Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Sanctions?

Invasion?

What's right here (presuming the answerer has a decent grasp of the facts, which I admittedly do not)?

We shouldn't invade. Human rights violations don't justify a war. That sort of perverse logic leads to endless war accross backwater countries in which we have no strategic interest.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The marriage amendment is not inconsistent with that position.

The amendment he backed would have barred civil unions.

On the other thing, if you really thing Bush has governed in a centrist, bipartisan manner, I'm not going to try to argue with you, but perhaps NASA will send an expedition your way one of these years.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The amendment he backed would have barred civil unions.

We had this discussion. It would not under my reading of the statute.

On the other thing, if you really thing Bush has governed in a centrist, bipartisan manner, I'm not going to try to argue with you, but perhaps NASA will send an expedition your way one of these years.

Centrist and bipartisan are clearly not the same thing. I never said he governed in a bipartisan manner (though I think he tried in the beginning - see e.g., working with Teddy on education reform), but no president ever does.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
We shouldn't invade. Human rights violations don't justify a war. That sort of perverse logic leads to endless war accross backwater countries in which we have no strategic interest.

Please explain our foray into eastern europe in the 90s. Were you for or against it.

To answer Hello, sanctions only harm the innocent and should never be a consideration. I believe SAM believes it would only take 3,000 soldiers. I have no visibility on that, but if that's the case, you'd think that NATO could pony that up.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Please explain our foray into eastern europe in the 90s. Were you for or against it.

To answer Hello, sanctions only harm the innocent and should never be a consideration. I believe SAM believes it would only take 3,000 soldiers. I have no visibility on that, but if that's the case, you'd think that NATO could pony that up.

If its truly genocide (as compared to bilateral warfare, for example), and someone could come up with a good plan (i.e., if Rummy and Wolfy could excuse themselves from the Pentagon conference room for a few minutes), and if the cost is not expected to be a thousand dead americans, than I'm for it. Genocide should never be tolerated by America, even if we stand alone, and this message should be so clear that Bush should sing it from the rooftops if its what he believes (see the retrospective justifications for Iraq).

I'm not SitC, but I'll answer your query. If we could go back and intervene in Rwanda, I'd be for it. And Bosnia was the right call, and it should have been made earlier when the Sarajevo footage was coming out nightly showing snipered civilians laying slaughtered in the streets (sometimes the slaughtering occuring on camera).

If we want the world to believe us for one instance, than we should be consistent in all other instances within reason. This would be a great opportunity for the U.S. to show leadership.

Underlying it all though is this: Is this organized genocide? If so, where the fuck is the U.S. press in covering the story?

Hello

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
If its truly genocide (as compared to bilateral warfare, for example), and someone could come up with a good plan (i.e., if Rummy and Wolfy could excuse themselves from the Pentagon conference room for a few minutes), and if the cost is not expected to be a thousand dead americans, than I'm for it. Genocide should never be tolerated by America, even if we stand alone, and this message should be so clear that Bush should sing it from the rooftops if its what he believes (see the retrospective justifications for Iraq).

I'm not SitC, but I'll answer your query. If we could go back and intervene in Rwanda, I'd be for it. And Bosnia was the right call, and it should have been made earlier when the Sarajevo footage was coming out nightly showing snipered civilians laying slaughtered in the streets (sometimes the slaughtering occuring on camera).

If we want the world to believe us for one instance, than we should be consistent in all other instances within reason. This would be a great opportunity for the U.S. to show leadership.

Underlying it all though is this: Is this organized genocide? If so, where the fuck is the U.S. press in covering the story?

Hello

Agreed on all counts, with the exception that our military capabilities are not unlimited and we need to prioritize.

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Please explain our foray into eastern europe in the 90s. Were you for or against it.

If the Yugoslavians want to murder each other, that's their prerogative. We should only use the US military when it helps, or prevents harm to, the US' economic interests.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
If the Yugoslavians want to murder each other, that's their prerogative. We should only use the US military when it helps, or prevents harm to, the US' economic interests.

Damn, fell for schtick

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
We shouldn't invade. Human rights violations don't justify a war. That sort of perverse logic leads to endless war accross backwater countries in which we have no strategic interest.

I don't know if you're right or wrong, but the recent articles wherein long time intell analysts have been saying we're actually engaged not in a war against terrorism, but a war against a growing Islamic ideology, suggest that we have to fight radical islam on every front. Radical Islam is behind the killing in Sudan, so maybe its worth it to fight.

Personally, when I read about Arabs raping and murdering Africans they consider infidels (nevermind that its the Africans', not the Arabs' country), I tend to think a little Vietnam style napalm and heavy artillery action is necessitated.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
We shouldn't invade. Human rights violations don't justify a war. That sort of perverse logic leads to endless war accross backwater countries in which we have no strategic interest.

I'd be more inclined to engage a UN evacuation effort for the people being killed. The Arabian fighters behind the killing aim to rid the country of non-muslim Africans. Well, I say give it to them. Get the innocents out of harm's way.

Then bomb the country into the stone age. When new Arabs move in to rebuild, reload and repeat. No ground troops. Daisy cutters.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'd be more inclined to engage a UN evacuation effort for the people being killed. The Arabian fighters behind the killing aim to rid the country of non-muslim Africans. Well, I say give it to them. Get the innocents out of harm's way.

Then bomb the country into the stone age. When new Arabs move in to rebuild, reload and repeat. No ground troops. Daisy cutters.

Because Arabs only respect force, right?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Because Arabs only respect force, right?

Nice loaded question. If I answer yes, you get all PC on my ass...

So if you give me a PC "I'm horrified at your generalization" reply, I will take that as admission that you have no rebuttal. That said, my answer is, historically, yes, radical Islamist Arabs have only responded to force.

And to suggest that there can be some detante with radical Islam is ludicrous. Unlike the cold war on Communism, our enemy now is not afraid of death. You can't reason with them, you can't placate them, you can't isolate yourself from them and you can't talk to them. What form of reaction would you choose? There's no carrot.

The nice thing about Radical Islam is that it is lashing out in all directions. On a map, its epicenter is contained by organized stronger nations on all sides. To the east, China and India. To the North, Russia. To the South, Australia. Its only avenue for real malignant spread is Africa. God help it if it hits India or China with any serious attack. All we need is one tiny excuse to squeeze it. And the Russians would be thrilled at any pretext which would allow it to massacre the Chechnyans under the guise of fighting terrorism.

If we cut off Africa, we can contain it and push its attacks elsewhere. The more it hits others, the less the world will "blame the US" and the more it will say "Allright, lets deal with these waterheads."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
So if you give me a PC "I'm horrified at your generalization" reply, I will take that as admission that you have no rebuttal. That said, my answer is, historically, yes, radical Islamist Arabs have only responded to force.

And to suggest that there can be some detante with radical Islam is ludicrous. Unlike the cold war on Communism, our enemy now is not afraid of death. You can't reason with them, you can't placate them, you can't isolate yourself from them and you can't talk to them. What form of reaction would you choose? There's no carrot.

I was thinking that force doesn't work so well. E.g., not for the Russians in Chechnya and Afghanistan. We put panties on the heads of prisoners in Iraq, and yet they're not backing down yet -- if that doesn't stop them, what will?

So you don't mean that they respect force. You mean that there's no point in talking, we should just get all Rambo on their ass because they're trying to kill us, so we should just kill them.

I'm not really going to argue with you about this, except to note that the brilliant foreign-policy strategist George W. Bush implicitly rejected your approach when he decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq instead of simply bombing them back to the Stone Age. I don't usually find myself touting his views, but strange bedfellows and all that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I was thinking that force doesn't work so well. E.g., not for the Russians in Chechnya and Afghanistan. We put panties on the heads of prisoners in Iraq, and yet they're not backing down yet -- if that doesn't stop them, what will?

So you don't mean that they respect force. You mean that there's no point in talking, we should just get all Rambo on their ass because they're trying to kill us, so we should just kill them.

I'm not really going to argue with you about this, except to note that the brilliant foreign-policy strategist George W. Bush implicitly rejected your approach when he decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq instead of simply bombing them back to the Stone Age. I don't usually find myself touting his views, but strange bedfellows and all that.

I view Bush's efforts in Afghanistan as half-assed. He should have demanded that the Pakistanis let us use the provinces as a testing ground for new weapons. We should have just bombed it until it glowed a funny color, then bombed it some more. Make sure that whatever lives in it can't eat anything grown in its soil. Hell, we could have done that by giving Musharraf a few billion. He'd take it.

Iraq is a good idea gone totally wrong. Bush needed to integrate the Baathists, not take them out. They're cruels bastards, but they're secularists. If he kept their party apparatus together, he'd have a strong party to hand power to. Instead, he has a cobbled together affiliation of disparate tribes. It'll never last, but it has done one great thing - it exported the terror war to Iraq. Its much better to have Zarqawi targeting Iraq than NYC.

They don't respect anything, but horrifying force is demoralizing. You don't see Islamists in Syria anymore, do you? No, because they rose up once and Assad retaliated by leveling an entire neighborhood where they were concentrated. The Islamists still write about it as a horror of proportions they've never seen. No one got out. Lamentable? Sure, but you haven't seen any islamists demanding overthrow of the Syrian monarchy, have you? That butchering scared them silent. That, and Hussein's brutal persecution of Islamists in Iraq, were the only two times radical Islam has been effectively stopped dead. You can't handle animals with a velvet glove. Islam lives and dies by the sword. Give it what it wants and get it over with.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I view Bush's efforts in Afghanistan as half-assed. He should have demanded that the Pakistanis let us use the provinces as a testing ground for new weapons. We should have just bombed it until it glowed a funny color, then bombed it some more. Make sure that whatever lives in it can't eat anything grown in its soil. Hell, we could have done that by giving Musharraf a few billion. He'd take it.

Sure, that would have been consistent with American values. Well, the Republican Party's, anyway.

Iraq is a good idea gone totally wrong. Bush needed to integrate the Baathists, not take them out. They're cruels bastards, but they're secularists. If he kept their party apparatus together, he'd have a strong party to hand power to. Instead, he has a cobbled together affiliation of disparate tribes. It'll never last, but it has done one great thing - it exported the terror war to Iraq. Its much better to have Zarqawi targeting Iraq than NYC.

I agree with you, except replace "good" with "bad" and so on. You'd be right about the terror war if it was a zero-sum game. We'll be paying for this one for years.

They don't respect anything, but horrifying force is demoralizing.

Except when it isn't. Hitler thought the British would cave after Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, but he was wrong.

You don't see Islamists in Syria anymore, do you? No, because they rose up once and Assad retaliated by leveling an entire neighborhood where they were concentrated. The Islamists still write about it as a horror of proportions they've never seen. No one got out. Lamentable? Sure, but you haven't seen any islamists demanding overthrow of the Syrian monarchy, have you? That butchering scared them silent. That, and Hussein's brutal persecution of Islamists in Iraq, were the only two times radical Islam has been effectively stopped dead.

And this explains why radical Islam has conquered the entire world, except for Syria and Iraq.

You can't handle animals with a velvet glove.

I would get all PC on your ass here, but what's the point? They're just animals, so bomb 'em 'til they glow. And God bless America.