Agree 100% (and now by 52% of Americans). 

I'm curious as to why you feel what is needed is someone who doesn't reflect the morals and intregrity of those they would lead.  Yes, that is meant as a joke.

In order to have an honorable, wise and decent human being running the show, well quite frankly, the rest of society needs to also reflect those qualities.  How on earth would you find someone in your society if it didn't reflect those values.

As a society we need to make the changes in our own personal values to reflect what we seek in our leaders.  In other words they will be no better than we expect them to be, which is no better then we are.

I'm truly sorry for this reply, but it is how I personally see the world.

Hah, Nothing funnier than a guy wanting to contradict others so badly that he will pick the one time the UN was right to argue his point as if they were always right. WTG Excalpius, I'm sure if you dig deep enough you would probably agree with Hitler, Saddam, Fidel Castrol and Osama somewhere along the long as well.

Tell that to the Aussies that died in 'Nam.... or the Clearance Divers in the Gulf.... or the SAS in Afghanistan.

Small country that is invariably forgotten by self-proclaimed 'super powers' that have an urge to run the world THEIR way.... and for their own ends.

What kind of ridiculous non-sequitors are these?  I can only assume that you're just flame-baiting here.  If you'd like to actually discuss any of these men in some cogent and rational fashion, I'm all ears.  

Cheers!  We tried in 2004 to get rid of Bush Jr. and failed.  It's taken us a huge amount of pain to finally shed these Vietnam/Cold War Era relics from our White House once and for all.

Wow, for all the big replying you do here, this is all you could come up with? Well you know what they say about people who assume.

What does the Gulf War have to do with the Cold War?  

I still don't see how you really can make a distinction between Kosovo and Iraq.  It seems like splitting hairs to try to argue there's a difference. 

If Obama decides to send troops into the Sudan will that be a good war or a bad war?

Wow, that would take way too much time to explain.  A short summary would be that America has been paying the price for Vietnam (clearly a Cold War conflict) for the past 40 years.  And now that Kerry, McCain, etc. have passed into history as candidates, the painful echoes of Vietnam are unlikely to ever appear again on the Presidential stage.

Even in this thread we've seen phrases like Hippy, war-monger, and comments about McCain's POW status and how our veterans have been shunted aside in a truly shameful way just because they fought in an unpopular and needless war.  Those wounds are still healing for the 55+ generation.

Vietnam, and the scars of the civil rights movement, are just some of the underlying reasons why the older generations voted more for McCain than Obama.  Similarly, younger generations, born after integration and with no contemporaneous memory of Vietnam, voted overwhelmingly for Obama over McCain.

I actually think this is a VERY good thing as those were painful, divisive times...America's "teen years", so to speak.  And it's the natural order of things that those painful memories eventually fade away. 

But that's just me waxing philosophic. 

If really you want to see the connections between the Cold War and the Gulf War, you need only read the historical resumes of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and most importantly, the three Bushes in American history - Prescott, GHW Bush, and GW Bush.

Though this is a MASSIVE hypothetical, if the US went in as part of a UN peacekeeping mission to stabilize the country and end the genocide, then I would probably support it. 

And yet, like the first and second Gulf Wars, I see them as night and day. 

A poor but simpler analogy would be to use a single policeman.  Most of the time they act within the weight of law and under the true auspices of justice when they have to shoot someone - in self defense, to protect the lives of others, etc.  And sometimes they are just on an egocentric power trip or have been corrupted/bribed/etc.   The stage is still the same...an officer, a fired gun, and one dead person.   Yet one is a legal act and one is criminal.  And the difference between these two scenarios is the measure of the officer and his motive.

I would argue that the US acted as a legally authorized "policeman" with the full weight of the world's consent in Kosovo, putting our own people at risk for what was seen as an unselfish cause -- to save innocent lives.  And to this date, the only people who generally object to what was done in Kosovo are Serbian fascists and their sympathizers/allies.

Whereas, the US acted as a bully and a butcher when it came to the second Gulf War.   Corrupt from its very conception, it's already cost the lives of 4,000+ brave American soldiers and hundreds of thousand of Iraqi civilians and helped bankrupt our nation...just for selfish graft for Bush's family friends of Big Oil and Cheney's own company, Halliburton.  And it's already clear that the opinion of the entire world remains against the US/UK on this, as it was when we rammed it past everyone's objections.

So, while I am making the point in extremis, I hardly think the two things are a hair's breath apart.  But that's just my opinion. 

I promised myself I'd stay out of this , but all this talk about Afghanistan and Iraq begs for me to comment

I find it ironic that the two men running the garbage in Iraq are 5 time Deferral Dick Cheney and GW 'Did he actually show up for the national guard' Bush. It's funny when it was their turn to go help out in Vietnam they were chickens , and now 30 years later , they're hawks with other people's kids.

Can't wait to see their warmonging chickenhawk asses out of there

I hardly think the 'entire world remains against the US/UK on this'....again, what about the Aussies?

Christ...stop dismissing us.  Ask the UK special forces in Afghanistan who protected their extraction when it all got too hot for them?  Who guided the airstrikes?  Who was on the ground months before the public was even aware of a drama in Afghanistan?  There are approx 400 SAS in Australia.... or rather ...the majority of the 400 currently aren't.

Anyway....the only beef the outside world has with the handling of the Iraqi war is it would have been much easier/successful as a 'surgical strike'....on Saddam and the rest of the hit-list/and family....and then concentrate on doing the same with Bin Laden.  HE was past his use-by date around about 9/12.

The real issue is with 'pre-emptive strike'.  Remember....there are people who claim that every male is a potential rapist....so....perhaps every male should be castrated pre-emptively as well.

Hitler simply got 'concerned' about Poland...so 'pre-emptively struck'...and gosh, other countries like France, etc might go all hissy-fit about that....and want to argue...so he pre-emptively struck yet again.....and that, boys and girls is how WW2 started....

No one is "dismissing the Aussies".  Normally I'd use the word "coalition" but since there were only 6 countries involved, I didn't want to try and support Bush's rationale.  They claimed for months that it was a "multinational force"...ahem.

Either way, I agree with you 100%.  I have argued publicly and privately that if Saddam actually WAS a threat anymore, a few million in cruise missiles was a MUCH better price/performance ratio than spending a trillion dollars and killing all those people.

I'd still argue that he remained just a nuisance, as Kaddafi was, and like him, eventually the tide turned.

And yes, we absolutely should have been putting our energies into Osama...all the time, until he was brought to justice.  That was a righteous and just cause and no one in the world begrudged us that measure.  No one.

Instead, we've wasted all this time, money, and lives, while the REAL criminals of 9-11 still eat dates in between dialysis treatments.