Never said I had a problem with it. Its a descriptive economic theory that tends to accurately describe our observations in many ways. I think it is simply something to be aware of, as too great of a disparity can lead to instability. I never claimed that economics was a zero sum game and its certainly possible to raise everyone's well being in an absolute sense. I really don't think we disagree on much of anything. The name Marx just came up and everyone got really defensive.
Most of the people we are fighting over there posed no threat to us domestically. A very small portion of the insurgency is composed of people who were actively planning to harm us before the war. Also, if we are increasing the number of people with a vendetta against us we are increasing the chances of an attack.
Actually, more have probably gone to Iraq. Again, there was no connection between Iraq and Al-Queda. The only sponsorship I know of was them paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Iran and Syria are much worse in that regard. While the Saudi Government is our ally, they can't and won't do much to check the extremist element in that country because their hold on power is relatively tenuous. I don't have any numbers for you, and neither does anyone else. These statements are based on qualitative evidence and intuition.
If tracking them down and doing so does not aid recruitment and create more terrorists than we kill. Something tells me we can track and kill terrorists without large scale invasions of other countries. Offense is only useful to the point where it is not counterproductive.
Shortly after invading Iraq the policy was to confiscate the gold of the Sunni tribal leaders, because if you were rich it typically meant that Saddam let you be rich and that money could potentially be used to fund the insurgency. This was horribly short sited considering shortly after this we go back to these same tribal leaders and try to get them to engage in the political process we are establishing. If an occupying power kicked your door down and took your money you would tell them to f-off too if they came back to you later asking for favors. It would have been much easier to essentially buy the loyalty of these leaders. They had no real loyalty to Saddam, he had bought them off too.
Wars make strange bedfellows. The expedient and necessary things that won WWI, WWII and the cold war are what landed us here, I agree with that. We are very good at winning wars, but do not do well in the aftermath. Arbitrarily redrawing national borders after wars has caused tremendous problems. The former Yugoslavia is a great example of that, and once they were restored, it settled down a bit.Not nuts CR91. Just wrong. I bought into alot of that too until not that long ago, so I'm not preaching here or anthing.
You guys need to look into a little world history, particularly in that region - as did I (and still do).
Do a google on Iranian Coup 1953. Find out how the Shah came to power, and why. Find out what he did once he got to power. Most of all, find how WHO helped him get to power. And I'll forewarn you, it's tough to find one purely independent and factual, so you'll have to weed through information, and opinion. But the facts are undeniable.
Then do a little check into the Iranian/Iraqi war of the 80's. Who armed Saddam? You've heard the joke, "how do we know Saddam had WMD's? We have the receipts". Where did those get used? Against who? - (Of course we all know this one :wink0st
Yes, and we support Israel. Actually we had a large part in creating Israel and turning the rest of Palestine into a refugee camp we (and nobody else) gave a crap about. Introduce Syria into the picture.
Now, does any of this justify what they do or their support of terrorism? Absolutely not. But it should give some insight into what empowers radical Islam and nationalism in that part of the world. And I'm afraid gents, that it's a little more than just "We're so rich, they're so poor". History shows this country had more than just a small part in that happening.
I don't totally disagree with the "we're the big boy on the block" idea, and everybody wants to see the big boy fall. Just after 9/11, there was and EXCELLENT article on MSNBC via Newsweek (I think) that laid this out exactly. But that idea is generally limited to more of Europe, west Asia, former Soviet republics and other DEVELOPED nations. There is an actual, and fairly legitimate history as to why Iran and US aren't holding hands at the UN.
Question for you two - what do think of the prospect of Fred Thompson (the ACTOR?) throwing his hat into the GOP presidential ring? I for one, am thrilled.
