(December 2, 2018 at 10:48 am)Cherub786 Wrote:(December 2, 2018 at 10:29 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: The simple problem with blaming Bush, Sr. with not taking out Iraq is that doing so would not have been a just war and would have compromised our aims in the region and elsewhere by setting a precedent that the U.S. was willing to shamelessly engage in conquest and imperialism for unjustifiable reasons. A precedent that would have had far reaching and damaging consequences. Bush, Jr. realized this. That's why he manufactured the charge of harboring WMDs in violation of UN agreements and violating the no-fly zone. Bush, Jr. attempted to give a war on Iraq the legitimacy that it would have lacked under Bush, Sr. To say that Bush, Sr. was a failure for not engaging in an unjust war is simply short sighted thinking, concentrating only on the immediate goal of regime change in Iraq, and ignoring the consequences of engaging in such without adequate moral justification. It is not only immoral, it is bad policy.
Why did the US, under Bush Sr., encourage an internal revolt in Iraq with the aim of overthrowing Saddam?
It has nothing to do with imperialism or conquest. Once free, Iraq auctioned and contracted its oil to the Chinese.
WMDs and oil were just a pretext. The real reason was to get rid of a dictator like Saddam. As far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters and that's all the justification needed.
When troops were already on the ground in Kuwait, it was just a matter of crossing the border and heading north a few miles to Baghdad. Bush Senior made a blunder just admit it.
Instead, we allowed Iraq a full decade to regroup and try to recover. That partly explains why the insurgency during the Second Gulf War was so intense. The Baathists were preparing for it and had increasingly militarized the Sunni triangle. They knew they could never defend against the Americans in a conventional war, which is why they didn't even try in 2003.
(December 2, 2018 at 10:44 am)Brian37 Wrote: There is no such thing as a "leftist" government. I am a liberal, I value the protection of pluralism. I am sick of the bullshit slur that all closed societies are "leftist". No, they are conservative. Iran does not value political or religious pluralism. They are a one party CONSERVATIVE theocracy.
China is also A CONSERVATIVE STATE. It values blind loyalty to ONE PARTY. That is hardly a value of openness and pluralism.
And what Reagan did with "tear down that wall" had nothing to do with the GOP starting the age of failed trickle down economics. From a social perspective in pushing an open society in Germany and Russia, he was right. But that does not mean what he did locally here with economics worked.
"Capitalism" is not a form of government. China allows the private sector too, it is why when you go to Walmart you see 99% of the labels on products "made in China". They are a one party conservative AUTHORITARIAN capitalist country. The Saudi Royal Family also are a RICH family who owns banks and oil companies. Gadaffi was a billionaire who owned stock in General Electric. Fidel Castro died with an estimated personal wealth of $800 million.
What failed with Iran ending up in a theocracy, was our miscalculation that by busting them up it would lead towards a more open society. But that does not make the Iran we have now a liberal country, to claim it is is absolute bullshit.
Again, "liberal" does not mean closed, it means "open".
Dude stop trying to redefine political terms. This isn't about the liberal conservative binary. That binary is for people with a simple minded approach to politics.
Not the one doing that. Conservatives are the ones whom have vilified liberals as nanny state communists, or Hitler's Germany, and that is what THEY, not me define as "left".
No sorry, but that is exactly what dictators do and one party states do. They limit competition to one party and or section of society whom they deem loyal to that state. That is conserving power to a limited section of a given population. It is a monopoly.
The private sector is not exclusive to the west. There is not one nation, friend or foe alike that does not invest in the global market. The private sector despite what you might think also existed under Hitler and Stalin. The difference between those dictatorships and the west is which sect of the population had more power over the economy. In those dictatorships, the private sector was merely crony capitalism as to which the benefits of the market went to the party loyalists.
Again, see China. That is not a leftist state, it is a conservative one party authoritarian capitalist state.
"Leftist" to today's conservatives is a bullshit pejorative having nothing to do with what what western liberals want. What today's liberals want isn't an end to the private sector. What today's western liberals want is the same economic policies that gave rise to the middle class after WW2. Nobody wants Castro's cuba or Stalin's Russia.
Being anti monopoly, being pro livable wages is not a leftest idea, it is what America used to do after the Great Depression up until Reagan. Today's conservatives are simply a product of the fear mongering of the old white men who sell the cold war crap. But I do warn you, if the GOP got everything it wanted we would have the same slave wage economy as China.
The goal in the west isn't to compete to become a labor force whom works for pennies.
