Hitler trampled all over Europe in WWII. Was it wrong for his victim nations to use violence (their own military) to defend themselves? This attitude that it is wrong to defend one's self or to exterminate terrorists and thugs is utterly inane and uninformed to the point of being insane.
What the touchy-feely lefty-liberal types fail to see is that if you don't defend yourself against terrorists and dictatorial thugs, or you let dictatorial thugs like Saddam go their merry way gassing and murdering people, you are just inviting them to continue.
And Hitler took power how? A little thing like WWI and the Treaty of Versailles had nothing to do with it?
So, essentially, you are blaming Hitler on the French, or worse yet, excusing Hitler because somehow what he did was someone else's fault?
Hitler acted as an aggressor not only against his own nation, but against his neighbors. Saddam Hussein did exactly the same thing. What the bloddy Frogs pulled on Germany with the Versailles Treaty is no justification for Hitler and Germany's reaction. And in all reality, Germany got what it deserved in WWI. So did the Frogs. Certainly the Versailles Treaty indirectly resulted in WWII, but it had nothing to do with Hitle's attempt to turn millions of people into an atlernative fuel source, lampshades, landfill and bars of soap.
And I get so damned tired about the constant blathering that "Saddam Hussein never had WMDs". What did he do to the Kurds? Eat a lot of beans and fart in their general direction?
"Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love...Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate [sic] man." Martin Luther King Jr
I fail to see the relevance. I susppose the world should have just sat by and let mass murder continue? I suppose than we should have let Hitler take over the world because defending ourselves against terrorist thugs is somehow unjustified because self-defense means the use of violence? You have completely mis-applied MLKs context. I'm sure that MLK woulnd't have invited Saddam or Hitler in for Sunday Dinner, would he?
As for the war on terror, you can't win it by military means whatsoever. The Middle East proves that just fine, you're only perpetuating a culture of fear in a cruel game of shot for shot except instead of a sore arm you have a big pile of dead bodies coupled with explosive racial and religious tensions with no end in sight. No one's talking about peace talks with Osama but if you think you can just bomb Maddrassas' and Mosques left right and center with the best weapons money can buy won't encourage disenfranchised angry Muslims to follow any insane means for power then once again you're much more naive than I thought possible.
You sure as hell can win it by military means. You just have to have the willpower to bring the fight to your enemy instead of sitting around group-hugging and singing 'Kum by yah" waiting for the enemy to come to you. The main problem with Iraq is that Iraq wasn't reduced to rubble like Germany was during WWII. If there was ever one mistake with the strategy in Iraq it was that we didn't utterly smash the whole damned country to the point that the inhabitants had absolutely no will to continue any kind of resistance whatsoever.
And never mind the "disenfranchised" Muslims. What about the 3000 or so Americans and countless others that were 'disenfranchised' from the ranks of the living by I Muslim terrorists? But regardless of whether the terrorists are Muslims or tree-worshippers or whatever, terrorists who strap bombs to their own children, use poison gas against unarmed civilians, need to be exterminated. They need to be exterminated because the only thing that will stop fanatical terrorists is to kill then before they kill us. I think that's clearly evident by the fact that they are willing to blow themselves up just to kill inocents. Talking to them and reasoning with them doesn't work. Killing the terrorists does work.
You may also notice that suicide bombings are almost non-existant in Iraq and become even less common as time goes on. You know why? Because the terrorists are running out of idiots who are willing to blow themselves up - and they are beginning to lose the will-power to continue terrorist attacks.
Frankly, I think that the Shiites are quite happy to have had Saddam do a rope dance. Mark my words, the terrorist idiot fringe of so-called 'disenfranchised' Muslims (who, incidentally are disenfranchised by other Muslims, not anyone else) are loosing steam and will eventually vanish into oblivion in Iraq in the very near future.
We need to provide secular education funding to the Middle East instead of propping up dictators who we used to support but did us wrong then suddenly is our friends again for strategic reasons. We need to provide economic opportunities, real ones not just Sultans and Princes reaping oil riches on the backs of the working person, and end this imperialistic outlook once and for all.
So sorry, if that doesn't fit into your bomb first, wreak havoc, and wonder why they hate us later act.
Secular education isn't going to fly in the Middle East, especially not with the rule of Islamic Law dictating the daily functions of every aspect of life in Muslim countries.
The Middle East is never going to amount to anything ecomomically or otherwise while the nations there, mostly Islamic, continue to tolerate extremist religious fundamentalist violent lunatics, secular or otherwise. We don't need to provide 'them' with anything. They need to provide for themselves and they aren't going to do that unless they suddenly decide to act like civilized human beings instead of jumping around in the streets for joy at the murder of 'infidels'.
The only people that can change a violent, fundamentally ignorant mindset in those countries are the people who live there.
And as far as imperialistic outlooks go - take a look at Iran and the rest of the 'Muslim' world. You have that nutcase in Iran who wants to exterminate everyone in the world who isn't a Muslim because somehow his and his nation's 'religious' beliefs demand the extermination of everyone who isn't a Muslim. How the hell do you reason with people with that kind of mindset? The answer is that you can't. If you think you can reason with extremist elements, you're a fool.
That said, I can't even fathom how an insolent and insane minority of Islamic Extremists have been permitted by their own culture and religion to totally sieze control of a whole religion. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims in the world are abhored by the acts of terrorism committed in the name of their religion. My only question is why don't they stand up and deal with those people who give their religion a bad name?
If the Islamic World had half a brain about it all they would be champing at the bit to smash Iraq and wipe out the extremists in their own midst. Unless they choose to do exactly that the Islamic World will be eternally sentenced to a circle of violence without end.