We should have done that in the first place, especially once we discovered that Iran was complicit in the 9/11 attack. Unfortunately, we apparently lacked the gonads to impose our will on a country that might actually be able to fight back to some extent, so we invaded a non-combatant instead and alienated most of the civilized world in the process. Brilliant strategy!

 

I know you believe we just went stomping into Iraq to flex our military might and steal some cans of oil. You keep ignoring all the UN resolutions and the actions of Saddam that led up to the justified attack.

Time is being spent with the UN now to build the same case against Iran. Why? Because the US doesn't just go stomping into a country and attack them like you want so desperately to believe.

 

... and, the reason we "alienated most of the civilized world" was not because the "civilized world" had some sort of higher morals than we. It's because we inadvertently cut off their illegal incomes from the Oil For Food Gravy Train program. We hit them skunks in their wallets and it hurt like hell. That's why they wouldn't shut up and support what was the right thing to do.

 

Yes, I understand you have a certain admiration for stupidity. Your hero, GW, during the first presidential debate, for example, explaining to the American public that we were completely justified in attacking Iraq because of the 9/11 attack that Saddam orchestrated. His opponent actually found it necessary to correct and explain to the man that it was Bin Laden and not Saddam who organized the 9/11 attack. That was perhaps the single most amazing display of stupidity I've ever witnessed.

The current administration has played GW and the American public with the most effective propaganda campaign this country has ever been subjected to, and you just sitting there staring at the pendulum of hypnosis. I wouldn't be surprised if future college textbooks aren't written in an effort to dissect the effectiveness of this campaign.

Your fondness for innocent dead bodies aside, this unprovoked invasion has been a disgrace from day one, and will rank right up there with the Spanish-American war as a low point in the history of this country.

 

Yep, that's why I admire you so much. Your use of a double negative (wouldn't/aren't) doesn't exactly show off your smarts.

No one here is claiming that GW is smart. You don't have to take an IQ test to be president. He's said much dumber things than blame Saddam for 9/11. I don't recall him doing that. Regardless, that's not why we attacked Iraq. Try again.

 

Well, Sharon says Israel won't unilaterally attack Iran's nuclear facilities. It seems odd, since they were quick to cream Iraq's nuclear plant. They would be either the first or second target of an Iranian nuclear weapon. Or, "nucular" weapon according to Dubya.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050413/D89EQCNG0.html

 

I think we need to get out of the Middle East as soon as possible. Our foray into Iraq will only end up in the Shiites turning to Iran and consolidating Islamic fundamentalist power. The West cannot change millions upon millions of Moslems that hate western values and detest America and all things American. Why spend American and English blood to change minds that cannot be changed and to modernize a culture we don't understand. I think Islamic fundamentalism must run its course and anything we do to meddle in Islamic affairs (we meaning the West) can only bolster and embolden the mullahs and their fanatical followers. Leave the Arabs, Persians and most other Moslems to their own devices. If they want to overthrow their current goverments and trade that in for theocratic rule, let that choice be theirs. We should not meddle in Middle Eastern Affairs beyond guranteeing the safety and security of Israel. We should, along with Russia, press the Israelis and Palestianians to once and for all partition their lands and get on with life. We ought to balance our largesse in the Middle East, i.e., if we give the Jews $3B a year, then we give the Moslems $3B a year. I'm not sure we can even stop them from becoming nuclear powers. We can, however, put ourselves on a defense and offensive posture to blast any Middle Eastern country who tries to fire a weapon of mass destruction at the United States of America or any of our territories or allies. Along with the aforementioned geo-political disengagement, we out to become fanatical about our national borders. We ought to have national identity cards. We need to be extremely choosy about who enters the United States, why they want to visit and how long they can stay and where they can go when they are here. As I see it, we stop nearly all student visas from Islamic states, we stop issuing visas for practically all middle eastern countries and we stop as much commercial intercourse with the Middle East as possible through draconian tarifs.


We must, however, reach energy independence from the Middle East and the whole of the Moslem world first; or at least live to a plan to be entirely free of the middle east within 10 years. In my mind, we should open up several avenues of energy independence including; conservation, nuclear energy, coal gasification, bio-fuels and other alternative technologies, e.g., solar, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, etc. In the meantime, we need to ratchet up CAFE standards and force the government (by voting in non-oil people) to spend R&D money on alternative fuels. We need to confront our "greenies" and crank up new nuclear plants. We need to fully exploit our coal reserves and have the government underwrite gassification plants. We need to incentivize farmers and energy producers to grow crops that can be turned into bio-fuels, e.g., corn, soy, etc.

In effect; we need to decouple ourselves from the Middle East and get out of Moslem countries altogether. I would go so far as to curtail satellite feeds to Moslem countries and stop sending them content they find offensive. Stop sending US movies to the middle east. Stop sending western clothes and goods to the middle east. Let them trade with the French and the Germans and the Chinese. We ought to respect Moslem's rights to regress to the 15th century if that is what they want to do. Democracy only works for people who want to be free. I don't see a mad rush from Iranians to free themselves from their Mullahs and Iyatollahs.

We will need to suffer economically as we decouple from the Moslem world, but the positive trade-offs will be manifold. We won't be held hostage to energy blockades by people that are hostile to us. We won't have to expend American lives fighting for people who inherently detest us. We won't have to accept large migrations of non-Judeo Christians that will serve to further divide our country along religious and racial lines. We will be able to better control our economy and our foriegn markets.

We need to live and let live. We should not be the world's policeman or the world's judge of how people ought to live their lives.

 

Your grand plan wouldn't work. Muslim extremists would find it offensive somehow. They are offended at everything we do, even if they aren't involved. It doesn't matter whether we're in the Middle East or not. It's our "policies" they are at war against. If we gave Israel $3B and gave the Muslims $3B, too, they'd attack the USA for giving the $3B to Israel. They are backward farm animals in need of gasoline enemas and other tortures. You can't reason with them.

What can they do, anyway? What do they know besides how to shoot or blow up innocent people in the name of their God because they are "offended" at something someone supposedly did to them? Can they work somewhere for money? Can they grow something to eat? No. They are losers and failures on a frenzied path to 72 virgins and some rugs. They can only blame other people for the misfortunes they bring upon themselves and then kill someone with the belief that it's justified. They prefer to kill Jews or Americans, but will kill each other when Jews or Americans are not available. Plain and simple, they are psycho killers. They are born and raised to kill.

As I've said before, Islam is an army, not a religion. By their silence, by their lack of outrage, the "good people" of Islam support the army of Islam.

 

I agree, by and large with your under laying principles, however, there is more to consider when contemplating decoupling of our cultures. First off, we are already part of a treaty that splits the foreign aide largesse between the Egyptians and the Israelis. I merely added in the Palestinians to the equation for geo-political balance. Because of the Zionist strength in this country we will never be able to disengage from them; the US is in perpetual support of Israel at least until the End of Days. And, until we break the bonds of oil slavery from the Middle East we will be forever engaged with the Moslem Arabs. My spin goes towards alignment with Israel at least on the basis of it being a plural democracy, which I assure you, from my years there in an officio capacity; they are entirely. The Moslems on the other had, due to their own sense of backwardness and humiliation at being left behind by the Western and Eastern socio-economic-politico evolutions towards pluralism, wealth and membership in the community of nations continue to press on as if the Crusades had never ended.

The Judeo-Christian world has been at war with the Moslems for as long as the miserable existence of Mohammed, their so-called prophet. Not that I give any quarter to the Christians or the Hebrews, for I am an unreconstructed atheist and believe there is hardly any worse catalyst towards wrongdoing than that brought about by god-believing and organized religion. Nevertheless, the Western world spins in the orbit of the Judeo-Christian beliefs, locked forever in a fight to the death with the Islamic world at the insistence of the Moslems. We need to realize that commerce, trade, intellectual exchange and cultural intercourse can only, inevitably and ultimately lead to violent confrontations with the Middle East, specifically, and the Islamic world generally. Let us bring ourselves to withdraw from the Moslems and build as many barriers to intercourse and cultural leakage as can practically be erected. Let's start with quenching our insatiable thirst for their oil and by curtailing physical and sociological interaction with their world. After all, that is the great thing, aside from the Palestinian-Israeli question, that drives them to hate us so vehemently. They do not want to be contaminated by our culture. Let's follow-up by closing our borders to all illegal immigration and coincidently impose a physical blockade against any intrusion by Moslems, good, bad or indifferent. And, we do apply similar travel discipline to our people .. We bar our citizenry from travel to Moslem countries with very few and infrequent exceptions. We withdraw our embassies and we send their plenipotentiaries back to their home states. In effect, we decouple in every way possible. Let them regress back to the 16th century and wallow in the middle ages of religious riot and zealotry. With the passing of time, the people themselves will moderate and destroy their fundamental mullah overlords ... And perhaps mature to become peoples of the world, rather than narrow-minded tribes people.

If we can stomach the killing of thousands of our kids and kill hundreds of thousands of their people to force the Muslims to interact with us in a civilized way ... why not save all the lives and just don't talk to them at all. It can be done ... we just need to solve OUR energy crises.

 

You're saying if we ignore them, they'll go away. If we close our eyes, they'll disappear. That's pretty naive. Pretty dangerous, too. They want to control the entire world and kill everyone that isn't Muslim. They don't want to share. Where have you been?