- It's possible that cultural and moral advancement yields technological and (thus military) advancement. There's a fair case to be made that this - in part - explains our triumph over the Axis and (most of) the Communists. It's debatable, I know.
- Am I reading you correctly as a complete pacifist? If not, when would you endorse force?
- In Iraq, I felt the whole thing was trumped-up, in large part by the media who started asking Bush about Iraq once the Afghanistan story became uninteresting. We literally talked ourselves into it. Since the war was founded on a combination of this hype and lingering feelings of having left a job unfinished by Bush I folks in W's cabinet, the rationale for the war kept shifting as the administration looked for a credible cover. I don't think it was malicious or overt or a conspiracy - it was more subconscious and a result of media/political momentum - but certainly poor judgment was exercised, and no one in the administration had the guts to say, "Whoa - this is going a little too far; we made a mistake."
- That said, economic sanctions were a joke and clearly were not effective in achieving change, instead leaving the Iraqi people in misery. I don't think sanctions were the cure, and I think something had to be done eventually (or else the U.N. is pointless; I wasn't concerned that Iraq posed an immediate threat). I would like to have seen a real coalition and consensus among the world powers before we went in - this was everyone's problem, not just ours. The whole "pre-emptive war" jumped the gun and ruined our foreign policy leverage in both the Middle East and the West.
- Europeans should not avoid kids - and deny themselves the joy of children and their children the opportunity to live and determine their own future because of global warming or any other problem. The solution is to fix global warming. I understand that not everyone wants kids - but we ought to take a look at our priorities and wants when they shift such that they're causing the culture to die out. It seems especially true from an evolutionary standpoint - our culture as evolved into self-destruction, which should give the evolutionist some cause for alarm.
- Am I reading you correctly as a complete pacifist? If not, when would you endorse force?
- In Iraq, I felt the whole thing was trumped-up, in large part by the media who started asking Bush about Iraq once the Afghanistan story became uninteresting. We literally talked ourselves into it. Since the war was founded on a combination of this hype and lingering feelings of having left a job unfinished by Bush I folks in W's cabinet, the rationale for the war kept shifting as the administration looked for a credible cover. I don't think it was malicious or overt or a conspiracy - it was more subconscious and a result of media/political momentum - but certainly poor judgment was exercised, and no one in the administration had the guts to say, "Whoa - this is going a little too far; we made a mistake."
- That said, economic sanctions were a joke and clearly were not effective in achieving change, instead leaving the Iraqi people in misery. I don't think sanctions were the cure, and I think something had to be done eventually (or else the U.N. is pointless; I wasn't concerned that Iraq posed an immediate threat). I would like to have seen a real coalition and consensus among the world powers before we went in - this was everyone's problem, not just ours. The whole "pre-emptive war" jumped the gun and ruined our foreign policy leverage in both the Middle East and the West.
- Europeans should not avoid kids - and deny themselves the joy of children and their children the opportunity to live and determine their own future because of global warming or any other problem. The solution is to fix global warming. I understand that not everyone wants kids - but we ought to take a look at our priorities and wants when they shift such that they're causing the culture to die out. It seems especially true from an evolutionary standpoint - our culture as evolved into self-destruction, which should give the evolutionist some cause for alarm.
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