schmittyUVA

This to me is the most intriguing of our current threats to our nation. Iraq was quite frankly an easy target, offering up the resistance many planners expected. I wondered to myself at the outset of "shock and awe" how much this played into its implementation. I don't think Iraq was a great threat, but combine its #4 status with its relative military weakness, and the proper fireworks display ensued. As LucentBrave states, North Korea has a much more viable military force. Doesn't this constitute therefore a greater threat? I just wonder at what point does the apprehension have to give way to the fact that their strength IS the reason to take on their aggression. Personally, I don't think the US is quite ready to do so (I for one am not), but I think it begs the question: at what point do we have to realize their threat? I just wonder if these relatively easy campaigns to rid the world of aging dictators isn't affecting not only global military readiness but also the American psyche to the point that when we do enter a conflict that has greater signifigance and also more resistance and US losses that the public will simply cry "Vietnam" as some already do. [this is particularly disgusting to me, but that's another post...]

My name is Aaron Schmidt and I am a third year English major at the University of Virginia. Since my junior year in high school, I have been pursuing the ideals of Objectivism and am glad to have found a refuge for truth and reason to share my thoughts and concerns. I look forward to hearing from you all and hope we'll engage in some enlightening converstation soon. Additionally, I am the Head Student Equipment Manager/Defensive Student Assistant for the UVA football team, and love discussing sports, especially football. I have a wonderful girlfriend of over 6 years. I also love to play poker.

Hello all, I'm a new member and am excited to find this online Objectivist refuge... That being said, I'd like to ask you all something that I've been mulling over. It picks up on something RationalEgoistSG feels in the message about Occupying Iraq. Watching this drama unfold, it's clear who the players are: us, the capitalist, democratic nation trying to give the gift of a government that recognizes individual rights and the theocratic people we have liberated. My question, similar to RationalEgoistSG's is this: are the Iraqi people ready for democracy? Additionally, to what extent to we labor over this cause? I'd also like to backtrack in time to consider the war to begin with. I am personally glad that we finished what we should have finished in '91 (before the liberal media tried to create sympathy for the soldiers we routed on the way to Baghdad). But to what extent do we have the right to take action in cases like these? I find myself admittedly confused between our responsibility to defend our own interests and the rights I recognize in all men. I firmly believe that capitalism is the ultimate recognition of the individual, but at what cost do we expend our energy and resources on a people who have clearly placed their faith in the pseudobeliefs of religion? I'm glad to have found you all, and I hope your discourse will help my thoughts as well as spark some of your own. Thanks Aaron Schmidt [email protected] University of Virginia Football I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. -Thomas Jefferson