I guess in your world, ignoring a threat constitutes a legimate defense policy. Lack of action on the part of 3 (where'd you get 3?) presidents doesn't establish a credible policy. Thus, if GWB 'one sunny day' decides to deal with a threat, he's not drafting a new policy. No policy existed in the first place. Assuming your argument is valid.
But, your argument doesn't work any becuase it was only during the Clinton administration that Iraq really began to violate U.N. resolutions (or had any sanctions to violate). The Clinton adminstration's rhetoric regarding Iraq in 1998 matches the current Bush administration rhetoric almost word for word (regardless of what Clinton says now). If you go back and look at what Clinton, Albright, etc. were saying in 1998, you would see almost the same issues. But Clinton choose not to invade, instead he sent a bunch of tomahawk missiles into the country as punishment. But those missile didn't achieve any objective, except replace Monica's testimony in U.S. headlines. The missiles didn't force Iraq to completely and honestly declare all of its WMDS. It did not compel Iraq to destory all of its WMDS. Instead Clinton's method of dealing with the situation proved one thing: only regime change was going to make Iraq comply with the agreements they had signed. But this is obvious becuase Iraq started taking the U.N. resolutions seriously only when an invading force started to amass on its borders. The problem with Iraq isn't the fact that it has WMDs, the problem is that it has a sadistic, power-hungry dictator AND WMDs. S.H is the problem... thus the need to change the regime..
Let's detach the Iraq-AlQaeda link altogether. Delete it from your mind, let it go...
Truth 1: Saddam Hussein is on a unrelenting quest for WMDs. If you deny this then your just being stupid.
Truth 2: Saddam Hussein has vowed revenge on the United States, and has attempted to fulfill this vow. He considers the U.S. a mortal enemy.
Truth 3: Saddam Hussein has used WMDs on his enemies in the past.
The war in Iraq springs not from the Iraq-AlQaeda link, but from Iraq's failure to live up to the peace agreement that it signed at the end of the first gulf war. Why is it necessary for Iraq to live up to the agreement? Becuase with WMDs Iraq has the absolute potential of destablizing the entire Middle East, and the probably potential of using WMDs on the United States homeland. Bush made the decision to finally make Iraq comply to the agreement it signed after the first gulf war. Why? Becuase if we create treaty, agreements, etc. with any nation, for any reason and these treaties, agreements, etc. have no enforcement, then the whole concept of an agreement becomes worthless and empty.
How does the U.S. actions prevent the U.N. from condemning the U.S.? By impotent, I am describing the U.N.'s ideological foundation. I know that the U.N. cannot intervene on a military level to stop the U.S. Instead I am suggesting that the U.N. issue condemnations or sanctions. The U.N. should come out and say that the U.S. is wrong. The U.N.'s problem is that it is not ideologically consistent.
The U.S. isn't going to have to foot the bill alone in Iraq, the U.N. is going to help us. How can they possibly deny a request to establish a democracy in what was previously a dictatorship? Plus, there are plenty of countries (France, Russia, Germany) who have commercial interests in the contracts that the 'new' Iraq will provide. I don't think the Iraq people are going to look favorable on nations that refuse to contribute cash to its cause.
During the day, the Iraqi ambassador to the U.N. attacked Kofi Annan and the U.N. Security Council for not stopping or condemning the United States..
He's correct. If the U.N. is going to maintain any integrity, it should condemn the United States for not first obtaining SPECIFIC U.N. approval to attack Iraq. How can the U.N. consider itself to be an organization with ANY weight or consequence if it allows its members to act unilateraly to resolve U.N. issues or enforce U.N. policies. Why is the U.N. standing silently by as its most powerful member 'bullys' one of its weaker members? Why isn't the U.N. condemning our actions?
Bush has put North Korea and Iran in the same category as Iraq. The goal is to eliminate the threat that these nations pose to the United States. Achieving this goal might differ in each case. With Iraq, Bush has chosen a war (conflict), with N.Korea this obviously would not work becuase it would mean the end of S.Korea, so he must try a different strategy.
With Iran, some believe that a natural revolution has potential. I don't know if this is a possibility, but it is a different solution for reaching the goal of eliminating the threat.
I am, again, in agreement with your comment on the poliferation of WMDs. But in each of the cases you give, we must try a solution that works best (and keeps us the farthest away from war). Maybe the 'dozen other places' will require a dozen unique solutions. But, with Iraq, Bush has chosen war. Whether or not this was the only option, or the most appropriate option is a question history will debate for the next century. I will say that U.N. sactions and weapons inspectors were not working....
Who says we have to prove there is a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq to consider Iraq a threat..
I completely agree that Bush hasn't provided a strong Iraq-Al Qaeda link, but Iraq is a problem in it's own right, just as with the Taliban in Afghanistan... we have a nation-state that has an official (governmental) devotion to the production of elements that can severly hurt the U.S. For the Taliban it was a devotion to terrorists, for Iraq it is a devotion to WMDs. We are not talking about some rebelous force within a nation, we are talking about the nation itself.. that is why the term 'regime change' is being used.
When people come together to interact.. to debate, share agreements or disagreements, etc.. The one thing that the must ABSOLUTELY agree on is language. Language provides the neutral medium by which humans share their thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. When we start to play games with language by arbitrarily redefining words, we corrupt the one essential and basic method of communicating. If we all started defining words to suite subjective view of life, we destroy the only objective platform for coexisting...
The intelligence community provides the information about the threats.. the military acts on this information.. the level of involvement of the military is dependant on the size and scope of the threat.. maybe a squad or two of Navy SEALs is all a particular threat needs (i.e. a terrorist training camp).. maybe a massive force deployment is needed (Iraq)..
The intelligence community cannot unseat Saddam, only the army, but the intelligence community provides the information that leads to the conclusion that Saddam should be unseated..
It's a interesting commentary on our times, when intelligent people hold so tightly to thier political presuppositions, that they ignore basic truths..
If there was any one BASIC lesson from 9/11, it was that a failure to PRE-EMPT our enemies, will lead our suffering...
A pre-emptive defense movement is NOT the same as an aggresive attack.
We must look past the action itself so examine the reasons for which the action was taken..
Aggressive legal department that goes after anything that even remotely looks like an Apple design, sending cease-and-desist letters to theme/skin designers
Apple's business/marketing strategy has been focused on branding. In a branding strategy the business isn't just selling a core product, it is selling other abstract entities (images, ideas, concepts, etc.). Apple's 'look-and-feel', its GUI quirks are a part of an overall technology 'experience' offered to consumers. From the very beginning (when the sledgehammer smashed the giant screen) Apple has sold ideas and image FIRST, technology SECOND...
Apple is fighting to protect a BRAND.. not technology...
Slashdot Mirror
But, your argument doesn't work any becuase it was only during the Clinton administration that Iraq really began to violate U.N. resolutions (or had any sanctions to violate). The Clinton adminstration's rhetoric regarding Iraq in 1998 matches the current Bush administration rhetoric almost word for word (regardless of what Clinton says now). If you go back and look at what Clinton, Albright, etc. were saying in 1998, you would see almost the same issues. But Clinton choose not to invade, instead he sent a bunch of tomahawk missiles into the country as punishment. But those missile didn't achieve any objective, except replace Monica's testimony in U.S. headlines. The missiles didn't force Iraq to completely and honestly declare all of its WMDS. It did not compel Iraq to destory all of its WMDS. Instead Clinton's method of dealing with the situation proved one thing: only regime change was going to make Iraq comply with the agreements they had signed. But this is obvious becuase Iraq started taking the U.N. resolutions seriously only when an invading force started to amass on its borders. The problem with Iraq isn't the fact that it has WMDs, the problem is that it has a sadistic, power-hungry dictator AND WMDs. S.H is the problem... thus the need to change the regime..
Truth 1: Saddam Hussein is on a unrelenting quest for WMDs. If you deny this then your just being stupid.
Truth 2: Saddam Hussein has vowed revenge on the United States, and has attempted to fulfill this vow. He considers the U.S. a mortal enemy.
Truth 3: Saddam Hussein has used WMDs on his enemies in the past.
The war in Iraq springs not from the Iraq-AlQaeda link, but from Iraq's failure to live up to the peace agreement that it signed at the end of the first gulf war. Why is it necessary for Iraq to live up to the agreement? Becuase with WMDs Iraq has the absolute potential of destablizing the entire Middle East, and the probably potential of using WMDs on the United States homeland. Bush made the decision to finally make Iraq comply to the agreement it signed after the first gulf war. Why? Becuase if we create treaty, agreements, etc. with any nation, for any reason and these treaties, agreements, etc. have no enforcement, then the whole concept of an agreement becomes worthless and empty.
How does the U.S. actions prevent the U.N. from condemning the U.S.? By impotent, I am describing the U.N.'s ideological foundation. I know that the U.N. cannot intervene on a military level to stop the U.S. Instead I am suggesting that the U.N. issue condemnations or sanctions. The U.N. should come out and say that the U.S. is wrong. The U.N.'s problem is that it is not ideologically consistent.
The U.S. isn't going to have to foot the bill alone in Iraq, the U.N. is going to help us. How can they possibly deny a request to establish a democracy in what was previously a dictatorship? Plus, there are plenty of countries (France, Russia, Germany) who have commercial interests in the contracts that the 'new' Iraq will provide. I don't think the Iraq people are going to look favorable on nations that refuse to contribute cash to its cause.
Answer: the U.N. is an impotent organization.
With Iran, some believe that a natural revolution has potential. I don't know if this is a possibility, but it is a different solution for reaching the goal of eliminating the threat.
I am, again, in agreement with your comment on the poliferation of WMDs. But in each of the cases you give, we must try a solution that works best (and keeps us the farthest away from war). Maybe the 'dozen other places' will require a dozen unique solutions. But, with Iraq, Bush has chosen war. Whether or not this was the only option, or the most appropriate option is a question history will debate for the next century. I will say that U.N. sactions and weapons inspectors were not working....
We keep our tards in line
A quote worthy of a bumber sticker.
I completely agree that Bush hasn't provided a strong Iraq-Al Qaeda link, but Iraq is a problem in it's own right, just as with the Taliban in Afghanistan... we have a nation-state that has an official (governmental) devotion to the production of elements that can severly hurt the U.S. For the Taliban it was a devotion to terrorists, for Iraq it is a devotion to WMDs. We are not talking about some rebelous force within a nation, we are talking about the nation itself.. that is why the term 'regime change' is being used.
When people come together to interact.. to debate, share agreements or disagreements, etc.. The one thing that the must ABSOLUTELY agree on is language. Language provides the neutral medium by which humans share their thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. When we start to play games with language by arbitrarily redefining words, we corrupt the one essential and basic method of communicating. If we all started defining words to suite subjective view of life, we destroy the only objective platform for coexisting...
So truth is powerless?
The intelligence community cannot unseat Saddam, only the army, but the intelligence community provides the information that leads to the conclusion that Saddam should be unseated..
It's a interesting commentary on our times, when intelligent people hold so tightly to thier political presuppositions, that they ignore basic truths.. If there was any one BASIC lesson from 9/11, it was that a failure to PRE-EMPT our enemies, will lead our suffering... A pre-emptive defense movement is NOT the same as an aggresive attack. We must look past the action itself so examine the reasons for which the action was taken..
Aggressive legal department that goes after anything that even remotely looks like an Apple design, sending cease-and-desist letters to theme/skin designers Apple's business/marketing strategy has been focused on branding. In a branding strategy the business isn't just selling a core product, it is selling other abstract entities (images, ideas, concepts, etc.). Apple's 'look-and-feel', its GUI quirks are a part of an overall technology 'experience' offered to consumers. From the very beginning (when the sledgehammer smashed the giant screen) Apple has sold ideas and image FIRST, technology SECOND... Apple is fighting to protect a BRAND.. not technology...