[MegaTrain]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
So opposition to Bush for the sake of his party is nonsense. Opposition to the individual though, is entirely true and entirely valid and justified: He has the world's only superpower at his command and he doesn't care what or who he f**ks up in order to make money.
(snip)
...monster that has to be stopped...
...parallels drawn between Bush and 1930s Hitler...
...the US was bound to go on the rampage...

OMG do you actually belive this??
If these positions are held by more than a handful around the world then that is some scary sh**, and doesn't bode well for the future of the planet.

I admit I haven't read all 95 pages of this thread, but I really can't imagine a defensible argument saying that Bush and Hitler are moral equivalents.

A couple of points:
1) Motivation of individuals is both impossible to determine and largely irrelevant. There are plenty of situations where good motivations have led to evil actions or policies (communism), or selfish motivation has lead to good results (capitalism).

I happen to believe that Bush is motivated by a desire to protect the US of today and for our children from terrorism and WMD, and a desire to rid the world and the Iraqi citizens of an evil oppressive regime. You don't belive that to be true, but as I said motivation is not the key issue.

2) The ACTIONS of the US now and throughout history is what needs to be judged--and I'm the first to say that our record isn't spotless. But I definitely agree with the following address by Colin Powell: (in response to a question by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, about the US relying too much on "Hard Power" of military might vs the "Soft Power" of diplomacy")

The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the Last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the Last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

Ultimately, we will have to wait and see who's view of the current situation will play out. Will the US "take over" Iraqi oil production and reap vast wealth from them? Will the US occupy Iraq indefinitely? Will it become the 51st US State??

My views:
Oil $$: the Iraqi oil $$ will be used to rebuild that country, and may not be sufficient to do so. We have already spent billions, and the US taxpayers will likely pour billions more into Iraq in aid, rebuilding, and keeping the peace while a leadership structure is determined. This is not and cannot possibly be a profitable action for the US.

US Occupation: We will be there as long as we need, and no longer. We will likely maintain a military base in Iraq indefinitely, but certainly you don't view that as "occupation of the country", otherwise we'd be "occupying" many dozens of countries throughout the world.