slo5oh wrote:
thanks_champ wrote:
A timetable would at least let the Iraqi people know that they are not going to be permanently occupied by the US.
Imo it all depends on what their goals are in Iraq. If it's to train up the Iraqi armed forces to the point where they are able to take over control, then there should be no problem speculating on how long that will take.
If the goal is to attempt to kill every single guerilla fighter then your right, setting a timetable is pointless, but so is the goal.
You have to realize what we are dealing with. They have been born and raise to hate and want to kill all westerners. How long do you think it will take to remove racisim from a race of people? I expect we will have a heavy hand in their affairs for at least another 10 years. We need for the lower school grade children to be raised without blindly hating the west and everyone that's not muslim. Sure we'll never get rid of all the racism, but there's still morons in Germany calling themselves neo-nazis, there's still lots of american's both in the north and south that hate blacks, gays, etc, just because they're different.
As to the UN. I smell bull....
The UN's assorted laws have not stopped anything in decades. It's mostly controlled by communists countries now pushing their communist laws through politics.
Do you find it annoying when people tar the whole US with the racist brush because of the existence of American racists? Do proponents of such views come off as knowledgeable of their subject matter, or basically ignorant?
You're right -- there are racists all over the place, and racism is probably not going to go away in our lifetime. Does that mean keeping a military presence in increasingly hostile countries indefinitely is a good way of addressing the problem? Let me put it this way -- would an occupation of perceived "racist strongholds" in the US
by a foreign army likely reduce, or exacerbate racism in that area? How about if the timeline of that occupation was completely open-ended, because they didn't want to "encourage" the racists by seeming to "waver in their resolve"? Be honest, now.
And so, to the UN... The UN is the "United Nations", no more no less. It represents an idea, born out of a sudden recognition that our species' longstanding tradition of slaughtering each other had reached a kind of technological zenith. There were only about 20 years between WWI and WWII, but we still haven't wiped ourselves out and it's been 60 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I think the UN is not quite as ineffective as you might think.
And "mostly controlled by communist countries now pushing their communist laws through politics"? Are you on glue?! You can count the number of communist countries in the world on one hand, and if you think they "control the UN" you need to give your head a shake. Undermining the UN has dangerous precedents in
history, and these days, there isn't nearly as much margin for error.
If that hinders a country's plans for global domination -- whether it's China, Russia, France, Britain, or even [gasp] the US -- well, too fucking bad. What good is an empire if it's 90% radioactive wasteland, anyway?
I just realized the points in the post you quoted still stand, and you basically don't even try to refute them in your "reply". I should have noticed that before I started replying to yours, but oh well...
