[bgates]

Borat, you think a government that would murder thousands to start a war is going to be voted out of office?

But if you want to stay in the country and work non-violently, I congratulate you. The good news is there is a principled way to do that: If you really believe your own claims about 9-11, don’t pay your taxes. Thoreau went to prison for not paying taxes due to his opposition to the Mexican War
Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and
bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
Is the reason you don’t follow him into prison that you lack his principles, or that you don’t think murdering thousands is really all that bad, or because secretly you don’t believe your own ridiculous conspiracy fantasies?

[bgates]

How come all this conspiracy evidence only started to come out after 2001? The same conspiracy tried to destroy the WTC in 1993, after all.

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borat, 4plex – if you are living in America, then you are supporting with your tax dollars a government which you believe to be responsible for murdering thousands of people. You combat this supposed monstrosity not by attempting to assassinate the people you hold responsible, or moving north or south across a border, but instead by posting anonymous comments on a housing forum.

How do you live with such cowardice?

[bgates]

Perry,
The Democrats should cover their asses and let Bush make mistakes upon mistakes. – that’s just unAmerican.

Now, if you say, “everything Bush does is wrong, he should pressure Cheney to quit, make Hilary VP, and then resign,” I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re unAmerican, just wrong (and probably confused about what ‘libertarian’ means.)

But to root for foreign policy mistakes – are you aware that you and Bush live in the same country? What kind of mistake are you rooting for, Perry?

[bgates]

zk, I said the war was intended in part to ward off a civilizational conflict. You pointed to the level of violence in Iraq as evidence that the war had not diminished the risk of civilizational conflict. I pointed out that most of the violent Islamic strife in Iraq was factional, and to the extent Muslim violence is directed inwards it cannot be directed out. I did not explicitly use the phrase ‘in Iraq’, since I was echoing your term ‘Islamic strife’ which you had used in describing Iraq. If that omission caused you to misunderstand me, I apologize for not being more clear.

Nonetheless, it is not incoherent to say that our war in Iraq could head off a larger conflict between us and Muslims while allowing that it has led to a larger conflict among Muslims.

What made me think (classical) liberalism would be popular in Iraq is that it is popular here, among people from around the world including Iraq, and it is popular in Germany and Italy and Japan and South Korea, all non-American states that were saved from tyrranies by us. Yes, I would be happy with the best case outcome of a nonthreatening Muslim world. 60 years ago it took hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions more from allies to reach a state where German and Japanese pride wasn’t a threat. As for the notion that the cost is measured in trillions, let me carefully quote: “You’re certainly entitled to that opinion, but stated with no reasons or substantiation, it’s meaningless.”

As for the number of troops, I would say as many as it takes for as long as it takes. The cost of the war has been historically low. More died in the war in the Philippines 100 years ago, a war not 1 person in a thousand has ever heard of. If we are not a credible power in Iraq, Iran has free reign over the Middle East. The Sunni states are already talking about developing a nuclear deterrent to Iran; that effort will only accelerate if we leave. In our absence, the stage is set for a regional war on top of the world’s energy supply. That, or the Muslims unite to take on us first.

[bgates]

zk, it’s not possible to leave Iraq to the Iraqis – much of the violence is instigated by Iran, which you agree is a powerful and dangerous theocracy.

You had cited the level of violence in Iraq as evidence that I am wrong to think the war could head off a larger conflict; to then ask why I’m worried about a larger conflict given the sectarian violence is incoherent. The best case result from the invasion would be to help Iraq become a beachhead of liberalism in the Arab world, something that could be a source of Muslim pride without being a threat to us. That was the President’s goal, and it’s a laudable one. It’s much better than the second-best and increasingly likely outcome of the invasion, which is a regional proxy war between Muslim powers.

But that second-best case is still preferable to the world as it would look without an attempt to reform the Muslim world. Iran would still have its nuclear program, and that would push Saddam to restart his own. Blunting that threat would require maintaining both the crumbling sanctions regime and the military presence in Arabia, both of which were considered intolerable provocations by Islamists. In that scenario, the best case would be a regional war much larger than the violence we see now. The worst case would be the same worst case we face now.

You want to focus on al Qaeda? They’re in Iraq. If you think fighting us in Iraq pays off for them in recruitment and training opportunities, what do you think beating us in Iraq would do for them? If we stay there, al Qaeda gets to choose between sacrificing lots of their people in attacks on the best military in the world or burning through their goodwill in the region by killing Muslim civilians. We leave, and they can train for attacks on American civilians in peace.

Finally, if you’re going to criticize others for making statements without evidence, you should avoid claims about things like Sistani’s pre-invasion importance and the religiosity of Iraqi Shia unless you have a summer home in Najaf you haven’t told us about.

[bgates]

JJ, Bali was in 2002, right? So I assumed it was a reaction to the Iraq invasion, like the siege of Vienna in 1683 and the sack of Constantinople.

[bgates]

deadzone, what’s your solution? Cut off support to a long term ally, watch as they’re slaughtered, and hope we’re not next?

Is Israel the cause of Islamist violence in Somalia, Kashmir, Thailand, and the Philippines, besides everywhere else in the world?

Perry, Gordon said in those same comments that if we are there, we should try to win. Do you agree with him (and McCain and Lieberman – you’re right, this isn’t a partisan issue)? If you “just don’t care anymore,” why do you keep posting about it? Do you imagine that Islamist violence is Bush’s problem alone? I have bad news for you – it predates him, and it will outlast him, which means pretending it will vanish in 2008 is a guaranteed loser of an idea.

Surely you know that the oil isn’t ‘taken’, it’s bought – and if we didn’t buy it, what kind of shape would the Arab world be in? Why are you so invested in justifying the motives of people who want to kill you?

[bgates]

zk – ‘least Islamic nation in the Middle East’? The one whose dictator thought it wise to add ‘allahu akbar’ to the flag? The one where Ayatollah Sistani has so much clout? Lebanon is 30% Christian, Turkey has a 70 year history of secular rule, and from many reports Iranians have grown disenchanted with their theocracy, so I think you’re overstating your argument there.

Most of the violent Islamic strife is one Muslim faction vs another. To the extent Muslim savagery turns inward, it turns away from us. Islamic aggression against the US has been growing for 30 years. How would you suggest stopping it?

[bgates]

The crashing of the housing market is due to lots of foolish people making bad decisions. Breeze is providing an illustration of a fool, though not in the way he wants to.

[bgates]

You know what Nick Saban said about Ricky Williams, jg – ‘He may have tried marijuana, but at least he never liberated anyone from a totalitarian dictatorship.’

That’s what theBreeze calls a ‘quote’.

[bgates]

OK, deadzone.

Thanks for trying to forestall a fullscale civilizational war with Islam by setting up the first representative government in the history of the Arab world, Mr President!

Thanks for the reminder, deadzone. I should do that more often.

[bgates]

Hey, jg. Orlando is not San Diego. I’d be willing to pay some income tax to deal with some of the traffic and crime problems. The worst part, though, has been the football. The week the Chargers had their 42 point come from behind win against Cincinnati, I got Miami-Buffalo. I hope I can still see three games with the old home town team between now and the end of the season.

Actually, I got to hear some commentary on the Bengals game. I flipped to C-SPAN at halftime, and John Kerry was saying how Schottenheimer was a failure, he hadn’t made a workable game plan, the Chargers had destroyed their standing in the league and should fly back to San Diego immediately rather than face further humiliation in the second half, etc. I switched back when he started complaining about how soccer’s a better game anyway but Americans are too stupid to appreciate it.

[bgates]

Breeze, the way you repeat words is very,very,very convincing.

I still support Bush, with respect to the subject of this thread, because he’s better than the alternatives. We’re at war with religious totalitarians who are happy to die while murdering people who won’t submit to them, and much of the country would rather talk about some long-ago sex scandal with an intern than figure out what to do about the threats facing America today.

We are in Iraq, but many of Iraq’s problems are imported from Iran. We should be putting consistent pressure on Iran over offenses like the shipments of new Iranian arms into the country and the financial aid given to Shia and Sunni militias. We should support Iranian reform movements because it’s the right thing to do and to put pressure on that regime. And we should make Iran and Syria pay a penalty for letting fighters enter Iraq from their soil. No need for an invasion, but the Air Force and Navy could certainly get involved – may as well shoot at them, they’re shooting at us.

Or maybe you’re right, and there would be no war if only Clinton was still president. Maybe our enemies were satisfied with the attempt to destroy the WTC in 1993, the bombing of the army barracks in 1996, and the American embassies in 1998, and the warship in 2000, and they were about to stop. Maybe Saddam was finally convinced to disarm by Clinton’s 1998 bombing campaign (he must have still had WMD capability then, otherwise Clinton would have ‘lied’, right?) Maybe Saddam became a changed man after that. I don’t think so.

Anyway, Clinton couldn’t have served a third term; the alternative to Bush was the lying unilateralist warmonger who said this:

Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint.

Look up who said that one.

[bgates]

Breeze, that line is almost as funny as the fact that you think finding it on a website, without citation, means it must be true. That website knows its market pretty well – suckers who will believe anything that speaks badly of Bush. It’s not like the man lacks documented verbal screwups, yet you can’t manage to find anything real to support what I’ll generously call your ‘point’?

4plex, we were prepared for war in Kuwait from 1991 to 2003, and no war came. We were unprepared in 1990, and guess what?

Suppose we made an immediate, credible commitment to abjure preparation for war, and withdrew all American forces to the US. Would that make war more or less likely in Korea? Or Taiwan? Israel made a preemptive strike against Iraq’s nuclear capability over 20 years ago. Would they have been safer leaving Saddam alone?

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