| Author | Message | ||
     Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 778 Registered: 7-2004 |
Yes, I agree Janay. Spreading freedom. Defeating tyranny. Ousting villains. Stopping The Penguin. Creaming Dr. Octopus. Reversing the direction the world turns on its axis to save Lois Lane. | ||
| Phenixrising Citizen Username: Phenixrising Post Number: 363 Registered: 9-2004 |
Notey, THANKS!  But I'm afraid these two are WAY far gone.  Paul, Thanks for the info. But it’s not really a question of what I want. It’s a question of where does it end. Robert, I ask myself that question everyday when I hear of more tragedies in Iraq. It hurts me to watch & hear… soldiers being killed and injured innocent Iraqi's dying the beheadings of hostages watching hostages begging for their lives homes of Iraqi's in Iraq – destroyed the worst deficit in our nations history and our Prez asking for more aid to fight a war we should not be in a President who would not admit that he's wrong when it comes to Iraq A few of my co-workers are fighting in Iraq. One, was suppose to return 3 months ago and they keep extending his stay. The ohers – God knows when they will return. I just pray that they are safe from harms way. Since MJ & Straw are so much in support of this war…why not volunteer yourselves and maybe my co-workers can come home? | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 656 Registered: 5-2004  |
Michael, even if everything goes right in Iraq from now on, I still think Bush and his administration made a mistake (many mistakes), and I still think he deceived the American people. The ends don't always justify the means. In fact, most of the time they don't. | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1494 Registered: 1-2003  |
Rastro, I certainly don't think everything will go right from now on. I feel that it was not only NOT a mistake to invade Iraq, Topple Saddam, and institute democracy, I fully believe it is the best move we could possibly make. Its brilliant and visionary. We're lucky to be witnessing this. Our kids (well maybe grandkids) could acually ask us questions like "were there really places where you would be killed for speaking against the government?". It could be a foreign idea to them. At least I hope it will be. We finally have a leader who will not look the other way at despotic regimes, one who is making them realize their time is up. I'm proud of that. Sometimes the ends do in fact justify the means. If liberty and democracy spread throughout the middle east, a few lies would certainly be worth it. Of course Bush never lied, but thats another thread ;) | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 658 Registered: 5-2004 |
Michael, (this is a serious question) Will we then be going into North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and half of Africa as well if they don't get the message of Iraq? While I am glad that Saddam is gone, I find it amazing that in our war against terrorism, that was our next stop after Afghanistan. With all the supporters of terror, Saddam was not exactly a major player compared to others in the region (or in other parts of the world). That seems to be the forgotten part of all this. We were going in to fight terrorism, and now suddenly, we're instituting democracy around the world. As for Bush, I think he lied to us about why we went in, and has misled the public on just about every major political change he's proposed. I don't expect politicians to tell the truth all the time, but occasionally would be nice. Lastly, I had to read your last paragraph twice. Where you wrote "If liberty and democracy spread throughout the middle east, a few lies would certainly be worth it." I thought you said "If liberty and democracy spread throughout the middle east, a few lives would certainly be worth it." | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1495 Registered: 1-2003 |
Will we then be going into North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and half of Africa as well if they don't get the message of Iraq? (This is a serious answer) Maybe. We'll see what happens with Iran... they have a underlying democratic revolution readying. Having a democracy next door may be just the incentive they need to depose the mullahs. Maybe they will need US support. Time will tell, but you can sure bet the mullahs are feeling pretty scared right now. We'll see how they react when there are fully fledged America supporting democracies on their borders (Iraq and Afghanistan). North Korea is another story. But we may indeed need to handle them with force. The odds are we won't. China's communist government is going to fall. Its just a matter of time until a billion peole want all of the benefits of capitalism, not just the few the government doles out to them. Once that happens KJI is toast. Without China, N. Korea will have a GDP lower than my salary. I hope we do kick the crap out of Syria. When Castro dies Cuba will be a democracy, its a waiting game. As for the rest, lets just see if they get the message or not before judging. This is long term strategy. Chess, not checkers. Saddam was a major player. Deposing him sent a message that the US is not to be played with. Saddam was thumbing his nose at us. That emboldened other leaders (like the Taliban). Deposing him was getting our house in order, and it sent an unmistakable message to the rest of the tyrants in the world. Instituting democracy IS fighting terror, in fact its the ONLY way to do it effectively. Free countries don't support terrorists. Governments by the people and for the people will not tolerate or fund or support terror. As for the last paragraph of my last post... it works for me either way. I do believe that spreading liberty and democracy is the best and possibly the only way to ensure our national security for the long term. I fully believe it is worth dying for. If I could sacrifice myself for the security that liberty and freedom provide, I would. I'd do it for my children, and yours. | ||
| Phenixrising Citizen Username: Phenixrising Post Number: 364 Registered: 9-2004 |
Saddam was a major player. Deposing him sent a message that the US is not to be played with. Saddam was thumbing his nose at us. That emboldened other leaders (like the Taliban). Deposing him was getting our house in order, and it sent an unmistakable message to the rest of the tyrants in the world. Funny, because of the illegal invasion of Iraq, most of the world see the US as "bullies". And Bush…the "arrogant " cowboy that he is! | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1496 Registered: 1-2003 |
Good, You might hate a bully, but you don't mess with one, especially one that can back it up. | ||
| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 780 Registered: 7-2004 |
First of all, you're wrong about not messing with a bully. There are countries, people and organizations out there who would mess with one for that very reason. But the bigger problem is, Janay, our Allies too see us as bullies. Bush continues to alienate us from every corner of the globe. We are making more enemies, and enemies out of friends. See Tony Blair's statement about us yesterday. | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1498 Registered: 1-2003 |
There are countries, people and organizations out there who would mess with one for that very reason. Names please. And not organizations that like to mess with schoolyard bullies. What you are missing is that WE are the only country that stands up to bullies. We're it. Does the UN? Nope. Nato? Not without us pushing them to. Other countries (and the UN) don't like it because it truly shows the world how impotent they are. Take France for example. They're useless in standing up to anyone. Sure they love to rattle their sabres now and then, but they have no real power at all. They're jealous of us, of our strength, our economy, our respect. So they try to put us down. France is like that little kid on the playground that would start a fight and run to the teacher as soon as anyone fights back. They want to be tough, but they just don't have it in them, and it hurts their feelings. Who cares. Countries that see us as a bully are doing what you do... projecting. Ooooh, they don't like that we're strong, and stand up for freedom, liberty, and against terror. "how dare America try to free people and spread their democracy." So to them we're a bully. They can think whatever they want. Who cares? No one of any consequence. We're secure enough in our mission not to care what others who have other interests might think. We are on the side of right. They'll see that soon enough. So will you. Let a few Arab countries see us as a bully that shouldn't be messed with. Thats certainly better than how they viewed us before, as a paper tiger ripe for plundering. Making enemies out of friends... thats a funny one. While a country or two may be cooler diplomatically to us, they are hardly our "enemies" they know which side their bread is buttered. The allies that count are right with us, and will be. | ||
| Mustt_mustt Citizen Username: Mustt_mustt Post Number: 237 Registered: 8-2003 |
www.counterpunch.org Delusions About Democracy By ERIC HOBSBAWM Although President Bush's uncompromising second inaugural address does not so much as mention the words Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, he and his supporters continue to engage in a planned reordering of the world. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are but one part of a supposedly universal effort to create world order by "spreading democracy". This idea is not merely quixotic--it is dangerous. The rhetoric implies that democracy is applicable in a standardised (western) form, that it can succeed everywhere, that it can remedy today's transnational dilemmas, and that it can bring peace, rather than sow disorder. It cannot. Democracy is rightly popular. In 1647, the English Levellers broadcast the powerful idea that "all government is in the free consent of the people". They meant votes for all. Of course, universal suffrage does not guarantee any particular political result, and elections cannot even ensure their own perpetuation--witness the Weimar Republic. Electoral democracy is also unlikely to produce outcomes convenient to hegemonic or imperial powers. (If the Iraq war had depended on the freely expressed consent of "the world community", it would not have happened). But these uncertainties do not diminish its justified appeal. Other factors besides democracy's popularity explain the dangerous belief that its propagation by armies might actually be feasible. Globalisation suggests that human affairs are evolving toward a universal pattern. If gas stations, iPods, and computer geeks are the same worldwide, why not political institutions? This view underrates the world's complexity. The relapse into bloodshed and anarchy that has occurred so visibly in much of the world has also made the idea of spreading a new order more attractive. The Balkans seemed to show that areas of turmoil required the intervention, military if need be, of strong and stable states. In the absence of effective international governance, some humanitarians are still ready to support a world order imposed by US power. But one should always be suspicious when military powers claim to be doing weaker states favours by occupying them. Another factor may be the most important: the US has been ready with the necessary combination of megalomania and messianism, derived from its revolutionary origins. Today's US is unchallengeable in its techno-military supremacy, convinced of the superiority of its social system, and, since 1989, no longer reminded--as even the greatest conquering empires always had been--that its material power has limits. Like President Wilson, today's ideologues see a model society already at work in the US: a combination of law, liberal freedoms, competitive private enterprise and regular, contested elections with universal suffrage. All that remains is to remake the world in the image of this "free society". This idea is dangerous whistling in the dark. Although great power action may have morally or politically desirable consequences, identifying with it is perilous because the logic and methods of state action are not those of universal rights. All established states put their own interests first. If they have the power, and the end is considered sufficiently vital, states justify the means of achieving it--particularly when they think God is on their side. Both good and evil empires have produced the barbarisation of our era, to which the "war against terror" has now contributed. While threatening the integrity of universal values, the campaign to spread democracy will not succeed. The 20th century demonstrated that states could not simply remake the world or abbreviate historical transformations. Nor can they easily effect social change by transferring institutions across borders. The conditions for effective democratic government are rare: an existing state enjoying legitimacy, consent and the ability to mediate conflicts between domestic groups. Without such consensus, there is no single sovereign people and therefore no legitimacy for arithmetical majorities. When this consensus is absent, democracy has been suspended (as is the case in Northern Ireland), the state has split (as in Czechoslovakia), or society has descended into permanent civil war (as in Sri Lanka). "Spreading democracy" aggravated ethnic conflict and produced the disintegration of states in multinational and multicommunal regions after both 1918 and 1989. The effort to spread standardised western democracy also suffers a fundamental paradox. A growing part of human life now occurs beyond the influence of voters--in transnational public and private entities that have no electorates. And electoral democracy cannot function effectively outside political units such as nation-states. The powerful states are therefore trying to spread a system that even they find inadequate to meet today's challenges. Europe proves the point. A body such as the European Union could develop into a powerful and effective structure precisely because it has no electorate other than a small number of member governments. The EU would be nowhere without its "democratic deficit", and there can be no legitimacy for its parliament, for there is no "European people". Unsurprisingly, problems arose as soon as the EU moved beyond negotiations between governments and became the subject of democratic campaigning in the member states. The effort to spread democracy is also dangerous in a more indirect way: it conveys to those who do not enjoy this form of government the illusion that it actually governs those who do. But does it? We now know something about how the actual decisions to go to war in Iraq were taken in at least two states of unquestionable democratic bona fides: the US and the UK. Other than creating complex problems of deceit and concealment, electoral democracy and representative assemblies had little to do with that process. Decisions were taken among small groups of people in private, not very different from the way they would have been taken in non-democratic countries. Fortunately, media independence could not be so easily circumvented in the UK. But it is not electoral democracy that necessarily ensures effective freedom of the press, citizen rights and an independent judiciary. Eric Hobsbawm is professor emeritus of economic and social history of the University of London at Birkbeck and author of The Age of Extremes: The Short 20th Century 1914-1991; this is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the journal Foreign Policy. | ||
| Phenixrising Citizen Username: Phenixrising Post Number: 367 Registered: 9-2004 |
"But one should always be suspicious when military powers claim to be doing weaker states favours by occupying them". Hmmm…pretty much like Iraq. But wait! They didn't plan on the insurgents. If they really want to "bully" a country and spread democracy, try North Korea or China. Naw, they have the nukes Run cowboy…RUN!  | ||
| Joe Citizen Username: Gonets Post Number: 667 Registered: 2-2004 |
Here's a question for conservatives along the lines of Michael's question... Which would you prefer enduring the annoyance of people voicing their opposition to the president's foreign policy or seeing a major bastion of the left attacked by terrorists with hundreds killed? What do you really want? I think the answer would surprise you. It's a fair question. Look at the following quote from the right: My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.--Ann Coulter While we're indulging in hypothetical choices, here's another: If this ultimately proves to be a mistake (we already know that the major reasons given for invading Iraq were false) would you rather soldiers continue to die for a mistake rather than admit it was a mistake? | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1501 Registered: 1-2003 |
I don't want ANYONE to die. I witnessed 3000 people dying firsthand. I saw people jump to their deaths, some holding hands as they jumped. I performed first aid on bloody and broken people, and I didn't and don't care whether they are liberals, socialists, or communists. I would never wish anything like that on any innocents. Ann Coulter is a twit. She's the right's version of Krugman. But if you want to compare looneytunes, there's this guy: University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who sat down the day after September 11, 2001 and wrote an article condemning the victims of the attacks as “little Eichmanns,” Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire — the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved — and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance” — a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore” — counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in — and in many cases excelling at — it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it. If Iraq ultimately proves to be a mistake, of course no soldiers should continue to die for a mistake. But it will take years and years to determine if Iraq is a mistake. As it stands now, Iraq is turning out to be a major success. Every deadline has been met, Elections are taking place in 3 days, 80% of Iraqis will vote. They will be the first Arab country to have a constitution, and guarantee rights to its citizens. There are plenty of naysayers, but they are just spouting off at this point. They said the same things about Afghanistan. Amazing how quiet they are on that subject now. Turn your question around. If Iraq ultimately proves to be a success, and democracy takes hold in the middle east, and governments by the people and for the people emerge and those same people that have a stake in their future build their countries instead of bombs, and terrorism fades- Will it have been worth going to war and sustaining casualties in order to change the world for the better? Lets wait and see who is right. But just face it, wouldn't it just kill you if GWB turns out to be right? Wouldn't you rather just about anything than that? | ||
| Joe Citizen Username: Gonets Post Number: 668 Registered: 2-2004 |
Lets wait and see who is right. But just face it, wouldn't it just kill you if GWB turns out to be right? Wouldn't you rather just about anything than that? Actually no it wouldn't kill me if GWB turns out to be right. In fact I'd prefer that he's right than I--since his actions have a greater impact on my fate and the fate of this nation than do my opinions. Suggesting that I "would rather just about anything" than see Bush proven right is extremely insulting (since it implies that I'm such a self-centered, egomaniac that I'd like to see countless more American deaths), and you should apologize, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I only used the outrageous Coulter quote to counter CJC's use of outrageous quotes by people from the far left. The notion that you can be tarred with the statements of someone from your side of the political spectrum is stupid. | ||
| Heybub Citizen Username: Heybub Post Number: 390 Registered: 2-2004  |
I think Guy's quote above points to what Jannay is talking about. I have a confession," wrote Salon Executive Editor Gary Kamiya on April 10. "I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have identical feelings." | ||
| Joe Citizen Username: Gonets Post Number: 669 Registered: 2-2004 |
Bub, Are you a real person or just some sort of applet that reconfigures language in previous posts to create a new post for the sake of maintaining a line of argument without adding to it? If it's the latter I'm looking forward to the next generation. | ||
| Heybub Citizen Username: Heybub Post Number: 391 Registered: 2-2004 |
Look at the quote Joe. Kamiya from Salon is saying he and his liberal buddies actually wish for things to go bad in Iraq. This is not some far left nutjob we are talking about. Guy's quote supports Jannay's assertion that the left would rather have America fail in Iraq than have GWB be right. No apology necessary. | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 1502 Registered: 1-2003 |
Joe, I am truly sorry that I lumped you in with some others who truly would rather anything than Bush being right. It gets confusing who is who after a while. Your posts have been intelligent and direct as far as I've noticed. I lumped you in with the sorry souls that really would have their world shattered if Bush ends up being right. They don't even entertain that it could happen. Just like they believed there was no way GWB would be re-elected, and some of them even hold on to the ridiculous theories of the election being stolen or rigged. I won't name names, but they know who they are. They can't stand the thought that maybe Bush has freed 50 million people AND kicked terrorists in the butt at the same time. They look at every single event as a sign of failure, they hope for it. They hope and pray that Iraq will fail, that the war on terror will fail, just so they can feel superior to the dumb republicans that believe in freedom and liberty. They are dying to sit back and say "see, we told you so" heck, they'll do that even if Iraq is a total success. Once again, I'm sorry for lumping you in with them. I'd be upset to be lumped in with the likes of Coulter. | ||
| Nohero Citizen Username: Nohero Post Number: 4278 Registered: 10-1999  |
Guy's quote only proves that, as part of a longer essay, there was a passage that could be endlessly recycled. The same article (surely, you did read the article, and didn't just get that passage from one of the recyclers) ends with the following:
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