I remember Hannity shouting and screaming a few times about Saddam's Rape Rooms. He really cared about rape then, when it was being done by an official enemy.

>> ^VoodooV:
Who is he?


He's worked in Counter Terrorism (read Terrorism for the mighty) for a long long time. He was appointed by H.W. Bush to the National Security Council. He was also responsible for ignoring Saddam Husseins negotiations and concessions so we could go to war in Iraq the first time. He's just basically a shithead who has a lot of blood on his hands. Whereas Grover Norquist and that other nobody are just Tax whiners.

BUT, the thing is we will never fight something harder than Saddam's forces period. Unless it's a nuclear or thermonuclear war. I'm sure you can agree that the F-35 doesn't mean jack-shit then...

That is also why @Payback is right--drones are great.

I know my history. I know who fought for the Taliban against the Russians: Rambo.>> ^Yogi:
Would having the Taliban in power in Afghanistan today, with Al Qaeada as their guests be better or worse?
Would having Saddam in power in Iraq today be better or worse?

There's way to much history you have to study before we can have this conversation. Let me just say, it's our fault as well that the Taliban and Al Qaeada have become anything of note.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Quboid:
British politician and professional blow-hard 'Gorgeous' George Galloway talked about this. He's a bit of a nut, but he nails the Iran issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtw5Zy2M6rk&feature=player_embedded

George isn't a nut, he's a shill for whichever despotic dictator will pay him the most money to argue for their cause.
While he was a voice against the Iraq war he was also taking millions in direct donations from Saddam's oil for food scandal.
There are critics of wars who do so for good reasons, and then there are those like George who do it because the dictator being condemned is paying them handsomely to defend them out here in the west.


He's allegedly a shill, but he's definitely a nut.

>> ^Quboid:

British politician and professional blow-hard 'Gorgeous' George Galloway talked about this. He's a bit of a nut, but he nails the Iran issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtw5Zy2M6rk&feature=player_embedded


George isn't a nut, he's a shill for whichever despotic dictator will pay him the most money to argue for their cause.

While he was a voice against the Iraq war he was also taking millions in direct donations from Saddam's oil for food scandal.

There are critics of wars who do so for good reasons, and then there are those like George who do it because the dictator being condemned is paying them handsomely to defend them out here in the west.

Interesting. I had a typical, shitty American public school education. Slavery was definitely the predominant theme of that entire segment of US history, in the tone of "Rah! Rah! Look at how good we were to free all those people from the evil south!" (I grew up in California).
It wasn't until years later in college did I learn about all the other issues surrounding that war, and reflecting on that history it's very easy to spot the same tropes used today in politics. If the US could it would probably be telling the tale of the Iraq war 20-50 years from now as the gallant charge the US lead to free the people from the tyranny of Saddam.

As an aside, I have to say Pauls sounding remarkably hypocritical here when talking about legislation to abolish slavery, when he rails against legislation for civil rights so fervently. He seems very set on allowing States to decide what laws they follow in their local governments, but I wonder if that goes for something like slavery in his mind as well? Maybe I'm misunderstanding him.

>> ^Tman:
I'm not sure I follow deGrasse Tyson's logic. So we need to build a moon base to spark interest in science and engineering because we are falling behind the rest of the world in these areas. What is sparking interest in science and engineering in the rest of the world? Are they all planning on building a moon base?
No, they aren't. I think we are falling behind for other reasons (e.g., a broken education system) and incurring massive debt for grandiose manned space exploration projects will not help the issue.
I love the idea of space exploration, but it is something a rich government should undertake. Our's is broke.

He did say "for me...", although I would disagree that it's a primary reason for doing so instead of just a really positive side-effect. Personally, I think the reasons for returning to the moon and beyond are greater than most of us can assimilate given the immensity of world problems nowadays. But, there will always be world problems. Why wait?

I read somewhere that we could have financed two (or more) manned missions to Mars with the money we spent in Iraq. In the long-term future of humans (assuming we survive long enough to become truly space-faring), which do you think would have greater benefitted our species? Which will history regard as an important stepping stone in human advancement/evolution? Getting Saddam and destroying the infrastructure of an entire country, not to mention the tens of thousands of lives lost, or, the cooperation of nations in getting to Mars.

Space exploration doesn't have to be just an idea, and it shouldn't be.

@GeeSussFreeK As Netrunner says, virtually nobody advocates specifically for statism. In theory, pretty much everyone can agree on the Libertarian principle of your rights end where mine begin. The trouble is a very widely ranging difference of opinion on where my rights and your rights begin to overlap.

I would propose though that the most extreme 'statists' of late would have to be the ranks of Kim Jong-Il, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Bashir Al-Assad, and Omar al-Bashir to name a very short list of those imposing the most rigid of adherence to the absolute power of the head of a state. If you oppose statism, at least to some degree the removal or end of such men holds common cause with your ideals, no?

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world. Indoctrinated Democrats have no problem with bossing other countries around and getting our way, we just have to be nicer about it and do it carefully so that we at least LOOK like we're good. Whereas the indoctrinated Republicans believe we are "Special" and should not only do it but do it with complete disregard for what ANY else thinks or says.
This is just a theory based on what I've seen from what our presidents do. Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault.
I mean look at Bush and Obama...Bush locked up people indefinitely and said they deserved it and he does it because they're they enemy. Obama doesn't bother he just assassinates them. If Bush assassinated more like Obama he'd come out and take full credit and say it was AWESOME that he was doing it...Obama not so much, more hand wringing and deflection.
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well. It's just a theory but I like it.


Wow Yogi, we agree on something .

I think your view is pretty much bang on. The only difference between Dem. and Rep. presidents is the reasons they give for acting purely in their own self interests(which very often coincides with making decisions that are in America's self interests).

Where I disagree with Ron Paul's conclusion is about what the answer to all this should be. I don't for a second believe Ron Paul would be any different than all those before him. Instead of selfish wars he'd maybe follow the course of selfish isolationism. Take the recent example in Libya. America had two selfish options, go in or don't. Not going in would mean keeping the President's hands clean and money in America's pocket, and Ron Paul insists that what he'd have done. It also would have meant leaving thousands of Libyan civilians to Gaddafi's death squads. It would mean a Libya still ruled today by Gaddafi, with a newly subdued and less numerous population.

I don't see a clearly white/black obvious ethical choice in most geopolitical decisions, it's always messy. The Iraqi's that hate America the most(the Sadrists) don't hate them for all the things that America did to them, but for America's failures to act. The hate America for it's failure to push into Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In lieu of that they want revenge on the Sunnis. They want to commit their own eviction of all Sunni's from Iraq, or in it's stead to kill them for what Saddam had done with their aid. Was America wrong to stick around in Iraq after evicting Saddam and trying to stand in the middle, stopping a civil war driven by revenge against the Sunnis?

Ron Paul and Chomsky are generally agreed on minding our own business is the only ethical choice. It's hard to make that argument for Libya. It's impossible to make that argument for Rwanda. There are situations in our world were the ethical choice IS to go to war and stop something even more evil than war inherently is. What Ron Paul and Chomsky understand though is that no matter how grave the evil you oppose, your actions will create people who hate you for interfering. War makes it inevitable that your own forces will commit crimes against innocents, and their families will hate you. Ron and Chomsky conclude that means never get involved, I call that cowardice and insist there are situations that demand paying that price and coming to the aid of our fellow man when faced with terrible evils like genocide. In theory, every signatory nation to the convention on genocide agrees with me on this point too.

@Yogi - interesting (and disturbing) observation. In the 5 years I've been living in Thailand, most of the people I've talked US politics with (be they Westerners like Brits, Aussies, etc. or Asians / SE Asians) have exactly the kind of read on US foreign policy that Ron Paul is suggesting we have earned here. Ie., they see beyond the faces of the different presidents calling the shots and notice the long-term track record of going out and meddling, whether that meddling is beneficial or not.

For a long time, I bought into what we hear in the US and was hopeful that, say, the Iraqi people would be appreciative and thankful that we came and "took care of the Saddam Hussein problem". Remember when the troops got to Baghdad and we saw the Iraqis jubilantly tearing down his statue, later discovered to be largely or entirely prompted by US psyops? Then I moderated my position and thought, OK, we got into this, now we've got to see it through to the end for the sake of those people whose lives we have disrupted. That pans out real well when they overwhelmingly just want us to get the hell out...

Anyway, it sort of boggles my mind that Ron Paul would get booed over suggesting a "Golden Rule" approach. Maybe more of our fellow Americans need to get a little more world-wise and see for themselves that we've already got a big backlog of ill-will to overcome from our legacy of unrequested "intervention"...

>> ^cosmovitelli:

I read your stuff Yogi!
FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.
In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!
They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!
In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.
Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em
But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!
Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.


I'd pretty much agree with your facts. I'm a little less sure on your point.

America helped train and support the Islamic fighter in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviets. America supported Saddam while he was using chemical weapons against Iran and even Iraqi Kurds. America propped up a strong man of their choosing in Iran which backfired and led to the current theocracy.

You needn't look far or very hard to find examples where almost any and every nation has selfishly done very bad things, or things with terrible consequences. America, Russia and China being such large nations, the examples for them are much bigger and numerous. It makes for great propaganda, and all 3 continually make heavy use of it to tarnish each other. America is characterized by the genocide of native americans and Vietnam, Russia by Stalin and China by Mao. It's great propaganda, but it's not insightful or helpful analysis.

Pretend you get be President when Bush Jr. was president. America's narrow self interests are being threatened by terrorism. Bin Laden has extremely close ties with Islamists not only in Afghanistan, but throughout nuclear armed Pakistan. AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is going around selling nuclear secrets and equipment to the highest bidder. That's an uncomfortably short path from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the hands of a very credible terrorist network. Do you demand Pakistan break it's ties with the Taliban, or just let it slide? Do you demand the Afghan Taliban break ties with Al Qaeda, or just let it slide? I think selfish American interest DID dictate making those two demands, and being willing to launch a war if they were refused.

I think that is a strong argument that the Afghan war was indeed a good thing from the perspective of America's narrow self-interest.

What about the Afghan people though? Their self interest depends on what the end game is, and nobody can predict that. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban hated women's rights, and we fought against them. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban burnt off more of Afghanistan's vineyards than even the Russians had, because making wine was anathema to their cult. What we DO know is that the Taliban was one of the most brutal, backwards and hateful organizations around.

I can not say that the Afghan war ensured a better future for Afghanistan's people. What I CAN say is that leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan ensured a dark, bleak and miserable future for Afghanistan's people. I would modestly propose that a chance at something better was a good thing.

I read your stuff Yogi!

FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.

In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!

They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!

In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.

Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em

But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!

Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.

>> ^moodonia:

Theres no way you can say Bush inherited Iraq from Clinton.
Iraq was "contained" (crippled militarily, economically and in terms of civilian infrastructure through sanctions), it was being bombed every other day by "coalition" forces and they gave Saddam the means to tighten his grip on the country after the rebellion (which they helped fail by allowing Saddam use his attack helicopters to crush it) through schemes like the oil for food program which gave Saddam plenty of things to dole out to supporters to keep them on side.
As we have seen the reason for the Iraq war was bullshit. They wanted Saddam gone and a friendly client in place so they could get that sweet, sweet oil revenue.
Same shit happening today "Iran is a threat" blah blah blah. When Iran was a democracy it had to be eliminated, cant let the natives get their hands on all that oil. So they put a bloody savage in power and were surprised when the people overthrew him.
Afghanistan is run by a hopelessly corrupt former oil executive. Coincidence? Anyone fancy a pipeline?
Nothing will every change until powerful countries stop looking at other countries resources' in terms of what they can loot.
</rant>

>> ^bcglorf:
>>
So Obama inherited Iraq and Afghanistan from Bush, as Bush inherited them from Clinton, as Clinton inherited them from Bush, and so on.
Iraq was a bad situation, every time it was passed down it was still a bad situation.
Afghanistan was a bad situation, every time it was passed down it was still a bad situation.
Can we agree on that much?
I presume so, and would then ask, what step do you believe in each generation should have been taken to make the bad situation better instead of making it worse?
Would having the Taliban in power in Afghanistan today, with Al Qaeada as their guests be better or worse?
Would having Saddam in power in Iraq today be better or worse?



Bush Jr. inherited Iraq from Clinton the same way Clinton inherited Iraq from Bush Sr.

While Clinton was in office, Iraq was still a major problem. You are very right about Clinton inheriting a mess from Bush Sr., and you hit the biggest point in how Bush Sr. failed to push into Baghdad the first time and instead allowed Saddam's gunships to gun down the Shia rebellion. Let's remember though it was the likes of Chomsky that were demanding that Bush Sr. stop short of Baghdad. In fact, if Chomsky's crowd had their way, Bush Sr. would've left Saddam in control of Kuwait as well. Under Clinton's administration, Saddam was still actively refusing to allow inspectors to ensure his compliance with not pursuing WMD programs. Under Clinton's administration, Saddam was routinely violating the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, and actively firing on the aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone. Clinton ignored the problem of Saddam, and largely hoped that sanctions would just make the problem go away. The same sanctions you rightly condemn. But what alternative do you propose? I prefer removing Saddam to maintaining sanctions that are crushing Iraqi's and if anythings, strengthening Saddam's local control. Chomsky seems to think just removing the sanctions and trying to be friends with Saddam was a better idea, I disagree. Clinton tried that with Kim Jong-Il, and tried to dissuade his nuclear ambitions by gifting him a pair of nuclear reactors if he'd just be nicer and not continue pursuing a nuclear program. That went just peachy.

Nothing will every change until powerful countries stop looking at other countries resources' in terms of what they can loot.

It's not just powerful countries, it is all countries, and history teaches that this never has happened so you need to consider that it likely never will happen. With that reality, I'm content to settle for encouraging the special times when nation's selfish interests actually happen to coincide with the better interests of the local people as well. I think it very hard to argue that the absence of Saddam and the Taliban has not been such a gain. I think it even harder to argue that Libyan's haven't seen a similar gain. At the very least, I find those actions plainly and blatantly better than Clinton's era of doing nothing being in his national interest, while watching 800,000 Rwandans butchered while America had the resources to easily cut that death toll to almost nothing. Of course, if he had acted and only 200,000 Rwandans had died, Chomsky would be here today telling us why the blood of 200,000 Rwandans was on Clinton's hands...

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Yogi:
Would having the Taliban in power in Afghanistan today, with Al Qaeada as their guests be better or worse?
Would having Saddam in power in Iraq today be better or worse?


There's way to much history you have to study before we can have this conversation. Let me just say, it's our fault as well that the Taliban and Al Qaeada have become anything of note.

Again, what would've been better?
Chomsky's normal advice, do nothing, would've left Russia holding Afghanistan.
Personally, I'd have preferred we done more rather than less. After getting the Russians out of Afghanistan, just leaving it to whichever war lords amongst the fighters there was strongest was the wrong approach, and foreseeably so. If nation building was too expensive, we at least could have used military muscle to knock of the least desirable candidates like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Dismissing this as too much history is recusing yourself from the discussion. If you do NOT know of a better alternative, you don't get to say somebody is doing things all wrong. Well, your free to say it, but you just look like an idiot.


No you're incorrect about Russia holding Afghanistan. Also you sort of sound like a Neo-Liberal the way you say we should do more around the world rather than less. Influence more, try and control people.

Also I have an extensive knowledge in this subject, I just thought I'd let Chomsky talk about it. I'm not going to hold a class in a comment section bcglorf. You can study this on your own.