Re: Poor analogy (#35808)
by Stephen Vinson on May 31, 2004 at 7:44 PM

A couple things,

You've qualified a lot with "some." I think it's misleading to cite the hopes and goals of some of the Prussians in defense of 19th/turn of the century Germany (a pretty autocratic state whatever its merits in civilization) and then make sweeping statements about United States. (Whether our wars were completely hypocritical and without any intention of freedom, evidence could be cited in the U.S.A.'s favor that is much less anecdotal than what is cited supporting Prussia]

Correct me if I don't know it here, but I didn't think the colonies the Germans did have were places I'd consider liberated or good examples for self-determination, much less the Prussian conquests in Central Europe.

Hell...Osama bin Laden and Saudi extremists talk about liberation. They and the Kaiser, obviously, had a different definition of it than you and me. I don't call a country that merely gets a dictator of their own race/religion liberated. They would.

>Frankly, I dispute the assumption that Iraqis are more free today as a matter of fact than they were a year and three months ago.<

>and the treatment they have received heretofore has been mild only when compared to extreme horrors under the old regime.<

Leaving aside everything else for the sake of argument, doesn't one statement contradict the other?