the_gneech (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_gneech) wrote2003-12-15 12:33 pm
the_gneech) wrote2003-12-15 12:33 pm
Argh
Okay, look:
Let fly with your flames if you want, I'll put on my asbestos undies. But if you decide to yell at me, at least try to understand my point first.
-The Gneech
- The capture of Saddam Hussien is not as significant to internal U.S. politics as a lot of people seem to think it is. Swing voters generally swing on economic issues, not foreign policy.
- Saddam Hussien did not "magically appear during an election year." What do people think those guys in Iraq have been doing for the past year, standing around with targets on their chests until it was politically expedient to do something? The man was hard to find, for cryin' out loud.
- How come if something is perceived as being going badly in Iraq, Bush gets all the blame, but if something is perceived as being good, he gets none of the credit? Is he "Fall Guy in Chief?"
- Most importantly, on Saddam's orders, populations were slaughtered; one of his elite guard's favorite ways of dealing with dissenters was to force them to watch family members being raped or brutalized; he basically bled the country dry so his own family and favored lackeys would be rich, rich, rich. If somebody's first reaction upon hearing of his capture is to think, "Uh oh, Bush might get a blip in the polls," I gotta think that person's priorities are way out of whack. It's like the Palestinians saying, "Yes, he was a brutal tyrant, but at least he's Muslim" -- isn't that missing the big picture? There is so much more going on in the world than the incessant bickering of Demidupes vs. Pooblioobs!
Let fly with your flames if you want, I'll put on my asbestos undies. But if you decide to yell at me, at least try to understand my point first.
-The Gneech
Re: Does the phrase, "Commander in Chief", mean nothing?
Machiavelli was right when he said that all men (and women) act in their own self interest. Nations are the same way. Were we not, as a nation, interested in the war, we would not be acting in such a way as to arrest Saddam. That is Bush's policy: to act, as our leader, in our national-self interest. As he and his advisors see it, the current war in Iraq satisfies what is, at minimum, a thirteen-year-old national interest. Without it, there is nothing to drive the arrest. If the policy is bad, then the arrest is bad, because it is made on the basis of the policy. If the arrest is good, then the policy is good, because it is the cause for the arrest.
-=TK, who thinks the Arrest is better than the Fall of the Wall
no subject
-TG
Re: Does the phrase, "Commander in Chief", mean nothing?
We should have worked within the system, not thrown the system out when it didn't meet our needs or timetable. I agree that the Saddam government should have been dealt with because they were a threat to their neighbors and their own citizens. However, I don't agree with how it was done in this case. This is the main reason I don't agree with Bush's policy in this matter because of him rushing into war, it put all the responsibilities squarly on our shoulders with little real backing from other countries (except for England)
I have to also disagree with your comparision of the falling of the Berlin Wall and the arest of Saddam. The wall represetend Communisim, a direct and massive threat to our way of life...something we lived under for 40+ years. Saddam was a head of a dictator of a 3rd world country that represented little threat outside of his region.
In retrospect, I think I'll leave a calmer note...
-=TK