Quote Originally Posted by R.D.735 View Post
Wars are not solely fought to advance religions or forms of government, UM. Sometimes, they are fought only to resist countries that make war for their own interests, not to advance a different set of interests. As usual, no one is advocating surrender against any and all enemies. Some are merely advocating war that does not seek to advance any goal but the end of the war.
You made a blanket statement against war.

Quote Originally Posted by Moonbeam View Post
It seems that a lot of our allies turn into enemies, doesn't it? I don't see how gambling that the Soviet Union wouldn't go ahead and take over the whole world after they invaded Afghanistan was better than arming people like bin Laden and the Taliban. Or propping up Saddam and making him what he was only to end up in two wars with him was better than letting Iran take him. It doesn't seem to work out to well (for our soldiers anyway) when our leaders "side with scum". It also doesn't look like we are really concerned about human rights and freedom when we do that; more so that we will do absolutely anything to protect our financial interests, including arming religious fundamentalists like the Taliban.

The Soviet Union collapsed because their system was inefficient; it had nothing to do with us keeping them out of Afghanistan. We weren't trying to keep them out of Afghanistan to prevent them from "taking over the world", we were doing it because we wanted to keep the country safe for an oil-pipeline. The countries that made up their union are independent states now. Afghanistan would probably have been a much different place now if we had allowed the Soviets to take it, who knows? It couldn't have been any worse than what we have now, could it?

You buy what they are telling you about spreading democracy, and we argue about it as if were true. What's funny is that's just a cover story anyway; they don't really care if the people of Iraq get to vote or not, it's all about oil and it always has been--in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So you believe in a lie which wouldn't work even if it were true.

You know, we are not any different than the Soviets at this point. They believed that their system of government was the best, and they spread it by force thru countries whose resources that they wanted.
What we have here is way better than totalitarianism. The world deserves freedom, and no government has a right to be totalitarian. They are two completely different things. You are damn lucky the U.S. did not let the Soviets get their way. You would not have the freedom to get on the internet and trash your country if they did.

We needed to ally with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. Don't you agree? So sometimes allying with scum is necessary.

What you keep saying about it how it is ALL about oil is an assumption, and an unfounded one. My agreement with the war rationales you talked about is not rooted in automatic belief in somebody's word. It is about reaching the same conclusions as the policy makers because of what makes sense to me. Why do you automatically believe the oil conspiracy lies?