Iraq is definitely in the "best interests" of "the oil industry," and a stable oil industry is in the best interests of the global economy. The oil industry is NOT just a group of American companies! It is international in scope. Just ask the French and the Germans and their own oil interests in Iraq.