Posted: Apr 17, 2008, 2:13 PM CST
Fallingman wrote:Insulting my country doesn't aid your argument.
US went to war with Afghanistan because of 9/11 with substantial international support and with good reason.
US went to war in Iraq because Bush wanted to and with substantial international opposition. Such support as they got was based on lying to the UN and intimidation of others to be "with us or against us" against the terrorists (not Iraq)
Ireland's neutrality is not a badge of dishonour. Vietnam? Why on earth should we have come in to that war and on whose side? The war on terror is a Bush construct. There are terrorists and Ireland takes its place in international efforts against them at all levels but that does not mean involvement in illegal invasions at the whim of the US government.
Ireland has had plenty of terrorist attacks and has dealt with them. They have not been attacked by Bin Laden (yet) but have had to deal with terrorist cells here. Iraq has nothing to do with Bin Laden - that's your quagmire.....you were warned but you insisted. Don't blame anyone else.
What I am calling stupid and arrogant (by the way) is not any of this but simply the insistance that YOU know best, your way or the road, and that nobody else knows what they are talking about. The very recent Bush interest in mideast peace is not taken seriously because it is not serious. Others have tried longer and harder. Whatever about the merits of President Carter's efforts, at least we believe he is sincere, unlike Bush and his cronies.
Now carry on insulting all opponents of the discredited American regime if you must....but don't expect to be taken seriously.
You are right.....it IS a real simple equation
You started the insults, Fallingman.
You know very well in WWII, and those other times....Ireland has sat on the side lines when many others were there.
There was a Irishman that mentioned on a different thread "Ireland has gone all over the world fighting for principles"
I begin then to think of the times, when Ireland had really done that.
WWI yes.......then there is a big gap to the American Civil War....and there is a big gap from WWI to today.
Iraq has everything to do with radical Islam....a greater problem than even AlQeada. We have explained it many time, that Iraq is the vector point between Iran and this greater problem. By being in Iraq they come to us from all over the Islamic world. That is why they have captured and killed foreign fighters ther from more 18 Islamic countries.
Our presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, isolates Iran from the rest of the world and Islamic countries. The day Iran has a device, the day that presence can be felt even more. Without the presence, no way does that happen.
Bush said after 9/11, it was fight against terrorism all over the globe.
And he said it was going to be a long fight.
Fallingman, Iraq was our way of compromising them (terrorist)
and drawing them into a fight that we have advantage on.
If the Irish are going to have these 'principles' that they are willing
to stand and fight for all over the globe, then do it. Again a simple equation.
We would enjoy to have Irish insite to such thing as Iraq and Afgahnistan. But do it from being there....then it becomes a honest and real insite of value. Sit on the side line, and you are nothing
more than a specator at a fotbol match.
But if you are not going to have those prinicples, then don't smear those that do. As we will go all the world to defend those principles.
If you and the rest of the world does like not it....take it out on our currency. But don't expect us take insults and not reply. Don't expect Americans to let you make a punching bag out of GWB or our Presidency. By the way if Obama or Hillary was in power, and you said such then.....you would have gotten the same. It is not a question of who, but of the office. Those days of American passivitivity to such have ended. At least from me.