Question for the anti-war crowd

[Rainsford]

I have a question for those of you who think "war isn't the answer" with any part of the middle east. What is the answer? You have all made it very clear that you think war is evil, especially against those poor innocent Arabs, which is all well and good, but that still leaves us with some pretty big problems. I have seen some people suggest that we remove our bases that supposedly so offend many of the people over there, but once again that will cause just as many problems as war. Suppose we pull out of the middle east all the way. And suppose that this makes all the American haters in the middle east love us. I doubt they will feel the same way about the Jews, whom they will most likely slaughter if the Jews no longer have American assistance. And how long do you think it will be before someone like Saddam gets a nuke and decides Israel is a good target? Well Israel has nukes as well, and I think the middle east will be substantially worse off if those start flying.

I guess my question is, it's all well and good to be anti-war (who wants open, armed conflict for its own sake?) but if war is not the way to prevent even greater loss of life, what is? The attitude displayed by many of you is the same attitude displayed by the French, the British and the Americans before WWII. Well Germany and Japan are doing some not nice things, but it doesn't really affect us yet, so let's leave them alone and hope that they do the same. If the Allies had acted at the beginning, even given how terrible the war would have been, they could have saved many, many millions of lives. So...how do we prevent the middle east from destroying itself if not with war?

 

[DaveSimmons]

if war is not the way to prevent even greater loss of life, what is?

Besides from the radical peaceniks and isolationists who favor withdrawl, many moderates believe that the middle ground of containment and inspections is currently a better solution than going to war.

I'm not opposed to getting rid of Saddam myself, though so far the "threat" he poses to the region and to the United States has been wildly overstated by the Bush administration in order to market the war to U.S. citizens.

So...how do we prevent the middle east from destroying itself if not with war?

One option is what we've been doing -- support Israel and Egypt, keep a reaction force in the area, threaten retaliation to anyone who attacks us or any country we support. It's the same way we've defended South Korea and Taiwan for decades against NK and China.

I'm not saying that's the best option, just that there are a range of choices not just fight or flight.