I'm utterly speechless.

Somehow we are supposed to dismantle the CIA, remove ourselves from UN obligations and agreements to protect our allies, cut our military, and the world will be a safer place. Of course the intelligence gathering agencies of China and the like will continue going strong, without all that bothersome balance...

In the face of *cough* European might, Saddam Hussein will cringe at the thought of trying to invade his neighbors, even though he knows the US has quit the region. He will no doubt go ahead and turn over the remaining scud missles he didn't have last week, too.

"actually "elect" a president in an election that has NO special interest money financing the campaigns"

with or without campaign finance law? And who will pass those laws since everyone in congress got their by way of special interest money? Once the laws are passed, everyone will be honest, too, and never, ever try and subvert the law. Why? Because Dave says so.

Your answer to Iraq then seems to be able to be summed up in one word. "leave". walk off from region, trust that france and the other 'friendlies' at the UN will have our best interest in mind with the policy they make there, and will be able with their hobbled military forces to police an area they are mostly unconcerned with. Once Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have fallen, Isreal is rubble, and we have no clout to protect the price of oil, we fall back on your fuzzy 'alternative energy' idea, no doubt.

Why is it, do ya think, that China doesn't invade Taiwan, or North Korea doesn't retake south Korea? They could with ease and would profit greatly by it. Once the other world powers move into the vacuum we leave behind, we'll never get back in, either, so 'strategic' would be pretty much out of our vocabulary. Once we have abandoned the middle east, the odds are slim they would invite us back.

Turning away from the world now would be a disasterous mistake, and untold numbers of people would suffer for it. The well-being of the world isn't the point of your plan, though, it is the philosophical purity of the way our nation functions. Noble, true, but I don't think the lack of compassion and the sacrifice of our place in the world would endow us with much nobility.

You know i dig ya, dave, but i think you are a whacko sometimes.

hey david it is nice to have another oregon opinion here. The protest was very peaceful but the point I was trying to make is that they should support our troops. The troops are dying just so they can protest against them? Thats nuts.

As far as Vietnam we had no business being there. We have business being in Iraq. Someone needs to shut him up and take him out. Strike the shepard and the sheep will quickly scatter.

I said pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia (maybe you can't read ) not pull out of the Middle East. Not being in Saudi Arabia would do more to prevent terrorism than anything else we could do. To the Arab world it's the equivalent of the Branch Davidians running the Vatican. Worse actually.

We can't turn away from the world and I didn't say that, but, I did say that we should stay out of world affairs as long as we have a president with such terrible diplomacy skills and special interest driven agendas.

We just need a good president... that's the biggest problem.

And David, I thing bakerstreet has you beat in this discussion. i agree with his views because i feel the same in one way or another.

The CIA needs to go... they're hoplessly mired in filth. We still have an enormous and effective intelligence community without them.

I would not say anything bad about the good ol President. That usually has bad effects. The comments coming from your typing are most un-american.

Hey bakerstreet... Whats up?
remind me to buy you a drink.

you can agree with him kona, that's fine. That doesn't mean he's beat me, just that you agree with him. Most people would agree with him over what I'm saying. That doesn't mean I'm not right though. I notice most of what I've said is ignored. I'm used to this. It's the tough questions that need to be answered. But first people have to want them answered and most people just don't want to know...

The hardest man in the world to wake up is the one who's pretending to be asleep.

good night... I'm dozing as I type...

Still I say this. Badmouthing the government or the President can have severe consequenses. Be careful about what you say and type. The reason people ignore you is because of your weird views on America and the comments you make. I agree with bakerstreet because he speaks the truth. And I am hard to wake up but I never pretend. I have no time or patience for brown nosers or save as*es. We need every part of the government to protect ourselves from things like....
Guess...
9/11

"Badmouthing the government or the President can have severe consequenses. Be careful about what you say and type."

huh? will the department of homeland security put DavidK into an education camp now or what?

Dissent is a large part of Freedom : Ari stated that exact fact in a news conference yesterday..

kona: So in your free country you can't give your opinions? Maybe it's not as free as you'd have us think then? Just because someone is the president doesn't make everything he says and does right and like mindless sheep everyone has to agree with him. And the people are not protesting against the troops. They are protesting against the war. The troops do what they have ben trained and ordered to do. That is their job. It's the orders that people are protesting against.

Paxx, can you clarify your post:
"Bakerstreet: "Unfortunately, the french business model relies on an evil dictator starving his people and threatening the world... "

You're joking, right? Cause that's pretty much the model for all the western civilization, starting with the US. "


I am assuming that you mean that we rely on trade with an "evil dictator" not that we have one? I don't believe either are true (as the US could stop trade and still have all the resources we need within our land- remember that a lot of our oil goes to Japan, that is why we import (lets just remember the history on why we don't cut off Japan..))

kona, I didn't realise that being American meant being obligated to follow the country's leader. Funny, some people are saying that it is precesely why Saddam has to go: because nobody is allowed to disagree with him. Hum, so America is lead by a dictator too then? Didn't know that. You just tought me something.

Karmagirl: I don't have te time to start a thourough research to give you a list, but I'm sure you know that a lot of the primary resources we use come from Third World countries, which most of them are lead by dictators. A lot of western companies have plants and manufactures in those same contries where labour is much cheaper. Sadly, we owe a lot of our comfort to the starving population living in a Dictator ruled country.

Research the history of the action of the CIA, or better yet watch the History Channel for the documentary they are running throughout this month. A lot of the actions that the CIA under took were based in protecting National Interests, which when tracked down do in fact connect directly to large US corporations and the affects on the economy if no action were taken, or political favors, etc. Very thought provoking documentary, with some really open discussion by ex CIA operatives and people for higher higher in the company who finally have spoken about things they felt could not be talked about publicly before the end of the cold war.

US Industry has a pretty bad track record in foreign lands, as does the industry of many nations. Bhopal for instance to name one instance of gross management of maintenance and safety measures and the only reason Union Carbide was there was we would not allow such a factory here in the states or it would have been so astronomically expensive they could never have fired it up once construction was completed...

As with any nation, the question of support is based in return, what do *we* get out of it, now and in the future, or what can we use of yours later to get what we want of someones elses...

IS it right or wrong? dun no, but it sure doesn't seem to work because it is the model used that has put this world in the situation it faces today and will into the future.

Finger pointing is inane and pointless if anyone seeks to really make any change. Kind of like the race issues in the USA. On one side you have people(s) screaming about racism while a small number of them seek for a way out of the situation they find themselves in, the rest demand more. On the other hand you have people(s) refusing to see any justification of the oppositions position and just as loudly screaming how lazy the others are and all they want is a free ride. When in fact both sides seem to only want the fight and contention to continue because it gives them a position to scream from and also funds a lot of personal things in the name of the people of course, and that is on both sides of the ticket...

It isn't a black, white, latino, etc issue.... It is a human issue and making sure everyone get equal footing that is based upon as much as they put into it...

Same goes with the world at large, France, Germany, USA, Britain, Russia, etc... People stop pointing fingers and get to the issues and quit taking everything as a personal attack or quit throwing everything out as a personal attack and something positive might come from it. Until such time it will always resemble a nasty under handed dirty mud slinging divorce with the kiddies sitting in 3 rd class waiting for the results on who gets custody rights and what that will eventually means to them down the road...

anyway... enough from the nuking futz gallery...

>Osama Bin Laden worked for the CIA.
>His group, the Mujahedeen (now Al-
>Qaida), were trained at Ft Benning in
>the art of inflicting terror

Please, read some of history, The Mujahedeens were the afgans that fought in every war to protect Afganistan from invasors, British, Russians.. USA ones...

>una-bomber-esque
what was that spanish???, if it is, please learn a bit more. can you just write a line in other languaje or is just you are uneducated.

>As far as Vietnam we had no business
>being there. We have business being
>in Iraq.
You have a buisness in vietnam, prevent another comunist regimen.Like in granda, cuba, ...
And you do hava a buisness at iraq, OIL.

What about the 130.000 civilians dead in the firs gulf war?
what about the 150.000 russians and afgans killed by the taliban regime, trained by CIA???
Panamá? y por Colombia? y por Guatemala? camboya? ...?

US allways tries to implant friendly regimes outside US and don't care at all about the civilians, it seems that your goverment only gives you the info that you need to convince yourselves it's good to attack.(US people are visiting much more now UK on-line newspapers than before the war, maybe the info you get in your country is manipulated....)

Here is an interesting link to statements made about the current oil supply:
http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=03032001.clt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

Paxx, I think what you are referring to is how Apec works (when talking about how most the world relies on resources of countries ran by "dictators"):
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/apec/

(Not really evil. It was made to promote growth within the countries in Apec)

Coffee, sugar, a lot of tropical fruits, oil, gold, copper, are a few of the produits out of my head that come from a big part from Third World countries (most of which are dictatorships).
And about Western companies making their finished products where labour is cheap, I didn't think that would be news for anyone... You never heard of cheap labour before?

Anyway. Don't want to argue on this. I thought it was common knowledge. I guess not.

alo: don't need any personnal attacks, k? Calling people "uneducated" or other names is not the type of debates we like, here. All right?
Warm, even heated debates are good, but lets not fall into low name calling.

I am greatly enjoying the debate in this thread, thank you everyone!

TO THOSE IN FAVOR OF WAR:
before you start defending US Goverment's tacticts and policy ... Please look at all the injured people from the bombings...
look at the little Iraqi girl who was injured in her spine and may not walk again ...
all those pregnant women who tried to deliver early so their babies wouldn't be delivered in the middle of a war...
all those children who will be born with birth defects -due to the biological war- and may die deformed before they reach
puberty...all the children who already die day by day from cancer and leukemia due to the '91 Gulf war...and -being objective-
all the soldiers who were sent down there and died and to their families who received them back in body bags...

CAN YOU LOOK AT THEM IN THE EYES AND TELL THEM THAT WAR WAS THE ONLY OPTION????

WAR NOR IS THE ANSWER BUT IT SHOULDN'T EVEN BE AN OPTION!!!!!

If a nation has problems with their leader -because he's a dictartor- it's an internal affair, let the people deal with him...
If you see that he can't be stopped and his weapons are a threat-****- to the world take it up with him and just him, not
innocent people!!

That's all I had to say ... food for thought ...

**** Noone knows for sure if the weapons Saddam had are not disarmed right now... We just think so because we were told so...
by the same people who in 1991, to convince the whole US Congress , used a girl that gave a speech about what Saddam had
done to them ... and turned out to be an ambassador's daughter...