Quote:
Originally posted by Five-hole+Oct 25 2004, 12:15 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Five-hole @ Oct 25 2004, 12:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-BillW@Oct 24 2004, 11:33 PM
I hate to see so many freedom loving people fight among themselves about details when they first must admit that they have a common enemy that would love to destroy what we cherish.
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The thing you don't seem to realize is that you uphold your freedoms in a very different way than I would, were I President. I wouldn't use freedom as a justification for war when it clearly wasn't the original intent -- that's hypocritical at best and in my opinion despicable. My version of freedom isn't "you can be free if it helps us make money". Nobody's talking about bringing freedom to many of the other repressed countries of the world, why is that? Obviously universal freedom isn't the goal here.
I have a freedom to oppose my government. I have a freedom to question the wisdom and the sanity of their wars. I have a freedom to question my country's foreign policy and why we have these enemies in the first place. I have a freedom to think that defense is a better defense than offense. I have the freedom to think it's not our freedom that they hate, but our willy-nilly swashbuckling supposedly in the name of it -- and when it seems almost overtly clear to a biased outsider that said swashbuckling is purely in the name of American economic interests.
Why do you never stop to think about what you're destroying when you go on these freedom missions from God?
Yes, yes, what a bleeding heart liberal I am. [/b][/quote]
So you must believe in the foundation of “Minority Report” since you [b]know]/b] the President’s intent. Every journey begins with one step and every plan must have individual milestones that must be completed before going to the next step. I hear many people disagree with the first steps, but I hear no strategies proposed that are well defined. Should we have gone after Sudan first rather than wait for the UN to watch the rape squads run rampant while 50,000 people are killed there in genocide? Should we have gone after the Mullahs of Iran while the Iranian resistance is still weak and forming and before Iran was geographically isolated from other terror supporting nations? Should we unilaterally abandon the multilateral negotiations going on with North Korea and take them on? Maybe we should kick the French out of the Ivory Coast since they’ve stood back and watched thousands slaughtered there.
If money is an issue, why do we care about this months elections in Afghanistan which has no oil and is only of strategic interest if we wish to isolate Iran’s land borders? If money is an issue why has the price of crude oil gone up since the Iraqi people are now controlling their reserves rather than the UN? If I wanted to talk about money as a motivator, I could ask why John Kerry pushed so hard in 1996 to normalize relations with Vietnam despite their horrible human rights record if not for the exclusive real estate rights his brother acquired in Vietnam as a result.
I agree that we all have a right and an obligation to question why the world is in the shape it’s in today. The number of countries considered free by organizations such as Freedom House is growing in many parts of the world, but the middle east has been sliding backwards since 1978 and it’s time to reverse that trend before it gets worse than it is. That is a strategic decision that is tactically possible. The left leaning Pew Foundation recently completed polls and surveys in Iraq showing an overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people supporting the actions taken by America there and less than 30% of the people think things are worse now than before Saddam was removed, and most of them know it will continue to get better.
If someone were to be able to wave a wand and make all of the people of the world free at once, I’d be all for it but the reality is you have to start somewhere. Yes, sometimes some things must be destroyed in order to allow them to get better just like a good surgeon will risk taking out too much tissue rather than not enough when removing a cancer. It may sound cold and cruel, but millions of Iraqis died waiting for freedom so how many more should have died before we said enough is enough? It may not be something to say in polite company, but the reality is sometimes the only way to save a million innocent people is by killing 10,000 not so innocent people.