29th March 2003, 10:37 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Weltall
Two points.
One, world opinion really does not mean a lot to us. You can say what you want about international community, but the plain truth is that the United States is by far the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the history of mankind. There are few who could ever hope to take on the US militarily and not get crushed outright, and there are less still who could embargo the US economically and not suffer far worse themselves for it. The UN's catastrophic failure over Iraq shows what international community really is: A great idea that is ruined by self-serving spineless coward nations looking to secure business deals with murderous thugs *cough* FRANCE *cough* GERMANY *cough*. We actually have more official support for our coalition now than we did in Gulf War I. There are some who don't support us, that's natural. And even more who really don't give a damn either way. But we're hardly unilateral about going in here.
And about Terrorism... I also think you're wrong about increases in terrorism. We had the Towers destroyed in Sept. 01, then we waged war against Al Qaeda, and people thought terrorism would increase then. It didn't. And there's a simple explanation for that. They're just like your classic neighborhood bully. They'll hit you and hit you and hit you when you refuse to hit back, which is why Al Qaeda struck with impunity during Clinton's administration, they correctly surmised that Clinton lacked the balls to retaliate. Once Bush put the fear of God into them with an assortment of bombs and other fun prizes, they calmed down conserably. They hit Bali, but have done nothing else since 9-11. They are cowards to the core. And fanatical or not, even they seem to realize it's not a good idea to attack someone who can counterattack a million times harder.
I believe the Term is bitch slap!
Another reason for Osama Bin Ladins attacks during the Clinton adminstration is that the public attention was kept more on Bills sex life then national sercurity, If clinton started a Major war agiast Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban earlier it could have possibly prevented 9/11, But Clinton had no credibility at that time to do anything.
Germany,France, Russia,China should face criminal charges for exporting weapons to a U.N Sanctioned Individuals such as Suddam.