OK, back to take another stab at Pooch's panegyric. This is like Hercules shovelling out the Augean stables, it's an enormous and intimidating task when you first look at the stables, but I guess you clean it up one shovelful at a time, so here goes: (since I'm not Hercules, this could be the labour of a lifetime) -
<<The people who kept the US out of WWII (until Japan's invasion made entry inevitable) were the same silly pacifist elements who whine today about US "aggression." >>
Oh, brother. The
obvious difference between then and now is that Germany and its allies were major states with powerful military forces and a realistic chance of defeating the superpowers of the day like Britain and France and dominating the world. Iraq has nothing like the threat potential of the Axis Powers. People who opposed U.S. entry into WWII could legitimately be accused of being blind to a legitimate threat. People who oppose U.S. aggression in Iraq are not blind to a threat, they see very clearly that the "threat" is wholly manufactured by the aggressors themselves, is in fact phony and non-existent, and wouldn't fool anyone but a low-grade moron. To even make the comparison between WWII isolationists and opposition to the war in Iraq indicates both a monumental ignorance of history and an appalling lack of judgment and discrimination.
<<People like you would have raised bloody hell about US aggression had we entered the war without a direct threat. >>
Bullshit. Britain and France took a diplomatic stance before the war began to guarantee Poland and if the U.S. was interested in fighting fascism, they would have taken similar diplomatic moves before the war began, either deterring fascist aggression or providing a legal reason to enter the war once the fascists had started it. Britain and France did the right thing by becoming involved to the extent they did, your country took the coward's way and wouldn't get itself involved. Now you want to portray them as heroes and saviours. Sorry, no sale.
<< I'm certain that lots of folks spent a lot of ink and tears on the argument that Germany's aggression and Japan's militaristic aims posed no threat to the United States. >>
They did indeed. Short-sighted ass-holes. Neville Chamberlain, whom you take such great pleasure in excoriating, brought Britain and France to the alliance with Poland which was intended to warn off Germany, and when it failed, he put his money where his mouth was and declared war. Doing more than your own cowardly leaders, both in binding Britain by treaty to a likely victim of Nazi aggression and by honouring his country's treaty obligations once the aggression occurred.
<<We know as a fact that much of the world ignored the systematic persecutions of Jews in Germany.>>
So? What else is new? They ignored the persecution of the Jews in Poland and Romania and Hungary and pre-Revolutionary Russia as well. There isn't a country on earth that lifted a finger against any of it. It was none of their God-damn business. There is such a thing as state sovereignty over its own citizens, you know. Come to think of it, I didn't see any country in the world lifting a finger to protect American blacks against slavery, lynching, or Jim Crow. What the hell is your point anyway? We should all live in a more interventionist world? The U.S.A. would have been a prime target for much of its history.
<< And Neville Chamberlain is a great example of the bravery of the British government in facing down aggression. >>
He sure as hell did more than any other world leader with the exception of Edouard Daladier. The two of them extended their countries' protection to Poland by treaty and went to war when challenged. You've got a hell of a nerve criticizing Chamberlain, who did a lot more than any U.S. leader to stop Hitler in his tracks. You obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about.
<<The US had as much right to invade Iraq as the British had to attack Germany. >>
You're wrong again. Britain wasn't exercising any "right" when it went to war against Germany. It was fulfilling a
duty. The duty created by the Anglo-Polish Treaty of 1939. The U.S. had neither the obligation NOR the "right" to attack Iraq. It was and remains a purely criminal action, devoid of any possible justification.
<<It has as much right to protect its interests in the world as the UK had to defend the Falklands. >>
Oh, God. Do they ALL get their "history" from Fox News documentaries? Video games? Comic books? The Falkland Islands, a British possession inhabited ONLY by British people, was invaded and occupied by a fascist regime which had at that point tortured to death tens of thousands of its opponents. I suppose that Great Britain
could have abandoned its own people to this regime of fascist criminals and recognized their right to take over British possessions by force of arms, but in fact - - hold on to your hat, Pooch, this will come as a HUGE surprise to you no doubt - - international law
permits them to defend their territory and drive invaders off it. Radical concept, huh?
Now perhaps you could explain to me what "interests" the U.S. was "protecting" that give it the same right to invade Iraq as Britain had to drive the Argentinian Army and Navy out of the Falklands. Oh, sure, I know - - somehow YOUR oil had gotten under THEIR sand, and you had to go to Iraq to get it back.
Well, enough is enough. I feel like I am chipping away at a
mountain of ignorance, illogic and pure stupidity held together by a dull animal hostility and irrational anger that is so dense that it takes an hour to get through every line of it. Meantime, I've got a life outside of Debategate, hard as that may be to believe, and I'll have to return to the task another time. I just want to say honestly, there are differences of opinion and I welcome them. And maybe I'm being too hard on you just for not knowing what I know. But God damn it, what I find most irritating of all is your ATTITUDE. If you came to this discussion with an attitude of "Well I don't think this guy can be right, but God damn it maybe he knows something that I don't," I could put up with just about any question, any challenge, no matter how naive and
But what I encounter instead is this wall of hostility and contempt, totally unjustified because I'm right and he's wrong, from somebody who doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about and talks to ME like
I am the fucking idiot, like
I am the one who needs the history lesson. A little basic humility would be nice, but if you can't manage that, how about a modicum of respect for a view that just MIGHT be a little bit more valid and more in tune with historical reality than your own?
Well, I dunno. Am I being too sensitive? Should I just absorb the shit, the lack of respect, and roll with the punches? That's probably what I'll do. Don't mind me, I am just venting. I know you're not a bad guy, just very, very misguided. But God damn it at least listen to my venting, OK? I am not happy with the tone of these posts. You better realize you are not talking to some fucking idiot. Just try to think of me as someone who knows AT LEAST as much as you do. Or think whatever the fuck you like and
write as if you were writing to someone who knows at least as much as you do. It's called common courtesy and respect. Glad I got that off my chest. No hard feelings, I hope. There's probably a better way of saying that, but it needed to be said.
