To see the after-action wiggling by liberals who were / are in favor of the Iraqi war. People who are my friends, people who I admire and people in high positions of power supported the war in Iraq… and yeah this may be putting it indelicately but… you were dumb.
The war was dumb. I’m as hawkish as the next guy – I supported the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. I supported them before and I support them now. The Iraqi War was dumb. I could see that from my apartment in Boston. I was waiting, waiting, waiting for one shred of reasonable evidence that showed me that Bin Laden was hooked to Hussein, one bit of non-RNC propaganda that even remotely said to me that the terrorists who killed our people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania were anywhere near Baghdad.
I was in Boston, working at a mortgage company, and I didn’t see it. There were and are millions of people higher and lower than me on society’s totem pole who supported the Iraq War.
Dumb move.
Moving on.
(Which is not to say I’ve never done dumb things in my life. Heck, every football season I go into it thinking the Redskins will win the Superbowl. 15 years straight and no cigar, but I’m dumb that way.)
I admit I was one of the dumb ones.
It seems to happen (dumbness) when I am too lazy, or lacking sufficient resources to counter accepted thought. It happens when I defer to the judgement of others who seem to have a preponderance of logic/data and it is their job to know.
I don’t understand why DemoHawks still are afraid to come out and say they were wrong.
It could be they are afraid of what will occur in Iraq if we pull out.
Allow me to use some bandwidth to talk about Iraq via a post I made some months ago. I have expressed similar sentiments here.
STRONG; BUT WRONG
This post is heuristic in nature and as such will contain no links, trackbacks or URL’s to allow the myopic to focus on their selective perceptions. Of course, the aforementioned cannot be altogether removed.
Civil war in Iraq (although some may say it has begun already) is a very probable result and unintended consequence of our liberating the Iraqi people from their sadistic ruler.
The last real attempt to unify Arab tribes into a governmental coalition was in the city of Damascus in 1918 (Do your own research). At that time, the British government sought to bring stability to it’s own hegemony, by removing the Turkish competitors. Colonel T. E. Lawrence had a grander vision. He wanted to unify the arabic tribes into one political force.
Little has changed for this culture since that time. This firmly entrenched genetic memory belongs to a people who have always distrusted cousins over brothers, neighboring village over cousins, outlying village over neighboring village, and most of all, colonialists over countrymen.
Tribal warfare will decide the fate of Iraq.
Yes, that is fatalistic. Arabs are fatalisic. They believe everything that occurs in history is written in advance by Allah. Nothing can change what Allah has written.
What is the role of the U.S. in the formation of the new Iraq? The future of Iraq is in the hands of the Iraqis. That is simplistic. It is in the hands of the Kurds, the Sunni and Shia. Each has it’s own goals and agenda.
Perhaps the only political opinion they share revolves around self-determination. It is vital that no outsiders are seen as having influence on what the political landscape looks like.
Our current role is to control the environment so that the serum we hope to germinate, will have a chance to grow in this experiment. The classic dilemma for sociologists who must mingle with a culture in order to study it, is that they might contaminate the result by their very presence. As long as we are present in Iraq, we contaminate the result.
You say that we intend to leave Iraq as soon as possible. We don’t want to stay there any longer than we have to. We have to leave them with some semblance of government, and a trained military.
Assuming those two essential conditions for withdrawal are met and we pull out; What then? Will there be continued bloodshed and fiefdoms? You betcha’
We let the genie out of the bottle. We violated the prime directive.
We have a responsiblity to provide a window of opportunity to the Iraqi people. But they must step up to the plate. Perhaps they will surprise me. They may indeed create a civilized form of government. It may not be a democracy as we know it, but it could be. My gut says before it’s better, it’s gonna get a lot worse
I believe, based on the history and culture of Arabs, that civil war in Iraq is inevitable. No matter how long we stay, no matter how much money and people we sacrifice to save this country from civil war, it’s going to happen. Iraq should be left to the Iraqis. Let the chips fall where they may. Pretty soon, we should just get out of the way
C.Y.A. is not a compelling reason for us to keep sacrificing American lives and treasure. The architects of this war were wrong-headed. The urge to find some rationale for staying and pouring out more lives to honor the memory of those already fallen is a strong one; but wrong
I can’t admit to being dumb about this war. This operation smelled of a bamboozle job from the start and was keyed up by only emotion and no facts. Oliver, I unfortunately have more embarassing stupid moment: I believe the Chicago Cubs, Bulls, Bears, and New Orleans Saints will have winning seasons and possible win it all. No one can accuse me of glory supporting.
alh,
Sane, thoughtful post.
Dugger
Oliver
I suspect the reason many chastened Democrats who supported the Iraq war are loathe to declare they were wrong is because they fear compounding the demoralization of American troops. And, this seems a credible and responsible position; especially since even more prescient (and reasonable) Democrats are not calling the Americans to abandon this mission that is clearly now more about spreading Democracy than finding WMDs. (Although, isn t it at least a little comforting to know that the troops are sending so many fanatical jihadists to greet their 72 virgins from Iraq, not the USA.)
Leo: You can play fast and loose with history and hagiography if you choose, but, once you do, your power to use history’s real lessons to speculate on the future is considerably diminished, if not reduced to zero.
This predicted “Civil War” you’re touting (almost with glee) might never come to pass; as of now, it exists only in the feverish imaginations of left wing writers, some of whom you have linked to in the past. Apparently, the views of the myopic left you unfazed then.
You are dreadfully wrong when you say.”We let the genie out of the bottle. We violated the prime directive.”
The “contamination” you refer to is in the discipline of anthropology, not sociology, and refers mostly to preliterate societies, which can be severely disrupted by western influence. The GI / Modern day Iraqi interaction hardly qualifies as a “violation of the Prime Directive”?
You are exactly right when you say, “It [the future] is in the hands of the Kurds, the Sunni and Shia.”
By the way, since I know exactly what the connection was between Hussein and world – wide terror, and because I know that Hussein entertained delusions of a Restoration of the Persian Empire, with himself as a modern day Darius, I know that we should have gone into Iraq, and we should stay, at least until the fundamental democratic processes are complete. As we here in America learned from 1861 – 1865, democracies can survive a civil war.
Thanks, once again, for pointing out the flea scat in my post in order to justify an untenable position.
.we should stay, at least until the fundamental democratic processes are complete.
1.) At what point is it “complete”?
2.)What happens after our troops pull out?
I agree Dugger.
I referred Oliver to ALH’s blog sometime ago becasue I thought he would find it enlightening. This guy makes even the likes of Maureen Dowd seem like partisan hacks. Check him out (and see his profile): http://ipinions.blogspot.com
Still holding out hope that going into Iraq was the right move? Give it a rest. There were no WMDs. The war has been a disaster for us in the war on terror, rather than removing a sore spot of terrorism, we created a country where terrorists can go to recruit, train and take shots at Americans.
The only thing we have is enough troops in the country to keep things going at a slow boil for now. I have to imagine that fighting through an ineffective policy that doesn’t change has to be more demoralizing for the troops than people back home pointing out that the policy is ineffective.
Speaking out and saying the troops need more armor and better equipment should be the opposite of demoralizing to the troops. Speaking out against the pentagon reneging on re-enlistment bonuses should be the opposite of demoralizing too. etc. Wondering aloud why the hell our troops are dying in Iraq should also be less demoralizing than being unable to provide them with real, honest answers about why they were sent there to toil and sometimes die in the first place.
alh:
It sounds to me like you’re saying we should lie to them to keep them happy? “Shhh, if we tell them the truth, they won’t fight so hard.” That doesn’t give the troops much credit.
I would argue that it never was about finding WMDs, that it never was and still isn’t about “spreading democracy”. Spreading democracy should be done by an internal revolution, no? Yet, after the first gulf war, we abandoned our friends in Iraq and allowed them to be slaughtered by Hussein. I don’t know what the real reason was, but I suspect it had to do with the fact that we were failing to find OBL in Afghanistan, and the administration needed something to say, “We’re not just sitting on our asses, we’re actually doing something to fight terrorism.” And Democratic congressional leaders aren’t calling for an end to the war because the Republicans do such a fine job of smearing someone as “unpatriotic” if they do.
And then you offer yet another justification that contradicts your previous one of “spreading democracy”. And, no, it’s not comforting to know that we’ve turned the homeland of millions of peace-loving, innocent Iraqi citizens into a warzone just so we can satisfy our own security desires.
Alh –
I agree with Middlepridge. Suggesting that Democracts should continue to remain silent about the war in Iraq for fear of “compounding the demoralization of American troops,” first of all, suggests that the troops are already demoralized to begin with. If they’re already demoralized how would talk of bringing them home — or even making sure they’re properly equipt — compound that? What sounds sane and thoughtful to Dugger, sounds to me like yet another attempt to stifle the kind of sane and thoughtful discussion we need to have — and have yet to have — about what we are doing in Iraq and how we get out. Now we can’t criticize the war because it might make the troops feel bad? I’m sorry if I sound callous but that’s ridiculous. There’s simply no way that supporters of this war will allow or tolerate any discussion of the war that doesn’t already begin with the assumption that it was right then, that it was right now and that this will always be so.
I’m all for democracy but I don’t think a preemptive war launched under false pretenses is really the way to go about spreading it — especially not in a country as fractious as Iraq. Iraq has now had two major elections this year. I say bravo. Can we declare victory yet? No. Why? Because the security situation sucks so bad and no one still has a plan to deal with it. It’s been three years and things are getting worse not better. The onyl solution we have is to train an overwhelmingly Shiite army to patrol and police and overwhelmingly Sunni insurgency (remember, by the military’s own assessment fanatical jihadists make up only 20 percent of the insurgency). Sounds like a nice recipe for civil war. We’ll see how that geos. Besides, I never understood how invading Iraq keeps fanatical jihadists from attacking the US. It didn’t exactly work for Britain, did it? Do you think the Iraqi’s appreciate the logic of the flypaper strategy? “Excuse me, can we turn your country into a battlefield to save ourselves the pain of dead civilians? Thanks, don’t mind if we do.” Since when did arrogance make for good foreign policy?
Semanticleo Says:
Thanks, once again, for pointing out the flea scat in my post in order to justify an untenable position.
I think that pointing out that your historical interpretation is faulty (e.g., this not 1918, and T.E. Lawrence, and his vision, are dead); as well as you sociological interpretation (the 1930’s “B” movie stereotype of “Suspicious Arabs” is faulty, most of the people of Iraq aren’t even Arabs); and predicting a Civil War, with no credible evidence, is hardly “flea scat” as you picaresquely put it.
we should stay, at least until the fundamental democratic processes are complete
1.) At what point is it complete ?
It is complete when a constitution has been drawn up, and most civil posts have been filled, and at least a national government is up and running — certainly no later than 12/06; of course, the target date has to remain tentative, so the terrorists (what you call “insurgents”) dont run to their hidey – holes)
2.)What happens after our troops pull out?
You think you know; I don’t pretend to. I do believe in homeostasis, i.e., there is no foreseeable circumstance which indicates that a Civil War will erupt, as the last GI boards the last plane out of Iraq. Not to mention that leaving a small garrison behind — with the permission of the Iraqis — would serve them, us, and the whole Middle East, well.
Point taken. I would disagree, however, that it does anyone any good to whitewash what this war was and is because of how it might impact the troops. They are, afterall, the ones in the middle of it and whispering sweet nothings in their ears of honor and justice is a tad patronizing, is it not? Conservatives often argue that liberals base decisions on feelings rather than reason. If we are only in Iraq because staying there makes us feel better about a horrible mistake, well, that’s no basis for sound policy.
pionar / frameone
With all due respect, I did not write or imply that all dissenting voices be quiet on the home front. Oliver s post suggests that some Democrats were / are dumb for supporting the Iraq war, and are dumber for not admitting that they were wrong for doing so. I merely offered what I think is a credible and sustainable response to his post.
Besides, in case you haven t heard, a raging debate is being (and has been) waged by the very Democrats Oliver and, by association, you impugn (for the idle reason that they refuse to admit they were dumb?). Perhaps they, like Bush, still think that it’s a just and honourable war. Perhaps what they think is dumb is not the war but rather its prosecution; which for war hero John Kerry seems to make all the difference in the world.
Indeed, I assume that Kerry believes, based on his experience, that debating tactics (including exit strategy) is acceptable. But that declaring now that the war effort is dumb (wrong) – without demanding immediate withdrawal of all troops – is untenable!
By contrast, it is instructive that many of those who (seem to) think this is a dumb war are not demanding immediate withdrawal of American troops.
Instructive? What do you learn from it?
Why is it “untenable” to think now (or all along) that the invasion was a mistake, but to also accept that the U.S. has a moral obligation to help fix what it has broken? It’s the alternative–bust up the country and run away–that seems untenable.
There’s another reason why it matters whether or not former supporters of the war have an obligation to admit they were wrong. “The ends justifies the means” is also not a sound basis for policy. The so-called Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is a recipe for future disaster if we don’t recognize the sheer stupidity of the first instance in which it was applied.
So we should support the war, especially those who supported it originally, because as our troops continue to die in what has turned out to be a rather bad idea, they will at least maintain good morale. Thanks alh, I have been enlightened.
I have a picture of my the 3-yo kid standing in the snow in a February protest before Mr Bush’s invasion, holding a sign that reads War Makes Terrorism. My opinion of the Iraq war has not shifted. Bad idea then, bad idea now. I guess you can say I have “allied myself with Pat Tillman.”
The sad thing is that in many ways the support for going to war was not exactly the wrong decision in the lead up to the invasion. It really isn’t so shameful that many people basically decided to believe the president of the united states and his representatives. They are the ones with the access to all the intelligence, so we assumed they had info the rest of us just weren’t privy to. Unfortunately for everyone, they lied, doctored the intelligence, and ignored or tried to discredit any info that didn’t support their foregone decision to go to war.
Beyond that they messed up every step of the way. THey lied about the intelligence, they failed to gain diplomatic support, and failed to get meaningful international military support before the invasion. They failed to secure WMD sites, failed to secure radioactive and other dangerous materials, and left ammo and weapon caches behind in the rush to baghdad. They failed to prevent looting. Afterward, they threw out the geneva conventions, tortured and kidnapped citizens, looted the country, disbanded the army and created massive unemployment, failed to account for reconstruction funds leading to massive fraud and theft, and farmed out reconstruction to foreigners.
This isn’t the troops incidently, this is the policy makers.
What positive benefits has the US gotten out of the decision to invade Iraq? We are less safe from terrorists, less safe from WMDs, less safe from rogue regimes, less safe from dirty bombs. Our army is stretched beyond its capacity: units have long tours in Iraq, our home units are under equipped in case of need, recruitment is down etc.
We have lost standing in the world. Invasion alienated many countries, promoting bad intelligence reduced our trustworthiness, and of course torture as a policy really was a blow to international relations. Many countries will no longer extradite terrorists to us or share all of their terrorism-related intelligence or believe ours.
And all we here is stay the course. Elections will change everything, we are training the iraqi army… it’s like a broken record. Do you think that insurgents who feel unrepresented by the government will suddenly lay down their arms because a vote continues their underrepresentation? Right. And the army training. I think there must be about 6,000 trained iraqi battalions with all but one being useless. Stay the course.
You think $200 billion of tax payer money doesn’t entitle us to some answers and input to the process? How about some basic accounting of the funds? Over one billion dollars stolen from the Iraqi defense ministry and counting. Funnel them some more. Not to mention Halliburton and other contractors gouging. You tell the troops they’re supported when independent security contractors get $1,000 a day to work in Iraq, while their $15k re-enlistment bonuses are yanked.
Alh’s comment combines a lack of understanding about all things military as well as the usual ‘liberals hate the troops’ nonsense.
First, in any endeavor, it is “demoralizing” to have an unclear mission combined with insufficient resources coupled with a complete ignorance of the situation. When troops in the field are confronted with these factors, worrying about what some politician 10,000 miles away says or doesn’t say ranks pretty low on the priority list.
Democrats are not calling the Americans to abandon this mission that is clearly now more about spreading Democracy than finding WMDs.
How bites of the apple do Repugs get? We have basically turned a secular nation into an Islamic Republic. Just what the Mid-East needs.
“This isn t the troops incidently, this is the policy makers.”
Midderpidge;
The die-hards want to paint everyone who has misgivings about this war as;
“Not supporting our troops”
“Not supporting democracy”
“Wanting to pull our troops out NOW!
It is much simpler for their argument to presuppose all fall into all three categories
We do support the troops. One could even say we support them more than those who wheedled and made excuses for the lack of proper equipment (armored Vees, improper body armor). Was it demoralizing for the troops that command and control for these issues required citizens to be more proactive than military leaders and raise funds to buy this equipment for our soldiers?
Stop with the suggestion that opposing the indefinite continuation of this war is demoralizing to the troops.
The troops are every bit as inspirational as the ture believers portrayed in the film, “We Were Soldiers” They will follow their commander-in-chief into the fires of perdition, if need be. God be with each and every one of them.
They remind me of the duty bound whose tribute was penned by Tennyson.
“The Charge of the Light Brigade”.
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
I do not want to lose them.
During the leadup to the invasion, Bush was doing some very effective saber-rattling, and that gave the weapons inspectors free reign for 2 -3 weeks. Under the threat of military action the Iraqis were much more conciliatory, making the inspections more credible. Inspectors were even going to locations where Colin Powell and Rumsfeld thought WMDs would be found– and finding nothing. There were times I thought Bush was very shrewd about this and it was giving the world some real assurance that Saddam had no weapons. But when Bush was obvoisly getting impatient, and not just play-acting, it became clear that he was bent on invasion and his rhetoric about using military action as a last resort was bogus. We will be paying for that mistake for a long time.
It was all about the photo op. That’s an embarrassing memory now and the killing just goes on and on.
Ther boy scout in me wants to stay so we can leave the place better than we found it but I think the truth is the longer we stay, the more likely things will get worse.
We’re standing between the Iraqis and their future. It may not be the future we’d wish for them and it may be hard to watch but our part in their recent past hasn’t covered us in glory either. That’s not the fault of the troops, but their commanders.
The British Empire ended up occupying Iraq until 1958, a tenure of over 30 years. Churchill suggested using poison gas on the unruly Iraqis.
Saddam Hussain has just gone on trial in Iraq, British trained judges, US backed puppet government, charge relating to 1982 when he was an ally of the US and UK and being well supplied with arm from us.
What an achievement.
I tried to avoid this site, didn’t really want to give the hitmeter any help. It is fun to come back and see the same thoughtless arguments meted out though.
We attacked Iraq because it violated about a dozen UN mandated regulations regarding disarmament. There is no question that Iraq HAD chemical weapons, the Iraqi’s were REQUIRED by the UN to DEMONSTRATE that they had destroyed them, and to prove it. It did not require that we go on a giant international game of scavenger hunt.
Saddam had no provable WMD’s by the time we invaded, we were wrong on that count. But we had international law on our side via the UN. The fact that the french, germans and russians wouldn’t go along with us, cause they were all to busy arguing over who was going to get “sloppy seconds” with Saddams oil money.
WMD’s were a small slice of the equation…not the whole enchilada. Let’s not let the leftists in the world succesfully cram that down the memory hole…..
ahhh yes….”Oliver’s Accolytes” chime right in with the invective and ad hominem attack…yet, not suprisingly, refuse to address the actual facts and matter at hand.
The echo chamber remains rigidly intact, just one mental midget after another repeating the leftist talking points.
Thanks Semantic, you just reminded me why I stopped visiting!
Drpedro;
What do you expect when you open your post with;
I tried to avoid this site, didn t really want to give the hitmeter any help. It is fun to come back and see the same thoughtless arguments meted out though.
Next time avoid the red meat. You might get a decent response to your desire for legitimate debate
drpedro;
Thanks for your past consideration. Your help in the thought realm is not necessary as we have enough assistance with banality from your compadres.
Happy Trails
“There is no question that Iraq HAD chemical weapons”
Of course there was no doubt, we SOLD them to him. There was plenty of evidence he still had them, because we MADE it up.
If UN resolutions are so important, why has Israel never been challenged? Why not Turkey? Why not China? Why not Zimbabwe?
The UN did not sanction the invasion of Iraq, and international law was broken, in the same way that Germany did it when they ‘planned war’ in the 1930’s.
Another fact for the memory hole; Saddam was US backed and paid, as was Osama Bin Laden.
Bryan;
Saddam was US backed and paid, as was Osama Bin Laden.
Now you’ve done it. You’ve gone and pissed off the zombies
I wish there was a picture of Osama shaking hands with a high up Neo-con in the 80’s, but alas there isn’t. Neocons and Islamists fought on the same side in Afghanistan, they both declared themselves victorious, but there were no winners. Certainly no Afghan winners.
The fact that we helped that Afghans boot the Soviets, and helped the Iraqis defeat the Iranians, who had just held our people hostage for over a year, is irrelevant, I guess.
I guess we shouldn’t be driving German and Japanese cars, because they were at war with us — 65 years ago!
Leo: If you compare this biography:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html
With this history: (scroll down about a dozen paragraphs to “1979″)
http://www.afghangovernment.com/briefhistory.htm
You will notice absolutely no overlap. You must be reading The Democratic Underground Guide to History (the Classics Illustrated version).
Frank;
http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1
You’re the google king. Can’t you find a reference that doesn’t skip from 1979 to 1989? PBS makes no mention of CIA involvement.
Google Rummy and Bush 41 with Saddam and see what you get.
We weren’t in Afghanistan to help the Afghanis. It was payback to the Soviets for Viet Nam and to prevent the gas pipeline the USSR sought to build through Afghanistan from cutting into the free market UNOCAL and ENRON monopolized.
And NO, the end does not justify the means.
The neocons thought that they were fighting evil, as did the Islamists. When the USSR left, the Taliban Warlords moved in, as did the terror training camps.
Iraq being assisted in a fight against the kidnapping Iranians is one thing, but, hey, didn’t the US also supply those pesky Iranians too? Didn’t they use that money to try to destabilise a ligitimate democracy in El Salvador?
Swiss-cheese history I think.
Do you really think that, if there were CIA involvement, PBS would fail to mention it? Of course they would.
As for this stuff about an oil pipeline, I thought there was a crackpot trying to sell the idea that the US was going to build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan.
And, Bryan, IMHO there is no such thing as a legitimate socialist or communist (e.g., the Sandinistas) government, because I seriously doubt they campaign honestly on a platform of repression, curtailment of freedom and persecution of Christians.
From Wikipedia:
As far as I am (was?) concerned, it was win – win, and it didn’t bother me a bit.
Well, there you have it.
Frank, there have been communists elected to office in the USA. Did heads roll? One can be a Christian and a socialist. You typify the world’s perception of the US, hopped up on propaganda from the cold war.
You also made no comment on the triumph of the Taliban and terror base proprietors in Afghanistan. Did that Swiss cheese out of your memory.
p.s. Why would the US feel it necessary to destabilise a piss-pot country like El-Salvador? Was it better to fund the Noriegas of this world? Methinks the USA is trying to build an empire.
Bryan: You can “thinks” all you want. Did the Taliban run on a platform of “Let’s Get Afghanistan Moving Towards the 12th Century Again”? I doubt it.
As for Communists “elected to office in the USA”. Name one who professed to be a Communist, and claimed to support Communism as it behaves, rather than as it purports to be.
Millions dead in the Ukraine was not propaganda. hundreds of thousands dead in Soviet Gulags was not propaganda. What went on in Lubiyanka prison was no fiction. What has been done to Christian missionaries, nuns and priests and ministers is no propaganda. But I guess I’m just “hopped up.”
Read a copy of “Das Kapital”, and consider that while you are reading it, homosexuals in Cuba are in prison for no crime other being homosexual; children in North Korea are dying of starvation so North Korea can develop a nuclear progam; and babies are being aborted against the will of the pregnant women who bear them in China.
Good ol’ Communism — if only I knew the truth about it!
Woah there Frank, you seem to have gone off on quite a tangent.
1) SOCIALISTS are not COMMUNISTS. The Labour Party of the UK is (or was) a socialist party and has been in power since 1997. Gonzalez in Spain and many other people are socialists, not communist. Seriously Frank, there’s a Pacific Ocean of difference between the two. I would not defend the actions of the Stalinist dictatorships of this world, and their abuses of Human rights.
I do have a problem when the USA says to a country “Have all the democracy you want, but on our terms”, to the point of destabilising that country when it exercises it’s will democratically. Also, when the USA supports a Junta or phoney election of “their” candidate.
You again have nothing to say about Afghanistan, preferring to focus on Communism.
I’m fairly sure that Das Kapital has nothing in it about torturing people, and you are right, communism as practised in the USSR and China and their sattellites is very bad indeed.
Consider what happened in your country in the first 100 years or so of unfettered capitalism post revolution. The native populations were butchered and harried into reservations (are these gulags?).
The fact is that a socialist can be a christian, and many are. I’m not sure a communist can be.
Sorry, I made the same mistake as yourself Frank, I said communist, when I meant Socialist. Siedel and Ziedler, both socialist, both mayor of Milwaukee. They didn’t form a breakaway state because, Frank, they were not communists, they were socialists. El Salvador was a democratically elected socialist (and not communist) government. Had they had a chance to do a bad job of it, they would have been kicked out at the next election, because socialists believe in open and honest elections.
Sorry, quick correction. Philipe Gonzalez WAS the socialist prime minister of Spain a few years ago, but was voted out some time ago.
Also, I’m not saying socialism doesn’t have any faults, because it does. For every person who becomes a high earner because he was given help in going to university, there are usually 3 people freeloading from the state.