My apologies, it was not you who posted that article. However, I still think name calling in general and labeling someone as Hitler in particular is wrong - right or left.

BTW, I have posted before that Hillary is not Hilter by any stretch. Her politics are wrong to me, but her ambitions run quite a few levels short of world domination.

Overpaid Slacker here -- chilling at Ron's today.

Tech -
I'm not my brother's keeper; nor am I the steward of decency for the Right; if Mul (et al) want to be that extreme, what am I going to do? I can't change them any more than I can change you. If you want to risk dislocating an upper appendage patting yourself on the back for appointing yourself shepherd of the Left, go right ahead. As for intellectual honesty, I don't think the far left has any idea what that means. Intellectual groupthink, definitely, which is too often a proxy for honesty by an intolerant Angry Left.

Which gets me back to the initial point -- putting forth something such as the foregoing article and then saying essentially, anyone who disagrees is "braying" or is blinkered, wrongheaded, ideologically stunted, or whatever is nowhere near intellectual honesty -- it's intolerance, plain and simple. The mantra is that the right is intolerant, single-minded, and completely unable to dispassionately review contrary opinions -- just the notion behind this thread puts the lie to the left's ability to judge the right on this matter.

The beach beckons.
JP

I see you working as far here as the methods used. The Nazi's would look for reasons to conquer - they annexed Austria and did that Rhineland trick as the reason to go into France and the English let them have Czechleslovakia etc.

The difference is that Nazism is not based on individual freedom. Our way of life is better - I'm talking about freedom, not necessarily capitolism and Christianity although I belive those are superior ways of life. However, Americans don't think we're better than everyone else the way the Nazi's did. We gladly take the best from each culture and in fact celebrate the best in each culture. But we prefer to have people choose what's best for themselves - not be forced to live a certain way because of a government, eg. Taliban, Saddam, Castro.

I would strongly disagree. Many americans feel as if they and their country is the greatest in the world.

Just look at how bush's 'screw the rest of the world' mentality and foriegn policy takes advantage of this national superiority complex.

The nazis played nationalism for all it was worth and it appears that our own leaders are doing the same.

I have to ask, do you really think Bush is bent on world domination? He may literally be driving a pickup truck on a ranch in Crawford, TX come 2005! For your argument to sustain itself, you have to believe that W is trying to become "KING OF THE WORLD" oh wait, that was Leanardo Decapriati or whoever.

The similarities between W conquering Afghanistan (they have their own constitution now) and Iraq (last I looked Trent Lott is not mayor of Bagdad) and Hitler doing what he did - sorry, that thread is too thin. That is a too tortured argument to sustain.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has ...
liberated two countries,
crushed the Taliban,
crippled al-Qaida,
put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

I'll have to agree with Craig here. Comparing Bush to Hitler (or Hilary, for that matter) is beyond the pale. Hitler ordered the extermination of an entire race; Hitler watched the execution of the officers who revolted against him. Whatever you may say about Bush, that's not him. And it's making light of Auschwitz comparing Guantanamo to it.
What frightens me is that the conspiracy fringe of the right, which emerged after 1992 and which is perfectly represented by Mul on this board, has actually found a home in the Republican party. People who believe that Clinton had Ron Brown killed, that Waco was a premeditated massacre, that Kerry is a communist stooge, etc. find their champion in Bush, and he and Rove do nothing to discourage this kind of thinking. The conspiracy fringe on the left, those who think that Bush went into Iraq only for oil, that the CIA runs the country, that the government is paid for by the big corporations, etc. actually don't like Kerry. They might vote for him, but they sure don't like him. In other words, there is no space left right of Bush, plenty of space left of Kerry. Bush IS the extreme right. Rove after 2000 made the conscious decision to mobilize the extremist, and here they are. If they get another four years, the country will into a medieval fortress, replete with mass hysteria, adulation of mentally retarded kings,and crusades.

Clinton... went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent,
Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.

Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions. He wants to kill your family and friends.

I don't think you have got good points here, Ronin. Clinton went to war with NATO backing and military support. He had to work very hard to convince the Europeans to do it, and prevailed.
The most dangerous mistake in this terrible war is to think it's Osama against George. It's a hundred thousand crazed fundamentalists eager to blow themselves up in your face against us who want to go about our business. There is no way to defeat them militarily, as the latest CIA report (first falsified, then corrected) has shown. If you don't get wise to this fast, things will get very ugly very fast.

NATO is not the UN. NATO will deflate as the French maintain to keep a balance with US supremacy. Look at the French and German military budget as a % of GNP for insight. Look at the spending curve thru the past 20yrs.

Maybe there is an arguement that the US wants democracy in the whole world and is willing to spend and have soldiers die for it. Maybe there is an arguement that democracys don't start wars. Maybe there is an arguement that a country with a strong economic system is only a market for US investors.

I have no problem with the last paragraph.

Even I know that NATO is not UN. The point is that it took long and strong diplomacy (and armtwisting) to make the Europeans do their share. The Bush administration isn't willing to do that, and at this point no one is willing to sit down with them anymore. They feel bullied and lied to, and you can't entirely blame them.
You're still not taking terrorism seriously enough if you think you can go it alone. Then Osama, or any other Islamicist nutcase, will indeed kill your friends and family.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, (ie Old Europe) are too in love with their treaties and commissions and world courts to help us. They still think they matter (France has the same GNP as Georgia for cryin' out loud - our Georgia, not the old USSR Georgia).

New Europe is where our allies will come from - former Eastern bloc countries and the 'stans from the former Soviet Union - also the Brits who are very strong when it comes to spreading civilization.

The UN is a disaster wherever they go. Look what a mess they've made of the Sudan - they're actually concerned with the Sudan maintaining thier "soveriegnty" because some of the social workers who are coming to help don't have thier passports and visas quite right. The UN is a beuracracy on steriods.

I think you're completely right about your diagnosis of Old Europe--except that the right political consequence would be to hold their feet to the fire, and make them pay. You can only do that if you have any kind of authority.
That's the funny thing about diplomacy--you have to deal with people you don't really like, and you have to take the long view. None of that is Bush's strength. But weaving strong treaties is the only practical way to keep the terrorists at bay (e.g. being allowed to hunt them down by special ops in other countries), control nuclear material etc.
Never mind the UN. It's best treated as a place where diplomats meet. It shouldn't have sovereign power. That, too, is something that needs to be installed carefully.

There are different types of territorial conquest. Of course. one is to destroy the military/government of a country. annex it and take over completely. Another is to conquer it either militarily or politically, mold it into a clone, and leave, creating a dependent state. Both are a means of occupation; one is by force and one is by influence.

Our country has a fairly good record of "letting go" after conquest with a few exceptions like Cuba and the Phillipenes. We got out of Europe and Japan rather quickly, limited only by the damage that had to be repaired and in the process created two democratic governments. It took years to do this. That is the second method of conquest. At least we helped create two new countries that are not for the forseeable future a threat to others.

There is a difference between this and the current situation. Japan and Germany KNEW they were defeated. Cities turned into rubble. Hundreds of thousands dead, economies ruined. Modern pinpoint warfare permits the defeat of a military while leaving the infrastructure virtually intact. Thus, the people do not feel beaten. The idea that the culture difference between the West and the Middle East is the primary problem does not hold water, because the gulf between the Japanese culture and the West was as severe, with perhaps the fact that both liked baseball. It is, plain and simple, that there are those in Iraq and Afganistan that do not see a defeat, only a temporary setback.

Some new thinking has to be done to resolve the problem of 20th century vs 21st century warfare. Smart bombs ain't the answer....

In addition: Nazism was a nationalistic ideology and therefore could be destroyed at its root; the same is true for Islamic fundamentalism, which is transnational, trasncontinental even, and is fuelled by a complete different kind of desire (OBL's bone-chilling "you love life, we love death").
Yes, creative thinking is in order. I don't see the present administration do that. I feel they don't know, or don't want to know, what they're up against.

My bad--obviously a NOT is missing in the second half of the sentence

As for crusades: they were always oriented towards a place--Jerusalem--which needed liberation from the infidels. There have been similar interpretetations of Islamism (if only we get out of Saudi-Arabia they're going to quiet down) but that's too hopeful an analysis, I fear.

ok.. thus meaning
"NATO will deflate as the French maintain to keep a balance with US supremacy." from paragraph one.

Not sharing a joint reaction to a common enemy forces France to become credible. France not having the military power, economic power, or political power forces them to attempt a diminishing of the US supremacy. During the cold war France and the US shared a joint reaction to the USSR, generally. France's position is slowly causing a political split with Germany. This is the most obvious failure so far on this imo. NATO's position in world events must morph with todays war to have a reason for existance. If France keeps to it's current position NATO must decide to flow with France or the US. If the politics is a flow towards France the US has very limited need of the alliance.. meaning US assets will become more centered into providing for it's own defense.

fwiw.. in politics change often needs a radical situation. France needs a radical situation to change it's failing position to the US. The US is the leader in this war whether France likes it or not. Granted one of the many predictable reactions is to classify the US as "going it alone" when in disagreement with it's position instead of logically accepting the US's role as the "Leader". You don't have to like that it is the "Leader", just accept that it is the "Leader" and push for your issues to be recognized.

Of course the bottom line is whether you truly believe we are at war or not.. go figure.

I don't agree with a single point here.

Perhaps that's what your news is telling you. We've put new governments in place in two contries, 80% of which are not controlled by those central governments. The US-picked leaders would be overthrown if US forces left.

The Taliban is very strong in Iraq, again, ruling a large portion of the geographic area. Afghan farmers have turned back to heroin poppies as the best 'cash crop.'

Al Auaeda, we're now told, is not an 'official organization' but hundreds of cells -- gorups associated with a series of causes. We've taken away some training camps, and they have not made further attacks on US soil, but then they hadn't during the previous administrations, either. Our invasion of both countries has effectively recruited thousands of new "members" to al-Quaeda related organizations. many of whom are attacking US soldiers and cooperating locals -- perhaps you heard about the car bomb last week -- did Faux News cover it? about 70 new 'police recruites were killed.

If Saddam killed thousands of his own people, that will come out in his trial. The story about him 'gasing the Kurds'has recently become suspicious.

When going to war, it's good to have an inflammatory story to tell the troops. You remember our lapdog media telling the story that Saddam's soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait, right? False propaganda. It takes time before thr truth finally comes out, and it's not always what you think.

No, we're in two big messes in the Middle East; no more secure at home, according to the polls, and have lost enormous respect around the world.

Sorry if the 'nuclear inspectors in situ' doesn't excite. We had that in Iraq, too.