Hey! We're workin on it!

I don't see the Neville Chamberlain connection. Spain had an election. The candidates were presented to the people as one who was in favor of the country pursuing a foriegn policy where their nation participated in "preemptive" invasions. The other candidate presented himself as the one who would leave the "Coalition of the Billing". The people voted by a huge majority to get out. They seemed to think there was little to be gained by staying in except for becoming a target. The candiate who won, executed the will of his people, and withdrew. That's how the system is supposed to work. Spain never had a vested interest in invading Iraq - its premier was an adventurer who cost his nation billions along with wasted lives, just like ours is doing.

Who? Iraq?

Golly, Kirk, I have no doubt you miss the point, it just amazes me that you do.

Neville convinced his country that Nazis weren't a threat to Britain, only to some eastern Europeans.

The current Spanish prime minister is certain that Al Queda doesn't want Spain, just a bunch of daft Americans. He's probably right.

Bot

a bad analogy. germany had armies, navies and an airforse on the move. the arabs have sent a few men, taking weapons of opportunity, attacking targets few and far between. the u.s. has
maybe a quarter million millitary troops, ships and planes in and around the arab world. we have been there for decades.
in our dealings with the arab we have always been the threatening one.

OBL killed about 3000 americans on 9/11. in my post ww2 lifetime the u.s has killed at least 5 million people. almost all dark skinned 3rd world with strange cultures. and WE went out of the way to do it.

your analogy is backwards. we do what the nazi did.

don

The topic of this thread leads you to questioning what war is. I do not believe the goings on in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, qualify. To enter into a war, you have to be convinced your very survival, and the survival of your family, your friends, city, state, and nation are at risk. When that is the motive you do what it takes. Oil supplies are not directly threatening my life, the lives of my family or the lives of all Americans. So, securing oil supply channels is does not qualify as a war.

I think the strategy has to have a longer term vision of what the world will be, and what role America will have, that extends over the horizon. Elections every 4 years cannot be the basis of a national strategy. Our strategy should extend to the next century and beyond if we want to be a major player then. The days of counting on American ingenuity or some other short term solution to secure our survival one generation at a time is coming to a close. Our enemy in this has accepted the fact that the struggle they face is very long term, and they plan accordingly.

So, the way you win this war is to understand what it means to be at war. Jim

__________________
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Comparing the threat of massive armies bent on intercontinental invasions to a bunch of wackos who lives in caves is a bit of a stretch, don't you thinK? What would the Spanish gain by staying in Iraq ? Perhaps you might consider that reconfiguring how their forces are allotted and where they needed to be expending their efforts in order to better deal with the threat that existed within their borders may have been the smarter thing to do, instead of trying to partake in the hoped-for spoils in Iraq. Maybe they are the smart guys, and we are stupid. We're great at throwing out red-herring comparisions to totally irrelavent historic events 50 years ago, but not very good at stating one good reason why their soldiers needed to join our soldiers in their newest avocation - standing around Iraq waiting to get shot while Bin Laden roams Southwest Asia.

Lets look at how those cowards are acting:

Spain to Double Afghanistan Contingent
Monday, March 29, 2004
Foxnews

WASHINGTON — Spanish officials said Monday that even though they have pledged to pull their troops out of Iraq, they will double Spain's military presence in Afghanistan.

The Spanish move to shift resources to another front in the War on Terror comes as terrorists struck Sunday night and Monday in Uzbekistan (search), another U.S. ally in the terror fight.

Spain's incoming Socialist government rode a wave of terror fears and anti-Americanism to victory two weeks ago, just days after 190 people died in bombings on Madrid commuter trains. The newly-elected government quickly announced it would withdraw its troops from Iraq — a decision supported by 72 percent of Spaniards, according to a poll released Monday.

But Madrid has agreed to double its military presence in Afghanistan to 250 soldiers this summer, an aide to the future defense minister said Monday.

Outgoing Defense Minister Federico Trillo (search) made the decision on the Afghanistan troops last week in consultation with his Socialist replacement, Jose Bono, according to Bono spokesman Jose Luis Fernandez.

The idea was widely interpreted as a bid to deflect criticism from the United States and other countries of the Socialists' plans to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops from Iraq unless the United Nations takes charge there.


"After March 11, the European public in general and Spanish public in particular are still not really aware that we are fighting an asymmetrical, but very real war," outgoing Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio (search) said in reference to the Madrid attacks.

Speaking at a small meeting held by the American Enterprise Institute's New Atlantic Initiative (search) on Monday, Palacio continued, "We have to make Europeans aware that they cannot build this safe haven from terrorism."

Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (search) campaigned on a pledge to remove those soldiers from Iraq and has reiterated the promise since his upset election victory over Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's party.

Aznar was accused of provoking the March 11 terror attack in Madrid by backing the war in Iraq.

Zapatero has called both the Iraq war and the occupation illegal because they lacked a U.N. mandate.

His party believes Afghanistan is different because the occupation is sanctioned by the United Nations and the troops overseeing the country's reconstruction after the U.S. attacks that toppled the Taliban in 2002 are under NATO (search) command.

Chris Henderson, spokesman for the 6,500 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, welcomed the news. NATO is expanding its presence in Afghanistan beyond the capital Kabul, but member countries have been slow to commit more troops.

"It's going to be critical we get additional resources, additional troops," Henderson said.

Trillo and Bono met informally Tuesday to discuss the outgoing government's plans for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a rotation of the troops in Iraq that was to be completed next month. Bono said he did not object to that either, Fernandez said.

Spanish radio station Cadena Ser said 160 troops due to travel from Zaragoza in northeast Spain to Iraq on Monday to start that rotation had been ordered to stay put, however. Cadena Ser and the news agency Efe quoted military officials as saying the delay was due to technical problems.

Zapatero's campaign manager Jose Blanco said Monday that plans to withdraw troops from Iraq unless the postwar occupation gets a U.N. mandate to remain in place.

"Since nothing has changed, the objective reasons continue the same," Blanco told Spanish National Radio. "Therefore, the Socialist party maintains its commitment to withdraw the troops by June 30." That is the date their mandate from the Spanish government expires.

A Cadena Ser survey released Monday showed 72 percent of Spaniards support Zapatero's plans. Fifteen percent of 1,000 people interviewed by the Instituto Opina polling firm for the radio network said they opposed the decision while 13 percent were undecided. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (search), attending last week's state funeral for the victims of the March 11 bombings, met briefly with Zapatero and offered immediate talks on crafting a U.N. role in Iraq that would meet Spain's concerns.

Some U.S. lawmakers have said Spain would appear to be appeasing terrorists if it withdraws its troops from Iraq.

Calling herself a friend of America, Palacio spoke frankly about the different ways of viewing the world in Europe and America.

"You look into the future. We have the weight of our past. You are perceived in Europe as pure strength, and we think of ourselves as the righteous ones."

But, she added hopefully, "The events of March 11 may have at last alerted the Europeans."

In a videotape found after the rail bombings, an Arabic-speaking man said Al Qaeda carried them out to punish Spain's conservative government for backing the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

So, you see no difference between us and Nazis?

Gain? An alliance to hunt-down and defeat a group that is bent on destruction of western democracy. That's OBL's words, not mine.

The last paragraph speaks for itself.

B

Posted by notlostmaybe: a bad analogy. germany had armies, navies and an airforse on the move. the arabs have sent a few men, taking weapons of opportunity, attacking targets few and far between. the u.s. has
maybe a quarter million millitary troops, ships and planes in and around the arab world. we have been there for decades.
in our dealings with the arab we have always been the threatening one.

OBL killed about 3000 americans on 9/11. in my post ww2 lifetime the u.s has killed at least 5 million people. almost all dark skinned 3rd world with strange cultures. and WE went out of the way to do it.

your analogy is backwards. we do what the nazi did.

don

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Thanks for this intelligent post, Don. From the beginning, the neo-conservative line has been an analogy of (take your pick) Saddam Hussein to Hitler, or Al Quaeda to Nazism. Neither fits. Hitler had the greatest military machine on the planet at the outset of WWII. Hussein had been reduced to a street punk by the 1991 gulf war and the ensuing sanctions. He was an evil dictator, no doubt, but considering him as a threat to the mighty U.S. military was absurd, but the Bush administration tried to sell it, and lots of folks were in the market to buy.

Chamberlain's miscalculations about the Germans as an analogy to countries today misjudging Al Quaeda is a quantum leap, to say the least. The German war industry had built this tremendous arsenal, and he had made no secret of his desire to "regain" certain lands as living space for the German people. Al Quaeda is a serious threat to our security, but nothing compared to the threat of domination that Hitler posed to Europe--and the rest of the free world.

Joe B.

They seem to be doing that in Afganistan, as shown in the post. Your just kidding yourself if you think we are somehow protecting ourselves fighting what little al_queda is in Iraq. Al-Queda doesn't have to commit resources to Iraq, the fedayeen and al-Sadr militias are doing it for them. Even this guy Zaquawi is a home-grown guy leading an orignally Kurdish al-Queda unit that was operating against the US backed Kurds and Saddam both since 1991. Of course, everytime a roadside bomb planted by a sheep farmer blows up, our propaganda machine will blame it on al-Queda for the American home audiences consumption, but in actuality al-queda is busy at work in the rest of the world on their next five plan that will result in large scale devestation in the US. That's the stated purpose of the organization. Just because the president claims we are tying down al_queda, or "fighting them in Bagdad before we have to fight them in New York" doesn't make it so. Given his track record for predicting the intentions and capabilities of the Iraqis, I wouldn't count on him being right here. Anyone who takes the time to read the newspaper can see our troops in Iraq have more to fear from the local sheep farmer than they do from Bin Laden.

Posted by Botnst: Whether they have messianic visions or believe in their racial superiority doesn't matter so much as the fact that they cannot stand allowing people to be free. They hate our culture of free expression, open debate, choice of Godliness or not, ability to vote people in and out o f power on a whim. All of that freedom flies in the face of authoritarianism.

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Everything I've read on the subject, and I've read quite a lot, says that bin Laden's attitude toward the U.S. stems from our presence in what he considers holy places. This whole speech that "they hate our freedom" and that's why they attack us is straight out of Bush's initial comments after 9/11.

It reminds me of the great PBS series on the Civil War, with the legendary Shelby Foote. Near the end of the war, with Union forces using their far greater numbers to pound a Confederate position mercilessly, it was reported that one Union soldier yelled out, across the lines--"Why do you persist? You cannot win? Why do you fight on?" To which the Reb replied: "Because you all are down here."

Joe B.

Posted by Botnst: If you wish to argue against the anlogy by choosing trivial differences (Hey, guess what, Nazis were Germans and Bin laden isn't!), go for it. Sometimes I am reminded of the island scene in Eric the Viking.

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Someone's Germanness, or lack thereof, was not part of my post. I was arguing that the German/Al Quaeda analogy, or the Chamberlain/Spain analogy (which you posed) were ridiculous for the reasons I posted--not merely the identification of one as German and the other as not. Those reasons, which a reading of my post will show, were the considerable difference of the threats posed by each to those who did, or did not, feel threatened.

Joe B.

of course there are differences. the nations we attack are further
away. we have way more propaganda resources. germany warfare was very messy to germans. u.s. warfare is very tidy to
americans (even vietnam). etc.

you show me the difference between the u.s. and nazi germany.
the difference in what we have done and do. not what we say.

hitler was an extraordinarly bad man. but aside from that, the u.s., england, france, germany, the netherlands and spain were
doing the exact same thing. they were making war on the world.

the u.s. without pause is still making war on the world. styles have changed.
OBL and those who come after him are the successors to
ho chi min and general giap. aint that a *****.

don 'watching my country did deeper into hell'

As I stated in another thread where it was deemed irrelevent, religion, not politcal ideology or expediency is the most powerful force in the Islamic world, just as it was for the Western world in our Medievel phase. It took us a thousand years to get over it.
All that enemy of freedom stuff doesn't mean squat to a muslim if he believes he is living in violation of the Koran. Bin Laden's appeal to them is simple: the Koran states that when Infidels live among them, they must live a certain way or be beheaded (get the connection to recent events?). If this law, specifically given from the mouth of Mohammend himself, is not followed, the land they live in has been given over to Satan. To a muslim, this outweighs any laudable Jeffersonian ideals. Even the most liberal muslim must heed any words that were spoken by Mohammend in peril to their soul, as his word is the word of God himself. We talk of none of this in our press or from out president, and instead us our own cultural prejudices to think if they only had democracy, they would vote Mohammend out of office. How foolish. Until we do a better job of respecting their cultures and dealing with them in ways that satisfy their religion, we are doomed to failure.

hating our freedom has very little to do with it. It's actually a very simple religous issue. The Saudi government allows Westerners to live in "compounds" where Western ways are practiced, (and also by the way where Saudi nobles like to hang out so they can drink booze and try to score, just like us). Since they are doing this in the land that Mohammend walked, the land of Islam itself is "unclean". There are things like this going on in all Islamic societies and the reactions against it are what fule Bin Laden. Your average Muslim totally agrees with Bin Laden's basic postion, they only differ in what must be done to deal with it. In addition, any Iraqi who would be what we would call a "liberal" is ok to kill under the Sharia.