Re: UK dossier on Iraq

[Jon Gabriel]

From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: UK dossier on Iraq
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 21:22:57 +0100

At 12:49 7-2-2003 -0500, Jon Gabriel wrote:

Ridiculous. This is precisely the type of quote that sounds just great as a sound-bite and reflects nothing about the real world. War is sometimes necessary. At the risk of repeating myself, one can argue logically and convincingly that the most important job a country has is maintaining and defending its borders and citizens. Schroeder sounds like he's forgotten (or is afraid to acknowledge) this basic truth.

He apparently hasn't forgotten that, as he has not called for doing away with the German military.

No, he's just said that 'war is never the solution', which essentially means that he thinks war should never be undertaken for any reason.

However, he appears to belief that the purpose of the German military is to defend the German borders, not to be a stockpile of troops

How did you get that from what you wrote?: "Saw a speech by, IIRC, Schroeder recently. He mentioned (paraphrasing) that Germany is opposed against war against Iraq, because the German people, having been in the center of two world wars, realise that going to war is never the solution to a problem."
Defense wasn't mentioned. The purpose of the German military was not mentioned. The only thing he said here is that "the German people... realize war is never the solution to a problem". Unless you haven't posted more than you said earlier, you are putting words in the man's mouth which quite coincidentally seem to agree with your previously stated opinions on the subject.

. What some people seem to have forgotten, however, that there is a difference between having a military for the purpose of defending the country, and having a military for the purpose of waging war all over the globe.

Your neighbor buys a cannon, loads it and points it at your house. She then announces to the neighborhood that your entire house and family will be destroyed. Should you wait for her to fire the cannon before you take action? Sometimes defending yourself isn't a matter of waiting to be attacked. Sometimes it's a matter of protecting yourself by removing overt threats before they kill or severely hurt you in a first strike. By what I understand of your reasoning, the US should have waited until it was directly attacked by Germany before entering WWII and then only acted to defend it's borders, subsequently screwing Europe in the process. In a global theater, isolationism isn't just foolish, it's dangerous.

Jon

Jeroen "Make love, not war" van Baardwijk

Yet, don't let someone violate you in the process.
J


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