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Explain this Please
"We invaded Afghanistan and less than 3 years later, they have held the first democratic elections there without barely a hitch."
So, if we invade any country, and they later hold the first democratic elections there, it's justified? (This all ignores the fact that it's just abusrd to expect that Afghanistan will be a functioning democracy after the US military leaves.) I agree that we did the right thing by going into Afghanistan to go after AQ, but the whole democrary-building argument is a joke. Are we going to go into every country in the world which doesn't have democracy the way the current administration likes it, or just the ones that have powerful people in them who want to kill us, like Iran and North Korea?
"We invaded Iraq - removed a brutal tyrant (and correcting the mistakes of trusting him 20 years earlier as a buffer to Iran) - and liberated its people - who are on there way to similar democratic elections. Also benefitting the citizens of Israel, who have fewer Iraqi-paid assassins to worry about."
The Israel angle is interesting. I wonder if Israel would really be benefited by any other US military action in the region. Maybe while we were there, but I worry that it would just make the rest of the region want to kill them even more as soon as we left.
As for removing brutal tyrants, sure, that's good. Are you claiming that SH was the most burtal tyrant in the world and that's why we went in? I recall something about some weapons he supposedly had.
"Countries like Libya have gotten in line. Pakistan is shaping up its act."
Are we going to use the result of countries getting in line to justify going after a bunch of other nations, too?
"We are removing our troops (and all of the benefits that flow therefrom) from such non-Allies as Germany, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
We have revealed the corruption at the heart and soul of the UN."
Ooh, John Birch stuff! This is getting fun.
"You happy, ratface?"
Come on, say what you REALLY want to say about my avatar. You know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I just want you to actually describe your standards for pre-emptive war, and frame them in a way that justifies what we did in Iraq. The model should justify what we did and what we are doing in Afghanistan, too, even though that's not really pre-emptive.
I'll start for Afghanistan: if someone attacks us, and there is good evidence of it, we should go after them and bring them to justice, no matter what country they are in. If the attacker is so horribly intertwined with the government (even putative in nature) of a state, we should remove them as well. We should try to establish a stable government, including the building of infrastructure and the encouragement of the internal exploitation of natural resources. We should do little to impose our morays beyond basic human rights. We should be honest about the reality of building an American-style democracy there. We should have bought Bush a copy of SimWorld. It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than this pipe dream of a real democracy in a country like Afghanistan.
Now, you go. Tell me why we are in Iraq and why we aren't in fifteen other countries. Tell me why the poor planning and political war-mongering was justified.
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