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Originally Posted by Herodotus
BTW--I had inferred earlier that you were a man, my own bias I guess since I assume all posters to these types of message boards are men, but here there are a few women, and you have such a lovely avatar, and Jad may not be a man's name...So if I was wrong in that I apologize.
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I'll come at responding to your post by addressing your last comment first.
Yes, I am a male, at least I was the last time I checked.
JAD is my initials in France where I was born. I used it because it sounds more like a name than the English method which would be JDA. Mind you I am thoroughly Americanized--came here at age 2--and an Anglophile to boot, a distant relative being made an English citizen by Act of Paliament in the late 1600's and my French-born father being a big fan of Churchill and a loather of DeGaulle. The 333 I added because on most sites JAD by itself was taken... The avatar is my 16 year old daughter who uses my computer more than I do...it was my way of showing her pleasure at her good school work. I'll take it down shortly and put up something boring like the state flag of Virginia or mabe not because it was designed in 1776 to show resistance to tyranny, namely kings, e.g. the British soverign and might offend the good Brits on the WAB. That said...
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Jad thanks for the response. I'll only say this; my opposition to the war is a philosophical one. That is to say I am a conservative and realist (no peacenik here), and if this war is helping to eliminate a threat to US national security then fine and dandy, continue on. If however this war is more about nation-building and grand utopian ideas (democracy for all, etc.) then that's where my skepticism comes into play. If you cannot have one without the other (i.e. eliminate the threat via democracy promotion) then I am still skeptical.
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I respect your position. The war is definately threat driven. I think your concern about it being about nation building may result from confusion over US principles vs policy. From day one, the US has supported the spread of democracy and has made it part of the philosophy of what the US stands for. At times it has been used by more proactive elements in our country as justifcation for urging the US to take action against some dictatorship or another. At other times it has been used the other way around, as a primary condemnation against the US when it does take action. Whatever nation builiding we are doing in Iraq is not a first cause, but rather a necessary after action. The first cause in Iraq is to meet a threat to national security. You would be hard pressed to find a pure example of the US launching a military action for the sole purpose of nation building.
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However I am probably not going to change anyone's mind, and you seem confident that a threat is being subdued, so I am not going to press the issue, lest I be thought of as a troll. I am mostly hear to exchange ideas and different perspective , and no I do not take myself too seriously.
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I doubt anyone regarded you as a troll. On the contrary, while you were rehashing issues covered here many times before, what is a "newer" WAB member to do? Avoid voicing his/her concerns because they've already been debated ad nausium? I suppose you could have researched the old threads, but that isn't as much fun. No worries.