Pakistan qualifies in spades on points 2-4.

Two-Thirds of the U.N's countries are controlled by Dictators. Some are Old-fashioned ones like Kim Jong and Castro. Others like Zimbabwe's Mugabe kill opponents and use fraudulent elections to stay in power. Others like Saudi Arabia have a Royal Family with Total Power. When an International Body eliminates those loathsome people as members, then they will deserve to be listened to, NOT before that time.

The point is that all of those Dictators are current U.N. members.... therefore these 4 criteria should mean that we also eliminate them from the U.N. or eliminate the U.N. itself.

No, there is one requirement for conservatives:

1. Does removing this dictator serve immediate US interests?

Saddam only qualified after Al-Qaeda appeared. At that point his country became a convenient base and smokescreen for the war on terrorism.

There's also only one requirement for liberals:

1. Does this removal make for a feel-good news story; that is, will everybody like us? Bonus points if the action does NOT serve US interests.

There are several things people forget about Saddam.

1) The northern and southern "no-fly zones" had an almost continual barrage of AAA directed at the aircraft patrolling them. That is, Iraqis under Saddam's directions, shooting at us.

2) Saddam HAD used chemical weapons in the past, he WANTED nuclear weapons, he had PLANNED not only to get them, but to USE them as well. He had the MEANS to get them, and scientists skilled enough to BUILD them. In truth, he had almost ALL the things he needed to make them,
including a huge amount of yellowcake uranium. And gosh, even though the UN inspectors didn't find any, remember that they were searching a country the size of Idaho. Gosh, now how could it be to find something the size of a volkswagen, below ground in Idaho?

3) This is a man who was trained as an assassin, who was intensely paranoid, who on his own and with his sons had personally executed people and ordered WMDs used against civilians in his own country, too. Who tortured and committed genocide, and was an ABSOLUTE ruler of his dictatorship. He also LOVED exotic and bizarre weapons like his giant cannon.

4) His #1 target was Israel, a nuclear power with about 200+ nuclear weapons. Had he pitched a nuclear weapon at them, with one of his EXISTING ILLEGALLY LARGE MISSILES THAT HAVE BEEN FOUND, Israel would most likely have retaliated by not only ANNIHILATING BAGDAD, but also TEHRAN, MECCA, RIYADH, AMMAN, DAMASCUS, TRIPOLI, KABUL, ISLAMABAD, DHAKA, and even KUALA LUMPUR if it was in range.
The general consensus is that this would be a bad thing.

Minor quibble on a specific about Turkmenistan, Alan. They haven't given the US airfields, but they have granted overflight rights. Without looking it up, bases go like so in Central Asia:
Kyrgyzstan: Russia, US
Tajikistan: France, India (probably...)
Uzbekistan: US, Germany

As far as drawing the line, I think the ideas suggested by Charles Krauthammer are the beginnings of a foreign policy aimed at democratic enlargement. He runs into the same problem of drawing the line, but moves a little further by saying military action should be used "where it counts." He doesn't really define that well, but he suggests that you should commit forces to countries where democratization would have a ripple effect in neighboring states.

Iraq: yep
Iran: no, because it is Persian and Shia, changes in its political culture won't necessarily have the impact of changes in an Arab and Sunni state (though I think that's debatable).

Turkmenistan: Hell no. There are only 5 million people there, and other than carpets, there's not much culturally that flows out of the country. If you wanted to make a difference in Central Asian politics, you'd knock off Karimov, even though I don't see much reason for doing so.

As far as Turkmenistan's concerned too, all they have to do is get crazy enough towards the Uzbeks or start treating their Uzbeks like dirt again (like they did in 2002-2003), and the Uzbek military might see fit to get rid of them.

The line or lines should be drawn on truth.

Does the mass slaughter of innocents by the alleged "good guys" justify the mass slaughter of innocents by the alleged "bad guys?

Are there actual legitimate and imminent threats to Americans and American interests, or can a tiny clan of rightwingideologues warmongers and profiteers pimping threats deceptively justify and mask singular and exclusive ulterior interests?

Do the people have the right to an accurate assessment of the costs, timeframes, commitments, and ultimate objectives of war, occupation, nationbuiding, and must not leadership be held accountable for profiteering abuses, and radical miscalculations - or can the same clan of rightwingideologue war pimps and profiteers just make up numbers to suit the current polling or simply cloak the costs heaped the people as "unknown unknowns"?

Should war and the use of military force actually be the very LAST option, after all diplomatic and other alternatives have been exhausted - or can the same clan of rightwingideologue war pimps and profiteers drunk on the delusions American hypersuperiority and empire hurl our daughters and sons to war based on a long and festering list of deceptions and woefully misguided and radically miscalulated assumptions when ever they please?

Truth should define all our actions. Truth should determine our agenda.

By that and any measurement the Bush government is sorely lacking, - and any hope America holds for further legitimate discourse along these lines depends on a just and necessary regime change here in America in 2004, because truth - and the Bush government are mutually exclusive.

A government, a nation, a war, a policy, or an agenda based on deceptions, fictions, disinformation, partisan propaganda, rightwingideologue delusions, fantasies, and false assumptions is doomed to fail - and we need only examine the unraveling horrors in Iraq, the neverending (and unfortunately rapidly expanding) waronterror , the bankrupting of the American economy, the ravaging of the peoples essential rights, freedoms, protections, and privaleges, the obscene profiteering in Iraq and beyond, the robbing from the poor and middle class to feed the super rich, the environmental irresponsibility, the laughable illusions of the No Child Left Behind Act, and virtually every word policy and agenda disingenously spewed out by the Bush government as clear, present, and quite obvious proof.

The Bush government is built upon and dependent on deception, myth, and partisan fantasy and cannot and will not stand.

Tony F.

Reality from a Yahoo News article:

A London Radical Moslem cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad states as follows:

He added: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity."

He said the network currently has some 11,000 members around the world who are working towards the aim of establishing a grand pan-Islamic caliphate covering several countries with majority Muslim populations.

"With September 11, Al-Qaeda convinced Muslims that it has the power to put its plan in practice," he said.

Well, well, well, look who it is. My favorite Orwellian chew-toy, Tony Foresta. We miss you so much over at Misha's.

Nice to see you haven't changed one bit.

Good answers, bad question, IMO. The question should be where do we draw the line at respecting a nation's sovereignty. I say if their not a democracy they're not a real country and thus they have no sovereignty to respect. If a non-democracy/non-country threatens anyone then it's international open season on their despots. No bag limit.

:jackson

Speaking of an Arab Caliphat, anyone see the "Why Arabs hate the West" special on the History channel last night? It talked about how the Arab culture has hated the West since the Crusades, and talked a lot about UBL's al-Q planning strategy. Worth the watch if it repeats this week...

The problem with North Korea is that Kim has the bomb. So attacking him will provoke a retaliation that we are just not willing to risk at this time.

Plus, as I understand the strategy, North Korea is running out of time anyway. It can't feed its own people, and a lot of his people are noticing his lifestyle, compared to their own. By keeping them talking with this endless round of disarmament talks and by involving the other powers in the area, this keeps NK in a state whereby use of his nuclear arsenal would be an even worse idea so far.

As for Tony's Ode to Truth, the truth remains that Saddam was a bad guy, a clear and present, if not impending danger to the US, her allies and her interests. While the intelligence may not have been perfect, I am reminded of the words of the Secratary of Defense. Smoking guns only smoke AFTER they have been fired.

You have to do the best you can with what you got. If you put the intelligence bar too high, if you need too much certainty before you act, you end up with your proof at the bottom of a 10 megaton crater where New York or some other major city used to be.

Besides which, if Bush lied about Saddam's WMDs, then so did Clinton. So did the UN. So did France, Russia and every other intelligence agency on the planet. At one time the Democrat liberal left thought Saddam's removal was a good idea. Back in 98 they even made it the offical policy of this country. But now that a Republican actually implemented that policy, somehow it is just not right.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (Click here should you choose to sign out.)

As you post your comment, please mind our simple comment policy: we welcome all perspectives, but require that comments be both civil and respectful. We also ask that you avoid the extensive use of profanity, racist terms (neither of which we consider civil or respectful), and other boorish language.

We reserve the right to delete any comment, and to prohibit you from commenting on this site, if we feel you have broached this policy. As a courtesy, we will first send you an email noting a violation so you understand the boundaries. This will occur only once, however, and should we ban you from our comment forums we expect that ban to be permanent.

We also will frown upon those who suggest that we ban other individuals for voicing unpopular opinions, should those opinions be voiced in a civil and respectful manner. The point of our comment threads is to provide a forum for spirited though civil and respectful discourse … it is not to provide a forum in which everyone will agree with your point of view.

If you can live by these rules, welcome aboard. If not, then we’re sorry it didn’t work out, and thanks for visiting The Command Post.

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: