Reply #33: Not a hawk and I trust the Russians to do exactly what is in their own self interest

[grantcart]

Just like us.

In fact the Soviet/Russia record on keeping their word on the agreements they signed on to is pretty good from 1970 onward.

I had opportunity to negotiate directly with the People's Republic of Vietnam over a small number of items after the war and they were completely honest and straightforward in their international agreements. The problems that arose came out of shifting priorities and positions on the US side. I would then read about it the next day in the paper where the US embassy was blaming the PRV for something the US side was responsible for. The hapless Vietnamese were easily tagged as being dishonest brokers when I knew that it was the Americans who changed their position (and given the fluctuating pressures from Congress and the American Public you can understand why an administration has to change its position - but they always spun it on the Vietnamese).

Having said that equating the War in the Iraq as being the same as the War in Afghanistan is foolish. There is no case for the War in Iraq it was a bold faced war of aggression and even if it turns out perfectly in Iraq - which it won't - was still a horrible precedent for the US.

Afghanistan is a completely different set of circumstances. I am not going to re argue that here but ironically people who equate the two as being the same actual undermine the real criticism and the crimes of the Iraq War. If all wars are the same, etc etc., then there is nothing special about Iraq, and this is not only untrue it actually undermines the wall that we should be building on reducing the rationality to going to war.