A question for democrats?

Question

I would like to ask Democrats (respectfully) about how they feel about war. When should congress declare war? At what point would you agree that the U.S. should respond to a threat? I see you disagree with Bush's policies. If you could have done it better what would you have done? Again, I'm asking your opinion! I'm not out to attack democrats or anyone for that matter.

I ask for an opinion and am labled a NEOCON? Hmmm mabe I was thinking of voting for a democratic canidate. You sure are helping me to change my mind!

Answer 1

A respectful question deserves a respectful answer.

Congress (not the President alone) should declare war when another country poses a *clear* threat to the U.S. through direct provocation. There are also times when the U.S. can come to the aid of an ally when it is directly attacked, but these times are limited to when the U.S. cannot assist the ally in other ways.

So responding to 9/11 with an attack on Afghanistan *was* justfied, because they specifically harbored the perpetrators of an act of war on the U.S. (Al Qaeda).

And attacking Saddam when he went outside his borders and attacked Kuwait, was also arguably justified as a defense of an ally. I.e. an international breach is occasion for the U.S. to consider involving itself (I'm not as much in agreement with this stance as other people ... but I understand the argument).

What is indefensible is attacking a country, like we did Iraq, when (1) that country was specifically trying to stay out of our way, (2) there was no proof of direct threat against the United States (either the weapons, or the way to deliver them), and (3) Saddam was not crossing outside his borders.

It is counterproductive to attack another country without provocation, because it undermines the message "if you mess with the U.S., you will get hammered" by sending the message "even if you *don't* mess with the U.S., you will get hammered" ... i.e. it sends the message, "what you do doesn't matter anyway ... so you should attack us whenever you get the chance."

What would I have done differently? Stay the course ... in *Afghanistan* until Bin Laden and Al Qaeda was captured or dead ... and then withdraw, but give strong financial and weapons support to the replacement government. That would have sent the clear message ... "our only beef is with Al Qaeda." Not only would the world (including the Arab world) understand our reasons, but they would have continued to support us in this (as they did during the Afghanistan invasion). Instead, declaring a "war on terror" was a terrible idea ... as it sent the message to the world "we don't really know *who* we're fighting ... so it could be YOU." So it simultaneously narrowed the definitions of who our allies are, while broadening the definition of who our enemies are.

There is a reason the founders put *Congress* in charge of declaring war ... because an act of war has to be an act of a nation *against another nation*. Congress can't declare a "war on terror", because it can't identify the nation it is at war with.

As far as Iraq, the weapons inspections turned out to be working just fine ... the reason they couldn't find any WMDs is *because there weren't any*. Saddam was a paper tiger as far as threatening the rest of the region outside Iraq ... but *Iran* didn't know that. So Saddam was keeping islamic militants in check.

Answer 2

Okay.

I see three justifications for war:

1. The U.S. has been attacked by a foreign government (i.e., Pearl Harbor), or a force working inside that government (i.e., such as what happened with 9/11 and the Afghanistan War).

2. There is a clear and present danger to the U.S., and war is the most affective and least harmful solution.

3. An ally of the U.S. is attacked and requests military aid, and the U.S. goes in as part of a U.N.-backed mission, such as in the first Gulf War.

If I were the president, I would have not invaded Iraq, and instead continued with sanctions (which were working). I would have spent more time and resources re-building Afghanistan, and kept a closer eye on North Korea.

p.s.: Ignore the first poster. He is an ignorant clone.

Answer 3

Congress should delcare war ONLY with a real, constiutional war declaration. War should be declared by the decision of CONGRESS, not some blanket authority by the president, and we should make it clear what nation we are at war with and why. Each member of congress should state that they are voting for an explicit war declaration, or abstain, or oppose it. None of this fence-sitting stuff like we had with Iraq.

Valid reasons for war would be the historical ones, direcct attack by a soverign nation on the US, direct attack on an allied nation by a soverign nation. Or a clear international mandate that explicitly authorizes international force to be used, not some sort of hazy resolution that does not spell out exactly what actions are allowed. The second UN resolution that bush promised to seek (and then broke that promise), would have been an excellent justification.

Most importantly, out of respect for he soliders, war should be decalred only incases where a clear supermajority of the citizens supports it. War weariness always decreases support for a war, and when a majority opposes a war it can be nearly impossible to finish the job so I would guess you'd want a number in the range of 80% or above of the popualation supporting war.

Answer 4

War should always be an option. I agreed with Bush when he send troops to Afghanistan, to find Bin Laden. I think that Bin Laden is probably hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan. However, I think Bush changed his reasons for going to Iraq many times ( first WMDs, then Al-quaida ties, and now democracy for Iraq). I supported the war at first but now I think it was dumb to go there. An attack on the U.S. is a good reason, bombing Israel, has admitted having nuclear weapons. Those are good reasons for going to war. If there is war on Iran or North Korea, I would support the president because there is evidence they have terrorist ties and have nuclear weapons.

Answer 5

War should be a last resort. War shouldn't be declared against countries that are no threat to us. As for at what point we should respond to a threat, that all depends on the nature of the threat. To do better than Bush, all you would have had to do was listen to senior military people. They were pushing for a much larger force to go into Iraq.

Answer 6

I am an Independent, but I feel that when a threat of war is imminent, then we should go into action. Everyone forgets that when Bush sent Hans Blix over to Iraq to prove they had WMD's, he came back and said they didn't. But Bush didn't take his word or reports for the truth. He had a vendetta to take out on Iraquis for his father and to line his pockets with more oil money. Many forget that that is the commodity that built the Bush fortune.

Answer 7

"At what point would you agree that the U.S. should respond to a threat?"

the US should respond to a threat when it IS actually threatened

"If you could have done it better what would you have done?"

stayed out of Iraq, there was no reason to be there, and don't tell this is 20/20 hindsight, I knew from day 1 this was going to be a pointless diaster, we should have focused on using our forces to locate and destroy international terrorists not get stuck in iraq fighting an insurgency


and you have to be an idiot if you think "Jim Dumya" is a democrat, it's an obvious troll, get a clue...

Answer 8

when we are attacked... for sure... we were attacked... but we kind of made half an effort to get bin Laden and then ran off to another country that had little to do with the attack, while many that attacked us are still out there...

al-queda has operational bases in several different countries and I would have liked to have seen full attacks on all of those bases in those countries... with a major emphasis on bin Laden's estimated where abouts...

Answer 9

well us democrats would've done things more diplomatically and we would've let the united nations do their job to the fullest with their investigation we damn sure wouldn't have jumped in head first without having any substantial proof of what bush claimed i mean hell bush went all in as if he were playing a hand of poker and lost i hope this answers some of your questions