Does anyone have any help with the following RW talking point?

[truhavoc]

This is extremely common response when talking to a repug about the Iraq war. Sometime along the lines of "wouldn't you rather take out the "terrorists" before the hit us". I personally believe that you can't extend this view all over the world, without being an imperialist nation completely. But of course this reasoning doesn't work with a lot of these people. They have no problem invading any country the poses even the least bit of a risk to us.

The problem is how to respond to this without sounding like you are more interested in the people of these countries than the citizens of american??

[havocmom]

1. Say, "Yes, I am. That is why I agree with Gen Tommy Franks that the

invasion of Iraq diverted manpower and resources from the fight against terrorists."

[truhavoc]

5. Thanks for the example

the problem with that is them saying that al-qaeda is only part of the terrorist threat and that we have to face them on all fronts where ever they happen to be. So if that means being in afganistan and iraq at the same time so be it...

frustrating!

my friend left the us for the uk as a liberal and came back as an annoying con...

[Warpy]

8. That;s part one of the answer.

The other part is that these guys are a criminal organization dealing in death and destruction, and they need to be treated as such. The military is largely useless, and attacking whole countries only creates the kind of rage that will give us more terrorists. What we need is police work and international cooperation shutting down their funding. Bush isn't interested in the former, and he's so busy trying to show the world that the US doesn't need anyone else, that he's not getting a hell of a lot of the latter.

Besides, it's a short hop from killing or jailing everybody we think might conduct terrorism in the future to jailing everyone we think might smoke a joint or cheat on their taxes in the future. A real legal system just can't work that way, unless you're willing to put the whole population of the world into cages, including yourself, just so you'll feel a little safer.

Shutting down their funding and tracking their cells won't stop every single act of terrorism in the future, but it will certainly slow most of them down enough that they'll be discarded. That is something we can live with, and it will allow us to keep all the things that made us Americans.

[wtmusic]

2. Oh man

You have to drill home that:

1) Saddam never attacked and never threatened the US;
2) Saddam has no relation whatsoever to al Qaeda (despite claims to the contrary)
3) Invading other countries outside of self-defense (the UN Charter, to which the US is signatory, requires being under "armed attack") is a war crime.

[truhavoc]

7. you make good points

however i get to hear about the potentiality of the threat. It gets extended to N. Korea, Syria, Iran....ect ect ect

These people don't want to wait for threats, they want to destroy the entire world.

Only problem is when you combat this tactic, they spin it into you supporting the lives of iraqis (or any other country) over americans...and regardless this is not something that you come out looking favorably on.

[wtmusic]

20. Then explain it in schoolyard terms

Your kid thinks his bully classmate *might* one day give him a hard time. Does he have the right to kick his ass first, to show him who's boss?

Does North Korea, who considers the US a serious threat, have the right to attack us first?

[librechik]

21. yes, that is just what Hitler and Stalin said about Poland and Czechs.

Are you really going to go along with that kind of fear tactic? Or are you going to insist that the US honor the commitment that JFK made: "America will NEVER START a war"

[wtmusic]

22. it's the oldest excuse in the book for aggression

it's dishonorable, and it's just plain wrong. By any moral, ethical, or religious standard.

[havocmom]

28. If the US wants to avoid 'potential threats' we start by being a better

citizen of the planet, a better world neighbor and we stop US corporations from running over the people of the world and using the US military to enforce corporate programs.

There is NO way to stop terrorists until you remove the conditions which they fight against. That would be injustice and greed which impoverish so much of the world's population.

No army, no amount of weapons will stop the spread of terrorism as long as policy ensures more and more people have less and less to lose. Terrorism is the global weapon of the disenfranchised.

[Poiuyt]

13. Most of the conservatives in my area believe that

the US is above the law. They are also sure that there was a Saddam 9/11 connection.

[wtmusic]

18. Ask them if might makes right

or if they're relativists - if North Korea would be justified in attacking the US?

If either answer is yes, they are hopeless and should actually read their Bible once in a while

[truhavoc]

19. this is exactly the point I'm at currently

hopeless is correct. I guess i was looking for hope

[Inland]

3. Actually, I don't argue the principle

but note that in practice, Bush screwed it up. Without good intel and good judgment, we are going to make the same Iraq mistake again and again, where all we manage is to miss the terrorist threat that actually existed, died to remove a threat that didn't, and left our our asses hanging out so that terrorists can kill Americans without the bother of buying a ticket to the US.

Anyone who wants the president to actually make preemptive strikes work FOR the US, we need someone smarter than Bush. If you have a really complicated playbook, you don't ask the dumbest guy on the team to be the QB. You don't ask the one who is absolutely sure that running it up the middle for the seventeeth time is sure to gain yardage THIS time.

[wildeyed]

4. Well, the terrorists are in Afghanistan, not Iraq.

Going into Iraq actually decrease our ability to 'take out terrorists' b/c we have so much of our resources committed there, we can't hit 'em hard when we need to. Actually made us weaker in the war on terror.

Sometimes it helps to show them a map. Iraq ... Here. Afganistan..... Here. Oil.... Here. No oil.... Here.

Also, people seem foggy on the no WMD's, no al-qaeda link stuff. Helps if you point that out.

[chelsea0011]

6. Well, sure. Man, if I could just have everyone around me dead, I'm safe

It's a silly statement because you need to determine who needs to die for me to be safe. Now, Osama is easy. He and his killed thousands and we can pin point him for attack. But what about the many others , like Iraq, who haven't attacked us? Do we treat everyone like Iraq? And what about home grown terrorists? Tim McVeigh met with some anti-government types who have never een held accountable. These groups were more closely connected to terrorist circles against people in the this country than Sadaam ever was. so why didn't the government treat them as they have from many from the Middle East?

[truhavoc]

9. very good point

i've been arguing something along these lines and I get the response that "yes, i would kill anyone anywhere to protect 1 american" - civil and intellegent debate ends there.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Tell them that psychotic behavior is not a policy

Tell them that if they honestly feel like it is justified to kill everyone just because they are not American, then they need years of intense therapy. This is simply xenophobic psychosis. You can't argue with a psycho.

[demigoddess]

10. 'fighting' terrorism with guns and armies has never worked

It hasn't worked in Israel and it did not work in Britain fighting the IRA. Israel actually got to be a nation by being terrorists and now they fight and oppress the palestinians who want their own country. In Iraq the terrorists want us out of their country. If the shoe were on the other foot we would call ourselves freedom fighters.

[chaska]

11. Too much nuance. Won't wash with pug. Think Hydra...

You chop off one head and two grow in it's place. Kill one terra-ist and two (at least) will show up to take his place. If they can't understand that that makes us less safe then they are beyond help.

[Brotherjohn]

12. The one thing the CIA DID get right, by all accounts, is that Iraq and...

... Al Qaeda were NOT in cahoots. You can quote the 9-11 Commission and Senate Intelligence Committee reports. They'll try to say otherwise, but you can easily prove that they no doubt are relying on the "special comments" provided by three Repub senators (Hatch et al) and that is NOT what the Committee OR the Commission said (just look up their comments in advance and you'll no doubt recognize them in the response you get; any claim Repubs make to that effect are always based on these three Repub senators' comments).

SO, if Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, just how is it now that the Iraq war is "taking out the terrorists before they take out us"?

If they say, but there are terrorists in Iraq, point out that Iraq was NOT a terrorist haven BEFORE we invaded, and that Bush's policies are CREATING more terrorists.

Then throw them this little gem of a quote:
"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us... I don't think our troops should be used for what's called nation-building."

The speaker? Why, George W. Bush (Second Presidential Debate, 10-11-2000). Bush HIMSELF has admitted that an arrogant, go-it-alone foreign policy will create resentment.

[cheezus]

14. and the terrorists are hitting us nearly every day in iraq

there were no terroists in iraq before the war, but now there are a ton of them, and they're attacking americans nearly every day. the president's "miscalculation" in iraq is making new terrorists faster than we can kill them, and meanwhile bin laden is free, nearly 3 years after he attacked our nation.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Yeah, I want to get them, but not with conventional warfare. It's

just not up to the job and kills far too many innocents.

Also, you might ask if they are ever worried about drunk drivers when on the road, and do they crash their car into other vehicles pre-emptively?

[Brotherjohn]

24. "Kills far too many innocents". Not only that it does so, but they COUNT..

... ON IT.

Terrorists WANT this to happen. They WANT you to strike back with overwhelming force, at what by nature is an amorphous, difficult-to-find target.

It's the nature of their game. Bait the stronger power into striking conventionally at an unconventional force. Inevitably, innocents will be killed, which will gain sympathy for their cause, and inevitably will swell their ranks.

George W. Bush has taken the bait, and they are reeling him in.

[EstimatedProphet]

16. Several points

1) The policy of preemptive strikes assumes that you will be struck if you do nothing. Iraq was never a threat to the US, and Bush's team knew that it wasn't. It was therefore not a preemptive strike, but a preventive one, which means that you strike first regardless of the threat. This is akin to saying "I don't like my neighbor, and he doesn't like me, so I'll kill him so that he won't be able to hurt me". It just doesn't hold water.
2) The core of the strike first ideal is that the US should be able to protect its interests anywhere it needs to, but when it is taken to extremes such as attacking countries that didn't pose a threat simply because at some point they might pose a threat, it is no longer a matter of defense. How do you defend against a country that isn't threatening you? It is a very weak justification to say that they had "weapons of mass destruction program-related activities". ALL countries do.
3) If we were even slightly concerned about terrorism, then why attack Iraq? Bush is STILL trying to claim that Saddam was behind 911, and everyone knows (except for a bunch of brainwashed Foxheads) that that is simply not true.
4) Now that we have taken the only secular democracy in the Middle East and ruined it in an attempt to create a secular democracy in the Middle East, we have created 100 times more future terrorists than we ever got rid of in attacking Al Qaida. This will haunt us for years to come.
5) Ask the dittohead repugs how they would react to a country trying to liberate the US from what it seess as tyranny. then ask them specifically why Iraqis should feel any different. Any answer they can possibly give will come down to how they needed help managing their own country, either to get rid of Saddam, or to show them how democracy works, or something else. This is nothing but thinly-veiled racism. Push them a little bit more on this and I guarantee they will start talking about "cameljocks" and "carpetheads", because to the Repug mind, anyone who isn't American is inferior and blighted.

[BootinUp]

23. Here's what I sent to one

Neocons are running our foreign policy
__________________________________
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html

snip
What does a neoconservative dream world look like?

Neocons envision a world in which the United States is the unchallenged superpower, immune to threats. They believe that the US has a responsibility to act as a "benevolent global hegemon." In this capacity, the US would maintain an empire of sorts by helping to create democratic, economically liberal governments in place of "failed states" or oppressive regimes they deem threatening to the US or its interests. In the neocon dream world the entire Middle East would be democratized in the belief that this would eliminate a prime breeding ground for terrorists. This approach, they claim, is not only best for the US; it is best for the world. In their view, the world can only achieve peace through strong US leadership backed with credible force, not weak treaties to be disrespected by tyrants.

Any regime that is outwardly hostile to the US and could pose a threat would be confronted aggressively, not "appeased" or merely contained. The US military would be reconfigured around the world to allow for greater flexibility and quicker deployment to hot spots in the Middle East, as well as Central and Southeast Asia. The US would spend more on defense, particularly for high-tech, precision weaponry that could be used in preemptive strikes. It would work through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations when possible, but must never be constrained from acting in its best interests whenever necessary.

____________________________

So who's gonna pay for this? Whose blood and whose money. Not Bush's or Cheney's or any of the rest of those chickenhawks that never served in the armed forces. The same people who don't want to pay for their strategy and instead are increasing the deficit at an alarming rate. They simply don't have a grip on reality and they are misleading the country on an imperialistic disaster. So the US will be the first successful imperial power in history? Learn from history's mistakes.

After we boot them from the middle east, then we go to East Asia? Where's Bin Laden anyways?

Besides the fact that dropping bombs on these people is only pissing them off more and spreading them out around the world and increasing their recruitment. If the terrorist threat was really state backed (in the sense you eliminate a state and actually stop a real threat), then yes use overpowering military force. Guerilla wars/terrorism is a different animal and needs to be approached with more stealth and intelligence and the power of our economy to influence states, not overwhelming deadly force that misses the target and kills the wrong people therby turning whole populations against us.

One of Cheney's favorite lines "We eliminated a gathering threat in Iraq" WRONG! It was a dying threat. All the evidence points to the fact that Hussein was beaten. Hell he wasn't even a threat to Iran let alone us.

think about it.



From your friendly middle of the road liberal.

[noamnety]

25. In simple terms

There are terrorists in every nation ... including the United States. We learned that in Oklahoma City.

Everyone agrees that catching and stopping the people responsible for that bombing was important, and right. We all want to do away with terrorists.

But we didn't go after Timothy McVeigh by bombing his home town. And if we had, people in that town would have resented the US government.

It's that simple, when you bomb a city because of one criminal, you turn the entire city against us.

[UdoKier]

26. I would say yes, take out the terrorists.

Problem is, Iraq's involvement with internnational terrorism was almost nonexistent.

The fact that Bush accuses them of something doesn't make it fact. The CIA's years of intelligence showed no links, aside from Saddam's giving rewards to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, which can be seen as more of a political gesture than one of support for terrorists.

Also, remind them of how most of those "mass graves" got filled. It was Bush sr. who told them to revolt, that we'd have their back, butthen he reneged on the promise, and even allowed Saddam to use his helicopter gunships to slaughter the rebellion.

Does your friend doubt that Bush or any other US president would kill any group trying to foment a violent revolution here if necessary?

[Nadienne]

27. Hit the rethug.

Then say, "I knew you were going to hit me, so I had to hit you first. It's self defense, pal, Bush-style."

[stickdog]

29. We aren't fighting enemies in Iraq. We're making enemies. (nt)