What did history teach us?

[JohnT]

I think that if there is one irrefutable fact of history, it is that increasingly greater ease of communications tend to produce more of it, and at an accellerating pace.

[Velociryx]

Tandee....quite true, the cultures are different, but the attitude of a bullying ruler, is not.

That transcends cultural boundaries. I daresay that the schoolyard bullies on the playground in China, are not terribly different in their tactics than the ones in America.

Different culture, same old bullying ways.

-=Vel=-

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor

Not it's not. Heat = heat, fire = fire. We're talking about different people, different cultures, different background, etc.

Heat comes from fire.

[Velociryx]

Case in point:

NK and Iraq.

Two very different lands, two very different cultures.

Both ruled by tin pot dictators.

Both oppress their people brutally, Saddam by gassing his Kurds, Kim by starving the masses. Both threaten their neighbors with armed invasion. Both love to rattle their various sabres. The particulars might vary (Kim has nukes, Saddam does not (yet), but the end result is the same.

Oppression is oppression though, regardless of the form it takes.

-=Vel=-

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by Static23
Heat comes from fire.

Really? Thanks for pointing that out, little man.

Edit: It's like I said, "I like kiwis," and you, with a brash though not charming sarcastic reply said, "Kiwis are green."

[tandeetaylor]

I didn't say that there are not sometimes similarities. (By the way, if you think that NK and Iraq are so similiar, do you recommend identical or similiar action?) But this whole appeasment thing is used most to compare Sadam to Hitler, and I think that's a very silly generalization to make.

[Velociryx]

I agree on the whole that a Hitler-Saddam comparison is offbase (for a number of reasons, not the least of hich is the scale of ambition of the two men), but to the extent that their bullying methods are similar, and given that we have seen the (disasterous) results of giving in to a bully's demands, I think it unwise in the extreme to coddle this man, or give him and his methods any legitimacy whatsoever. The moment we give in to a demand of his in the name of "containment," we do just that.

As to NK, I think we should adopt a quite similar posture with them. We gave Saddam a decade, plus before it comes to this. I do not think Kim will allow us the luxury of that much time. I believe, because his government is in dire straits and crumbling around him, he will force our hand one way or the other, long before that kind of time has passed, simply because he does not HAVE that much time, and he knows it.

If it means that we must resort to force to deal with him, then force it must be. Not as a first choice, I grant you, but then, after a decade of other methods with Saddam, it can rightly be said that force was not the first tool out of the toolbox in the ME, either.

-=Vel=-

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor

Really? Thanks for pointing that out, little man.

Edit: It's like I said, "I like kiwis," and you, with a brash though not charming sarcastic reply said, "Kiwis are green."

Thanks for the lesson in charming wit!

[vee4473]

wow,

i couldn't agree with Vel more.

his posts throughout this thread are right on.

i considered posting, but he nailed my words.

'nuf said

[vee4473]

the one thing i disagree with Vel on is the when he said he doesn't agree witht he hitler/saddam comparison.

i think the only thing that kept saddam from a hitler like conquest of the middle east was his army's defeat, not his lack of ambition.

just a guess.

[DuncanK]

Vel always has quite a following

[Velociryx]

Thanks Duncan!

And vee....I think that Saddam would dearly LOVE to become a bigger man than he is. Power breeds a desire for *more* power, that is true, and one realized goal serves as the stepping-stone for the next, but I do not think that, even on his most ambitious days, his ambitions run anything close to Hitler's. Hitler sought to destroy an entire people (side note - while there are some similarities between Saddam's killing of the Kurds, and Hitler's killing of Jews--singling out a specific people to persecute--the scale and intent are remarkably different....so different as to defy comparison, I would say), and pretty well conquer the world.

I think Saddam's ambitions, if left entirely unchecked, would be much smaller in their scale, amounting to a desire to be THE dominant force in the gulf region, and controlling a bigger share of the oil pie there (which he could then use to dictate terms to the Western World), and become a middle eastern power that could in some ways, rival the powers of the Western World (meeting them on more than equal terms via a control of most, if not all of the ME's oil).

Those are, as you say, just guesses on my part, however. I don't really know enough about the man to comment on anything besides his bullying tendencies. In that, I am entirely confident. In my supposition above....significantly less confident, without doing some digging.

-=Vel=-

[vee4473]

im not a "follower" of velocyrix

i actually differ with him on some of his civ 3 opinions.


i agree with him here though

[Sava]

Hitler didn't get his weapons from the US though.

[Velociryx]

Sava - Hitler got *plenty* of weapons from the US...."business end" first, that is....

You make an excellent point though, and one I've raised myself. We created this little pile of rubbish that is Saddam Hussein, and in that regard, I think it's well past time to take out the trash.

-=Vel=-