cctalk digest, Vol 1 #473 - 49 msgs

Being that you haven't read said reply, you can't possibly make a comment on them. I notice, as usual you stoop to personal attacks rather than discuss the issue. Personal attack. And what contradiction. When has the U.S. attacked it's neighbor? Last I heard Canada and Mexico are unmolested. And before you bring up stuff that's 100's of years old, you can't address stuff that old with todays mores. Iraq attacked it's neighbors in modern times, with modern weapons. Personal Attack yet again. Do you understand a basic concept? It's called "Being one's word". When Iraq AGREED to disarm, to not own or develop weapons of mass destruction, and then broke those agreements. That's where the problem lies. It's not about "control" or being a "control freak". Adults make agreements and keep them. That's the only way world affairs can work. Treaties and agreements have to be kept, and there must be trust that they will be. When they are broken, they must be enforced. Otherwise the entire house of cards based on agreements and "word" collapses. That leads to chaos. None that I can see. You'd like there to be one, so that you can attack me personally. It's a common tactic of people who are unable to have intelligent discussions of issues. Instead of discussing the issue or facts, and keeping the discussion on that level. You attack the person directly. I could be the world's worst idiot. But, if I was speaking a truth... What difference does that make? I could be a drooling idiot and point up and burble "Sky.. Blue..." The fact that I could be an idiot, doesn't change the fact that sky is indeed blue. So keep the discussion on the facts, rather than making personal attacks. When you do this, you rob yourself of any power, and ability to have your opinions considered and respected, and convince people that they must be indeed, invalid since you needed to make a personal attack. I got news for you. Our President is not doing ANY "ill pursuits". He has the highest sustained approval rating of ANY President in history. He is doing the right thing most of the time. I got that you don't like what he's doing, and don't agree with it. It doesn't make him wrong. No. He surrendered to us in a war. He has made agreements with our Government AND the U.N. that he is not keeping. He attacked two of our allies, was defeated and he must disarm to keep the terms of the treaty. He is not doing that, and that makes it our business. Sticking our heads in the sand (or up a bodily orifice) as you would have us do, does not make the problem go away, and emboldens others to break agreements or to attack their neighbors without fear of reprisals. People would like us not to be. I'm not sure where I stand on this. Generally, I'm happy when we take principled stands against terrorism, and agression against neighbors. Not at all. I would recommend you go to college, take some World History and Civics courses. Also Ethics. You hold some naive opinions. That sound good on the face, but don't hold up under rigorous scruitiny. They only seem good on the face, but when you extend the consequences of what you would like to see happen out on a timeline, you see that they don't actually bring about the things you claim to stand for. "Peace at any cost" is a misused statement. Often, the price of peace IS war. Perhaps it wouldn't seem so contradictory if you consider that in this context... "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure..." If there were some science fictional way to look at alternate timelines where we could see the different outcomes for different decisions, perhaps there'd be some data for you that might convince you of this. Having this stand that I hold, takes some faith. It takes trust that there are things that never happened that we will never hear about, because they were deterred. If every country or terrorist made a press release saying... "I was going to do X, but didn't do it because I was afraid that the U.N., the U.S., the U.K., etc... Would punish me for doing it..." Then, you'd see how well deterrence works. There was an article in Time Magazine (or it may have been Newsweek) fairly recently that said, that when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, it emboldened all sorts of actions. Within three years of the pull-out, American Embassies were attacked, Cuba stepped up it's actions in South America, and more. Backing down has consequences. It's a tough row to hoe, and not as simplistic as you make it. Al