So do you think the US should or should not act to overthrow fascist regimes?

And he forgets that the USA have been very friendly to fascist regimes.

DSW

She also makes a couple of points I’m going to take advantage of:

“America’s contribution to destroying nazism was important.”

And unjustified, since it was Japan who attacked us. That Europeans laud our actions in Europe during and after WW2 but deplore our actions in Iraq today, I find particularly self-serving.

“But of course, it should go without saying that good governance is far likelier with a government whose members have internalised the values underlying the constitution…”

Maybe we have, and that’s why we find things like communism, totalitarianism and fascism repugnant.

“…rather than seeing the constitution as an inconvenience to be got round one way or another.”

The only people I’m aware of who think the current U.S. government has acted unconstitutionally are ignorant howlers from Europe who apparently have never read the document.

“There was a time when this would not have been a controversial proposition for American conservatives.”

It’s not controversial because it doesn’t exist. What is controversial to American conservatives is the amount of money the U.S. government is spending (it’s too much), the loss of personal rights (no, not the Patriot Act, but rather the Kelo decision as well as the now omnivorous definition of “interstate commerce”), inadequate border security, and the culture war the Left has been propogating since the 60’s.

Lets make the best outcome for the US in Iraq, civil war in Iraq and no American bases near the Gulf. Not exactly succesfull.

A worse outcome. After retreat of the US the Baathist retake power and put those who collaborated with the Americans and Iranians against the wall. Not succesfull

The worst outcome. After retreat no civil war but an Iraq that has very deep ties to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Disaster but also the likely outcome.

I find your criteria for military success in Iraq puzzling. By this criteria the US has not won wars with Germany, Japan, or Afghanistan. As to whether sustained troop deployment was planned from the beginning, I refer you to the records at http://www.whitehouse.gov. Try remarks in London on 11/20/03. Please, don’t attempt historical revisionism when it is is so easy to fact check.

Here’s a simple test for whether you have won or lost the war. It requires honest hindsight, though. Just ask whether the terms on which the American army finally leaves Iraq would have been acceptable to those who planned the war when they were planning it.

A final thought or two. The issues of detainee treatment are ones that are discueed a great deal these days. You may have seen a statement by the Pentagon today, clarifying and condemning inhumane treatment. While I am not sure that there is any way to prevent ANY mistreatment, given the youth and inexperience of the troops, I certainly agree that we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. As to the detention facilities in various countries (I am deliberately avoiding the word gulag) I am troubled. Not by the detention of these individuals, but by their deliberate removal from the checks and balances that exist to protect people in our legal system. Maybe that is the difference: We cannot treat these people as enemy soldiers (under the Geneva Conventions) because they are not signatories. We choose not to treat them as common criminals, because the US sees this as a war, not a legal/police activity. So they exist in a grey area, neither fish nor fowl. The US Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case of Hussein’s driver, which I hope will clarify the status of these people, and thus give some legal guidlines for their treatment.

Finally, I suspect we disagree much less than you may think. I may disagree with you in my belief that no war has ever been carried out with such regard for non-combatants, such effort to minimise casualties, and such stunning military success. But we would agree that we can do better. That strikes me as a good definition of liberalism: We see the world as it is, and how we act in it, and we believe that we can do better.

I’ve enjoyed our discussion and am looking forward to reading more of this blog.

The reason for that is the genocides of the Nazi’s. But those genocides were only widely known after the war.

Saddam was a Bad Guy but so was Bush as i don’t believe for a second that he wanted a democratic Iraq aka Iran II. And to rule an undemocratic Iraq you need blood on your hand

sorry to hear you won’t be coming back. We’ll just have to try to be strong about it. Good luck now!