I just checked in and saw your post, Animalman.

Your quotes of me in your post are from an earlier draft that I updated with correction of typos, and hopefully more clear language, while you were still writing your post.

What I'd earlier attributed to "you" I more precisely attributed to "the article", regarding ideas I consider anti-American.
Although I still feel you are overly accepting of that viewpoint as well.

I don't doubt that you're trying to weigh the issue.
And there are certainly things the U.S. (and many other nations across the world) can be criticised for, regarding our policy toward the Middle East and the broader Muslim world over the last hundred years.
(CIA maneuvering of coups and friendly dictatorships, in the Middle East as well as the hispanic world, for example.
But even that criticism ignores that we were fighting a cold war against communism, and that these actions, along with wars in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere, while not the most shining moment for the United States, arguably saved lives and avoided greater bloodshed in the long term).

But again, what I consider anti-American is that you seem to (as many others here on the boards and elsewhere are doing) blame America first and foremost for the state of the Middle East, and be less cynical of what, say, the French and German governments, and activists throughout Europe say in criticism of U.S. policy in the Middle East, while not giving the same cynical scrutiny to what is said against the United States.
Obviously, Britain, France, Russia and Germany have had their own negative influence on the Middle East over the last few decades. Yet America is demonized, and others are given a free pass.

I stand behind the invasion of Iraq as a necessary act that was inevitable, and better now than several years from now, when Saddam would have been able to become a greater threat and work unfettered without U.N sanctions and inspections. And would have several more years to exterminate even more of his own people.


Quote:

Originally posted by Animalman:
Quote:

Dave the Wonder Boy:

Islamic violence is rampant. And it is utter blindness not to credit this violence as originating from Islamic religion and teaching.



Then why is it that America was the target of such hate propaganda to begin with?



Because it is propaganda, from both Europe and the Muslim world.
Arab governments are hostile to the United States because they would like to destroy Israel, or barring that possibility, make things as difficult as possible for Israel.
Arab governments dislike U.S. assistance of Israel, are hostile to the U.S., and paint the most demonized portrayal of the U.S. possible in their state-controlled media.

Independently owned arab news network Al Jazeera panders to existing Muslim hatred of the U.S. to get maximum audience.

Review of any Arab media coverage from during the Iraq war last year shows just how absurdly innacurate their "news" is.
The ease with which U.S. forces destroyed Saddam's government, and the painstaking U.S. efforts to fight a bloodless war against Iraq, and avoid Iraqi civilian casualties, were portrayed in the Arab media as a long valiant struggle against a ruthless and merciless U.S. aggressor.

European governments are hostile to U.S. action because the European Union is struggling to take the U.S.'s place in the Middle East, both economically and diplomatically.
Arabs welcome this courtship by Europe, because they know that Europe would negotiate a Palestinian/Israeli peace deal more to the advantage of the Arabs than the Israelis.

Regarding the purity of French, German and Russian motives for opposing the Iraq war:

Let's not forget that the oh-so-altruistic French government sold a nuclear reactor to Iraq, that was known to be used by Iraq to create weapons grade plutonium, until the Israelis bombed the reactor to the ground in 1981. Which act the Europeans and Arab governments all condemned as "illegal". (Sound familiar ?) But saner nations of the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Similarly, the Russian government has now built reactors for radical fundamentalist Iran, even as Iran also appears to be using these nuclear facilities for weapons development. Despite demands for verification from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United States and other saner nations, the oh-so-altruistic Russians continue to enable Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.

And leftists in the European and global media have their own self-serving reasons for bashing the United States for its middle East policy.

The "illegal invasion" and "unilateral action" and "blood for oil" arguments, and all the other unfounded kneejerk and slanted arguments, just don't hold up.

Saddam was evil. Despite any U.S. action and/or inaction in the Middle East in recent decades, Saddam did these things:
  • Genocide of his own people.
  • Mass graves.
  • Mass torture and rape of his citizens.
  • Aggression against his neighbors.
  • Pursuit of WMD's (whether or not he actually had them at the time of his fall, U.N. military inventory records from Iraq, not just the scouts-honor word of the U.S., show Saddam actively pursued, and had, these WMD's at one time, whether or not he still had them.)
  • Setting aside a division of his army to secretly develop WMD's, and assigned to hide them from the U.N., as Iraqi military defectors began reporting in 1995.
  • Non-compliance with U.N. weapons inspectors, and terms of the 1991 peace agreement, finally throwing out weapons inspectors in 1998.


And on and on.

To try and shift the blame to the U.S. for whatever level of interaction or non-intervention with Iraq and the Middle East region at various points over recent decades, ignores the key point that Saddam did these things. Whether successful or not in fully acquiring WMD's, or keeping the ones he produced, Saddam pursued WMD's and committed genocide, and given a free hand and the imminent lifting of weapons inspections, he would have had an opportunity in a year or three years or five years to become another Libya or North Korea or Iran.

Yes, it can be argued that U.S. troops were on the Arabian peninsula, as al Qaida rages about, as rationalization for their violence.
But again ( as I said above, I hope it's sinking in ! ) We are there at the invitation of the Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Qatar governments.

And we've only been there for 12 years because of U.S. compliance with U.N. limitations, authorizing the U.S. led coalition in 1991 to push Saddam's military out of Kuwait, and the U.S. continued to respect the U.N.'s limitation for 12 years that we were not to invade Iraq.
Likewise, we maintained Northern and Southern no-fly zones over Iraq, to keep Saddam's military from exterminating more of the Kurds and Shi'ites in his country. Again, we were there for 12 years in that limited capacity, because that is the limit of what the U.N. authorized the United States to do, and the U.S. respected that limit, until illegal trade with Iraq (enabling Saddam to stay in power) and crumbling sanctions made invasion a now-or-never proposition.

And as Bush pointed out in his Jan 20, 2004 State of the Union address, 60 nations did support an international effort to remove Saddam, despite the obstruction efforts of France, Germany and Russia. So while a U.N. mandate was obstructed, the U.S. was able to form an international effort regardless.

If Bush Sr. and Gen. Schwartzkopf had conducted the 1991 war the way they wanted to, the way we should have, we would have toppled Hussein in a few days in 1991, and American troops would never have been on the Arabian peninsula for 12 years. (And the contrived rationalization for Muslim/al Qaida violence would not exist.)

But either way, Arabs would have found a rationalization with which to curse the U.S.
Compliance, non-compliance.
Regardless, it is spun negatively.

The U.S. puts out fires, while the rest of the world would let them rage out of control. And then the U.S. is cursed for it.

I fail to see what you have left to ponder, when that fact is so obvious.