From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Jan 24 2003 - 11:06:02 MST
Dickey, Michael F wrote:
In this case a clear and present threat exists, and yet
> many people still don't support it. How would the US get popular support
> behind attacking a regime that is not considered a clear and present threat?
> I am all for ousting the non-democratic despotic regimes all over the world,
> bring all humans into constitutional democratic republics and all the world
> will benefit.
Most of the world and even most US citizens do not belive a
clear and present threat of a magnitude to justify such action
has been shown. Endless assertions it exist without sufficient
proof to be convincing will not win for your position.
>
> But try to convince that goal to post-colonialist post-modern multicultural
> relativist liberals and see where it gets you. Accustations of forcing our
> crazy cultural ideals like free speech, equal rights, and individual and
> civil liberties on these other cultures. Which means we leave them to rot
> in oppresion, sexism, and tyranny in the name of 'respecting other cultures'
>
That is not the issue and your characterization is weak in any case.
> "Even if Iraq has to be liberated from Saddam tyranny, that task is much
> more complicated than just a military action game. The problem will be to
> esablish a stable, democratic system, that will honor human rights.
> Unfortunately, this is an idea, which is completely new in that region and
> has no roots there."
>
> Right, it is an ideal. So because it will be tough we shouldn't even try?
We should use reasonable means that don't at the same time shoot
us in the foot.
> We could try putting political pressure on saddam, get the UN inspectors in,
> or try an embargo, wait, we allready did all those things. So what should
> we do, just *hope* he doesn't have or use any weapons of mass destruction?
> I have yet to see any viable alternative course of action presented by the
> 'anti war' groups. Id be willing to listen of course.
>
We should finish the inspections, insure there are no WMD, and
reward compliance by lifting the sanctions bit by bit. We can
tie such lifting to more democratization within the country.
Over time it will get better. We have not done some of these
things yet.
> "And even worse: the US has no interest in such a development."
>
> And you know this howwwww....? Creating a democratic free arab nation over
> one of the largest sources of oil in the world will have profound benefits
> to the US. Not only would it undermine the OPEC oil price fixing, it would
> help to elimate the money Saudi's use to fund terrorists, and create an
> example to the Arab world of what a democratic free market embracing arab
> nation could be like. This would help to combat many west hating
> idealogies.
>
I don't see much evidence that we have been attempting to create
a free democratic nation in Iraq to date. That we might make
more money off of it is not a reason for going to war.
Regardless of the type of government Iraqi oil opening up will
not drive prices low enough to serious dent SA cash flow. If
you did do that you would actually also destabilize (further) SA
into the hands of its most radical elements most likely. You
don't create democratic free markets by force.
- samantha
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