US Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

[snafu]

Please, Pat Buchanan is no libertarian. He is a paleoconservative. His foreign policy is straight from a man, who in his era was referred to as Mr. Republican, Robert Taft. His views on gay rights is straight from Corinthians. His policy on immigration is oppossed to libertarian open border philosophy. I am sorry if your attention span is too short to read a lengthy quotation. That disability may be what would lead you to classify Pat as a libertarian. The fact is the US had a long standing policy, before 1898, of staying clear of foreign wars and entangling alliances. The fact is neoconservatism is nothing more than Wilsonianism spread at the point of a gun. It is impossible to have small government and an empire.

 

Let me quote our last Republican President, ironically also named George Bush:

 

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

 

-- George H. W. Bush, in his 1998 memoir A World Transformed

Well President Bush Senior was right. Going in unilaterally would've destroyed our international standings but we didn't go in unilaterally and it's still being destroyed.

The world is smaller and much much more leathal. We had to go in.

 

And I said this before we went in that we are looking farther than others. Iran is our main problem. We had U.N. backup to go into Iraq. We now have a foothold in that region.

[hugo]

We have empowered Iran by ridding them of their enemy. We rejected traditional conservative balance of power politics. We had a secular Sunni run state balancing a fundamentalist Shiite state. We should have left it alone. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Our support of Saddam in the Iraq/Iran war was done to keep Islamic fundamentalism in check. The neocons (Wilsonian liberals) ignorantly ignored the conditions in the ME.

[snafu]

We have empowered Iran by ridding them of their enemy. We rejected traditional conservative balance of power politics. We had a secular Sunni run state balancing a fundamentalist Shiite state. We should have left it alone. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Our support of Saddam in the Iraq/Iran war was done to keep Islamic fundamentalism in check. The neocons (Wilsonian liberals) ignorantly ignored the conditions in the ME.

 

Yes but again we had U.N. backing. I know bullshit politics. The rest of the world seem to think Saddam was a threat at the time too.

[hugo]

Why would a conservative think UN backing is an asset?

[Michael Rudd]

Hi Hugo. The UN unfortunately is an expensive joke, but because it is the only truly international forum for discussion of world troubles we are forced to use it. even when it gets the green light to do something positive, such as peace keeping in the Congo, you get one groupe of UN soldiers disarming a certain faction by day and the Pakistan soldiers re arming them by night in return for gold and diamonds, In other parts of Africa, UN soldiers are heavily involved in child prostitution, this time they were from Europe. All this has been done with the full knowledge of their senior officers, who were not left out of the financial loop.

 

So your question>>Why would a conservative think UN backing is an asset?<<

could be rephrased.Why woulds anyone think UN backing is an asset.

The UN was set up as a place to talk by most of the Nations after WW2 that it is not working perfectly is hardly supriseing, but untill a better system is produced it is all we have,

[snafu]

I don't like the U.N. I wish we would walk out from it. I wish Israel, Britain and other Democratic nations would follow us. But the U.N. keeps rouge nations in check. It allows talks that might not be feasible any other way. It allows us and the rest of the nations to instill sanctions on nations that pose a threat. But when push comes to shove I say we tell them to fuck off or we're gonna kick some ass.

[Michael Rudd]

Hi snafu.I hear you. That this is the best we as humans can come up with is a terrible indictment of us in general. The US has tried to bring some sense of order to it, but to many people involved use it as get rich quick forum, just think back to dear old Koffie and his son, But for all that we have to work within the law while trying to get that law work better.