Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw said:
Therumancer said:
Truth is I'm all in favor of a withdrawal from the region, but only after leaving behind a ton of ordinance. I'm not talking "Shock and Awe" but "Death and Destruction".
Whats the point in trying to help the people of a region if you kill them all in the process?
We're there to try to forge human rights, not take away millions of peoples basic right to survive. Priorities here!
1st Edit: Was Ghengis Khan right to murder his way across three continents only to be a nice ruler to the few pathetic survivors? I certainly don't think so.
Well, my priorities are a lot differant from yours. As far as I am concerned I could really give a crud about The Middle East. Simply put they have oil, we have money, we give them money for oil, and generally speaking the arrangement works.
The problem of course being the fact that the culture is basically xenocidal and out to basically destroy or assimilate anything not like themselves. You have a leadership that puts on two faces and trades with us, while oftentimes trying to brush this under the rug so to speak. That's also fine, as long as they basically leave us alone.
In general we've had numerous attacks over the years from the region, and more or less responded with measured force and diplomacy while we've left it up to the leadership there to "Deal with the problem". As the level of threat was fairly minimal, we mostly left it at that.
However 9/11 happened, we faced a decapitation strike against our goverment. We foiled only one out of three prongs of the attack, and this of course upgraded Muslim culture from "annoyance from a trade partner" to "threat". With that attack we had the capability to inflict massive damage demonstrated, combined with a culture that possesses the expressed desire to do so.
The "purpose" of our involvement is not to conquer and rule over the people, it is not to make friends with them, it is not to increase their standard of living. As far as i am concerned the purpose is simply to remove the threat they pose to the US by any means nessicary.
As I have stated before, while I am generally right wing, *MY* criticisms of Bush were never about starting the war, or even going into Iraq. It was the way he turned this entire thing into an ongoing police action, and began this whole "winning the peace" rebuilding thing along with the propaganda behind it largely so he could hand out juicy goverment contracts in exchange for kickbacks. Of course Cheney got caught being more greedy than he did.
The basic problem with this entire "war" is that it ceased to be a war. We should have gone down there, leveled the place (and anyone else who looked at us crosseyed) and then went home. The purpose being to remove the threat, I didn't care about these guys before, I don't care about them now.
Instead what happened was Bush decided to go pseudo-liberal, and embrace this "morality" for the sole purpose of being able to give his buddies goverment contracts so they in turn would take a portion of that goverment money and stick it in his pocket (one way or another) later on. Cheney was even worse because he was even greedier than that, he pretty much wound up awarding contracts to companies he had a direct, personal, stake in (he denies it, and there were investigations, but it's pretty bloody obvious).
At any rate, the point is that one goes to war to remove a threat, not to sit around and act as a combination police force and meals on wheels. There should never have been any confusion about "helping" these people. The point should have been very clearly to just hammer them into dust and then go home. That way next time someone gets a wise idea about messing with America all they have to do is look at The Middle East as an object lesson as to why that really isn't a good idea.
Right now we're a laughing stock. What happens if you mess with America? You try and destroy our goverment, and we come into your country and build up your infrastructure for you. Woo Hoo!
I mean seriously, mass bombing loses a lot of effect as a punishment if you just come in and start passing out gifts afterwards.
These guys shouldin't be taking potshots with rifles and RPGs, they should be cowering in holes in the ground alternatly fearful as to whether a bomb will fall on them, or if they will die from enviromental aftereffects of the othr munions we destroyed.
9/11 was the last straw of some bad history, I have no illusions about these guys ever being our friends. There are no "oppressed liberal peasants" just waiting to come out and shine. It's differant groups of xenocidal maniacs. The Taliban/Northern Alliance being examples of why we can't trust these guys.