War and Majority

And I guess we do the same to Palistine as well, since Isreal would be peaceful without Palastine, and without Isreal Palistine would still be fighting amongst themselves over the same plot of land, just without having a common enemy. Kind of like how they were before there was an Isreal.. Groups of nomadic peoples killing each other over the "holy land" all in the name of religion...

I said, "Winning the election through the electoral college and the courts is not an example of ignoring the will of American people." And you disagree with this? To turn this around and state it in the affirmative, you believe that winning the election through the electoral college and the courts is an example of ignoring the will of American people?"Do you have an alternative approach?Those sufficiently disappointed in an outcome can always make their arguments, in your case that, shockingly, people involved in the legal process had been appointed by governmental officials who were members of one or the other of the two major political parties, or that things that can't be known are actually facts, such as whether the ambiguous votes were actually intended votes, but the facts say that constitutional and legal procedures developed to assert the will of the American people were all followed.My only point is that the election of 2000 was not an example of Bush flouting the will of the American people. But if Bush goes to war with Iraq based on what we know at this time, then it would certainly be an example of Bush flouting the will of the American people. Bush wasn't even an elected official in a position of power in 2000. To blame Bush for whatever faults there were in the 2000 electoral process would be to assign him power he did not have.--Percy

What I was trying to say is that Bush did not legitimately win the election through the electoral college and the courts. He was placed into office when decisions over electoral and judicial procedures fell (by luck) into the hands of family, cronies, and fellow party members.You are completely incorrect in saying "the facts say that constitutional and legal procedures developed to assert the will of the American people were all followed." Not only did the Supreme Court ruling which placed Bush (their party member) into the white house admit that procedures were NOT FOLLOWED, but Ashcroft (in trying to defend his civil rights record) said that he had monitored Florida's last election specifically to address the problems that DID HAPPEN in during the Bush election. Those are REPUBLICANS saying things weren't right (and Ashcroft admitting how bad they were... civil rights had been violated)!You always seem on top of issues, but I think you have slipped on this one.I am not debating the legitimacy of legal complaints regarding how confusing the ballots were. That seemed rather silly and from what I heard some newspaper counted the damn things (using a method favorable to Gore) and it still wouldn't have helped him. I just thought it showed how low Bush and Co were prepared to go when they lied about other states' ballots to counter the Florida claims.The REAL problem were the people prevented from registering to vote, and those who were registered that were prevented from voting. This DID HAPPEN. It was made public in court a little bit past 9-11 (and so was lost amongst other more pressing news stories at the time). Constitutional and legal procedures were not followed. As Ashcroft stated not two weeks ago: civil rights had been violated in the Florida election.If the rules had been followed I would not have cared a bit. It was the lies and the circumvention of the will of the public that was offensive to me.You are absolutely right in saying Bush did not do this. His PARTY did this as they had the means to do so. They continue to do this, pushing their agenda past the will of the american public, with greater gusto each time, as they see how flimsy that will really is. This war is just the latest thing.You asked if I had a better approach to determining and enforcing the will of the Public? Yes I do. Personally I would do away with the electoral college. It made sense in the 18-19th century, it makes no sense today and has the ability to counter the popular will of the public.And when there are problems with an election, arbitrary deadlines such as inauguration day should give way to correction of the problem. I think it was horrific for the Supreme Court to say there were problems but we don't have time to correctly determine the will of the people, go with the flawed results.Correcting problems would have been more democratic and proper. What would it have taken to simply have a proper revote? 2 months tops? Isn't correctly determining the will of the people worth the extra time and effort?In fact, if the people charged with handling the election took a proactive stance in correcting problems and properly determining the vote, instead of defensively protecting their candidate, it very likely would have been completed before inauguration.holmes

On the topic of war with Iraq in specific, personally I am against it at this stage. This is regardless of it being done against the will of the public (which is it's own issue).Bush did a great job last night of addressing why Saddam is a bastard and that he is basically a violent man bent on procuring and using any weapon he can get his hands on.While Bush overspun the threat Saddam's weapons pose as WMDs, as well Saddam's ability to use them against the US (those rockets wouldn't reach anywhere near us), he was dead on right saying if we were going to be attacked there would be no "imminent danger" signal we could look for. We cannot afford to wait for THAT scenario, before taking action.Unfortunately he made no case why war at this point in time was the only, or the best, solution to the problem we are facing.Saddam is currently contained and can be kept so, with no major cost in lives or finances, almost indefinitely. If/when he bucks the containment, then we could step up military solutions.There has also been no explanation of how a war would help us find those missing stockpiles and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.If anything, a war would make the borders more porous by diverting attention away from general containment and other Fog-of-War issues, and so increase the possibility of weapons being snuck out or otherwise obtained by terrorist organizations.In fact he is given greater incentive to release his WMDs to organizations he'd be hesitant to give them to, just in hopes they get used against the US.There is also little reason to believe that any following government would be more pro US than it is now, and would not on its own try to obtain or trade in WMDs. After all it is a very poor nation. Why couldn't "freed" Iraqi scientists start freelancing talent to nations and organizations opposed to the US.Heheheh. Bush talked about how Iraq was dangerous just because it could export the "technology" to terrorists. Unless we propose to kill all of their scientists with the knowhow, please explain how a war will stop the spread of the technology.I think the fact that Saddam is a fiend is beyond question here, as well as our need to contain and disarm him. But that goes for a lot of other "bad" countries and leaders as well. It seems pretty obvious why we've chosen this man and this country to not pursue all other avenues first, and it has nothing to do with violating UN resolutions.But here is something that has confused me greatly... Al-Queda without question attacked us. It was supported and defended by the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. Why has Bush assembled a more awesome military force to defeat Saddam Hussein than he did to pursue Al-Queda in Afghanistan? If Bush was able to muster this kind of force, why didn't we do the same thing to greater ensure we beat BinLaden and co?holmes

Now your stepping outside the bounds of the original assertion. I was talking about Bush's role, not the entire 2000 election fiasco.You seem to be forgetting the original assertion. It was asserted that Bush's Iraq policy was foreshadowed by the way he took the 2000 election. This is obviously false because Bush didn't have that kind of power, not then and not now (if presidents had that kind of power, Gore would be president), so he couldn't do it by fiat. Now that he is President he has the power to invade Iraq by fiat. I was pointing out the fallacy in the proposed equivalence.I'm not a Bush supporter. I think both his foreign and domestic policies are ill-conceived. But not liking Bush doesn't justify making illogical assertions about him.--Percy

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Shiloh:
Percy,
My suggestion that there may be a relationship between the election and the administration's current position is this: give them an inch and they'll take a yard. There may well be a sense that no public mandate is really needed, afterall, since none was needed in the election. It's the ol' I-can-do-whatever-I-want mentallity.

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Perhaps I'm reading this all wrong. But it is a concern of mine.

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Indeed, the election fairly clearly demonstrates a lack of mandate.I do have a different idea of the connection, however - Americans, being the ever-gullible, knee-jerk, rally-around-the-flag types that we are, are easily wooed to otherwise unsupportable positions by war or the threat of it.Bush was wavering around, then 9/11 came. Makes the requisite "tough guy" speeches, and his approval soars.
The mid-term elections nearly all revolved around the threat of war - those seen as being bigger supporters of war pretty much won.
Oversimplification, sure, but that played a role im many an elecetion, I have little doubt.
And of course the economy is tanking, corporate scandals rock the country, and the debt soars.how else is a guy to get support for tax cuts for the rich and the gutting of environmental laws?Why, start a a war!Wag the dog, baby.

Nice solution. I think if there is no such thing as 'The Promised Land' all this bloodbath and massacre will not be necessary.Maybe we should make that place uninhabitable (dump nuclear waste there? ) and throw everyone out. We're better off without that piece of land.[This message has been edited by Andya Primanda, 01-30-2003]

[just returned from an anti-war rally]I also asked, why war?The US has CIA and FBI, and those guys might be able to snuff out terrorists better than a large-scale attack. Indonesian authorities captured Bali bomb suspects one by one via intelligence operations, not by deploying armed troops. Can the CIA or FBI do better? I think they can.If one is after a rat, why burn the whole house? Osama, for example, does not stick in just one country--he runs around. Military solutions are hopeless against this person. The real victims are the citizens whose lives are destroyed in the process.Why war? Use special operatives instead. The US did this when they brought down Noriega.Or, as many had suspected, it's not really Osama or Saddam they're after... [been watching too many 007 movies]

Call me cynical, but the whole issue sounds remarkably similar
to the English involvement in the Falklands in the 80's.The prime minister was loosing popularity pretty fast, but
then she sends the troops in to the Falklands to protect
british people and interests and wins the next election in a
landslide ... despite driving the UK into the worst recession
since the 30's.

What has terrorism got to do with Iraq? Or Ossama Bin Laden to
do with Saddam Hussein for that matter?

Don't ask me, ask Bush!

I will just throw this out there.There are some similarities between the situation with Saddam and the situation with Hitler.Hitler defied the Leauge of Nations and massed a war machine, all of Europe knew this. They did nothing to stop him, nothing to prevent him from invading Poland, nothing to stop him from invading France.Saddam is building a large arsenal. He supports terrorists, he has a history of aggressive actions(Kuwait, Iran).Now those that say we need more proof, if given the choice of acting early in the 30's would you have? Or was waiting the better choice?

Okey doke Percy-I see and agree with your comments then, and the original assertion (that Bush did everything) was way off. Being that the guy still can't say the word "nuclear" properly I would never be one to say Bush engineered ANYTHING.Honestly, this guy is mildly personable, but pretty dumb. It is the Republican Party running the show before and after the election, and even worse it's the Xtian Fundamentalists running the Republican agenda right now.Did anyone else catch Falwell on 60 minutes saying he and the other Xtian Fundamentalists are running the government? Scary.holmes

There may be some personal similarities between Saddam and Hitler, but there are none between Iraq and Germany.First of all Iraq already tried to conquer one tiny neighbor and the international community first contained its forces to only that country, and then slapped it back to its original borders.Second of all, stuck back within its borders, the international community has Iraq quite contained. There is little to no chance that it will break out of its box (especially given the poverty of the nation) and if it managed to do so, then it would not get very far.The only issue is what Iraq can do to other countries in limited, singularly violent events. Like being able to launch a Chemical, Bio, or Nuclear missile at Israel... or a detonate a nuke over a patch of foreign oil fields.For decades Iraq fought against Iran and made no headway, and its greatest military accomplishment so far was taking the tiny country of Kuwait... which it lost in short order.His ambitions may be similar to Hitler, but its all a pipedream. I think its inappropriate, perhaps self-serving, and ultimately NOT HELPFUL to pretend his pipedreams are the realities we are facing.This guy will NEVER be set to rule the middle east, much less the entire world. How long should we wait? How about 30 more years of containment... by then he'll be dead!holmes

I think in Bush's case, and he's not alone in this by any means, that dumbness is an asset, at least as far as carrying out his foreign policy. Both allies and detractors alike despair of explaining the nuances to him, and so they take the only possible course, going along with the leader of the most powerful country in the world.To be honest, I don't believe Bush is dumb, not even close. But I do believe that his mind is closed and incapable of understanding certain points of view. Naturally from such insights spring delay and equivocation, and people of his type who are free of such encumbrances are needed to play certain roles at certain times.Whether Bush is right or wrong about Iraq, we *do* live in dangerous times. But he seems not to perceive the possibility that his present course may dramatically increase the number of people in the world willing to die in the name of striking a blow against the United States, ironically decreasing rather than increasing our domestic security.You may have heard about the letter signed by 8 European countries that appears on the op-ed page of today's WSJ. I wonder to what degree they actually agree with Bush. They may actually be acting, at least to some degree, from expediency and perceived future self-interest.--Percy