No no no no... You are confusing the issues here.
The issue is not about which country to liberate. It is far more complicated than that. It intervines with the threat of Islamic fanatism, the threat of WMD, the threat of rogue state terrorism, the strategic energy sources and what kind of political system serve America's long term interest the best.
Then let's review those things: there are states that are far, far more supportive of terrorists than Iraq was or was likely to ever become. We're not there bombing them. There were better and worse places to live in the end, and countries that were bigger threats in their access to WMDs and the prevelence of radical Islamic sentiment within their border, and these countries would have made a better place at the least for a show of force to the Muslim world. Iraq apparently had no WMDs, though it likely did at one time and would have developed them again if given the chance. This does not mean however the only way to deny that chance was to invade the country. The subtext here that conservatives never bring up is the sanctions were working. They were also responsible for more death than the war in the end, but that's another story. And since we've been there we've taken no oil and made a few small and by no means permanent steps toward stability there.
After all this became apparent, the idea of freeing the Iraqis and starting a democracy in the middle east, which had been a side burner issue at most, all of a sudden became our reason for being there. So perhaps you're right, Bush, Cheney and team didn't pick Iraq, the situation picked them when they completely fucked up the pre war intelligence and the post war strategy. This was, admittedly, not their fault. To suggest that the intelligence failures that happened before the war were Bush's fault is idiocy. That doesn't change the fact that it was wrong though. And, in the end, the decision to invade and to continue the occupation post WMD threat was Bush's and his advisors' decision. They have determined the course of the war, rightly or wrongly it was their decision in the end. So, once more even if you look at the grey areas in the issue it is still the right and the left deciding who will be freed and who will not. Once more, they just disagree on the means.
The rogue nations in the Middle East needed to be 'persuaded' not to help Al Qaeda getting WMD. Iraq is the tool to achieve that strategic goal. In that regards, the picture of Saddam in his underwear, doing his own laundy in his prison, did exactly just that.
That is one possible effect. The images of Saddam and the war in general have also pissed off a shitload of Muslims who otherwise might not have cared all that much. The possibility of giving the radical Muslims a common enemy to congeal around is just as likely as scaring them into submission with images of fallen dictators. The former is more likely to happen in the shadows and behind closed doors as well, making it a harder effect to observe. Your observations and ideas are possible, but we won't know until a good ten years from now what any of the lasting effects of the war will be, or perhaps when the next 9/11 hits and this time the guys who do it are Iraqis.
The result : 1. Saudi Arabia put Al Qaeda as public enemy number one.
Yes, they did. The problem is AQ is a decentralized network with no homeland. Saudi Arabia's efforts may, and in opinion probably will have the same effect as when this or that country decides to partner with the US to get tough on drugs. The poppy fields and exports from one country are replaced with those from another, and quickly.
2. Libya gave up WMD voluntarily.
The Lebanese are emboldened to kick out the Syrians.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The first and second are either in chaos or existing in barely held together order, the end for those two is not yet known. The second two are officially being nicer, the fifth has finally gotten off its ass and cracked down on AQ in its own borders. One wonders what they'll do if we ween ourselves off their oil though and their economy collapses. That's five of the some eight countries officially and somewhat arbitrarily included in Bush's web of terrorism/axis of evil. Iran is on its way toward a melt down, I don't think we're speaking to North Korea at all anymore, though some of our allies are. What's more, as I pointed out countries do not matter. Official support for terrorism is replacable in the end with private, of which there might be plenty if we keep killing Muslims and fucking around in their part of the world.
4. Al Qaeda is the most hated organization worldwide and its butchers are being hunted down and killed off.
Yes, I believe we've killed the number two man in AQ seven or eight times already. Interesting statistic. What it points out though is AQ members are replacable. Also I wouldn't point out the lack of attacks since 9/11, as there were quite a few years between their last two successful attacks.
5. Arabs are beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, that all their problems are not the result of Zionists and imperialists conspired oppression, but rather their own incompetent, corrupt government and oppressive religious backwardation.
There's little to no evidence to support this. The same "Jews drink blood" stories pop up in their newspapers, Pew research data is ambiguous on the matter. There was a recent essay in either National Interest or Foreign Affairs on this very issue which gave a good short summary of the data that is available on the attitudes of Arabs.
The most detailed and most indepth, and also most credible source of information on this topic is in ,
http://www.americassecretwar.com/ Highly recommended. it gives you a completely different perpective into the issues.
I'm aware of Stratfor and their analysis, though I've never read the book so I don't know what credibility to give their ideas. Except to perhaps point out that we have been overtly and covertly raising up and bringing down dictators for some time now and it doesn't seem to have done much of anything but piss people off. The demonstration of strength necessary for the Arab world to submit is too much for the American people to stomach in my opinion, and will likely never happen. As such the strategy, if Stratfor is right, is just a continuation of US half measures to maintain stability that will have no lasting effect except to generate more terrorists to attack our homeland.
It is a tried and failed tactic to go back into history and dig up all the past events that the current administration has nothing to do with, and use those to bash America today.
To bash them, yes I agree. To use them as a demonstration of failed policy is only common sense. Bashing the current administration for the failures of the past is wrong. Bashing Republicans in general for accusing Democrats of wanting to do something that the Republicans themselves have done on more than one occasion is perfectly fine. Republicans are snorting the cocaine of propping up evil dictators in front of Democrats and all the while warning them what a foolish thing it is to do.
Besides, thanks for muddying up my points. I was not originally talking about what the Republican or Democrate administrations have or have not done.
So who died and made you god now? Are you lefties specially vested with supreme power to decide WHO gets to live free and WHO gets to live under tryanny?
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Again, a self proclaimed advocate of democracy championing the cause of tyranny, is nothing but a mockery of what he claims to represent.
I was talking specifically about the 'democracy advocates' today being totally hypocritical when it comes to upholding what they claim to uphold. Today's Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are free from tyranny and the people are struggling against the remnants of the past tyrants. So where are those self-righteous 'advocates of democracy'? You would think that they would be falling over each other to help the citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, to build their struggling democracy.
Perhaps it's because they are more aware, or more likely because of politics to pay attention to, the failures of nation building on any level in the past. Perhaps they believe the safety of this nation is more important than, and not entwined with, the idea of promoting democracy abroad. In other words there's more than one way to look at the situation, something you seem to be ignoring.
But NOOOOOO.... These 'advocates of democracy' are so filled with blind hatred, that they are willing to betray their conscience and align themselves with the deposed tyrants!!
Not everyone who objects to the war is that woman at beginning of Celsius 41.11. Maybe they side with the dictator because at least he was predictable and not much of a threat in the end. Was he brutal? Yes. Is that horrible? Yes. There are serious moral and ethical questions surrounding the idea of taking US soldiers funded by US tax dollars overseas to make other people safer and potentially harm the US though. I know you subscribe to the Stratfor view, but that's not how the question is being framed in everyone's head, and rightfully so.
Not only they have done little to help the struggling people of Iraq to be free, they condemn loudly all the effort and sacrifice made to bring those people their basic freedom.
And YOU are basically saying that is OK!! Furthermore, you dragged out a laundry list of 'how do we know they want to be free?' , 'What right do we have to help them to be free from oppression?' I say, WTF is wrong with you?! LOL Are you so indulged in your intellectual mumbo jumbo that you have totally forsaken reality?
That would seem to be your role in this debate actually. The way you frame the debate above is again, a false dilema which suggests there is no consionable objection any reasonable person can hold toward this war and its intended ends. That's unrealistic and poor argumentation to say the least, not to mention ignores the thousands of years of history and hundreds of years of international law developed by various scholastics before Woodrow Wilson as inconsequential. My laundry list of questions are all valid ones. Perhaps whether or not we have the right to invade a country and 'free' its citizens, and perhaps questioning the consequences of doing so before following that strategy are questions that don't matter to you. The vast majority of people, regardless of what they think the proper answers to those questions are, would consider them reasonable to ask.
How do I know that?!! What kind of idiotic question is that?
Very well, I'll frame it differently then: how do you know they desire the classical liberal form of freedom and democracy we practice here in the states for the most part, and will not instead elect themselves a theocracy that will proceed to destroy all progress towards a genuine, classically liberal freedom in that part of the world? For all your claims of knowledge on this subject you're only allowing one, ethnocentric and unrealistic idea of what could be the result of promoting 'freedom' in the area. People in free democracies have repeatedly voted themselves new dictators over the course of history. The only two successful democracies to arise out of this kind of war are Germany and Japan, and that was after a full defeat militarily and with a massive soft power reconstruction plan implemented over years and years afterward. They were also not fradmented societies just as willing to kill each other as the US. This simplistic view that inside every person there is a freedom loving American is ridiculous. People and cultures are different and given the same tools of government will often reach different ends of varying desirability/threat to one another.
You may prefer to remain stuck in some bygone era. Get with the time, my friend. Go talk to the Afghans. Go talk to the Iraqis. Go talk to the Lebanese. And you can explain to them what YOU think AND know that they don't have any use for freedom.
Then why didn't they get off their asses and fight for it themselves as we did in our past? And why didn't we follow the time honored tradition of helping a foreign revolution to a desirable end, as the French did with us in the past, rather than starting one on our own? Once more, rights may be universal but their enforcement must be local.
It is absurd and arrogant for you to presume that ONLY YOU want to be free from oppression and tyranny. It is also braindead to argue about this basic human need. It is insane!
You're good with the name calling but very, very poor in your arguments. I have spoken with foreigners on many levels. Two of my past jobs necessitated it in depth. It is arrogance to presume you do know the minds of others, and that is your argument, not mine. Mine is that we don't know their minds and therefore cannot say with any certainty whether a liberal democracy can and will take hold in the middle east, and what the results of that will be. If they so desire freedom they, like others, would be fighting for it. Maybe they have all the freedom they want. If given more by us it's perfectly possible that the people being raped and tortured will simply switch positions with those doing the raping and torturing. To see the world as you do and fall for the Wilsonian dreamland foreign policy is to ignore reality. Most of our problems today can in fact be traced back to WWI and our idiotic involvment in that war. So, to look for gudinance on foreign policy to the ideals of the very man who could very arguably be blamed for a good many of our current problems seems odd to say the least.
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