If I don't reply to a paragraph, it means I concur, or mostly do so (or that I just don't know, like your about Somalia point).
: That sounds more like WWII Germany than Iraq. Very little
: damage was done to the "people", as you say,
: the civilians, as compared with almost any war. But it
: is true that, when a dictator surrounds himself with
: his own people for protection, it is an awful,
: terrible deed that must be done...
True...but the [i]way[/i] in which it was done was far from desirable. You can't just say "oh well, it had to be doen" because there's always a better way than the admitted tactic of "if we come under fire, level the surrounding buildings" that the US used in Baghdad (paraphraisng (accurately) an American general (the one in charge I think) talking about how they were goung to take Bahgdad).
: Pfft, that's nonsense. Even if they could get together
: (which the Shi'ites did in 1991), they would be
: stomped by the regime (which also happened to the
: Shi'ites).
Could have been avoided, but as an analogy, then yes, saying "if they realy wanted to be rid of xyz they would do something" is ludicrous.
: The United Kingdom, Denmark, and the United States
: presently "run" the country of Iraq.
Denmark?! :o
: The mobile biological weapons laboratories weren't enough
: for you? Exactly how many smoking guns do you need?
As I recall, that wasn't really even complete or something.
: What? That was the fault of France and England, who were
: sworn as members of the League of Nations to prevent
: Germany from rearming.
Not sure I udnerstand - that would have meant they would have stopped Germany. What rellay happened was war-fear caused by the kiling of most of a generation of men in World War One. Thus, France and England were [i]disarming[/i] during the 1930s, while they let Germany rearm and take over coutnries because they felt that the Treaty of Versailles was toohharsh and so Germany should be given compensation...in the form of being given whatever it wanted...
But somehow people still don't relaise appeasement is [i]STUPID[/i].
: Poor Poland trusted its allies,
: but realized the betrayal when the Blitzkrieg finally
: happened. It was because of years of inaction by
: Western Europe that "half of Europe", as you
: say, was conquered by the Nazis.
: The US had no part in the League of Nations; it was the
: responsibility of the League of Nations countries to
: prevent Fascism from even coming about, in Italy, in
: Germany, in Japan. They did nothing when Japan began
: its own conquests.
A large reason that the League was so weak was because the USA (the nation that propsed it) refused to enter out of a policy of isolationism. Being a very strong ecnomic power, when the League did try to take measuers such as sanctions against facist Italy, it failed because there was always a large economic power to trade with across the Atlantic (even the nations in the League did ignore some sanctions and not sanction oil out of self-interest with Italian trade, but the principle remains).
Another reason was public flaunting of the League (Japan, etc) which destoryed confidence in it.
Now again the USA is refusing to participate in the UN's proceddings, and is publcally flaunting it and frankly making the UN look like the bad guy. So if the UN dies, don't be surprised - it happened before.
: As for creating the Nazi problem, like you seem to
: infer... if you recall, the United States is the one
: that ended up saving Europe and the world from
: Fascism, from Naziism, from Imperialism. We have the
: nasty habit of fixing things. Period.
*cough*Russia*cough*
Hey, don't forget the other countries...
*cough*UK*cough*
: And supporting tyrants elsewhere, exactly, like in Cuba.
: And it worked, and was justified because Communism was
: a greater threat to the world. And now that that
: threat is gone for the most part, we can get down to
: the basics of morality again and help to bring down
: malign regimes.
Not just communism. Sociallism in fact, democratic but left-wing governments, were ideal traget sot be replaced (Columbia). In fact, just about any government the USA didn't like the look of was considered within its rights to destroy.
And placing in replacement governments is one thing, but teaching leaders how to torture, assasinate and suppress civilian dissent is another (which the US also did).
: You seem to state that history will repeat itself.
: History does this less frequently and exactly as you
: seem to indicate; things change, and radically, and
: never go back to how they were, no matter how hard we
: try or how much we want them to.
Circumstances chaneg, but actions which cause them don't always (see my UN point).
