The free and fair debates allowed only in democracies.
In what proper democracy would both these plonkers be brought onto the same TV show as if there was even any semblance of all sides of a discussion being represented?
Kagan's brother Frederick was the architect of the "surge" and Michael O'Hanlon - a member of the Brookings Institution - is a long time supporter of the Iraq war and, therefore, someone who can be reasonably expected to spout the Republican position.
But, even by these lowly standards, what they bring to the table is laughable.Foreman: You brought up Iraq and I think that's an important point here because Vladimir Putin and many pundits have said both the candidates, George Bush, everybody had their legs cut out him, from them a little bit because of the Iraq war, because the United States went into a country without waiting for this gigantic UN consensus to say let's go. So how, Russia itself says "How do you criticize us? We're protecting our national interest too". Is this a real problem Bob?
And what is this difference? Because Kagan fails to state it. A few European leaders speak out in defence of the US position? That is true. But that, in itself, proves nothing; other than a few European leaders wish to remain in the inner circle of US politics.
Kagan: Not really. I wouldn't say that many pundits have said that. I uh, if you look at what's happening in Europe right now which is where this whole action is taking place uh, European leaders are condemning uh Moscow's action uh from the British government to the Swedish government. Uh there's, there's pretty good, I mean there's some difference between about exactly how to move but there's very strong trans-Atlantic unity condemning this action. No one is waving ah Iraq or anything else. So people can see the difference between what Russia has done uh and what the United States and many European allies did in Iraq.
There is no difference between what Russia has done and what the US did in Iraq, other than the fact that the Russians at least waited until they were provoked. The US attacked a nation that had not attacked the US.
And then there's O'Hanlon's offering:Foreman: Do you think people can see the difference? Because certainly some people who are enemies of George Bush who don't like this White House say there's not much of a difference. They're bothered by it. They're bothered by what Russia did but they're equally bothered by what we've done in Iraq.
You can only arrive at that figure by including the Iran/Iraq war. And who was on Saddam's side during that war? Who was supplying him with weapons and satellite images? Who supplied him with WMD?
O'Hanlon: I would say with both Iraq and the case of Kosovo which is something Russia invokes a lot as an analogy here, we dealt with brutal dictators. There was a question about whether we had gone through all the proper diplomatic preparation. I do not think George W. Bush did a great job at preparing the ground work for the Iraq war. But come on, we overthrew a guy who killed a million people.
If this pair represent the free and fair press which democracy brings, it's no wonder that some resist it.
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