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SoB
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Didn't Bush 1 leave Iraq with Saddam still in power? One must also ask why Americans feel it is their duty to interfere in other nations sovereignty? There are many leaders in the world who openly violate human rights, shit look at China, it does not justify America going to war with them though. If you remember, when Saddam bombed the kurds (those who you claim are his own people, thats another discussion altogether though) he was and remained for a number of years our ally. Another more important point, Bush 2 went after the wrong person with Saddam under false pretenses sold to the American people. Bush 2 let Osama run around the world while he went after personal ambitions.
SoB said:HA "rather poor human rights record" Those are rather friendly words to describe one of the worlds greatest mass murderers dont you think? Look it up.
SoB said:"Certainly kept a lid on all that terrorist shit" Sounds like an admission that he was harboring terrorists. Guess he wont be doing that anymore.
SoB said:"He did drop some chemical weapons on his own citizens in the early 1990's" Fairly nonchalant statement about someone mass murdering his own people dont you think? Dont forget about the beheadings at your local soccer field or the rape rooms him and his sons visited nightly.
Savanalona said:when Saddam bombed the kurds (those who you claim are his own people, thats another discussion altogether though)
SoB said:"Make no mistake, had Saddam been a little friendlier to American business, he'd be in power today". Only if a Dem was in office because you can see what a Republican did to him.
SoB said:"Didn't Bush 1 leave Iraq with Saddam still in power"? The Gulf War was not about Iraq or Saddam it was fought to free Kuwait from invaders and we succeded.
SoB said:"One must also ask why Americans feel it is their duty to interfere in other nations sovereignty"? Maybe you have heard this before. All it takes for evil to flourish is good men to stand by and do nothing
SoB said:"There are many leaders in the world who openly violate human rights, shit look at China" I agree and when the day comes that they are a direct threat to the US you can belive something will be done.
SoB said:This hole statement sounds like an opinion not a fact when you have facts please share them. If I remember correctly it was Bilery Clinton that had Osama in his sites and would not give the order that would of saved us from 9-11 and prevented the invation of Afganistan.
Originally Posted by SoB
HA "rather poor human rights record" Those are rather friendly words to describe one of the worlds greatest mass murderers dont you think? Look it up.
Greatest mass murder in history?
Look it up?
Originally Posted by SoB
"Certainly kept a lid on all that terrorist shit" Sounds like an admission that he was harboring terrorists. Guess he wont be doing that anymore.
Cute.
He "kept a lid on that shit" because he wouldn't countenance some fanatical religious bullshit formenting in his own backyard. It would, if allowed to logically run its course, threaten his own power.
Originally Posted by SoB
"He did drop some chemical weapons on his own citizens in the early 1990's" Fairly nonchalant statement about someone mass murdering his own people dont you think? Dont forget about the beheadings at your local soccer field or the rape rooms him and his sons visited nightly.
Originally Posted by Savanalona
when Saddam bombed the kurds (those who you claim are his own people, thats another discussion altogether though)
The Kurds lived northern regions of Iraq which was under nominal control of the Iraqi military. From a geopolitical standpoint, the Kurds were "his own people" - although quibbling here is somewhat understandable.
Call it nominal if you like but the Kurds we are talking about where under Saddams power.
SoB, your confusing Iraq and Afghanistan - Iraq had a rather fully fleshed out judicial system before the 2003 invasion and I can assure you, random beheadings were not practiced in Iraq save political interference with the Hussien regime. That was the Taliban.
Saddamn was a rather reserved dictator by these sorts of standards - it was Uday who had the raperooms - but he had been removed from the line of succession in favor of his more sensible younger brother, Qusay.
All three were involved but at the very least you have admitted Saddam allowed this to happen
Not defending rape rooms per se - but I'm not really concerned about every rape room the world over when it costs the lives of at least 100,000 civilians (some estimates are well above 1 million), 5000 American troops, and 3 trillion dollars.
You and I are very different I dont care how much money or how many lives are lost to stop evil.
Atrocities will continue to be visited upon mankind by other men - this is the way of this world - and all the American military might the country can muster isn't going to fix this.
But we sure can try.
The problem here seems to be the intractable way of mankind - not any particular dictator or military leader.
Originally Posted by SoB
"Make no mistake, had Saddam been a little friendlier to American business, he'd be in power today". Only if a Dem was in office because you can see what a Republican did to him.
Wow. What a dreadfully WRONG reading of history.
Originally Posted by SoB
"Didn't Bush 1 leave Iraq with Saddam still in power"?
The Gulf War was not about Iraq or Saddam it was fought to free Kuwait from invaders and we succeded.
No, it was to save Kuwaiti oil wells, currency reserves, and trade deals. Because the Kurds were sent to shit city during the same war since they had nothing to offer except - you know - a burning desire for freedom and a land of their own.
Again you are injecting your opinion. The fact is The mission of Operation Desert Storm (Jan-Feb 1991) was to remove Iraq from the country Kuwait; which was done. Now if we protected some of our interests in the process whats wrong with that?
But that isn't oil or geopolitically advantageous - so they were sacrificed to appease Turkey. See my post above.
Originally Posted by SoB
"One must also ask why Americans feel it is their duty to interfere in other nations sovereignty"? Maybe you have heard this before. All it takes for evil to flourish is good men to stand by and do nothing
Your quoting a British politician from 250 years ago to justify modern American military policy in a world that couldn't be more different.
Who cares if it was said 250 years ago if it still holds the truth in it.
Regardless, this isn't the case, and America always does nothing unless the genocide threatens to destabilize some important trade deal or shipping lane or oil field.
It is sad that you think so lowly of your own country
Really. Read more.
Originally Posted by SoB
"There are many leaders in the world who openly violate human rights, shit look at China" I agree and when the day comes that they are a direct threat to the US you can belive something will be done.
This is dreadfully scary paranoia - and the last time the Chinese and American militaries met - the results weren't so good for the Americans.
None the less did the battle need to be fought? yes I think so.
The Chinese, under Mao Zedong, ran MacArthur all the way from Inchon to Pusan before the Americans could stabilize the line. The end result of that war - dreadful stalemate and the North Korean "hermit kingdom" we all laugh at today.
Originally Posted by SoB
This hole statement sounds like an opinion not a fact when you have facts please share them. If I remember correctly it was Bilery Clinton that had Osama in his sites and would not give the order that would of saved us from 9-11 and prevented the invation of Afganistan.
The only time binLaden was in the "sights" of the US during the Clinton presidency was when the Sudan offered him to the DOJ in 1996 - he was still a regional nusiance at that point - and hardly the terrorist mastermind he's seen as today. I'm not sure what taking him into US custody at that point would have done - since he hadn't really done much at that point.
None the less he could of been delt with but Bilery let him go.
It was in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, during the Bush presidency, when capturing him was outsourced to Pakistani army militias and he escaped for good.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/socom/2007history.pdf
The only thing that would have prevented 9/11 would have been competence on the part of the CIA and FBI, since we had a highjacker in custody and a laptop with the entire operation sketched out. On September 10.
Lets see if Bilery would of killed the 9-11 mastermind in 1996 he could not of planed the attacks. This would of most definitely prevented 9-11.
While Condi Rice was getting memos titled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside the US" - I can never understand why Republicans cannot remember who was President when 9/11 happened.
savanalona said:It is unfortunate SOB that you are sold to the idea that we are morally cleansing the wrong in the world when we go to war.
savanalona said:I think it is important to make light of our nuanced reasoning for war post WWII. Prior, war had primarily been sold to the American people for the purposes of geographic and economic expansion. However, since WWII, war has been sold under the guise of ideology and morality, yet the real reasons have never faltered. This new reasoning creates a lot of the confusion and misunderstanding of current events from people who claim to be on both sides of the political spectrum.
SoB said:You and I are very different I dont care how much money or how many lives are lost to stop evil
Originally Posted by savanalona
It is unfortunate SOB that you are sold to the idea that we are morally cleansing the wrong in the world when we go to war.
Originally Posted by savanalona
I think it is important to make light of our nuanced reasoning for war post WWII. Prior, war had primarily been sold to the American people for the purposes of geographic and economic expansion. However, since WWII, war has been sold under the guise of ideology and morality, yet the real reasons have never faltered. This new reasoning creates a lot of the confusion and misunderstanding of current events from people who claim to be on both sides of the political spectrum.
As I sort of prepare my standard "quote-and-reply" method to this for SoB, it occurs to me that this is a much better distillation than I could provide by a complicated rebuttal steeped in geopolitics.
savana, this analysis is very astute, and I absolutely agree.
I rarely encounter anyone who knows real American military history - and even fewer who know the economics, politics, and demographics driving the conflicts.
The mythos that WWII has created in the American mind - that the US military is some sort of avenging angel for all those poor huddled terrified oppressed people in the world - is extrodinarily intractable, no matter what the evidence presented.
Every enemy is not Nazi Germany (not that the US did any heavy lifting there anyway - Americans always somehow think that the Nazi's were defeated on D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge as opposed to significant battles like Stalingrad and Kursk - thanks Tom Hanks), and every civilian population is not a concentration camp population destined for the crematoria and mass graves.
Even though every war is packaged and sold exactly that way.
So this is exactly the case . . .
Originally Posted by SoB
You and I are very different I dont care how much money or how many lives are lost to stop evil
No. The difference is that you believe in American mythology and I believe in American history.
America goes to war to protect American national interest and economic influence. Even "first strike" events, like Pearl Harbor, come after years of economic turmoil and struggle. The Japanese, after all, were pissed about the American oil embargo - nominally enforceable by the US fleet at Hawaii.
Woodrow Wilson rejected Japan's claim to German concessions in Shantung, which Japan had captured at a price in blood 20 some years before Pearl this got the ball rolling dont forget. FDR did not want to cut off oil. As he told his Cabinet an embargo meant war, But a State Department lawyer named Dean Acheson (a Dem) drew up the sanctions in such a way as to block any Japanese purchases of U.S. oil. By the time FDR found out he could not back down. The oil embargo was only the straw that broke the camels back brother.
And you think because the Japanese were pissed about the oil embargo that we deserved what happend at Pearl. I dont think so.
The 9/11 hijackers hit the Twin Towers because it symbolized Americas economic power - the real power by which al-Qaeda percieves that the US controlled the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.
I dont care what they percieced it doesnt make it right or even our fault. Dems want to be so diplamatic when it come to US dealings yet make excuses for assholes that fly planes into building killing innocent people get real their perception of us makes it ok? WTF
I hate to harp on the rape rooms, but do you know how armies - not each solider of course but this is the underbelly of all deployed armies throughout history - behave when they are deployed?
Did you know that four in ten women in the US military have been sexually assualted?
And all of offenders should be hung by their nuts and shot for their crimes.
What about Blackwater/Xe's behavior? Those poor $250,000/year merc's that the DOD hires so they can keep official troop levels down?
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1
If this is true the above statement applies
But - that doesn't matter either - since we got rid of Uday's rape room.
It is unfortunate SOB that you are sold to the idea that we are morally cleansing the wrong in the world when we go to war. I would like more evidence of that.
"You and I are very different I dont care how much money or how many lives are lost to stop evil."
This again shows the lack of logic in believing that one can stop violence with violence. There are many other ways to stop somebody, killing at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians should never be one of them. For the evil you try to stop, you inevitably become it, this type of thinking!
Also the majority of the time that Saddam committed these atrocities he was our ally? So does that make us evil too?
if i could type better i could put a long post up too. not that it would be interesting.no matter what your politics we should all be friends first.
mal
SOB:
Thanks for the respectful discourse, it helps add to the conversation extremely. War is a form of mass murder, I think it should be the ABSOLUTE last resort in defense, which is what I think your hypothetical question is asking. That aside, I am not unrealistic, I know that people fight over greed and not morality. Never has morality been reasoning for killing anyone. Almost every religious war has had to abandon major aspects of their doctrine in order to proceed and engage in war. Therefore, morality is at the wayside in war. That is my core argument: We, the U.S. or any other super power for that matter, do not engage in war for anything other than geographical or economical advantages.
You seem to me to be very smart, so I will ask you, do you think that war is boiled down to good and evil? If so who is evil? Why? I also must ask if we are evil for supporting the numerous dictators that engage in atrocious abuses of human rights? I guess I don't see America as infallible, nor do I think that we are the only super power by luck or God, but because we do many things to hold other nations below us, strategically and militaristically.
Sob:
Again I ask you who is evil? Is the U.S. not evil? How about Nicaragua in the 80's? Or the many other peoples movements that have been thwarted by the U.S. I would also submit that killing for ANY material item is evil, be it oil or anything else, automobiles, etc. Life is worth so much more than that, in my opinion. Also, I don't think that the U.S. or any other country for that matter is somehow acting in on behalf of god or the most high or whatever you call it. You mention the civil war. I think that your first assessment is more in line with the truth. I am not saying that Lincoln wasn't against slavery, just that was not ever the reason for the war. It was fought to stop the south from leaving the union, which would have ultimately destroyed the nation, remember the strong euro/english desire to have the U.S. become a territory again. Still, I don't see how war is fought over morality. It would be nice if everything was as easy as good and evil, black and white, but it seems to me that it is much more complicated than that.
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