On Wed, 25 May 2005 15:37:52 GMT, james wrote:
The true
paranoia that this administration has is a great fear of a large
Islamic state existing from Pakistan to Syria. Including Iran, Iraq,
Saudia Arabia and a few others.

That would not be a good thing, and our efforts in trying to prevent
it from happening is probably a good thing.

Just think what if Radical Islam controlled over half the oil
production in the world?

So if that is the case, are we not justified in trying to prevent it
from happening?

*****

No I think Iraq is means of gaining bases in a region that we can
better monitor and track the goings on of the Radical Islamic
Fundamentalist, both Shia and Suni.

I would not disagree with that assessment. It is one that I also share
to some extent. It's also consistent with the Project for a new
American Century plan.

Do we have to wait until the "west" (Which includes more than just the
U.S,) is brought to its knees economically before we act?

****

That is a tough decision. If you act to early on intelligence and it
is bad then you done things in bad faith. Wait too long and you have
dead people. The better question and also the most difficult to answer
is how many lives are expendable? If none is your answer then Bush
did well.

In theory, no lives should be expendable. Reality paints a different
picture. As long as the radical Islamists are willing to sacrifice
their own lives in order to take out "infidels", the dynamics of that
equation changes somewhat. When the value of human life differs from
one side to the other, our "leverage" becomes limited.

In the cold war, we managed to keep "the evil empire" at bay due to
the concept of mutually assured destruction. When your new enemy
consists of people who are not afraid to die (and their reward
received in Heaven) to advance their cause, a concept such as M.A.D.
starts to crumble.

How much bloodshed could have been averted if Hitler had been taken
out of the picture in the 1920's?

*****

We can play that game back to Babylonian Kings of the third millenium
BC. That is really a poor argument.

No, it's just placing a current situation against a backdrop of
historical perspective.


The case for preemption is just
that. In 2002 Bush never made a good case for preemption. Most of what
I conclude was never presented to teh world population. Yes the Senate
and the House knew of it, but the average American Public per se was
not kept informed of these potentials.

For good reason I suspect.


Does the average citizen need to know, or have the capacity to
understand, the complete truth assuming we can definitively identify
it amongst all the free flowing propaganda?

********

Duh! Last time I reviewed my civics and political science notes, I
thought the American People were the government. You may find it
acceptable to blindly follow your elected officials like those in
Hitler Germany!

Woah! Back up and drop the Hitler metaphors. This is not about
dictatorship, but about the ineptitude, indifference, and general lack
of understanding of "big picture" politics by the average American. We
elect representatives to carry out America's business in our best
interests so that "we the people" do not have to. If the government
had to disclose each and every piece of intelligence with the
population at large, they would, at the very least, create a national
security issue, and at the worst create confusion and panic as the
average citizen tries to come to grips with what they've just been
told.


Son I have a great deal of intreped feelings when a
President says to me trust me I am keeping the best interests of the
American People at heart and then proceeds to beat around the bush, no
pun intended, trying to justify a preemptive invasion.

There is a reason why we have a representative democracy and not a
direct democracy. We elect people who are supposedly trained in the
skills necessary to carry out our business. The last thing we need to
do is second guess the motives of our leaders without concrete proof
that such questioning is warranted. Perpetuating the distrust of our
leaders, are the minions of the news media, many of which are
(consciously or not) furthering the agendas of people who would like
nothing more than the fall of the democratic way of life in this
country. What better way to incite an overthrow of a government than
to create the impression that the leaders are "up to no good"? There
are all sorts of conspiracies and supposed "reports" telling of all
kinds of "dirty deals" done by our government for many years. They're
freely available to anyone with the drive to research them. But not
many of those stories are verifiable with hard facts. When you look
into the backgrounds of those who print these stories, it becomes
clear what their agendas are.


Hell yes the American People need to know. Secrecy is the death toll
of a democracy and a republican form of government.

There is such a thing as "need to know".

This
administrtation has been the most secret since Reagan's first term.

We are also the first since Vietnam, except for the brief Gulf war in
1991, to be actively engaged in long term military operations. That
necessitates a certain amount of secrecy. Do you think our government
was completely forthcoming with all intel during WWII or Vietnam?


Then I look and see who is advising GW Bush and then it all become to
clearly now. Bush's advisors are out of the Cold War Era and need an
enemy. I wonder if there is not one then have they created one?

For that to be true then you would have to somewhat support the
conspiracy theory which claims that 9/11/01 was orchestrated by our
own government. Our enemy attacked us first. What happened afterward
was just a succession of events placed into motion as a result of
9/11.

Dave
"Sandbagger"