After it was established that WMDs could not be found in Iraq, many people here justified the invasion of Iraq for one of the following reasons:

1- The country is/was a stronghold for terrorists.
2- The country presented a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.
3- Saadam Hussein was a brutal dictator who should have been removed anyway.

Unquestionably, Sadaam's removal was a good thing in the end; the question, of course, is "Was it worth the expenditure in American lives and money?" and "Should the role of the United States in global affairs be that of 'Policemen of the World'?"

Just for the record, BTW, my prsonal POV is that only #2 is a legitimate justification for a complete invasion of a country and the removal of a government.

As far as #1 goes, I would advocate limited military action, designed only to kill the terrorists themselves and eliminate their strongholds, training camps, etc. (admittedly can be very difficult without taking out the entire government as well).

In cases of #3, while I am quite sympathetic to the plights of people in many other countries, I am totally against the U.S. assuming the role of "World Policeman". Although I imagine that I or someone else could come up with a hypothetical situation which might alter or temper my view on that, basically that is how I feel.

Since there are members here who have indicated that they agree with the invasion of Iraq on the basis of Reason #3 alone, and since there is at least one who I can think of who is a strong proponent of the scenario in which we do something to help the citizens of one other brutally oppresssed country, here's the question:

Which country, if any, and for which reason(s), should we invade next?

To help, here's a list, published in today's Parade Magazine, of who they consider to be "The World's Worst Dictators" (If your personal favorite is not on the list, feel free to...)

The comments are those of the magazine. Any comments of my own are in italics. You can read the entire article (including comments by some readers who suggest, and apparently not facetiously, that George W. Bush belongs on the list as well) here:

WORLD\'S WORST DICTATOR LIST

1. Omar al-Bashir, Sudan: Since February, 2003, his campaign of ethnic and religious persecution has killed at least 180,000 civilians and made 2 million homeless.

2. Kim Jong-il, North Korea: Claims to have nuclear weapons, and has threatened to use them. An estimated 250,000 people are confined in "re-education camps", and the U.N. World Food Program reports that the average 7 year-old boy in North Korea is almost 8 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than a South Korean boy of the same age.

3. Than Shwe, Burma

4. Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe

5. Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan

6. Hu Jinato, China: Between 250,000 and 300,000 dissidents are held in "re-eduction through labor" camps, less than 5% of criminal trials include witnesses, and the conviction rate is 99.7%. China has no privately owned TV or radio stations, the government opens and censors mail and monitors phone calls, faxes, e-mails, and text messages.

7. King Abdullah, Saudia Arabia: In Saudi Arabia, phone calls are recorded and mobile phones with cameras are banned. It is illegal for public employees “to engage in dialogue with local and foreign media.” By law, all Saudi citizens must be Muslims. According to Amnesty International, police in Saudi Arabia routinely use torture to extract “confessions.” Saudi women may not appear in public with a man who isn’t a relative, must cover their bodies and faces in public and may not drive. The strict suppression of women is not voluntary, and Saudi women who would like to live a freer life are not allowed to do so.

8. Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan

9. Seyed Ali Khamene'i, Iran: Hasn't Iran clsimed to have nuclear capabilities as well and expressed a willingness to use them? And, as been discussed here several times, their government certainly seems to hate the United States.

10. Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea

Since the US is willing to pay for other countries freedom and you're already around us, I invite you to come on in here. :p We've plenty of oil, and Osama's next tape is going to be sent from here anyway. Plus, I'm fed to the teeth with these Mullahs...

Damn, where's Fidel?

You think? To me it looks like there are more deads, more chaos, more hatred towards the USA, more jihad terrorists, more of a bipolare world, and less peace; than before the removal of Saddam.

I think the next country to invade should be Afghanistan. Yep, things are far from solved over there.

After that, the Western world should invade DRCongo. Since the start of the war over there, 4,000,000 have died over there in a really childish war
There are some UN troops over there, but they can't do anything, there are too few of them. The government is improving, but they only control like 30% of the country, the rest is in the hands of strange war lords, and other countries like Ruanda and Uganda are occupying parts of the DRCongo.

But this isn't newsworthy I get. Every dead Palestinian, Israelian, American or Iraqi gets his place in the news, but in Africa, it seems like there have to be at least 10,000 a day to be in the news.

Fidel is a has-been. BEsides, what was the last time that Americans feared him as a possible threat? Exactly.

You know, its a great thing that American and Europe together are quite worried about some crazy President and his words that don't shake that image away....

Isreal and Palenstine. Together they have been a big pain in the ass.

So what? That doesn't mean he isn't one of the world's worst dictators. But you are right, he hasn't been a threat to anyone in awhile. Except his own people of course.

How about Mongolia? I'm really getting sick of those uppity, self righteous, trouble maker Mongolians trying to tell Americans, Canadians and the rest of the free world how to act. When Mr. Bush Jr. is done investigating the pornography downloading habits of Americans perhaps he can whip up a coalition of the kill...er I mean willing to destroy the weapons of mass destruction in Mongolia. In addition to finding the wmds in Mongolia and liberating the Mongolian people us Westerners would be able to get our hands on much needed Mongolian oil not to mention Mongolian rice. We could also secure fast friends and allies such as China, North Korea and Vietnam by establishing military bases in these countries in addition to Mongolia. Free Ulaanbaatar! Free Mongolia! :p

*The above was a piece of satire. To my fellow Padrinophiles who may be of a Mongolian background and were offended by these comments I deeply apologize. We do not believe that the Mongolians are bad people. On the contrary we would like to see freedom and democracy come to Mongolia and this is why we must blow it to bits!* :p

very touching! lol...you definatly are canadian and god bless you!

That alone immediately wipes out your decades mistake. :p

Plawrence - All along I thought you were a lefty. You fooled us all and only now does it come out that you are actually Dick Cheney secretly hiding on a BB.

The US cannot afford the two wars that we are fighting now, let alone take on another country. Look at the astronomical cost to fight in Iraq, which has resulted in diverted money and troops that had been going to fight in Afghanistan. The problem is that North Korea and Iran have openly flaunted their nuclear intentions, which should have every American worried.

This is not WWI or WWII where Joe Average can be put to work making military machinery. Modern warfare design is no longer good for the economy as it once was. Our naval fleet wasn't attacked on 9/11 as it was at Pearl Harbor. Our commerce and our civilans were the targets. After Pearl Harbor, the nation went to work to fight Japan & Germany. Jobs were created. But after 9/11 and now in Iraq, the only thing that has happened as that we cleared the rubble at the Pentagon and Ground Zero. The people who lost their jobs as the result of 9/11 aren't rebuilding the new WTC and aren't putting together tanks, planes, etc to fight these wars.

I certainly hope we can defeat bin Laden and al Qaeda. But I worry that we're headed down the same road that the Soviets experienced with their war w/Afghanistan in the late 70s and 80s. Part of what bin Laden did was bleed the USSR dry financially with the war. I'm not saying that OBL was solely responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he certainly played a significant part in it.

If you think that the same thing can't happen in the US, then you're kidding yourself. Look at how extended we are financially right now as a nation. The wars we have been fighting since 2001 have costs us hundreds of billions. Then add the financial losses of 9/11 - from the cities and buildings attacked, the insurance agencies who paid huge death benefits, to the staggering losses of the airline industries, and to shutting down the stock market for 3 days. Then throw in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which were unanticipated multi-billion dollar disasters. We can't just make that kind of lost money up in a year or two. All the money I menionted isn't even taking into account the costs related to our overpriced medical care, our poor educational system, and poverty in our country.

Perhaps bin Laden wasn't blowing smoke in his latest message warning of another attack. God forbid, but what if we suffer another large scale attack in another city like LA or Chicago or Atlanta? We cannot afford to rebuild large cities every 2-3 years, whether it's from terrorism or from a devastating natural disaster.

For those wondering, I believe the list totals 25 dictators, and yes, Fidel still ranks in the teens.

No doubt, I think (as I've always said) we would've been better off by using black ops to take down Saddam. Certainly the Iraqis who were imprisoned, injured, and murdered by Hussein would consider themselves better off, if for no other reason than the fact that they are out of his shadow.

I'm worried not because of the United States or her response to a nuclear attack, but because of the rest of the world; though I have to say, both Il and Ahmadinejad are certainly helping our cause with their rhetoric.

England!

We have an inbred unroyal family that we need liberated from. Same goes for all the commonwealth countries.

It appears as if I may be the victim of my own sense of humor, and the trouble some people may have in distinguishing between those occasions when I'm kidding, and those when I'm serious - no offense meant to anyone.

Or, some have chosen to reply humorously, which, if that is the case, is perfectly all right with me.

But just so you know, I'm being perfectly serious here.

I'm not gonna go hunting through the dozens of threads that involved our reasons for invading Iraq, but I know that there were several posts in which various members (I honestly don't remember which ones, but I have a few ideas. If anyone wants to help me out that does remember....) approved of the invasion based only on the fact that the removal of Sadaam alone was justification enough.

Interestingly, BTW, today's New York Post has both a news article and an opinion column about what, if anything, we should do about Iran's nuclear capability:

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/62097.htm

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/62033.htm

Anyway, I know that there are members here who believe - and they are certainly entitled to their opinions of course - that we should do something militarily somewhere, once our Iraqi adventure is over, either in the name of the "War on Terror" (like in Iran, for example) or simply for "humanitarian" reasons (like in Sudan).

Hey, I was serious. I'm sorry if it sounded funny, but it was dead serious. Wanna put money on the location of OBL's next tape being Iran? When that happened and the US prepared for attack just remember that since I probably wouldn't be posting anymore to remind you of it.

The day 9/11 happened I was at my uncle's, his wife is a born American. When I said they would blame OBL, and that happened a couple of days later, my aunt literally interrogate me as if I was an intelligent service member or something. But if you'd have followed what was happening in the news of the past couple of years this was not hard to come up with.

Let's just defend our own soil for a while and start keeping out illegals. As Dennis Miller said, they ought to at least sign the guestbook when they come over!

Wait....Snake is going against the President? Why I'm shocked...just super shocked about this!

Besides, keep out the illegals, and the American economy soon will get hemroids. Sorry, but that's the truth. That is why Bush hasn't gotten into "Walker: Texas Ranger" mode on those people...yet, if ever.

Of course, you know that as well that if he did go as tough as Rocky Mountain Republicans demand that him to be, it would hurt the party in 2008 of sorts...I mean Snake, you understand why, right?

P.L., I knew you were joking and thought what better way to respond to a joke than with a joke.

Um....I'm not joking.

As I just said:

"I know that there were several posts in which various members approved of the invasion based only on the fact that the removal of Sadaam alone was justification enough."

If that is the case, then why wouldn't they argue that an invasion of Iran is now justified?

Or North Korea?

Believe it or not, m' fellow Tennessean, I disagree with several things Bush has said (or on his policies). Yeah, I can see why you'd find that shocking.

Anyway, I just don't buy the economy-will-suffer argument. After all, how much do we spend on upkeep for illegals (health, pursuits, government cheese varieties, etc.)?? If we got 'em outta' here, economically-speaking, it'd be, at worst, a "wash."

And yes, politics is politics, so you're probably correct on your observation regarding hurting the party. I don't like it, but it's the nature of the beast.

Well, thats correct Snake, though then again, the economy argument, besides not wanting to alienate a possible voting bloc, is why Bush hasn't done anything real serious about the matter.

Besides, the GOP has been trying to expand its voting bloc into both black and hispanic groups, with mixed success on the previous, yet many cite that with the party's heavy swing into the conservative camp, that might have won the state of New Mexico for Bush in 2004.

Thing is, Bush doesn't want to piss those voters away in 2008 for his party....yet the question remains is this: If and when appeasement and commodation doesn't satisfy both sides anymore, who will the GOP have to settle with? Hispanics or their hardcore-traditional Rocky Mtn. Republicans?

Note that those two Democratic Governors in Arizona and New Mexico who basically sent the National Guard down to the border to "secure" it, which apparently scored well with voters and Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, is cited by some as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008.

However, the GOP needs to worry about 2006 first...and with Abrahamoff pulling his best Clemenza(minus the slit wrists) impersonation in D.C., success or at least keeping their seats in the House or Senate won't be easy. Then again, can we count on the Democratic Party for pissing away an easy-grabbing victory again?

For the record, I've never used any of the above. My contention was because Hussein failed to comply with UN resolutions (the original reason stated by Bush for going in), we should go in. As I've said countless times, had Bush stuck with that reason, he wouldn't have gotten so ridiculed for the infamous WMDs (which, incidentally, Iraq had 12 years to hide, export, etc. anyway). Many cry about how the US needs to bow to the great UN. Well, when we originally went in, that's precisely what we were doing. They said something needed to be done. So, we do something and get blasted because we did. Even if the army hadn't found a firecracker, it would not have mattered because Hussein wasn't playing ball. If that's not "justification," then dismantle the UN and everybody turn their backs on that circus and go home. Otherwise, if you're going to make resolutions, rules, etc., then you must put some teeth into it...or else you're just wasting everybody's time.

Also for the record, as I've said countless times (and Bro. Plaw has even stipulated! ), I say let's seal up our own borders and forget about being the World Police Force. We're kicked like dogs even when we're called upon by someone to help 'em out, so I say, let 'em fend for themselves and we'll do the same.

No crystal ball, Ronnie, so I couldn't say. My whole philosophy about whomever's in office will probably sound more outlandish than my "I-disagree-with-Bush-sometimes" statement, but here it be, plain n' simple: All the world leaders -- whether believers, unbelievers, pagans, atheists, dictators, psychos, whatever -- are ultimately in God's hands and are ultimately under His control as far as what His long-range plans are for mankind. That's not to say He likes what they do, "makes" them do things, etc., but He sovereignly uses their free wills to accomplish His ultimate will. And I know from Bible prophecy that we cannot count on things getting better...anywhere. (In fact, I find it interesting that the Number One Superpower -- US -- is not even mentioned in Bible prophecy. I just wonder what happens to us.) Ergo, why should I fret about who's in office or what they've done lately? At any rate, I do find the whole political game (on BOTH sides) usually pretty darned entertaining.

What I meant to say plaw, was that I knew you were'nt seriously advocating invasion of Burma, China, E. Guinea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe and Mongolia to solve the problems that are emanating from these countries that affect the U.S.A., Canada, the West and the whole world.
You did, however, present the countries that Parade magazine highlighted as threats to world peace and showed that through diplomatic and/or other non violent these threats must be dealt with. Of course diplomatic solutions to the Palestinian/Israeli, Irish/British, Turkish/Greek, Indian/Pakistani conflicts and the internal struggles within Russia and the other former Soviet Republics must be sought as well.
As for Iraq, as you have pointed out that is a whole other discussion for about fifty other threads and I'm not going to touch on it here.
Of course you were not joking about the very serious problems that have arisen in the failed or failing states that have been mentioned but perhaps I misinterpreted your overall tone as somewhat satirical. It is very difficult to deal with matters such as this and when one injects humour into the patient as I attempted to do, one must be ultra careful.
The sad conclusion I've come to is that at the end of the day, week, month and year all we (the masses who have some power but not enough direct power to effect change) can do is hold our noses, vote, and hope and pray for the best. Peace on Earth!

Hey I was completely serious.

INVADE THE BAHAMAS!


1) It rhymes with Osama - how's that for a terrorist connection.

2) It is close to Cuba, and the Cuban commie rays are headed toward them.

3) The people who run it have ancestors --from Africa.

4) It is a tax haven for people who dodge income taxes, i.e. "the terrorists."

5) Colin Powell has irrefutable proof they have WMD's.

6) An invasion of the Bahamas will be a cake walk.

7) Most deadly hurricanes that hit the US go through there, meaning they are probably doing something to our weather.

8) They have legal gambling which hurts family values.

On a related note, I think Canada should annex The Turks and Caicos Islands and make them the 11th Province.

I think we absolutley must invade Canada. Reason? Bryan Adams is a WMD.

But I'll let Canada off the hook because of their funny imports and god himself, Lorne Michaels.

Lol! you forgot Pamela Anderson.

Well here's your answer : Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has taken over parts of Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, mostly in the Waziristan Province. They have been openly recruiting volunteers for what they call a holy war and calling for killing Americans and their allies.

Right now our military is not permitted in Pakistan and the Pakistani army themselves have not done anythng to those Al Qaeda camps that are in those parts of Pakistan.

If the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government will not take any action in this region of their country where known Al Qaeda terrorists are staying, then the United States and it's allies must go in there and as you said Don Cardi