Originally posted by 98CoupeV6
And what's the commonality, Mike? The commonality between all those events is that American soldiers and civilians died for no reason because we were too busy trying to convince our citizens that war was necessary. What is wrong with striking first if we know that they other country will strike us eventually?
Too busy trying to convince the citizens that war was necessary? What are you talking about? The only conflict where that has any applicability is Vietnam, and the point is that we went in after a supposed attack on American assets already happened.
Originally posted by /^Blackmagik^\
the only reason that that precedent was set is the mere fact that none of those wars/conflicts (with the exception of WW2) were a direct threat to american soil. as a matter of fact, if you take circumstances into account, in this situation that "precedent" you talk so highly of holds no weight. this is the first time in the nation's history that it has been faced with this type of issue. the fact of the matter is that ever since 9/11 this country has been treading on uncharted political territory. we are setting the precedent on this type of situation as we speak. there was no previous precedent.
9/11 is not Saddam Hussein, and don't spout some bullshit line about how you with your low level security clearance have some kind of inside information about how there really is some link between the two.
Originally posted by fastball
Oh, so you do admit that law is different from policy..... however, in all of these conversations you speak as if it were law. See, policies change over time. They change to adapt to the climate and situations. I think you will agree at least our policies today must be different from our policies in 1875. So, having said that, your "policies" aren't worth a hill of beans. This is 2003, and times have changed. So have the policies.
Quit trying to play semantic games, it's really not very challenging and doesn't really prove your point. 1875 seems to be a rather arbitrary number since the whole time this conversation has been about the 20th century. You're running around in circles trying to score some points on me or something and you haven't brought up any actual INFORMATION. Yeah, you need to do that sometimes when you're trying to prove something.
Originally posted by fastball
Ditto. Same old banter from the same old people.
How about you quit stroking your ego for a moment and try to actually counter facts with facts?