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Originally Posted by Newt
My problem with all this is that - okay, since you've studied in this, you may well want to close your eyes now to avoid your brain exploding: lets say someone in 1935 in teh UK 'knew' germany were gonna go crazy in 1939 and try to conquer europe. Say they had proposed us sending troops over (with other contries) in 1935 and nullify the threat there and then (we can agree political discourse would have got us absolutely nowhere). If we had done that, we might be looking back at that saga now with incredible shame in how the UK behaved, with the rest of the world hating us and thinking we're barbarians. But we didn't do that, and in hindsight, we would probably be thinking 'why the **** didn't that guy force the issue'.
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Well obviously the first lesson would be "giving extremism a genuine rallying call is a shit idea". There is a point that nobody could have known that, the universe just doesn't work that way. There's a good response to the "would you kill Hitler if you had a chance" question in "no, I'd sit down and try and talk to him". There always alternatives is really my point. I'd probably have supported a military invasion of Germany circa 1935 or so though.
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Suppose my point is that Iraq does pose a threat to us - maybe not directly since they had no weapons. But should we wait another 10yrs until they do pose a direct threat before doing something (and by then it may be impossible - like north korea atm).
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Nobody could have known in 2003 that Iraq would invade the UK or anything like that. Ignoring that, no sensible analysts were proposing this as an even remote possibility either. Instead of worrying about future threats emerging maybe we would be better off focusing our efforts on productive and mutually beneficial methods of ensuring that no threats do emerge. Arabs aren't genetically predisposed towards invasion and murder. If you can believe you can restrain yourself from going around to your neighbour's and bashing his head in with a lead pipe because you want his TV there's no reason not to imagine that everyone else can't either.
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And what can we do with north korea that doesn't involve the military? They're buddies with china ... maybe the media has misreported the situation, but I can't see how politics can do anything.
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They're hardly buddies. As Teddy Roosevelt said 'speak softly and carry a big stick'.
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I've just realised - its strange that politically we're only close with other countries of the same race as us. But aye, that isn't racist! You may ask wtf this comment has to do with anything - answer is nothing 
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Japan? There are obviously plenty of other examples heh.