# Iraq vs. Georgia



## Orange_Juice (Aug 12, 2008)

Can anyone make an argument that invading Iraq was ok but the Russian war against Georgia is wrong? Seeing Bush up there condemning Russia just made my eyes roll


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## busara (Aug 12, 2008)

terrorists. freedom. liberty. 9/11.


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## editec (Aug 12, 2008)

I can..._two wrong don't make a right?_

Lame, but true!


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## DiamondDave (Aug 12, 2008)

Should we probably accept Georgia into the NATO alliance and possibly send troops for 'support'? I would not be against such a thing. Would be be justified? Yes indeed... but the situation is not nearly the same as Iraq (and no, idiot, Iraq was not about oil no matter how much you keep chanting that bogus slogan)...


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## CharlestonChad (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> (and no, idiot, Iraq was not about oil no matter how much you keep chanting that bogus slogan)...



lol You continue to outdo your own stupidity


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## Avatar4321 (Aug 12, 2008)

Not very difficult.

We took out a tyrant who routinely threatened his neighbors around him.

Russia is taking out a Democratic government protecting their own sovereign territory.

We went into Iraq to provide them with the right to govern themselves.

Russia is going in so they control Georgia.

The contrast is actually quite obvious.


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## DiamondDave (Aug 12, 2008)

CharlestonChad said:


> lol You continue to outdo your own stupidity



Where's the oil we are taking out of Iraq? Where's it at? You would figure with all the oil we are supposedly stealing from the country of Iraq, that we took over because of their oil, we would have some tiny piece of evidence to support this..


We'll be waiting....

Your belief of liberal slogans shows your stupidity


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## Orange_Juice (Aug 12, 2008)

Avatar4321 said:


> Not very difficult.
> 
> We took out a tyrant who routinely threatened his neighbors around him.
> 
> ...



So we are just the good guys spreading happiness and they are evil spreading badness! 

I get it now! I'll just keep telling myself, We are good, they are bad, we are good they are bad, we are good they are bad.............


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## busara (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Where's the oil we are taking out of Iraq? Where's it at? You would figure with all the oil we are supposedly stealing from the country of Iraq, that we took over because of their oil, we would have some tiny piece of evidence to support this..
> 
> 
> We'll be waiting....
> ...





yeah, we went in hoping saddam would have a big stack of oil barrels, just sitting there, ready for us to take back to the US. 

did you maybe consider the fact that our govt wanted to have a friendly, stable ally in the region with big oil reserves who would also allow us to have bases between iran and the rest of the ME? youre looking at it in a very narrow way


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## Epsilon Delta (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Where's the oil we are taking out of Iraq? Where's it at? You would figure with all the oil we are supposedly stealing from the country of Iraq, that we took over because of their oil, we would have some tiny piece of evidence to support this..
> 
> 
> We'll be waiting....
> ...



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html

Rivals Say Halliburton Dominates Iraq Oil Work

Papers Show Expanded Halliburton Iraq Role - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/w... BP Total Shell Exxon Iraq&st=cse&oref=slogin


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## DiamondDave (Aug 12, 2008)

Epsilon Delta said:


> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html
> 
> Rivals Say Halliburton Dominates Iraq Oil Work
> 
> ...




Ahhh... the NY times bashing Haliburton... who woulda thunk it 

Yet with those stories on Haliburton being contracted to help rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure... I still did not see where we are taking all this oil from Iraq.... you know... the basis behind the whole 'no blood for oil' argument


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## Paulie (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Should we probably accept Georgia into the NATO alliance and possibly send troops for 'support'? I would not be against such a thing. Would be be justified? Yes indeed... but the situation is not nearly the same as Iraq (and no, idiot, Iraq was not about oil no matter how much you keep chanting that bogus slogan)...



It sure did have a lot to do with securing the petrodollar.  Obviously it wasn't about "stealing oil", so to speak, but we had a huge economic interest in changing the regime.


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 12, 2008)

Orange_Juice said:


> So we are just the good guys spreading happiness and they are evil spreading badness!
> 
> I get it now! I'll just keep telling myself, We are good, they are bad, we are good they are bad, we are good they are bad.............



I suppose you could just look at the surface and be obtuse if you want to. I'm not sure that really gets your understanding very far or helps shed light on the issues involved.

You have to go back from the events of the last week a good long while and look at the area (Russia, Georgia and the disputed breakaway territories of Georgia). You need to look at the policies of the Georgia and Russia toward those territories and what those territories represent to each country. You also need to look at the people in charge that includes a power hungry Putin that is subverting his own country's Constitution by remaining in power by deception. His policies toward his neighbors and Russia's actions in the last 4-5 years. 

Putin, the evidence is fairly clear, has poisoned leaders in neighboring countries, murdered dissidents (remember the guy in the UK?), suppress dissent in in Russia, slapped controls on the press, rebuilt his military, fought a series of bloody running wars very quietly in his own country and now capped it off with military adventurism in Georgia. This is merely the most recent incident of a long pattern from Putin. 

In Georgia in particular, ever since the civil war in Georgia, Russia has been attempting to undermine Georgia and reintegrate South Ossetia. They have issued Russian passports to the population and provided Russian social programs to them. The location of South Ossetia makes this a more grievous problem than it might otherwise be. 

It would be like Ontario breaking away and getting support from the US. Then, when Canada decided that was a problem for them, the US overruns the entire country of Canada. 

With that explanation, what about that sounds like Iraq to you? I think you are trying to compare apples and airplane tires.


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## doeton (Aug 12, 2008)

i don't think anyone is in favor of russia invading georgia.

the question is why is it ok for georgia to invade south ossetia.


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 12, 2008)

doeton said:


> i don't think anyone is in favor of russia invading georgia.
> 
> the question is why is it ok for georgia to invade south ossetia.



Was it right for Union troops to invade Virginia in 1861?

The point is that South Ossetia is part of the country of Georgia. If there is no right for a country to preserve its union, then the invasion of the Confederate States of America, by the United States of America was an illegitimate war.


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## CharlestonChad (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Where's the oil we are taking out of Iraq? Where's it at? You would figure with all the oil we are supposedly stealing from the country of Iraq, that we took over because of their oil, we would have some tiny piece of evidence to support this..
> 
> 
> We'll be waiting....
> ...



Hyper-partisanship is your disease. 

There are plenty of tyrants in the world doing much worse things than Saddam did. We aren't invading anywhere in Africa because they don't have resources we want to stabilize. There's no benefit of blowing up Sudan and establishing bases. 

We are in Iraq because of oil. It's pretty simple. Too bad you're so obsessed with being a republican that you cannot understand the motivations of your president and his advisers.


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## Annie (Aug 12, 2008)

CharlestonChad said:


> Hyper-partisanship is your disease.
> 
> There are plenty of tyrants in the world doing much worse things than Saddam did. We aren't invading anywhere in Africa because they don't have resources we want to stabilize. There's no benefit of blowing up Sudan and establishing bases.
> 
> We are in Iraq because of oil. It's pretty simple. Too bad you're so obsessed with being a republican that you cannot understand the motivations of your president and his advisers.



Ok, so the meme is that Iraq and the Geogia deals are equivalent, right? I'm asking this of Obama supporters, the ones that seem to be posting such.


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## doeton (Aug 12, 2008)

Tech_Esq said:


> Was it right for Union troops to invade Virginia in 1861?
> 
> The point is that South Ossetia is part of the country of Georgia. If there is no right for a country to preserve its union, then the invasion of the Confederate States of America, by the United States of America was an illegitimate war.



that's the best ya got?

georgia was part of the soviet union....see where that gets ya?

the point is liberty for the people.

but i'm happy to discuss the civil war...it's a fairly weak analogy though...there's no slavery going on in georgia/ossetia. 

the ossetian have their own language.

they've been there for hundreds and hundereds of years...


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## doeton (Aug 12, 2008)

Kathianne said:


> I'm asking this of Obama supporters, the ones that seem to be posting such.



wow.  you are doing that?

brilliant...


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## editec (Aug 12, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Where's the oil we are taking out of Iraq? Where's it at?


 
It's being sold on the world market just like every other drop of oil pumped from the ground everywhere else in the world.



> You would figure with all the oil we are supposedly stealing from the country of Iraq, that we took over because of their oil, we would have some tiny piece of evidence to support this..


 
Stealing?  Who said it's being stolen?




> We'll be waiting....
> 
> Your belief of liberal slogans shows your stupidity


 
Who are you talking to?

You seem to be the only person making that accusation, DD.

Unless I missed something, no one in this thread has said anything about stolen oil from Iraq.


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 12, 2008)

CharlestonChad said:


> Hyper-partisanship is your disease.
> 
> There are plenty of tyrants in the world doing much worse things than Saddam did. We aren't invading anywhere in Africa because they don't have resources we want to stabilize. There's no benefit of blowing up Sudan and establishing bases.
> 
> We are in Iraq because of oil. It's pretty simple. Too bad you're so obsessed with being a republican that you cannot understand the motivations of your president and his advisers.



CC I think you are both right and wrong. It is true that if Iraq or its neighbors didn't have oil, we probably never would have gone there. But, then again, a country should never involve itself in some place that is not in its national interest. 

Where I think you are wrong is that the "No blood for oil" mantra, makes it sound literal. Like if we go to Iraq, we will be able to back up the super tankers and get us some oil. (i.e. raping Iraq for their oil resources). I think it is fairly clear that did not occur and will not be occurring in the future. 

From an economic and way of life preservation perspective, I don't think you could find many things better or more important to go to war for than maintaining consistent flows of oil. That may change (hopefully soon), but right now, we need oil and we need it bad. Jimmy Carter understood that and that why he created the Carter Doctrine in the first place. The Carter Doctrine

I'm not saying that because I think Carter was a foreign policy genius, but more in the nature of "even an idiot could see it."


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## Orange_Juice (Aug 12, 2008)

Tech_Esq said:


> Was it right for Union troops to invade Virginia in 1861?
> 
> *The point is that South Ossetia is part of the country of Georgia*. If there is no right for a country to preserve its union, then the invasion of the Confederate States of America, by the United States of America was an illegitimate war.


 Says who??? Hell, if you make that argument you could also say that since Georgia was part of the soviet union the russians are just going into their own back yard


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## DiamondDave (Aug 12, 2008)

CharlestonChad said:


> Hyper-partisanship is your disease.
> 
> There are plenty of tyrants in the world doing much worse things than Saddam did. We aren't invading anywhere in Africa because they don't have resources we want to stabilize. There's no benefit of blowing up Sudan and establishing bases.
> 
> We are in Iraq because of oil. It's pretty simple. Too bad you're so obsessed with being a republican that you cannot understand the motivations of your president and his advisers.



Yes... there are other tyrants... but unfortunately we do not have justification for wiping out the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia, or the leadership in various other countries with despot leaders...

In Iraq, we had the justification.... unfortunately Daddy Bush did not complete the job the first time, and Clinton did squat...

It was not just about a presence, and not just about oil, and it was not about 'stealing' oil, etc...

Yes, it is advantageous for us to have a presence in that region... but that is only a benefit from the action

To bad that you are completely partisan and biased to the point of being blind... it has to be the big bad Republicans and hitler Bush or all about oil or whatever 

Funny I don't see the same questions being asked as to why socialists like Obama want to play Robin Hood, promising 'free' stuff, etc...


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 12, 2008)

Orange_Juice said:


> Says who??? Hell, if you make that argument you could also say that since Georgia was part of the soviet union the russians are just going into their own back yard



Did you miss the part where the Soviet Union broke up? I don't think you can rightly make the comparison between a government formed by consent of the governed and a forcible occupation at the point of a machine gun or tank.

History actually precedes the 1917 Russian revolution.


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## Avatar4321 (Aug 12, 2008)

Orange_Juice said:


> So we are just the good guys spreading happiness and they are evil spreading badness!
> 
> I get it now! I'll just keep telling myself, We are good, they are bad, we are good they are bad, we are good they are bad.............



Do you deny that Russia invaded a Representative government for their own power?

Do you deny that we invaded a Totalitarian government to liberate it?

You can try to pretend as though the reasons I stated aren't legitimate by mocking them all you want. It doesn't change the fact that the dynamics of the nations involved  and the motivations clearly make the two endevours different. 

Now if you have legitimate complaints with the obvious differences i pointed out, feel free to make them. if you just want to mock me while pretending you are somehow superior without even making a single valid point, go ahead. but dont be surprised if people think less of you.


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## Avatar4321 (Aug 12, 2008)

doeton said:


> i don't think anyone is in favor of russia invading georgia.
> 
> the question is why is it ok for georgia to invade south ossetia.



South Ossetia is a freaking province of Georgia. It's impossible to invade  yourself.


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## Avatar4321 (Aug 12, 2008)

doeton said:


> that's the best ya got?
> 
> georgia was part of the soviet union....see where that gets ya?
> 
> ...



The Soviet Union hasnt existed for over a decade. Georgia is a sovereign nation. Georgia has never been part of Russia.

South Ossestia is not a sovereign nation. It is not recognized as a nation. It is a region of Georgia.

This isnt a matter of liberty for the people. This is a matter of Russia trying to steal Georgia back piece by piece and inciting the conflict through dishonest tactics and attacks in Georgia.


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## Avatar4321 (Aug 12, 2008)

Orange_Juice said:


> Says who??? Hell, if you make that argument you could also say that since Georgia was part of the soviet union the russians are just going into their own back yard



The Soviet Union _does not_ exist anymore.A nation that does not exist cannot take back it's own land.

South Ossestia is part of Georgia. It has not been recognized as an independent nation. 

This isn't that difficult to understand. But apparently those who object to liberating Iraq are the same people who are fully supporting Russia overthrowing a democratic nation. What a freaking surprise.

And you wonder why we think you guys are dangerous to freedom.


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## User Name: (Aug 12, 2008)

Actually, Georgia was part of Russia for about a hundred years prior to the existence to the USSR.

The fact that South Ossetia is not currently recognized as an independent state is irrelevant.  Remember Kosovo?  Who was bombing who then?  And on behalf of who? Who supported Kosovar sovereignty when they could have just remained silent?

The South Ossetians clearly do not wish to be part of Georiga, and neither do the Abkhazians for that matter.  Does anyone doubt this?  Therefore one wonders: what ever happened to self-determination?

Then there's the question: what precisely did the South Ossetians do, with both Georgian and Russian peacekeepers in country, that forced the President of Georgia to respond with an indiscrimate artillery bombardment against a civilian center at precisely the same time the Olympic games were begining?  And this only hours after declaring a cease fire?

Quite clearly while declaring a cease fire Georgia was simultaneously preparing an attack.  Does that not bother anyone?

And again, what about the timing?  Was he hoping for distraction?  Or perhaps assuming (wrongly as it turns out) that the Russians would be unwilling to respond during the Olympics?

Anyway you look at it, it's hard to frame the Georgians as the good guys as some people seem to do.

Also, as an aside, contrary to what has been written here, oil is a consideration for the U.S. in its relations with both Georgia and Sudan.


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## Orange_Juice (Aug 12, 2008)

Avatar4321 said:


> 1) Do you deny that Russia invaded a Representative government for their own power?
> 
> 2) Do you deny that we invaded a Totalitarian government to liberate it?
> 
> .



1) You mean the Representative government that was trying to swallow up its free neighbor? 

2) That was no threat to us

Big countries pushing around small countries, that's all this is


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## AllieBaba (Aug 12, 2008)

If oil is our sole reason for warring with Iraq, one wonders...why didn't we just invade Mexico, instead?


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## AllieBaba (Aug 12, 2008)

Or Canada? I think they'd probably be easier to conquer.


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## random3434 (Aug 12, 2008)

doeton said:


> wow.  you are doing that?
> 
> brilliant...



Have you seen this yet?




[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHkqAqbYafI]YouTube - Georgia&Russia - True American Talking From Russia testimony MUST SEE![/ame]


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 12, 2008)

> Actually, Georgia was part of Russia for about a hundred years prior to the existence to the USSR.



True 1801-1917. South Ossetia was a province of Georgia even then and has never been separate from Georgia historically.



> The fact that South Ossetia is not currently recognized as an independent state is irrelevant.



It is very relevant. If South Ossetia is a break away province from a sovereign country, then that country has a right to deal with its breakaway militarily, if necessary, to get it back under control. I believe this happened in the US once or twice (Whiskey Rebellion, War Between the States). I believe in the latter case, self-determination was exercised as well. Votes held for secession etc. Somehow we all think it was all right for the North to attack the South and bring them back into line. You can't just say slavery and make all of that all right. That ignores the larger issue. Either "self-determination" is respected or it isn't.

The rest of it is pretty much a non-issue if Georgia has the right to deal with its own breakaway province. 



> Also, as an aside, contrary to what has been written here, oil is a consideration for the U.S. in its relations with both Georgia and Sudan.



I've found no support for this contention. We do not import oil from either of those countries according to the sources that I looked at. If we do get any oil from either of them, it's less than 1%. To the extent that oil is an important resource and we take that into consideration in foreign relations, I guess you could say that much.


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## Ravi (Aug 12, 2008)

Oil is sold on the world market. Any shortage world wide affects oil prices.


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## Jennifer.Bush (Aug 13, 2008)

avatar4321 said:


> south Ossetia Is A Freaking Province Of Georgia. It's Impossible To Invade  Yourself.


Lmaooooooooooooooooooooo


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## jreeves (Aug 13, 2008)

busara said:


> yeah, we went in hoping saddam would have a big stack of oil barrels, just sitting there, ready for us to take back to the US.
> 
> did you maybe consider the fact that our govt wanted to have a friendly, stable ally in the region with big oil reserves who would also allow us to have bases between iran and the rest of the ME? youre looking at it in a very narrow way



Kuwait, is just chopped liver...


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## RetiredGySgt (Aug 13, 2008)

Orange_Juice said:


> So we are just the good guys spreading happiness and they are evil spreading badness!
> 
> I get it now! I'll just keep telling myself, We are good, they are bad, we are good they are bad, we are good they are bad.............



That is all you got from that? You are hopelessly stupid.


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## editec (Aug 13, 2008)

Kathianne said:


> Ok, so the meme is that Iraq and the Geogia deals are equivalent, right? I'm asking this of Obama supporters, the ones that seem to be posting such.


 
I'll probably be pulling the lever for O.

I don't think these situations are the same.

They have some very minor similarities, but they are not at all equivalent.

Here's the similarities as I see it:

1.  they're both in part about controlling oil/natural gas resources.

2. Both pit a very large very powerful nation against a smaller one.

That's about it in the similarity department.


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 13, 2008)

editec said:


> I'll probably be pulling the lever for O.
> 
> I don't think these situations are the same.
> 
> ...



A very measured and thoughtful response. I would only quibble with you about the first. I'm believe with Ambassador Holbrook that this is really about Putin's regional ambition than about natural resources. Putin has been working this deal for several years and it's about Russian regional hegemony.


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## Epsilon Delta (Aug 13, 2008)

DiamondDave said:


> Ahhh... the NY times bashing Haliburton... who woulda thunk it
> 
> Yet with those stories on Haliburton being contracted to help rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure... I still did not see where we are taking all this oil from Iraq.... you know... the basis behind the whole 'no blood for oil' argument



Didn't read the first link, I take.


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## 52ndStreet (Aug 13, 2008)

There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist 
country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.


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## editec (Aug 13, 2008)

52ndStreet said:


> There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist
> country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.


 

Oh, if I had to characterize the reports I'm hearing, this is more a Stalinesque than Tuetonic invasion.


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## random3434 (Aug 13, 2008)

editec said:


> Oh, if I had to characterize the reports I'm hearing, this is more a Stalinesque than Tuetonic invasion.




Have you watched this yet?




[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_jCdbcAjNM]YouTube - Who's to blame for the Russian Georgian conflict?[/ame]


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## Tech_Esq (Aug 14, 2008)

Echo Zulu said:


> Have you watched this yet?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes I watched it. What's your point about it?


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## Tristan (Aug 14, 2008)

52ndStreet said:


> There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist
> country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.



It's one standard. It's OK for a free country to liberate a country ruled by tyrants. It's not OK for dictators and tyrants to invade free countries. 

Georgia- Free and sovereign.

Iraq- not free and not sovereign.

One standard.


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## Epsilon Delta (Aug 15, 2008)

Tristan said:


> It's one standard. It's OK for a free country to liberate a country ruled by tyrants. It's not OK for dictators and tyrants to invade free countries.
> 
> Georgia- Free and sovereign.
> 
> ...



What about Chile? Guatemala? Nicaragua? Venezuela? ...Iran?

How do those come into the equation?

Or what about flipping the question around, is it OK to support dictators if they further the interests of "free" countries? But it's not ok to support them if they further the interests of other "unfree" countries? Or are you saying don't support dictators at all? I hope you're saying that, although that would mean that your point of view is far removed from US Foreign Policy for the past 200 years.


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## Tristan (Aug 18, 2008)

Epsilon Delta said:


> *What about Chile? Guatemala? Nicaragua? Venezuela? ...Iran?*
> 
> How do those come into the equation?
> 
> Or what about flipping the question around, is it OK to support dictators if they further the interests of "free" countries? But it's not ok to support them if they further the interests of other "unfree" countries? Or are you saying don't support dictators at all? I hope you're saying that, although that would mean that your point of view is far removed from US Foreign Policy for the past 200 years.




What about them?

What dictators are in the habbit of supporting free countries?

I'm not an expert on U.S. Foreign Policy and I'm not trying to defend it's entire history. My philosophy is force is only OK in defense of yourself or your allies. (like England, Korea, Kuwait etc etc) It's not OK for dictators or totalitarian governments to use force ever. (because those governments are not "OK" from the get-go)

I don't support every U.S. War but it's certainly fine to support some bad governments against worse ones. For example, Iran had a pretty bad government in 1979 but the Ayatollah Khumayni's government is/was much worse. (for us and the Iranians)


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## Epsilon Delta (Aug 19, 2008)

Tristan said:


> What about them?
> 
> What dictators are in the habbit of supporting free countries?
> 
> ...



I'll tell you what about them- They all had democratically elected governments toppled (or at the very least attempted to) by US intervention, followed by imposed autocratic militarist regimes (Guatemala in 1954 (success), Chile in 1973 (success), Nicaragua in 1984 (partly a failure), Venezuela in 2002 (failure)).  

And I said free countries that support dictators, and dictators that further the interest of 'free countries' (simplified- by 'further the interests', I mean the interest of investors and corporations, or military interests.) Of these latter ones there's several examples- Apartheid South Africa, Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah of Iran, Suharto in Indonesia, and so on so forth. These murderous regimes had two main 'constituencies', the domestic elite and the foreign elites of their patron countries, and so they basically had to cater to them to keep power at the expense of the vast majority of their own populations (sometimes they even had to be protected from their own populations).

You bring up the interesting example of Iran, but what a lot of people seem to forget is the backdrop to 1979, which was 1953. Iran did have a parliamentary democracy, obviously imperfect but far less so than the absolute dictatorship of the Shah. In 1953 US and British interests convinced their governments to covertly overthrow the Iranian parliament, chiefly due to the fact that the parliament and prime minister Mossadegh wanted to increase royalties to the government from the British-Iranian Oil Company, going so far as to want to nationalize it. Remember, this was before the evil fundamentalists were a real big part of the scene. Needless to say, the CIA operation was a big success, and the Shah was instituted as the brutal autocrat and sole ruler for the following 26 years, ample time for massive unrest to boil under the surface of his Rentier State, and of course to make the Islamic Revolution a reality. 

Moral of the story, you gotta be real careful about the consequences. If you don't agree with some US foreign policy issues then speak out against them. You say that tyrannical governments should never use force, because they are illegitimate in the first place: that's true. So what about the fact that Saddam Hussein was the third largest recipient of US aid in the 1980s, when he was flagrantly displaying total abuse of power by gassing Kurds and Iranians. Because the Ayatollah was worse than Hussein? Then why invade Iraq NOW and not Iran? Iran's still ruled by basically the same group of people. Do the Ayatollahs weight heavier than Hussein on the 'bad' scale? Then why so cozy with the Saudi Autocrat Family? They're far more dictatorial and fundamentalist than Iran, so where are the threats to the Saudi monarchy? They're committing basically the same crimes that Iran's accused of, if not worse. So where is "moral equivalence"?


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## editec (Aug 19, 2008)

Ossetia has been part of Georgia for about four centuries. The Georgians were there first, BTW. the Ossetians migrated from Russia.

NORTH ossetia, likewise.

I don't have a pony in this race, but I do not believe that this civil war is about FREEDOM, I believe it's about money and power.

Do I believe Moscow is concerned with freedom for Ossetia?

Hell no!

Do I believe the White House is concerned with Freedom of Georgia?

Hell no.

Both of these empires are wrapping themselves in flags of self determination and noble ideas, when neither of them really supports those things.

This embroglio is about two rapacious Empires vieing for position in the world hegemony game.


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