Quote Originally Posted by Panda
Invading other countries for domestic financial gain is seen by most fair minded people as in fact playing the role of the biggest bully and not particularly popular with most voters in a democracy. Hence the routine practice of politicans selling the myth that the wars they choose to pursue are on the basis of either some imminent threat or on humanitarian grounds.
It's just a question of how you interpret these things. I know of no invasion that could be attributed simply to financial gain (domestic of otherwise) although I can see that some view things that way. Political and longer term strategic interests are much more complex that simple financial gain however.

This myth is enhanced by the fact that obviously, some individuals and groups do profit from military operations. Regimes that are hostile and pose long term instability threats to whole regions that are of strategic interest need to be dealt with. If all other efforts to deal with them fail, then military action can be justified. We can always sit around and wait until one day they get strong enough and bold enough to do some really serious damage to our interests..financial or otherwise. This is the point where all the liberals and" peace activists" start screaming at their governments for not protecting their interests.

If for example Winston Churchill had listened to the "electorate" Britain would have sat out world war 2. (Polls showed that 69%+/- of the public were against any more war with Germany---they were still in shock from world war 1. They were also ignorant of the magnitude of the future threat to them and their cozy little island. That's why we need "leaders"....you can not manage a country by referendum....you can not always do what the voting public think they want...and that is one of the biggest problems all democracies face today...not to mention the fact that everybody wants something different, and many countries can not even manage to elect a majority government...so you get fence sitting, dithering non-leadership with no clear direction.

How many UN resolutions did the regime in Iraq violate over many years prior to the final invasion? How many "human rights abuses" was that regime responsible for. How many international terrorist organizations has Libya funded.?

I could go on and on, but its a bit pointless because so many can only view the world through a kind of anti-American fog, so they default to blaming everything on the USA and allies. We are by no means perfect; we sometimes make poor decisions, but I will support my tribe against any of the others out there any day.

There are times when attack is the best means of defense....and that has been a fact of life since men crawled out of the caves to compete for Mammoth meat with the men in the other caves.... The world has not changed that much since those days; how ever much we like to think that it has. The veneer is nice enough but it's pretty thin.