^^ I'll get to you. Maybe.

Quote :

"So, I guess we need to invade China next, right? We do what we can, where we can. [quote]I'm not going to completely ignore his stated motivations and attribute other ones to him instead"

I said his motivation was conquest, and his motivation with respect to Iraq and Kuwait (and just about everywhere else) was conquest.

4/4/2011 11:50:12 PM

should be:

Quote :

"So, I guess we need to invade China next, right?"

We do what we can, where we can.

Quote :

"I'm not going to completely ignore his stated motivations and attribute other ones to him instead"

I said his motivation was conquest, and his motivation with respect to Iraq and Kuwait (and just about everywhere else) was conquest.

4/5/2011 9:01:22 AM

Quote :

"I said his motivation was conquest, and his motivation with respect to Iraq and Kuwait (and just about everywhere else) was conquest."

and the facts simply don't support this statement. Good day, sir. Show me where OBL wanted to conquer Iraq or Kuwait. I'd love to see that.

Quote :

"We do what we can, where we can."

So, you will admit that China is sovereign because we can't kick their ass, but Afghanistan is not. Got it

4/5/2011 4:17:48 PM

(We could fucking crush China, but we're not about to go down that road for humanitarian reasons. America, like every other nation, acts in its perceived self-interests, with only minimal consideration given to acting strictly out of charity.)

It's all about the net gains compared with the net losses in terms of the benefit of America. No shit we're not going to go to war with China over their human rights record. Nobody would have given a shit about Germany gassing Jews if they hadn't also been invading their neighbors. Nobody got overly bent out of shape about Rwanda, because they were largely irrelevant to the powers that could have done anything. Similar idea with the Khmer Rouge and Stalin's purges...it didn't take a genius to figure out that a drop or two of juice would not have been worth the squeeze, as long as they were only killing Cambodians and Russians.

Conversely, we aren't killing Taliban because they're repressive fuckheads. I won't say that doesn't enter the equation, but Afghanistan isn't a fucking humanitarian mission.

[Edited on April 5, 2011 at 5:04 PM. Reason : ]

4/5/2011 4:57:19 PM

I don't know how you could possibly be in a position to make that claim. China has the ability to pull the rug from underneath our economy in a matter of weeks. They have nukes. They also have much greater conscription ability than we do. We're living in the age of mutually assured destruction, and you can bet that China would be able to do quite a bit of damage before we'd manage to "crush" them.

I disagree that the United States government acts in the interest of its people with respect to foreign policy, and I think that's what you're suggesting. The government acts to benefit those that influence it. Halliburton is not sharing its profits with the American people. Peace, and isolationism as you would call it, are in the interest of the average American. Our infrastructure is falling behind because we waste money abroad.

[Edited on April 5, 2011 at 5:14 PM. Reason : ]

4/5/2011 5:10:32 PM

Interesting that the actual soldier understands America's reasons for going to war, but the armchair soldier thinks the reason is altruism.

LOL.

4/5/2011 5:13:19 PM

Quote :

"Show me where OBL wanted to conquer Iraq or Kuwait."

It is a well documented fact that OBL petitioned the Saudi government to allow his militia, fresh from fighting Soviets in Afghanistan, to lead the military attack against Saddam's forces in Kuwait as part of his well-publicized campaign of global jihad. That the Saudi government rejected him in favor of the UN-sanctioned coalition is the grievance you're trying to cite. I really could give a whole list of books, news articles, primary source documents, etc., to prove this, but seriously, this is something you can Google and learn in under five minutes. In fact, it's something that anyone attempting to debate the subject should know off the top of his or her head. It's amazing that you would be so strident in dismissing a well known fact. I can only conclude that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. It's embarrassing, seriously.

Quote :

"Conversely, we aren't killing Taliban because they're repressive fuckheads. I won't say that doesn't enter the equation, but Afghanistan isn't a fucking humanitarian mission."

Our immediate reason for invading Afghanistan was to go after al Qaeda and to topple the Taliban government that sheltered it. It was also an objective from the very beginning to ensure, to the extent possible, that the successor regime was democratic and respected basic human rights. I would also add that the reason we had beef with al Qaeda - the national security issue - was his repeated killing, most notably on 9/11, of innocent people.

If that doesn't qualify in your eyes as a humanitarian mission, fine. I don't really care to psychoanalyze or apologize for Bush's War Room. To the extent I think our involvement there is the right thing to do, I say so. To the extent I think we should have done - and should do - things differently, I also say so.

Our involvement in Afghanistan is, I believe, humanitarian in nature. I also believe it could be more so. I also say that the humanitarian aspect alone is adequate justification for it.

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 9:22 AM. Reason : ]

4/6/2011 9:15:16 AM

defending 'holy' saudi soil + kuwait from CONQUERING iraqi forces

!=

trying to conquer iraq or kuwait

4/6/2011 9:23:50 AM

If what he cared about was defending Muslim soil and repelling Saddam's forces, surely he would have no problem with an international group - comprised of many Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia - doing just that. And he certainly wouldn't have slammed plane loads of people into skyscrapers and government offices in order to get revenge for it. I mean, either you know what al Qaeda's agenda is, or you don't. Clearly, you don't.

And, only because I said I would say something in response to d[numbers&letters]:

Quote :

"Yes, middle eastern countries are going to take over the world. Just think about all the intervention we've done in the middle east. Do you think this bothers the Muslim world? That Americans always seem to be killing people in their part of the world? This is the part where you need to seriously snap out of your delusional state of mind: they hate us because we're there meddling, and that is the primary reason that they hate us."

Get back to me when you've discerned the difference between the Muslim world and Islamist terrorist groups. This thing I've quoted is so confused it could take hours to untangle. I will say this, though: Whether or not certain Muslims in certain countries are cynical or not about the US is not my top concern. If it were, I would post very recent pictures of Libyan Muslims waving American flags and singing our praises. I'm not interested in popularity contests.

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 9:42 AM. Reason : ]

4/6/2011 9:31:28 AM

Quote :

"If what he cared about was defending Muslim soil and repelling Saddam's forces, surely he would have no problem with an international group - comprised of many Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, several infidel nations, and HEADED by The Great Satan US - doing just that."

Now read it again.

4/6/2011 9:34:18 AM

Your remark gives the lie to your own argument. His agenda is not one of defending "infidel" regimes such as that of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. It is one of replacing those regimes with his own nightmarish vision of Islamic governance. That is the raison d'être of al Qaeda. That is what they mean when they talk about global jihad. It is not a jihad against Western oppression. It is a jihad against non-fundamentalist governments everywhere.

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 9:51 AM. Reason : ]

4/6/2011 9:47:18 AM

Quote :

"It was also an objective from the very beginning to ensure, to the extent possible, that the successor regime was democratic and respected basic human rights."

In what way did the privatization of our military (and the intentional shielding of mercenaries from any accountability for brutality) intend to serve this objective?

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 10:47 AM. Reason : .]

4/6/2011 10:46:55 AM

It didn't.

4/6/2011 1:25:15 PM