Re: "smoked salmon socialists"

pRatTle & Sw0on wrote:
<snip>
> The problem is when we began learning about all the ways
> our government and groups of Americans have betrayed, and still
> betray, those ideals.  It is the thwarted affection of someone who
> sees someone he once respected turn into a hypocritical and greedy
> bully.

"Thwarted affections" are still a form of contempt. The rest of your 
description, which is that of an ideologue rather than a "jilted 
patriot," further proves it. What was your position on our bombing of 
the Sudanese aspirin factory? Where was your outrage over Kosovo? Where 
were you when Bill Clinton and the Democrats wanted to do to Saddam in 
1998 what we finally did this year?

> <snip>
>
> > > During all the protests against the war, if I talked to an anti-war
> > > individual, they'd say "Oh, I'm not in favor of Saddam, not any more 
> > > than
> > > you are!" However, they only got angry with me if I said "Well you 
> > > certainly
> > > don't seem to want to do anything about him."
>
> And what right do Americans have to engage in preemptive military
> force against a sovereign foreign country which is not providing
> a direct threat? 

Eighteen UN Security Resolutions aren't exactly what I call pre-emptive, 
but I guess you can't please everyone. BTW, what was our rationale for 
going into Kosovo? Bosnia?

> If a country can come in and kill civilians and
> depose a government just because they don't approve
> of that government, why should we attack Saddam for invading in
> the First Gulf war -- or, for that matter, any of the Communist
> or Nazi takeovers? 

We stayed in Europe as the Soviets extended their sphere of influence. 
We went after Saddam in the Gulf War with the assistance of the rest of 
the world. You sure don't seem to remember much about history.

> Aggressive attack and "regime change" don't
> become right just because it's Americans who do it. 

We have a right to protect our interests. We gave Saddam twelve years to 
follow through on terms with which he agreed following his invasion of 
Kuwait. He reneged, so we followed through. I'm not a fan of the UN, but 
those 18 resolutions warning him could not be mere paper threats.

> It's highly
> suspicious, too, that we do it to a country with lots of oil,

Kosovo? Somalia? Bosnia? East Timor? Liberia?

> but
> ignore a much more genuine threat, like North Korea, because Korea
> doesn't have anything the U.S. wants.

Don't hold your breath on North Korea, the complexities of which you 
appear quite ignorant, or Syria. We have multi-lateral dialogues with 
North Korea at the moment. It's unclear how much fruit those dialogues 
will bear. The main reason we're not going after North Korea at the 
moment has to do with their puppet masters in Beijing.

> Try asking yourself -- how would we feel if Iraq decided they
> didn't like our government and engaged in violent attack to try
> to depose our government? 

In a sense, Saddam tried to do that when he tried to assassinate the 
former President Bush. I applauded then President Clinton's bombings of 
Iraq at the time, but disagreed that we shouldn't go after Saddam 
personally.

> Oh -- that was what the Al-Qaida did
> (in much less violent form than our invasion of Iraq) on 9/11.

I disagree with you about the violence on 9/11. We attack military 
targets; they attacked office buildings filled with civilians.

> Doesn't seem we accepted the rationale when someone used it on
> us.

I'm sure the Islamofascists enjoy knowing they have your "moral" support.