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Filling in my thread quota:
I find it incredible, in a sense, that we are already in 2003. Wasn't 2002 supposed to be more important than it was? Much ahppedn in 2000, certainly 2001, and then came 2002, blah.
Now, of course, this will be an Iraq thread, so lets get on with it. This admin. could have made 2002 the showcase years for its new "crusade for democracy", but instead of creating a better place for themselevs, they have made a mess of things. When people argue that Saddam is better than you, you know you have screwed up.
So, what could have been? Lets say we go back to the day before the 2002 Sates of the Union speech, just a few weeks after Kabul is liberated form the Taliban. A good time, no? Then comes Axis of Evil.. then, durign the summer, talk of unilateral invasion of Iraq, and then up to today. Now lets imagine a different speech. What if, that day, intead of more "with us or against us, good vs evil" rhetoric, Bush ahd come out and said somehting along the lines of: Democracy is the greatest weapons we have against fundamentalism, and it should be our aim to, along with our allies and fellow democracies, to spread this value, and to confront those that stiffle freedom as a single united democractic front against fundamentalism and Authocracy. Perhaps then, the admin. could have quadrupled our forces in Afghniastan and gotten similar coomitment form allies, disarmed warlords, and made our experience in Afghanbistan a working model of what the US can do. Then come late spring, the admin. could ahve begun high level talks with Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Madrid, Tokyo and so forth in tryoing to coax, convince, and then come up aith a united policy and publicity campaign to rally the world as one aaginst Saddam Hussein.
If only things had gone this way, we would have no big NATO split, no shooting back and forth in the EU, no mass anti-war rallies, and far less Iraq threads in Poly. Back in 2002 this admin. had plenty of good will and high times, with the opportunity to really rise aboev the fray. BUt perhaps this sort of policy would have been too much to epxect from the Bush admin.
I find it incredible, in a sense, that we are already in 2003. Wasn't 2002 supposed to be more important than it was? Much ahppedn in 2000, certainly 2001, and then came 2002, blah.
Now, of course, this will be an Iraq thread, so lets get on with it. This admin. could have made 2002 the showcase years for its new "crusade for democracy", but instead of creating a better place for themselevs, they have made a mess of things. When people argue that Saddam is better than you, you know you have screwed up.
So, what could have been? Lets say we go back to the day before the 2002 Sates of the Union speech, just a few weeks after Kabul is liberated form the Taliban. A good time, no? Then comes Axis of Evil.. then, durign the summer, talk of unilateral invasion of Iraq, and then up to today. Now lets imagine a different speech. What if, that day, intead of more "with us or against us, good vs evil" rhetoric, Bush ahd come out and said somehting along the lines of: Democracy is the greatest weapons we have against fundamentalism, and it should be our aim to, along with our allies and fellow democracies, to spread this value, and to confront those that stiffle freedom as a single united democractic front against fundamentalism and Authocracy. Perhaps then, the admin. could have quadrupled our forces in Afghniastan and gotten similar coomitment form allies, disarmed warlords, and made our experience in Afghanbistan a working model of what the US can do. Then come late spring, the admin. could ahve begun high level talks with Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Madrid, Tokyo and so forth in tryoing to coax, convince, and then come up aith a united policy and publicity campaign to rally the world as one aaginst Saddam Hussein.
If only things had gone this way, we would have no big NATO split, no shooting back and forth in the EU, no mass anti-war rallies, and far less Iraq threads in Poly. Back in 2002 this admin. had plenty of good will and high times, with the opportunity to really rise aboev the fray. BUt perhaps this sort of policy would have been too much to epxect from the Bush admin.
man, that has got to be the biggest lie ever!
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