Quote:
Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 17 2003, 01:43 AM
Using Military Power is not always a bad thing. I am sure many of you, including my friend PD have read The Prince... ( PD went to public school back when they were actually teaching!  )
The fundemental question the Prince wants to know is it better to be loved or feared.
Do you know the answer?
Terrorists, people in the middle east, as well as many parts of the world understand power. The islamic fundementalist will never love us, they will never like us, but they do understand power....
The future war in Iraq will go beyond Iraq, it will go beyond the middle east. We have to make it clear the United States will use all methods to look out and protect OUR interest, as well as the interest of our allies.
We have twisted a lot of arms of friends to have them stand by us in this conflict. Especially the nations in the middle east, and the area - including Pakistan... we cannot indefinately hold out waiting for Saddam. We cannot continue to leave our alies in a lirch. We will never be trusted or relied upon again....
Bush is doing the righ thing.... Blair is doing the right thing, and has my respect. I hope for a peaceful solution, but I know the reality is the US will be going into Iraq with our without the UN approval.
I still think the time frame is going to be around first week of march.... it will be a new moon....
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First of all, I have a nine-year-old grandson in public schools in an urban area who is getting one hell of an education, just like his mother and aunts did. Well, I'm worried about that oldest child of mine - she's a registered Republican. You buy 'em books and you send 'em to school ...
Second, I could have gone a long time without thinking of The Prince. Wasn't quite as dumb as Jonathan Livingston Seagull or Love Story - but damned near. Me ... I'm more "walk softly and carry a big stick."
Third, I'm slipping. I still haven't figured out if you were quoting Kaiser Wilhelm or the Emperor Franz Joseph in an earlier post, and now I can't figure out the one above either. I'm not sure if it's Maxwell Taylor, William Westmoreland, or Boris Gramovor. You're going to scare the terrorists out of being terrorists? How you gonna do that, Mike? What is fear to some poor slob who's going to get himself a herd of virgins in the afterlife for fighting us?
What is it you want - a peaceful settlement of the situation in Iraq, or the war "...beyond Iraq ... beyond the middle east [where we] make it clear the United States will use all methods to look out and protect OUR interest, as well as the interest of our allies."? The scope of what you are advocating seems a little broader than disarming Saddam, buddy.
Which allies, Mike? Which of our allies is crying out for us to take out Saddam? "[A]ll the means at our disposal..."? What are you talking about, Mike? Who you gonna nuke? What makes you think that, even if we DO start tossing nukes around, we're going to inspire enough fear to stop the terrorists? If more bomb tonnage than was dropped during all of WWII couldn't stop the third-world residents of a pissant nation from carrying supplies down a 3000 mile trail on foot, how you gonna compete with visions of heaven?
You want to talk rationally about the need to remove Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, I'm with you, buddy. You want to start talking bullshit, I ain't buying.