ORIGINAL: Chad477
You live in the greatest country on earth. Go live in some other country and see if you can get away with slamming it' s leader without getting killed.
Do you honestly believe that? Do you mean in Iraq that would happen, or do you truly mean if you lived in some other country [besides America] you would be killed if you " slammed" its leader? Are you basing this on personal experience, or have you read it somewhere? Have you lived in another country?
Something that always amazes me in these political threads I read is that people refuse to grant any credibility to the arguments of those with whom they argue. For example:
ORIGINAL: SymphonyOfDreams
That' s why I cant try to force americans to get rid of Bush just because I think he' s a psycho, that' s why I cant force isrealites to get rid of Sharon just because I think he' s a murderer, and that' s why the US cant force the Iraqi to get rid of Saddam.
Iraq can be lead by Satan himself and still we wouldn' t have the right to invade and force a " regime change" . Who are the americans or anyone for that matter to decide for the Iraqi' s who should or shouldn' t lead their country?
Now I understand that you might not agree with this position, but can none of you at least acknowledge that this is a legitimate concern that we liberals have? Can you not see the irony (or at least perceived irony) that we see?
I am torn on the issue of Iraq, I really am. Many of the arguments in favor of war make sense to me, and even though there are many with which I don' t agree, I don' t neccessarily have strong counter arguments against them. That being said, it astounds me that there are not more Americans who are concerned that we are about to attack another country who has not directly provoked us. Again, I realize that there are convincing arguments that Saddam Hussein does and will pose a direct threat to us, but the fact remains that we are about to take preemptive military action, not for something he has done, but for something he will do, like something out of " Minority Report." Doesn' t this bother anyone besides liberals in the slightest?
Can those pro-war Americans who have posted in this thread genuinely not understand why nonAmericans are troubled that we apparently have a policy which says that we will forcefully try to prevent any other country from challenging our status as globally dominant, or that we reserve the right to have weapons of mass destruction in order to prevent other countries from acquiring them, other countries whom we deem to be ethically or morally inferior to us (or just plain " evil" )?
I try to see both sides to political issues, even though I almost always end up on the liberal side, but it becomes increasingly harder to judge an issue even-handedly when one side implies that my views are without merit. If someone were to say " I feel terrible that we have to be the aggressors, and I understand that in doing so we put ourselves in a precarious ethical position, but I feel that Saddam Hussein has left us no other options," then I would sit up and listen attentively. When someone says, however, something like " You democrats just hate Bush because he' s man enough to do the right thing!" I end up scratching my head and wondering if we' re on the same planet.