Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Give Peace a Chance
NY Times ^ | May 28, 2005 | JOHN TIERNEY

Posted on 05/27/2005 11:22:48 PM PDT by neverdem

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 05/27/2005 11:22:48 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

You don't seek Peace for its own sake.


2 posted on 05/27/2005 11:26:21 PM PDT by Fenris6 (3 Purple Hearts in 4 months w/o missing a day of work? He's either John Rambo or a Fraud)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The Iraq war is sometimes described, by both foes and supporters, as a pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing, but not even the most ruthless accountant can justify the expense. Even before the war, America's military costs in the Persian Gulf were much greater than the value of all the oil it was getting from the region, and now it's spending at least four times what...

I don't know any supporters of the Iraq war who believe it's a "pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing." To some of us, fighting terrorism and removing the world's most ruthless dictator is more important than money.

3 posted on 05/27/2005 11:35:22 PM PDT by fr11
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fr11
I don't know any supporters of the Iraq war who believe it's a "pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing." To some of us, fighting terrorism and removing the world's most ruthless dictator is more important than money.

I don't disagree with you but let me put it a different way.

I've debated moonbats and I choose to concede them a little cover for their "it's all about oil!" mottos. They're arguing from a position of impossible Utopian idealism anyway - they can't let go of the concept of the corrupting influence of oil and money. So I just say pragmatically: OK, you've got a point!

The entire world economy runs in part on oil; these guys in the Middle East have got it and want to profit from it. When one of them (Saddam Hussein in 1990) starts aggressing and conquering, motivated and financed by all that oil, because of the tremendous wealth involved, it's a big danger, a big destabilizer. And whatever is the cause of the terrible state of Islamic governments, if we don't make Iraq and the rest change, there are going to be terrorists with nukes crawling up our butts.

The US and friends conceivably could withdraw and ignore the Middle East, but the deadly economic/energy embrace we are all in won't let us.

4 posted on 05/28/2005 12:01:08 AM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

I guess he never considered that in most countries, people don't have much to say about it. Has he never heard of places like North Korea, or Zimbabwe?

5 posted on 05/28/2005 12:09:31 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fr11
Saddam was messing with gyroscopes and centrifuges...The US initially counter-attacked Iraq after it's invasion of Kuwait in 1991. That ended in truce and stalemate for over a decade. To invade in 2003 to "keep oil flowing" as an excuses is ridiculous at best.
6 posted on 05/28/2005 1:14:55 AM PDT by endthematrix (Newsweek lied, people died)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Peace can only be achived through SUPERIOR FIREPOWER


7 posted on 05/28/2005 1:18:36 AM PDT by Paul_Denton (Get the U.N. out of the U.S. and U.S. out of the U.N.!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Perspective is very important when assessing the state of world over an historical period. The unfolding of the true potential of Planet Earth and Humankind is a process. Sometimes it is two steps forward, one step backwards.

With continued and greater prayer, vigilance and right action we can make it 100 steps forward and couple of small steps backwards. The pace of the Redemption, i.e. Counter-Balancing, is up to us. We collectively reap what we individually sow.
8 posted on 05/28/2005 1:19:37 AM PDT by Red Sea Swimmer (Tisha5765Bav)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mr Ramsbotham; neverdem
"He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over."

Also the erosion of national soverenty and interdependacy of economies and treasuries actually reduce it, and in Marxist utopia, end it. Quoting back to Lennon, "imagine there's no countries"

9 posted on 05/28/2005 1:27:47 AM PDT by endthematrix (Newsweek lied, people died)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: NutCrackerBoy
I've debated moonbats and I choose to concede them a little cover for their "it's all about oil!" mottos.

Why?

10 posted on 05/28/2005 1:46:34 AM PDT by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Tell bin Laden and Zarqawi to give peace a chance.

We "gave peace a chance" in Vietnam. Ask the people who live there how much they like it.

If we had given peace a chance in the cold war, millions of people would still be enslaved.

What kind of idiot thinks that cliches like "give peace a chance" constitute a policy?


11 posted on 05/28/2005 4:21:35 AM PDT by djpg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

""I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.""

It has nothing to do with getting richer and smarter. It has more to do with free, democratic societies.

Anyone else see that this prediction was after the fall of the Soviet Union? Truth is the Soviet Union got poorer. So if you remove the source of most of the trouble by changing its government into something more democratic and free, wars go down in number. So if we remove the source of the current trouble....

The war in Iraq makes all the sense in the world. Remove the problem, do not let it become a larger problem.


12 posted on 05/28/2005 4:28:49 AM PDT by KeyWest
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NutCrackerBoy
"it's all about oil!"

If that were true, then we should have invaded Canada or Mexico for their oil and saved on airfare

13 posted on 05/28/2005 5:57:07 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

Of course, it takes a free society to allow people to accumulate wealth. The left, for all that they proclaim themselves pro-"peace", are actually actively fighting to maintain the conditions that lead to war, by trying to impose universal socialism (with its sidekicks, poverty and lack of freedom).

14 posted on 05/28/2005 5:58:38 AM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: papertyger

Any reasonable person will be able to move on from analysis based on economics and oil and be able to discuss the other real factors.


15 posted on 05/28/2005 5:58:49 AM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: KeyWest

Iraq is not the only problem. The problem is all dictators and monarchs who give no voice to the people and no hope for their future.

Freedom is the way. President Bush has it right and people owe it to themselves study Bush's Liberty Doctrine. He first outlined much of it here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html
President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point

It was fleshed out in more detail here.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

Few understood the far reaching effects the Monroe Doctrine would have until much later on. FReepers can study the Liberty Doctrine now, and better understand this history in the making.


16 posted on 05/28/2005 9:30:49 AM PDT by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: NutCrackerBoy
So I just say pragmatically: OK, you've got a point!

I agree.

I've had the same argument. I always say, "Of course it's about oil! What do you think our cars run on? Love?"

I mean seriously, people act like fighting over oil is a *bad* thing!

17 posted on 05/28/2005 9:37:09 AM PDT by Drew68 (IYAOYAS! Semper Gumby!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
It's not what you spell, it's how you spell it.

I just whish piece would give ME a chance!

18 posted on 05/28/2005 9:38:19 AM PDT by uglybiker (A woman's most powerful weapon is a guy's imagination.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fenris6

Peace can only come after victory.


19 posted on 05/28/2005 9:39:31 AM PDT by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SERKIT

Sometime soon it will be time to give WAR a chance.

Iran's recent actions, and North Korea's, and indeed the treachery of such disparate organizations as the UN, CNN, NewsWeek and the NYSlimes, make it likely that will come --- with real death and real destruction being visited upon those lands.

Total defeat, with great civilian losses, may be necessary in order to end the Islamofascist terrorism and destroy the "popular support" they have. All their supporters must come to know their role.


20 posted on 05/28/2005 10:36:24 AM PDT by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson