Or if it has no economic advantage to do so, then it also doesn't count.

So don't worry, Ron. You can unbind your panties now.

If one considers the cold war to be WWIII (which wouldn't be inaccurate in a lot of ways), then you could say we're fighting WWIV right now.

Jp wrote:

And there I was looking forward to your support of Russia's right to invade another country. ;)

I realize I'm not always the best purveyor of my own opinions, and frequently people project incorrect interpretations of my positions onto me, so I'll clarify a bit:

I wasn't thrilled about going into Iraq either (there are some posts by me on the BYOND developer forums pre-invasion where I discussed this). I suspect that, had I had my finger on the button, I wouldn't have invaded Iraq.

But once that decision was made, I was not unhappy that we took down Saddam and had a chance to make a difference in the region, and I hoped that it would turn out well. If there's something that really bothers me about many who are against the war it's the fact that, so it seems to me, they want us to fail.

It's one thing to disagree with us getting into a conflict, it's another thing entirely to then hope we fail. I've been planning to make a post about this for a while, and I probably will, but for me, if I disagree with the President on something where there's room for debate, then I actually hope the President is right and I'm wrong. I'd rather that things in the world turn out well than that I be right.

Frankly, I don't know much about the Georgian situation, and hope to educate myself more on it in the near future. My initial understanding is that Russia's action is quite likely to be a land and power grab...it is, in other words, the imperialism we hear so much about that, in my opinion, the US does not engage in. If Russia is out to rule more of the world just because they have a bigger gun, then yeah, I'm against it. The same as I'd be against the US actually taking over Iraq and installing Jeb Bush as Presidente For Life, or annexing the rest of Mexico or some such.

Right or wrong, we went into Iraq in the belief it was in our strategic interests, and with the goal of removing a dictator and installing something better, not as a land or power grab.

Overall I'm quite concerned about the direction Russia is moving in. With this and other choices made under the leadership of Putin, they do indeed seem to be acting as the sort of country people accuse the US of being...which is why I'll be delighted if the anti-Iraq crowd stands up to Russia over their actions.

Deadron wrote:

Clarify something for me... you say this:

If there's something that really bothers me about many who are against the war it's the fact that, so it seems to me, they want us to fail.

Then you say this:

which is why I'll be delighted if the anti-Iraq crowd stands up to Russia over their actions.

Your conclusion makes zero sense.

Logically, you have assumed that the anti war crowd wants the US to fail. How does standing up to Russia make the US fail?

It seems like your collectivist conclusion about "anti-war people" doesn't coincide with your sarcastic dripping hope that you've exposed a non-existent hypocrisy.

Lummox JR wrote:

Point being, since the rationale for opposing the US invasion of Iraq also applies to opposing the Russian invasion of Georgia, why isn't more fuss being made over it?

Related to this, it's my impression (though I haven't done any systematic study of this) that in the time since the Iraq war started, there have been many much more deadly conflicts in the world, but very little time is spent discussing them, and, at least in the US, no time is spent protesting them.

As an American, I'm as US-centered as anyone in my world-view, but I do get puzzled when people feel like Iraq is this massively deadly event that means the world is going to hell in a big way, when, I suspect, Iraq may actually be pretty tame in comparison to other bloody conflicts in the world.

To be fair, people have focused some on the genocide in Darfur. In that case, I'm not sure how to parse it when people point to that and say we should be intervening there, not Iraq. Is there a difference in the nature of sovereignty? (There might be...I don't know much at all about Darfur either.)

Is their point that we should we not intervene anywhere, or we should intervene in cases of morality, or in cases of strategic interest, or in cases where the last two coincide?

For myself, I tend toward the latter. In any case, I often have a hard time understanding what criteria other people are applying. In my younger days I might have supported intervening for pure morality, but now I think, unfortunately, if morality is the only reason, we will probably do more harm than good, as Bush Sr/Clinton's adventures in Somalia showed. If we are there only for morality, then when the bullets start flying we tend to make some bad decisions, make things much worse than they were, and pull out in frustration and due to public pressure. If self-interest is part of our motivation, then we are more likely to stick it out once we've started it. Whatever else you think about Iraq, you have to admit we've stuck it out so far.

Jp wrote:

why would American citizens protest a war that America isn't in?

I live in an area of the country where cities like SF and Berkeley pass foreign policy resolutions and resolutions stating that the President should be impeached, so such a thing is just another day at the office.

Anyway, it's very common in countries not directly involved for people to protest at embassies and such to make their opinions known, especially if they are originally from one of the countries in question.