in case you thought Patraeus was apolitical ...

[AEON]

Originally posted by Irvine511



you do realize you sound *exactly* like a late 19th century british aristocrat.

Is that bad?

[Vincent Vega]

You can screw up your country without leaving the path of a disguised democracy.

[namkcuR]

Originally posted by Irvine511




you're not resurrecting the infamous 1441, are you?

Where IS Sting? It seems like it's been a good while since I got to see him use 1441 as his answer to all antiwar arguements.

[deep]

Originally posted by AEON


Well - France doesn't do what we wish and we don't bomb it. The point is that if a democratically elected leader turns the country into a dictatorship after he takes office, it is no longer a democracy but a dictatorship.

Iran has elections

and the people choose their leaders


yet, is it W's policy to push for and support regime change in Iran

and they are even financing and supporting underground groups for that goal.

[Vincent Vega]

Originally posted by namkcuR


Where IS Sting? It seems like it's been a good while since I got to see him use 1441 as his answer to all antiwar arguements.

His last post was in May.

[A_Wanderer]

Originally posted by Irvine511




so where does it stop?

is it possible that some cultures can live and thrive by a system other than a liberal democracy?

you do realize you sound *exactly* like a late 19th century british aristocrat.

Yes Arab and Muslim states as a whole are set to be culturally conditioned as violent sectarian backwaters either in a state of anarchy or unified under brutal dictators. Pinning either Saddam Hussein or the Civil War to some innate cultural quality rather than the history of partitioning the states and the selection and support of compliant leaders by outside powers seems a rather weak line of argument.

[A_Wanderer]

Originally posted by AEON


Well - France doesn't do what we wish and we don't bomb it. The point is that if a democratically elected leader turns the country into a dictatorship after he takes office, it is no longer a democracy but a dictatorship.

But thats a fine line when your supporting a government under siege, it takes measures that are anti-democratic and anti-liberty.

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
Yes Arab and Muslim states as a whole are set to be culturally conditioned as violent sectarian backwaters either in a state of anarchy or unified under brutal dictators. Pinning either Saddam Hussein or the Civil War to some innate cultural quality rather than the history of partitioning the states and the selection and support of compliant leaders by outside powers seems a rather weak line of argument.

this is so liberal of you. it's a more in-depth answer than my one-sentence remark, but i agree with you.

i'm surprised to see a turnaround on the "religion of the sword" viewpoint.

[A_Wanderer]

No turnabout, in fact if one supposed that the Iraqi people were savages then supporting any action that included nation building would be hypocritical.

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
No turnabout, in fact if one supposed that the Iraqi people were savages then supporting any action that included nation building would be hypocritical.

but is Islam incompatible with democracy?

[AEON]

Originally posted by Irvine511




but is Islam incompatible with democracy?

It seems Turkey is making a decent run to prove that it is not.

[A_Wanderer]

If you are talking about a situation where God is the highest power in the land and the law is all in the form of revealed truth that cannot be altered then yes it is incompatiable with democratic principles. If you are talking about a situation where Muslims elect their own leaders and follow a rule of law not from a holy book then it isn't (Indonesia and Turkey would be two examples of the latter).

[anitram]

Originally posted by AEON

The point is that if a democratically elected leader turns the country into a dictatorship after he takes office, it is no longer a democracy but a dictatorship.

Who says it's a dictatorship?

What if it's an Islamic theocracy based on the will of the people? And while not necessarily engaging in attacks on the US, still isn't friendly to you or your interests?

[Vincent Vega]

Originally posted by AEON


It seems Turkey is making a decent run to prove that it is not.

It's a secularised state with a majority of its population being Muslims, just like western countries are secularized states with a Christian majority.

[AEON]

A quick history lesson: America is no Rome

The tired analogy of imperial decline and fall

Gerard Baker
From The London Times September 14, 2007


The ethnic origins of General David Petraeus are apparently Dutch, which is a shame because there’s something sonorously classical about the family name of the commander of the US forces in Iraq. When you discover that his father was christened Sixtus, the fantasy really takes flight. Somewhere in the recesses of the brain, where memory mingles hazily with imagination, I fancy I can recall toiling through a schoolboy Latin textbook that documented the progress of one Petraeus Sixtus as he triumphantly extended the imperium romanum across some dusty plain in Asia Minor.

The fantasy is not wholly inapt, of course. General Petraeus was the star turn in Washington this week, testifying before Congress about the progress of the surge by US forces in Iraq. Some evidently see America’s wearying detention in the quagmire of Mesopotamia as a classic example of imperial overreach of the kind that is thought to have doomed Rome. Who knows? Perhaps 1,500 years ago one of the forebears of General Petraeus was hauled before the Senate to explain the progress of some surge of Roman forces to defeat the insurgents in Germania.

The US is indeed in the middle of another gloomy ride around the “America as Rome” theme park of half-understood history lessons. The pessimists, equipped with their Fodor’s guidebooks, their summer school diplomas, and their DVD collection of Cecil B. DeMille movies, are convinced it’s all up for the people who march today under the standard of the eagle, just as it was for their predecessors. They see military defeat abroad and political decay at home; they watch as far-flung peoples chafe at the dictates of imperial rule and as the plebs at home grow metaphorically hungry from misgovernment. The only real uncertainty in their minds is who will play the Vandals and lay waste to Washington?

It’s a familiar and very tired analogy, of course. From the moment that America became top nation in the middle of the last century, people have been racing to be contemporary Gibbons, chronicling the decline and fall even as it was supposedly happening. Not the least of the objections to their efforts is that Rome’s domination of the known world lasted about 500 years, and survived more than the odd thrashing or two at the hands of barbarian tribes. In modern America, it’s always the same. Every lost battle or turbulent day on the foreign exchanges and the obituary writers are sharpening their pencils.

The bigger objection is that America is not much of an empire after all. No one pays tribute, no one declares allegiance to Caesar, and what kind of empire is it that owes its foreign subjects a couple of trillion dollars? Still, as Gibbon himself noted in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.” Which brings us back neatly to General Petraeus and the Iraq war.

The antiwar crowd’s efforts to depreciate America’s efforts in the Middle East hit a new low on the first day of the long-awaited congressional testimony, when MoveOn.org, the self-appointed leftwing base of the Democratic Party, took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times that called the commander “General Betray Us” and accused him of lying about the progress of the surge. As stunts go, it was as startlingly offensive as it was politically self-defeating.

Not many Americans – not even those who oppose the war – like the idea of calling their generals traitors. They have a vaguely disconcerting sense that they know where that leads – and it’s not Rome but a rather shorter-lived empire of the 20th century that springs to mind. And so it had the signal effect this week of forcing Democrats to distance themselves from the antiwar movement. Most of them – especially those who harbour presidential ambitions – had to go out of their way during the hearings to emphasise their admiration for the general and his soldiers.

This is good. You can argue about the surge. The evidence is encouraging that the increased US military effort, together with a change in tactics, has reduced the violence in Iraq. On the other hand there are legitimate questions about the long-term viability of the strategy. But if America is to emerge from Iraq with a renewed sense of its global role, you shouldn’t really debase the motives of those who lead US forces there. Because in the end what they are doing is deeply honourable – fighting to destroy an enemy that delights in killing women and children; rebuilding a nation ruined by rapine and savagery; trying to bridge sectarian divides that have caused more misery in the world than the US could manage if it lasted a thousand years.

It is helpful to think about Iraq this way. Imagine if the US had never been there; and that this sectarian strife had broken out in any case – as, one day it surely would, given the hatreds engendered by a thousand years of Muslim history and the efforts of Saddam Hussein.

What would we in the West think about it? What would we think of as our responsibilities? There would be some who would want to wash their hands of it. There would be others who would think that UN resolutions and diplomatic initiatives would be enough to salve our consciences if not to stop the slaughter.

But many of us surely would think we should do something about it – as we did in the Balkans more than a decade ago – and as, infamously, we failed to do in Africa at the same time. And we would know that, for all our high ideals and our soaring rhetoric, there would be only one country with the historical commitment to make massive sacrifices in the defence of the lives and liberty of others, the leadership to mobilise efforts to relieve the suffering and, above all, the economic and military wherewithal to make it happen.

That’s the only really workable analogy between the US and Rome. When Rome fell, the world went dark for the best part of a millennium. America may not be an empire. But whatever it is, for the sake of humanity, pray it lasts at least as long as Rome.

[namkcuR]

Originally posted by AEON


It seems Turkey is making a decent run to prove that it is not.

It is a secular state. It's been a secular state for over 8 decades. There are power-seekers there who would wish to make it otherwise, but so far, they have not succeeded. There are even some already in power who are attempting to gradually force some aspects of the religion on the state...there is talk of making headscarves mandatory for women...but trust me...MANY people there will not easily give in to that kind of thing.

[BVS]

Originally posted by AEON


I also wonder how many lives were needlessly lost because we didn't bomb soon enough (World War II and over 72 MILLION lives immediately comes to mind)

And that's probably one of the few cases. It would definately be the exception rather than the rule.

How do you reconcile your hawkish beliefs with your religious beliefs?

[Infinity]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
States sponser terrorists all the time; USA in Latin America, Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan, Iran in Lebanon. Saddam Hussein had no problem keeping Abu Nidal in Iraq (of course having him killed when he could prove a liability).

Yes but Saddam Hussein did not harbor al-Qaeda. As I said before Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden didn't care about each other.

[Infinity]

Originally posted by AEON


Are you saying you would support the invasion of these countries?

Absolutely not, but I'm trying to say how ridiculous your idea is of invading every country that isn't a democracy. So you would support an invasion of that list that I made wouldn't you?

[Infinity]

Originally posted by AEON


I also wonder how many lives were needlessly lost because we didn't bomb soon enough (World War II and over 72 MILLION lives immediately comes to mind)

Okay now this is just getting ridiculous. Comparing WWII to Iraq is stupid. Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, France and the Netherlands in WWII. He started a war, and so we attacked Germany. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, we went after them, and there was nothing wrong with that war. But who did Iraq invade in 2003? And don't you dare say that it was okay to go into Iraq in 2003 because Iraq went into Kuwait in 1991 and we needed stop Iraq before they invade Kuwait again. Iraq wasn't a threat to anyone. They had virtually no Navy, and I don't remember but there were a lot of restrictions placed on Iraq. This is why we were able to defeat Iraq in three days. They weren't powerful at all.