Alien Invasion

How soon you forget: It's all Bill Clinton's fault.

caw

Here's what we do.

First, we prop up the xenophobic side and fund them so they can stage a coup.

Then we secretly trade for the natural resource for decades until the cost of doing business outweighs the profits we're making on the back-porch deal.

Then we spend a few years telling the galaxy how aweful and horrible this governemt is and how they treat their own citizens.

Then we point out how preverse the sex they're having is.

Then we point out how represive their religion is.

And, if we're really in the mood, we say how they eat/kill/sacrafice babies.

Then we invade.

Set up a new government that we can get a cheap deal on the natural resources with.

And start the cycle all over again.

We've been doing it since the days of the Pharoh's, why stop 'cause we're in outter space?

We get them all to sit around and drink Vladirian liquor until they pass out. Then they wake up, and we get them to drink some more. Repeat.

Can't go wrong with that plan.

For the sake of everything that is good and holy in the Universe, I hope that neither we nor any other civilization develop efficient space travel before we have conquered our primitive nationalistic tendencies.

Any race that can't play well with others on their own planet has no business venturing out looking for "new life and new civilizations."

Let's see, fallacies here:

These factions are vying for control of the entire race, but as said, there are still peaceful factions within the race that control most planets.

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Begging the question. "Vying for" does not equal "has the capacity to achieve". I'm "vying for" a magical unicorn but, alas, so far I have been unsuccessful.

let's presume that one world this race populates contains vast natural resources that we can use,

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Why does this make a difference? You can't have my unicorn either, unless you ask nicely and I say yes. Just taking it is theft.

has a government that has defied the galactic council

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If you want to use a better analogy for the UN, "Galactic Debate Club" would probably convey more accurately the impact of defying it or otherwise.

has a leader that is known to be a despot and vile beast

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Are we still talking about Iraq or are we talking about Al Quaeda here? Because you know that, at least pre-invasion, they were different things, don't you? And that Wahabbist Islam had more than one faction within it, right?

has a history of aggression and hatred for the human race

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In context of analogy we can assume "human race" = "americans" here, which is somewhat telling in the Freudian analysis of the analogy but I'll let it slide. There seems to be more conflation, though, because Iraq had a history of trash talking the Americans but only being aggressive towards Kuwait and Iran, one of which is also an enemy of "the humans". If we're talking about Al Quaeda, I'm still going to point out that they're not the same thing.

is funding galactic pirates to disrupt and destroy the assets of our allies

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Would these be the same kinds of pirates as those who take what's not theirs, which is what I assume you were proposing in your "natural resources" claim?

(On a serious note, I doubt you'll actually be interested, but treating terrorists as pirates under the law has been floated as an idea and I, personally, think it has a lot of merit, mainly because anti-piracy legislation, being genuinely "international law" [as opposed to the UN, which are attempts at supranational law without enforcement that fall badly flat because of the ludicrousness of the proposition] works quite well).

and which can be defeated and conquered, but only after a long, extended war and occupation that may cost us .1 percent of our miltary's strength in lives.

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What are you talking about here? Afghanistan, where Al Quaeda were, or Iraq, where they weren't? Or the more amorphous "Global War on Terror" that spreads out throughout the whole planet or, in the terms of the analogy, galaxy?

And why are we assuming that "a war" would solve the problems? Are we assuming that "the xenophobic race" is easily recognisable, as well as biologically, ideologically and geographically restricted, and can be effectively killed without killing people who just happen to live in the same place or look the same? Why are we making that assumption? Does it have any parallels with any conflict on Earth?

Just how bad an inept fucking asshole would this make George Bush, since it will be entirely his and Karl Rove's fault that we're at war?

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Well, if "the human race" were attacked by a bunch of space pirates and a robot programmed with the intelligence of Bush were to launch a war against where the pirates were, then suddenly get distracted by launching a war against where they weren't, and in doing so creating more space pirates, while also ignoring all activities of space pirates that didn't take place in far off planets with lots of natural resources, I'd have to say that "pretty fucking inept" would be my answer. But then, I think that the choice between winning one war and losing two, were it mine to make, seems easy, so obviously I'm not presidential material.

Yawn

This question is moot, because by then, everyone will be a self replicating nanobot swarm or a beam of light.