Haezed

To answer your question first requires answering the OP. We know things are bad now. That's easy and hardly worth repeating. The question is how bad things could get if we leave. This question has nothing to do with sunk costs. If anything, it is the war's detractors who are fixated on sunk costs as they keep a running total of the cost in blood and coin. Your point reveals that this is a red herring. The question is (i) what are the future costs and (ii) what are the future "benefits." Possible benefits might be preventing (i) genocide, (ii) safe haven to terrorist groups and (iii) allowing Iran to become a Middle Eastern superpower. What I see is an endless discussion of the "sunk" costs on the media without much discussion of future costs and benefits.

Actually, I think there is a point to be made here re polygamy. The point being that the state does have a right to define and thereby limit marriage even between consenting men and women. I say this even though I probably would support gay marriage if I were voting in a legislature BUT the point being made is that there is an important societal interest in defining what is and is not marriage. Bestiality misses the point because the animal presumably can't consent. I suppose it all boils down to whether you really are standing on a slope and whether it really is slippery.

Do you think Britain and the USSR should not have invaded Iran in 1941? How can anyone say what Iran would look like today if Reza Shaw had not cozied up to Germany prior to WWII and if Britain and the USSR had not invaded Iran? Further, how can we know what would have happened had Iran not nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP)? Had British and US intelligence agencies not supported the Shaw, would the Shaw have deposed Mossadegh anyway? Would Islamic rule have come without regard to any of this? I frankly have no idea; therefore, cannot generally say that the West meddlings backfired.

This kind of argument is seriously out of bounds. Damned traditionalists who think we have a right to control our own borders.... Why, because it was a terribly difficult thing for 12-20 million of them to accomplish? Now we are getting somewhere... Actually, you've given a pretty good example of the necessity of a country maintaining the integrity of its own borders if it wants to remain a country FWIW, most Indians were killed by plague, not murder, rape or enslavement. Many cooperated with the white man. Many would have committed brutal acts of genocide if they had had the tools of Western civilization. It's not so simple and, even if it were, you are talking about another time. You might as well be talking about the Peloponnesian War. Now we get a string of straw men. No one argues agaist illegal immigration because they "don't fit in" or didn't learn the pledge. How can your laundry list exclude that they are guilty of breaking the law, hence the term ILLEGAL immigration. What made the Indians the rightful owners of the land before we got here? Because they were here first? Big ugly strawman. Who here has expressed animosity towards illegals themselves (my tongue in cheek poem notwithstanding)? What I don't get is why people can't understand that a nation without control of its border is not a nation at all. I'll get to your proposal for border control in a minute. I don't say deport them. I would say (i) let in the ones we need (from whatever country we think is to our advantage), (ii) make them citizens if it is to our advantage and (iii) dry up the jobs for the illegals. The real criminals should be the employers. As far as what makes a citizenship, yep, it's pretty much a matter of birth. Life just ain't fair sometimes. I guess we could require our youth to don hoplite armor and meet in the plains of Nebraska to fight bloody battles to earn citizenship but that went out of style about 2400 years ago. So, what is your plan? Let anyone want in who wants to come in? When does practicality start to play a role in your proposal? I agree. Punish the employers. There is not even a shred of a logical connection between those laws and deportation. Plainly put, you either believe a nation has the right to control who makes up its citizenry or you do not. I think you do not? Another huge straw man: No one wants to stick it to people. We want control of our border and for it to be done legally. If we need 20 million workers, let's make it legal. If we don't, don't. How would you punish them? Why was it dropping the ball? I thought you want to let in everyone yearning to come here? You seem to completely flip flop here. What right do we have to keep future people from coming here? Aren't they "huddled masses" who "yearn" and isn't citizenry over rated anyway? Your arguments are for a completely open border now except for keeping out an ill defined class of "criminals." So after spending billions of dollars making an impregnable The Great Wall of Mexico, you would throw open the gates and let everyone come in except those you "filter" out as criminals? How, exactly, do we "filter" criminals coming in from Mexico? We are going to have to have a database on Mexican criminals? Does such a database even exist? Surely you would not keep people out of the US if they committed only minor crimes in Mexico? Until we have a world government, nation states have the right to define their citizenry. The fact that it has always been this way doesn't mean I'm a miserly traditionalist. It has been this way for the reason that the nation state will cease to exist as a separate unit if it does not possess this basic right of defining its membership.

I'm going to edit my plan to make it more sophisticated. Step 1: Figure out how many and what kind of new citizens we need. Step 2: Make them Citizens. Step 3: If we need a base of workers that can help us on a temporary basis, give them temporary visas. Step 4: Create a private right of action against employers who hire illegals. Step 5: Make it a felony to hire an illegal alien. We'll have the labor we need. We provide full employment for our growing class of lawyers and might even solve rising health care costs as lawyers turn to sue employers violating the law.

It's a poem by Emma Lazarus from a different era, placed on the memorial 16 years after her death. I don't think intentional deception was involved. Maybe we can update the verse: Keep your ancient lands, keep your storied pomp, come smuggled contraband, start here with a lawless romp. Give me your tired, your illiterate poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, No need to darken Ellis Island's door for the law or simple courtesy. Give me your huddled masses, yearning to break the law to be free, just be ready to work your tired asses, to pay baby boomers' social security. I'm a fun gal, the Mother of Exiles, without further need of Anglophiles. Coming illegally is not a crime, if you but help pay our welfare dime. See my smirk, see my sly wink, demographics need a liberal twink.

What do people think about a limited defense designed to knock down missiles from emerging nuclear powers *cough*Iran*cough*?

I.E. you are unelectable. That's okay, so am I. Paul resisted stating unequivocally that the US was not to blame. That is a pretty revealing ommission. FWIW, I think the government did expect a 9/11 style attack and I think the terrorists are to blame. Would you not have "invaded" Western Europe to stand against the soviets in the cold war? You would have no presence in the middle east? Would you dismantle our air craft carriers so we do not project/invade power into such areas. What abou S. Korea? Has our presence there been a mistake for several decades? US military presence overseas is but one element that creates terrorism. Do you think terrorism would disappear if went completely on defense? So we must kowtow to the most dysfunctional, least rational elements of the world? Sorry but at some point Islamic countries are simply going to have to deal with these people internally or they will continue to suffer. I'm not sure we can afford to give into this cliche in this area. Again, I think you are vastly oversimplifying. There is a centuries old evolution of tension towards Western culture. A wild assumption. Despots need enemies and the West will remain their enemy even if we ... what? Give up their oil? Well, I wish your wishes for fishes come true. In the meantime.... Specifics, please? Disengagement? You sure that's not on Moveon.org?

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Easily said but what, exactly, do you mean? For example, do we withdraw forces from S. Korea?

Very well said.

Which just goes to show that it is always a good idea to define the terms you use so others don't do it for you.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying but in the previous post it almost seemed like you were comparing the US policy in Iraq to genocide. You don't mean that, do you?

What are you suggesting?

It depends. Most would agree with us having invaded Iraq in Gulf War I. Ditto for Afghanistan. Our defense of S. Korea has done a world of good although it has been expensive. The "natural progression" of Europe post WWII without the United States would have been to live under the boot of the Soviet Union. The natural progression of the world without the United States in 1940 is unbearable to contemplate. Darfur could do with a bit of policing right now but China and Russia are shamefully allowing genocide for oil, yet it is the US that takes all of the heat. You have to talk specifics. Finally, please don't take offense but for the love of all that is good and holy, please won't you punctuate your sentences?

I certainly would not think the US is omnipotent. However, we are rarely in a military role now in Iraq. We are in a policing capacity which makes our troops particularly vulnerable. We won the military battle and are now there to provide security while a political solution is cobbled together. In the meantime, we have suffered 3,500 deaths, many many more injuries, relative to thousands of enemy dead. The only real way to kill us en masse is to kill yourself. Make no mistake, the US has the most lethal military in the world in a stand up fight. No military charged with the current task in Iraq could get away without taking casualties. None of this is to say that we should assume our current strength will continue into the future. The battlefield is ever changing. I agree that on balance war does not produce wealth. That was different in ancient times as was proven by the Roman empire. Today, war does not provide a competitive advantage but is fought as a matter of defense.

I think you've mixed posts from Andrew and me. I'll respond to your response to my points. True, that was imprecise wording on my part, although not critical to my point. It was purely economic and our economic systems were fully engaged and intact compared to a devastated world. Which, of course, is the only point I made. Which, also of course, is very much like the point I made - what used to work won't work in the coming century. The days of war being used to extend an empire or for economic advantage have passed. The risks are too great. Which, again, was exactly my point. The survival of the species may depend on disengaging from modes of behavior and tribal instincts which were once valid. To quote M. Rees quouting Winston Churchill's Finest Hour speech Churchill spoke chillingly about the threat of the world sinking into "the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science".

I was using Greece for my own example. I understand Alexander was from Macedonia. Well' date=' I'll sleep much better now. Seriously, a "few rogue bombs" could lead to a hellish existence. Besides, the risks are hardly limited to nukes. In another thread recently, I saw how Martin Rees, the Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University gives us a 50/50 shot of surviving for another century. History, if there is to be a recorded human history, will record the "great" nation of this period as the one who best led humanity out of this technological adolescence. Note, that this leadership may require some wars to be fought. This is a far cry, however, from saying that generically "war is good" or even necessary to a great nation.

What, you have something against the Flinstones?

Well, there's this:

You have to peg your claim to a time period. Was war "good" for the Greek nation? Well, certainly, the Persian wars went pretty well for the Greeks. If they hadn't won, Greece would be an irrelevant memory. The Peloponnesian wars, didn't do too much for them, certainly if you were an Athenian. Alexander helped to create a "great" empire and did much to spread and simultaneously erode Greek traditions. Fast forward to the US, wars were essential to build retain the nation which spans the continent. If the civil or mexican-american war had been lost, we would be diminished. Fast forward to WWII, the US emerged as the remaining world power because (i) our economic basis had been mobilized but and was undamaged and (ii) we alone had the bomb. For thousands of years, wars help a nation become and stay "great" by garnering and maintaining territory and resources essential to their economic and military. Wars also can preserve the "nation" or, in Greece's case, a collection of city-states. The problem is that we have now expanded into all available land on this planet and more and more nations are gathering the ability to destroy the world. We are dealing with an imperative that is encoded into our species to protect and benefit the tribe but our survival may depend on overriding that hard coding with the software in our brains.

There is telling the truth and then there is being stupid. Presidents should not be politically stupid but they should also be honest. See, e.g., Ronald Reagan. The last sentence of your paragraph is what Paul was missing. It is a wild assumption that the Islamists wouldn't hate our guts if the US & British hadn't taken various actions post-WWI. The Islamic world's decline from being the pinnacle of scientific progress and even freedom started centuries ago. Scapegoats must be found. Who did we incrementally invade? Sure you should consider the impact of your own behavior. That's obvious but Paul was putting it all on us in this segment. I assume he knows better and just was being politically stupid and THAT is giving him the benefit of the doubt. It is a wild and dangerous assumption that if we "stop punching" we won't get hit. Should we not have "stopped punching" when Iraq invaded Kuwait? Should we not have punched back against the Taliban? If the policy of being a doormat worked (not saying this is your position, but using the tool of reductio ad absurdum), the world would be a marvelous place but it doesn't have a great history except when directed as non-violent protests against Western democracies, e.g. Ghandi. Paul's statement had none of these nuances and it is dangerous to speak in generalities. You have to talk about which "punch" and which "counterpunch." Osama's purported primary beef was our presence in Saudia Arabia. Would Paul have had us withdraw forces or fundamentally alter that alliance prior to 9/11? Paul's statements were lazy and stupid although, in fairness, the debate format does not allow a lot of details. No worries.

Heck yes.

1. It's stupid politically and our next president shouldn't be stupid politically. 2. It is falacious reasoning. The suggestion in that clip was that because these zealots were willing to commit suicide to rearrange our skyline and in the process kill thousands, that must mean we did something wrong. Maybe some of our policies are incorrect but the suggestion that any of our policies somehow caused, or justified, 9/11 is inane. Further, the "blowback" view of the world is as if we are the only ones on the planet with the responsibility to act rationally. It suggests that the problem is entirely inside of the US and not in the Islamic world. That's just back arsewards. When did I say it was sacred. You have now entered strawman city.

Listening to the clip of the debates, he seems to be a kind of Ross Perot X factor kind of candidate. He very well may stir things up. He needs to figure out how to make the "blow back" argument without suggesting we invited 9/11.