It's not my opinion that Iraq wasn't a threat. It's a fact. Since you support the completely unwarranted, unprovoked, and unconstitutional war in Iraq, describing your position as war mongering is accurate and not an ad hominem.
Iraq was under no obligation to disarm. Neither the US, nor the UN has any authority to tell Iraq to disarm or to FORCE them into agreeing to do so. Any agreements made by Iraq to disarm were made under duress and therefore invalid. It's not suicidal to wait for someone to attack us before attacking them. It's called DEFENSE. And it's the ONLY case in which libertarians support the use of force. Attacking a country that has not directly attacked our nation and who had nothing to do with anyone else who attacked us (Iraq qualifies on both counts) is most certainly unreasonable, and unlibertarian regardless of whether the leader of the nation is a dictator, and regardless of whomever else he's attacked, regardless of which weapons he happens to have access to or which weapons he's used in the past. Libertarians support military non-interventionism and neutrality in all foreign disputes. Don't confuse this with isolationism. We libertarians support having strong ties with other nations through peaceful trade, and non-aggression treaties. But no libertarian supports using the U.S. military to overthrow dictators who have not attacked America, even if they have invaded their neighbors or murdered their own people. You mentioned Hitler as though that proves military interventionism has saved lives. There are always bad guys. But in the case of Hitler, he came to power because of U.S. military interventionism. If the U.S. government had not gotten involved in WWI, the conditions that allowed Hitler to come to power wouldn't have happened and we would never have had a WWII. America's military interventionism was indirectly responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews, 10 million Russians, and an untold number of American, English, Japanese, German, Italian, Polish, French, and other lives. America's interventionism put Saddam, Khadafi, Noriega, and others into power and even trained and armed Osama Bin Laden. If we had minded our own business, everyone who died on September 11th would still be alive and all who died in the resulting unconstitutional war in Iraq. Switzerland has been surrounded by war for 200 years without being in one. They have done this because they remain neutral, they have a very strong defense but no offense, they keep their noses out of everyone else's business, and the don't practice military interventionism. So calling military non-interventionism "suicide" is riduculous. In fact if anything is suicide, it's remaining in a perpetual state of war because you bully other nations, take sides in every dispute, arm every nation on earth, prop up dictators, overthrow democracies, arm monsters, etc. as America has done. I realize you support larger, costlier, and more intrusive government, but we libertarians do not. --- In [email protected], "Geof Gibson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Since I have never advocated war, accusing me of warmongering is > merely another ad hominem attack. > It is irrelevant what payroll Saddam was on as well as where he got > WMD. That is a Red Herring of the Left. Just as it does not matter > that Iran has or is developing nukes. What does matter is what > governments actually do and the threats they make, e.g. using WMD in > battle or threating to drive sovereign nations into the sea. > Saddam did have an obligation to disarm based on the cease fire his > governemnt agreed to. The US is also a signatory to UN treaties for > which we have obligations. The wisdom of these treaties is quite > questionable, but, these are the agreements this country has entered into. > This repeated statement that one must wait for American soil or ships > to be attacked is suicidal. There is absolutely nothing; noway, > nohow; in Libertarian philosophy or the Constitution which requires > that any nation wait around for an attack rather than act on a > credible threat. Obviously, you, Paul Ireland, believe there never > was a credible threat. Many other leaders, thinkers, and citizens > disagree. You could have just as easily said that the Taliban, Osama > bin Laden, and extremist Wahabbis were no credible threat on 9/10/01. > You would have been wrong. Taking action against a dictator who has > used WMD in the past is not unreasonable nor un-Libertarian. > A contract at gunpoint is illegitimate. A cease fire agreement > between an aggressor and a victor is. > The rest of the contries with men fighting and dying in Irag would > disagree that the US is 100% responsible for the war. > It would absolutely matter if Saddam took over the entire Middle East. > It is simply suicidal and isolationist to watch an expansionist > dictator go rampaging and think 'Its not my problem.' It didn't work > when Hitler did it. It didn't work when the Soviets did it. It only > leads to larger body counts and delays the inevitable reaction > required. It is like liveing in Compton and watching the Crips and > Bloods trashing the neighborhood and saying, "They haven't come to my > house." It is only a matter of time. > > None of this is justification for the way Bush has specifically > handled foreign affairs. I have many problems with what he's done. I > am merely refuting the suicidal propaganda which keeps being repeated. ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! 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