Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Thoughts. (Massive)

re: Thoughts
Tom Brosz — (archived)

It's a bit difficult to avoid the partisan angle, since almost every anti-war piece on this board for the past three years has had as its foundation "Bush screwed up." The obvious implication, and the one that the entire last election was based on for the Democrats, was "someone besides Bush would not have screwed up." And there's the problem.

Also, you can no more discuss this issue without discussing the different worldviews involved than you could have discussed income disparity between races in 1960 without mentioning racism.

In any case, what I'm trying to get across in all this is that maybe there IS no "better." That "someone else" would not have hit the magic solution. That maybe Osama is making lists to justify himself and to spout propaganda, not to describe real grievances. That maybe I've already given this subject a great deal of thought, and ground the edges off of alternatives and scenarios, hence my previous post.

Short version: Osama and those like him want you enslaved, or dead. There isn't anything reasonable or acceptable to the United States and the civilized world that you can put on the table that would make him give up and go away. See also: the Barbary Pirates.

This is not something where two reasonable parties can sort something out. One of the parties is not reasonable. At some point, you have to stop discussing a serial killer's psychological problems and move on from there.

"War isn't the answer" is as old as liberalism. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes is just isn't.

As far as oil goes:

If American wasn't "sucking the oil out," what would be happening to it? It's not like oil wells just spout cash. SOMEBODY has to buy it. If it wasn't us, it would be China, or Europe. Are the Saudis and others going to sell it to themselves? Leaving it in the ground leaves the Arab world where it came in: living in tents.

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