by Republican logic, we should have attacked the Soviet Union

and started WWIII.

After all, they had WMD's pointed right at us. We were told by our president that they were an "evil empire". They were a direct and imminent threat. Right?

So if anyone asks you "so you wish Saddam Hussein was back in power", you can say "yes".

Containment works. It worked for the Soviet Union and it was working in Iraq.

That's a fact, and that's the bottom line.

Ask them "you would have wanted to start WWIII with the Soviet Union, then, right?"

;-)

"you would have wanted to start WWIII with the Soviet Union, then, right?" I bet a lot of them would answer "Damn straight!"

"If we did, I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now."

Jay

It's the truth.

All those years of useless detente.

a much smaller, less well defended nation, with appropriate "natural rsources", such as Venezuela. Call it the thieving coward aspect of the bush* doctrine.

and one that I haven't heard made yet. I mean, we knew in 1946 that the USSR was going to be a threat to us. So if Harry had been a Republican, should he have launched a strike on Moscow to make the world a safer place?

Maybe more than Hitler. It would have been justifiable to take him. It was just not expedient.

There is no maybe about it.

The Bush doctrine might have justified an invasion of the USSR in the aftermath of WWII, at a time when the USSR was actively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons technology. But the Bush doctrine doesn't speak to a situation of where a country already HAS weapons of mass destruction that it can deploy in retaliation against the US. In those situations, you're back to good old fashioned mutually assured destruction (at least until you've developed an effective missile defense system).

So what's your point?

Yes, supposably they had WMD's (the 45 minute warning was technically only made by PM Blair), but nukes were in the making, not deployable.

This is why countries like Iran, North-Korea and Lord knows who, have accelerated their nuclear programs.
Pretty soon, 'nucular' devices will be on every country's priority list. After all, better safe than sorry.

I guess that is what Bush meant when he said he made the world safer under his leadership.:eyes:

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Or do you have other info?

Which is what we were talking about, right?

Sheesh, dolstein, you've got me really confused. Or are you rewriting history here?

Both Democrats and Republicans agree that America doesn't have to wait until it is attacked to respond militarily -- as long as there is an imminent threat, American can take preemptive action. For instance, if we knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor (and some people believe we did), we wouldn't have to wait until the bombs were falling in Hawaii in order to respond. We would have been within our rights to launch a preemptive strike against the Japanese forces.

The Bush doctrine takes the doctrine of preemption a step further. It says that when a country is seeking to build or acquire weapons of mass destruction, and there is reason to believe the country could use the weapons or sell them to terrorists, we don't have to wait until the weapons are built and deployable to take military action, because by then it would be too late. Once a country has deployable WMDs (and particularly nukes), the cost of a military strike rises exponentially. That's why we aren't going to take any military action against Korea, for instance.

Now you can certainly take issue with the administrations claims that Iraq was in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons or rebuilding its stock of chemical and biological weapons. You can also take the position that even Hussein wouldn't be crazy enough to use the damn things if he had them, although I think you'd be on far shakier ground there. But I find it hard to object to the basic proposition that we shouldn't have to wait until a country actually has nukes before doing anything militarily, for the simple reason that there just aren't any attractive military options once a country actually has nukes.

Under Republican logic, Iraq had a right to attack us. That's right.. us.

Here's the structure of Bush's pre-emptive argument:

"________ could attack our country, ________, in the near-future. This could potentially cause a significant number of deaths of our citizens, and harm to our economy. Such an attack could cause mass chaos in our country, and it could add to further world destabilization. Therefore, to protect our own country, we have the right to attack ________ before they attack us. Why take chances with those maniacs, right? Will it take a mushroom cloud over one of our cities to convince you?"

Let's fill-in the blanks, shall we? First, W's logic:
"Iraq could attack our country, America, in the near-future. This could potentially cause a significant number of deaths of our citizens, and harm to our economy. Such an attack could cause mass chaos in our country, and it could add to further world destabilization. Therefore, to protect our own country, we have the right to attack Iraq before they attack us. Why take chances with those maniacs, right? Will it take a mushroom cloud over one of our cities to convince you?"

Now, let's try a few other combinations. First:
"America could attack our country, Iraq, in the near future. This could cause potentially a significant number of deaths of our citizens, and harm to our economy. Such an attack could cause mass chaos in our country, and it could add to further world destabilization. Therefore, to protect our own country, we have the right to attack America before they attack us. Why take chances with those maniacs, right? Will it take a mushroom cloud over one of our cities to convince you?"

Next:
"India could attack our country, Pakistan, in the near future. This could cause potentially a significant number of deaths of our citizens, and harm to our economy. Such an attack could cause mass chaos in our country, and it could add to further world destabilization. Therefore, to protect our own country, we have the right to attack Pakistan before they attack us. Why take chances with those maniacs, right? Will it take a mushroom cloud over one of our cities to convince you?"

And so on.

The "logic" of pre-emption is dangerous.

I'm gonna steal that one. :)

Even my Repub relatives admit I have a point with that one.

explicitly says the US will NEVER allow another country to have parity with the US.

The US will never again put itself in the position it was in in the Cold War, where it could not attack with impunity its major enemy because of the possibility of retaliation.

The Bushies are very critical of deterrence; they would not have attacked the SU, since that would have been suicide.

They only attack little weak countries that can't really put up much of a fight in conventional terms (and of course they can't imagine that guerilla armies might stand up to the big bully on the block).

power, you can say, I never said that, I said the US should follow international law. Currently the US is in the business of removing dictators whose country's have oil. Just because Hussein is and was a bad guy, doesn't make our actions conform with the law.

But since you wish to remove dictators, there are about 100 other such regimes in the world, some having nuclear weapons, when are you signing up with the military to take them over?

And in the 1980s, when I said we should not support the brutal Hussein's Iraq, and your buddies sent him WMDs and money, and intelligence, you had no objection. During Gulf War I, when I said now was the time to move on to Bagdad and get rid of Hussein when we had a legal cause of war, you said no. Since Gulf War I Hussein became less of an actual danger every month, having destroyed all WMD. Yet your people said they knew for a fact he had WMD. So where are they? Why is it your government can lie to you about the causes of war and you don't question why you children now have a $150 billion plus debt to pay off? You don't question why 40,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, why hundreds of Americans are dead, thousands are wounded severely and for life, why the troops pay and benefits are bing cut, why they don't have the armor they need. Halliburton has everything it needs in Iraq. And it's charging you huge mark ups for gasoline over retail.

Since Jan 2001 we have lost 3 million jobs in this country and thousands of lives on 9/11. Yet the Bush administration refuses to help those out of work, and it refuses to turn over documents on 9/11 showing just how specific the warnings were and how the Bush administration ordered a standdown on terrorism. Republican Senator Arlen Spectre, who has seen the documents Bush won't turn over to the "independent commission" says that there were clear warnings.

Your hero Bush started a war based on what he knew were lies. A President that lies in order to get 1.5 billion Muslims pissed off at us is far more a danger to this country than Saddam Hussein ever was.

Why doesn't this president visit the injured soldiers as other presidents have done in wartime? He gives no thanks for thier sacrifice.

Again, I'm thinking "why is this sort of thing only being said on DU? Why isn't it on cable television? Why aren't most Americans hearing this?"

sigh ........:mad: