Your country and you...

I know that this subject is much like a dead horse that for some reason people still keep beating. I would like a chance to pick up that controversial stick and take a swing at it with some questions and a few of my opinions.

The first question is a simple one how do you feel about your country and our troops?

My opinions... I don't just support our troops I have and still do serve with them. I am proud to do what I do and am glad to give all Americans the right to complain about what they don't understand. Freedom of speech is the coolest thing to me...probably cause I have seen what a lack of that freedom is like first hand. I don't and never will mind people complaining about our country. Mostly because some of those complaints are legit and to stiffle even one of them would be a kick in the teeth for all the soldiers who died just so all of us could be heard.

I love my country always have always will. Hell I have given up 4 years of my life to it. Still I am confused about what some organizations and different groups are saying. If you are a news buff then you already know about such groups as the Westboro baptist church and their website godhatesamerica dot com. If you are not but would like to know about them read the news articles... DO NOT GO to their site if you do not support hate groups. Look for offical news articles only. their is some pretty nasty stuff about them. They have done some terrible things. Should they be allowed the rights to do those things? Are they abusing free speech?

So I guess in closing my question to you all is... Whats your opinion about any of these and more American related issues?


Sorry, if that is to long to read this is one of my first posts so please be gentle.

 

Hi jvk!
Thanks for sharing that about Westboro. It's nice to laugh at people who are truely different. When freedom is combined with lack of education, when a person's world is reduced to a few Bible verses or a few Koran verses or the opinions of a single politician or religious leader, stuff like Westboro brews. A lot of hate messages are based on adrenalin addiction, on a narrow focus and on fear.
And another comment ...Serving your country is a time-honored tradition, but as a person in the military, what do you do when your country is leading you down a wrong path? Were the Germans wrong to serve their country? How do you maintain your individual understanding while serving the machinery of a super power? Or a powerful local warlord? Is there an option to disagree besides running away or forfeiting your freedom by agreeing to be locked up in prison? To my own way of thinking, Westboro is not a reflection of freedom, but rather of what happens when people give up their freedom to a microculture that abhores free thought.
abri

 

I agree with you both and it is a sign of intelligence to ALWAYS question what goes on around you jvk_goober you are doing that, and your post is great. here is something I posted a few threads ago that might give you something to ponder.


I think that we need to step back a moment and consider why these brave men and women are dying. Is it to protect the citizen of Iraq, polls I have see from Iraq, and people I talked to well in Iraq emphatically say NO. Is it to safe guard U.S.A. from terrorist’s attacks, again the answer from numerous sources say NO.

Is it because President Bush needed a rallying point, to win the election? Is it to secure a steady supply of OIL for the U.S.A.? Was it to rid Iraq of their dictator, one bullet from a trained sniper would have done that?

So please tell me why in the name of humanity are these men and women dying, these same men and women do not know why either?

Please do not mention Guantanamo Bay, this place is a travesty to human justice, and should be an embarrassment to ALL freedom loving Americans. The detainment and treatment of the peoples held there will be a black mark in American History, and it amazes me, that Americans who value FREEDOM as much as they do can allow their government to do this.
Reply With Quote

 

Thanks for responding I really appreciate your input... I don't know that I am qualified to answer all your questions (some of them are WAY above my pay grade) but I will do my best to give you a better perception through my miniscule opinions. Ok to start with, the germans question. Lets talk about all that has gone on in the past with Communism and such; I guess we don't have to limit it to the germans. Look at Stalin, The wars in Africa, and all the conflicts of the far east (vietnam, Korea, and China's many invasions) they (meaning the millions of unnamed soldiers who participated) were all told to do something and they just did it. They did what they believed to be right, which as Americans we do the same thing. But if you look really close at history, Many of the soldiers in those situations (to include your Hitler example) were NOT willing participants. Unless you consider "do this or die" a reasonable excuse to volunteer. To me it sounds like an ultimatum that many of these soldiers faced, Much unlike our military force which is comprised of 100% volluntary service. Also not one of those above mentioned groups followed LOAC (Law of Armed Conflict) or the Geneva Convention. Both of which are the strictest guidelines to which any Millitary engagement may be approached. In short we play by the rules even if they don't. We offer civil rights to prisoners and follow basic humanitarian Laws.

Sorry if that was long winded but I hope it gave you a slightly different perspective on the whole situation. On to question 2...

Ok Individualism and following the right path. As I said earlier we are a totally voluntary force in the United States Military. So in short if we don't agree with what is going on we can serve our time (that we promised the government we would) and go our own ways. It is a lot harder for America to have a "War Lord" then for these other countries. If we have a warlord for a leader in America it is because we wanted one. We pick our leaders and choose them based on their Morals and competance as a leader. If at any one point they do not adhere to those standards they can and will be impeached. Americans have a lot more say in what goes on then they believe they do.

Individualism (on a personal level) is a highly supported in all service groups. However, a unit that can function with uniformity and cohesiveness is far more effective in any situation. That conformity that you see all to often in our armed forces is highly intricate part of what makes us one of the most powerful forces in history. Think about your computer. Would it work as well if all the parts worked efficiently on their own but could not network or rely on other components at all? wouldn't it be better if your computer could network and work as one compotent unit? Still individualism has its place.

While a more powerful entity will always be uniform and consistent, changes force us to adapt. Changes are what drive us forward. Nothing is more constant then change. Individualism helps us make some of those changes and gives us ideas on how to make more. Uniformity helps us make the changes effective. I hope that made some sense? I know it is wordy but I don't want to short change you on my answer. TY so much for your post on this thread. Listening to other people will always make an individual more whole.

 

Wow you pose some really hard questions that quite frankly I am not qualified to answer in whole. However, I would like to discuss them for a moment so lets start by analyzing some of your key points and maybe adding some missing info.

I am not working in any order so please bear with me.

Point 1: you said "Was it to rid Iraq of their dictator, one bullet from a trained sniper would have done that?" to add some info to why Sadam was not sniped. It was not a lack of effort or ability but a simple rule that stopped us. Sniping a leader like that is HIGHLY Illegal! If someone did accidently snipe him it would make guantanimo bay look like disney land compared to how hard our country would be blasted on the basis of hypocracy.

Point 2: I will paraphrase a little but the basic idea is not kowing why we are there in Iraq. I would like to think that our leader/Commander in Chief (that we chose to elect) knows more then I do and that the people he delegates authority to are more compotent then myself. I know that sounds like a simple explanation for a complicated problem but I asure you it is not. I have faith in the system I swore to protect. There is alot of stuff that goes on behind closed doors. Alll of these people making these decisions have to answer to a great many people and all in a different way. It is a system of redundancy or as we like to call it "checks and balances". All elected/appointed officials answer to someone. If they screw up, they WILL lose their job(this includes our president).

Point 3: to quote you again "So please tell me why in the name of humanity are these men and women dying, these same men and women do not know why either?" this is one very interesting question you have posed. I know that this is repetative but I can't answer that question only add information to the preposed question. So the only thing I can add to that is the old saying "need to know" this saying keeps many of our troops alive! It keeps unwanted sensative information from leaking out to our enemies. In the past people have questioned the governments decisions based on media coverage. But if we look at history we find that the media coverage never really knew the whole story and they could only report what they were told. In short very few people will have any clue about what is really going on.


I hope that some of this made sense. I really enjoyed your points and will continue to ponder them.

 

Hi jvk_goober,
Thanks for your reply. I would like to clarify that I'm American, I support American ideals, and at this time, I have the feeling our country has clearly drifted away from those ideals. Some of the shocking statements and actions of our current government actually cause a knot in my stomach when I hear them. For instance, that we would no longer follow the Geneva Conventions, because they were outdated, that we would invade Iraq without provocation and that our government would insist to the world that our soldiers would not be allowed to be tried by an international court for anything they did the first year. Then the actions of placing torture facilities in countries which allow torture and hiring foreigners from those countries to conduct investigations in our own prisons. (Outsorcing, you might call it.) Any one of these things would have been enough for me to pick my head up and say ... oh ho ... what's this?? But these things have not stopped. We have a history of carrying out our battles on other people's soils. Vietnam was certainly not a war between the U.S. and Vietnam. It was a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union carried out on Vietnam's soil. Is this the kind of "value system" we want to be presenting to the world? It's really nasty. I live overseas. I've lived overseas for a long time, and I have experienced anti-American sentiments at many different levels. It comes and goes, but we do damage to ourselves and our understanding of who we are by allowing ourselves a government which does everything in its power to go around its own principles.
This is too short an answer to do justice to your own comments. I'm unfortunately about to travel for a few days and won't be online again until next week. I want to say something about the volunteer army. We're at a lucky point in history when people who don't support a certain cause simply don't sign up for the military. It's a workaround, though. There is still not a real option for an American citizen to say no, I won't do this or that, because I do not support what is being done. I don't think any country in the world offers its soldiers this option. This is something you might be able to correct me on, however.
Hope to talk more about this soon. I feel a need to talk to someone who sees things from a more insider point of view, because I don't often encounter that and I appreciate your posts and that you share your thoughts very much.

 

abri...when you get back online we will continue our dialouge. I am intrigued by your well rounded perspectives and look forward to more challenges. When you return I will reply to the previous post. thank you again

 

there is not much use to positing thoughts on Iraq we wont know the factors behind it for another 30 yrs or so, whenever stuff starts to become declassified. and whoever was to profit from it will be hidden away and whoever deserves recompense for it will be dead.

 

Hi jvk_goober!
I'm back. The U.S. soccer team lost to the Czech Republic, but it was fun and great!
abri

 

Welcome back I hope you enjoyed yourself. I know I have been having fun (other then my computer being completely moronic). Well now that you are back we can get back to our dialogue...

There is a LOT of negative publicity out there for America's armed forces, Some of which is Blatantly not true. In this day and age it is imperitive to consider the source and how they got the information. If the USA was really using international countries as "interogation area's" they would probably not advertise it and would be quick to cover their tracks. No information of that nature woulkd ever make it public for 2 reasons. 1. If it were true that America was doing such attrocities...those who knew about them would not live to tell stories. which leaves 2. there would be an outrage among the other countries of the world and wopuld still be in the international headlines. The only way to get accurate information on such a delicate subject would be to discuss it with someone who was actually there. Again these are just my opinions from what I know about the USA. They could be way off. Not to mention I have no idea who all your sources are for this plethora of information. I couldn't even begin to repute so many statements if I did not know exactly who said what and when. Not that it matters. I do not trust the news at all. Some of the information that they have let out to the public has damaged military operations. Not to mention Most news agencies do not publicize America in a very possitive light. Not even our own. They always want a controversy. Hmmmm I think I have gone on a tangent sorry back to the other comments like the Geneva convention comment...Ummm I can still be tried and possibly executed if I fail to adhere to these laws so again I have never heard anything about us not following the Geneva convention. Also No one will ever fully understand why we went to Iraq for many years to come. Americans knew what Bush was doing as President...They still reelected him??? Personally I am not sure why but hey everyone is entitled to their opinion. Finally if our government is "going around its principles" it has probably been happening for hundreds of years and you would be hard pressed to find a Government around that does not do the same.

War is not a pretty thing and never has been. There are many facts that civillians should not hear about. Even some military members are on a need to know basis. These are the facts of life and always have been. You just have to trust the officials you have appointed to do the best they can.

You are right as American citizens and soldiers our rights are limited at times. As soldiers we Volluntarily gave up our rights to protect the constitution of the United State of America from all enemys foreign and domestic. Unfortunatly there have been drafts in the past and maybe some in the future. it is just one small price we pay to be as free as we are today. I doubt that my comments will really answer your most intriguing questions but hopefully they will allow you a different perspective.

Thanks for your time as always I trully enjoyed our dialect. Not many people can offer conflicting opinions with out attacking the other person. So many fail to look at the points being discussed and look instead at the individual making them. Thank you for your objectivity and respected perspectives.

 

I didn't read all of the replies but here's my .02.
They have the right do say and do what they want within the boudaries of the law and our constitution. That's what it's all about. I (you/he/she/us) don't have to like it and we can say what we want right back at them. That's the beauty of it. If they spew garbage and there is no one around to pick it up, then it just piles up on themselves because no one cares about what they say.. HOWEVER.. you even think about burning my countries flag, I will ram my fist so far up your rectum that I can play finger puppets with your eye-balls. My grandpa Sal fought in the US Army (WWII) to get his citizenship (he also fought in WWI), my fathers uncle and my grandpa Henry fought in WWII, uncle Sammy in WWII and my pop was in the Air Force (Missed Vietnam by 1 year). Say what you want..do what you will.. but if you disrespect our friends and family that died or served in the protection of our way of life, then you can burn in hell kiester up for all I care.

Man, I could go on, but my wife is hungry(pregnant) and food just got here so.. long story short.. "Don't like that taste of freedom? find a different restaurant" -Jim Losi 2006

 

Interesting thread jvk_goober. I almost feel that I know you from somewhere.

I'd like to take credit for the following, but I borrowed it from elsewhere. The long view....

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials.

Bushido Japan had overrun most of Asia, beginning in 1928, killing millions of civilians throughout China, and impressing millions more as slave labor.

The US was in an isolationist, pacifist, mood, and most Americans and Congress wanted nothing to do with the European war, or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

France was not an ally, the Vichy government of France aligned with its German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, it was an enemy, and Hitler intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and Germany had long-term ideas of invading Canada and Mexico, and then the United States over the north and south borders, after they had settled control of Asia and Europe.

America's allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other countries of any size or military significance with the will and ability to contribute much or anything to the effort to defeat Hitler's Germany and Japan, and prevent the global dominance of Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussies, Irish, and Scots, because NONE of them could produce all they needed for themselves.

All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was already under the Nazi heel.

America was not prepared for war. America had stood down most of its military after WWI and throughout the depression, at the outbreak of WWII there were army units training with broomsticks over their shoulders because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have tanks. And a big chunk of our navy had just been sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was the property of Belgium and was given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler - actually, Belgium surrendered one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day anyway just to prove they could. Britain had been holding out for two years already in the face of staggering shipping loses and the near-decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later and turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse in the late summer of 1940.

Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.

Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow, 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a million soldiers. More than a million.

Had Russia surrendered, then, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire campaign against the Brits, then America, and the Nazis would have won that war.

Had Hitler not made that mistake and invaded England in 1940 or 1941, instead, there would have been no England for the US and the Brits to use as a staging ground to prepare an assault on Nazi Europe, England would not have been able to run its North African campaign to help take a little pressure off Russia while America geared up for battle, and today Europe would very probably be run by the Nazis, the Third Reich, and, isolated and without any allies (not even the Brits), the US would very probably have had to cede Asia to the Japanese, who were basically Nazis by another name then, and the world we live in today would be very different and much worse. I say this to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. And we are at another one.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world, unless they are prevented from doing so.

France, Germany, and Russia, have been selling them weapons technology at least as recently as 2002, as have North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan, paid for with billions of dollars Saddam Hussein skimmed from the "Oil For Food" program administered by the UN with the complicity of Kofi Annan and his son.

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs - they believe that Islam, a radically conservative (definitely not liberal!) form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world, and that all who do not bow to Allah should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, purge the world of Jews. This is what they say.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East - for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation today, but it is not yet known which will win - the Inquisition, or the Reformation.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, and the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies, the techno-industrial economies, will be at the mercy of OPEC - not an OPEC dominated by the well-educated and rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis.

You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want jobs? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We cannot do it nowhere. And we cannot do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle now at the time and place of our choosing, in Iraq.

Not in New York, not in London, or Paris, or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we did and are doing two very important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist.
Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad guys there and the ones we get there we won't have to get here, or anywhere else. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.

The European nations could have done this, but they didn't, and they won't. The so-called "Coalition Forces" are, in most cases, little more than a "Token Force" to keep face with the US. And once attacked, like the train bombing in Madrid, they pull their forces and run for home. We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihad, the French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms - we have found more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons? And Iraq was paying for French, German, and Russian arms with money skimmed from the UN Oil For Food Program (supervised by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his son) that was supposed to pay for food, medicine, and education, for Iraqi children.

World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 - a 17 year war - and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again .... a 27 year war.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP - adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars, WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

[The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $180 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost over 2,300 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11.] But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably greater - a world now dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.

Americans have a short attention span, now, conditioned I suppose by 1 hour TV shows and 2-hour movies in which everything comes out okay.

The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain,and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.

If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some countries, Libya, for instance. And Dubai. And Saudi Arabia. If we fail, the Inquisition will probably prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be with us for all the foreseeable future, because the Inquisition, or Jihad, believes they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels, and that death in Jihad is glorious.

The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away on its own. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an "England" in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless we prevent them. Or somebody does.

The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of not fighting it and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four options -

1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.

4. Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier then.

Yes, the Jihadis say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and concede, surrender, to the Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win this war against them.

The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German Imperialism. Western democracy won, three times, but it wasn't cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars against German Imperialism (WWI), Nazi Imperialism (WWII), and communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam Battle, commonly called the Vietnam War, but itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire century.

The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more years, or most of this century. It will last until the Wahhabi branch of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global dominance and Jihad, or until Western Civilization gives in to the Jihad.

Senator John Kerry, in the debates and almost daily, makes 3 scary claims:

1. We went to Iraq without enough troops.

We went with the troops the US military wanted. We went with the troop levels General Tommy Franks asked for. We deposed Saddam in 30 days with light casualties, much lighter than we expected.

The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice - we are trying to fight minority of the population that is Jihadi, and trying to avoid killing the large majority that is not. We could flatten Fallujah in minutes with a flight of B52s, or seconds with one nuclear cruise missile - but we don't. We're trying to do brain surgery, not amputate the patient's head. The Jihadis amputate heads.

2. We went to Iraq with too little planning.

This is a specious argument. It supposes that if we had just had "the right plan" the war would have been easy, cheap, quick, and clean.

That is not an option. It is a guerrilla war against a determined enemy, and no such war ever has been or ever will be easy, cheap, quick, and clean. This is not TV.

3. We proved ourselves incapable of governing and providing security.

This too is a specious argument. It was never our intention to govern and provide security. It was our intention from the beginning to do just enough to enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and their own military and police forces to provide their own security, and that is happening. The US and the Brits and other countries there have trained over 100,000 Iraqi police and military, now, and will have trained more than 200,000 by the end of next year. We are in the process of transitioning operational control for security back to Iraq.

It will take time. It will not go with no hitches. This is not TV.

Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 2,000 KIA in Iraq in 3 years. The US took more than 4,000 Killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

But the stakes are at least as high . . . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).

I do not understand why the American Left does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis. In America, absolutely, but nowhere else.

300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq are not our problem. The US population is about twelve times that of Iraq, so let's multiply 300,000 by twelve. What would you think if there were 3,600,000 American bodies in mass graves in America because of George Bush? Would you hope for another country to help liberate America?

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate where it's safe, in America.

Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most?

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.

If the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. Everywhere the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. And American Liberals just don't get it.

I could argue for other possible spots to jump in instead of Iraq. Syria comes to mind. But it will do for now. My biggest fear is that the mood of the people tends to be fickle. A new administration may well issue a big apology, pull all our troops out of anyplace "hot", and there are several, and try isolationism again. Isolation is great short term tactics, but lousy long term strategy.

 

Lucky you didn't take credit for something that's not based on fact then.

What about New Zealand, Netherlands, Greece, China, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia etc etc? (and France. France played both fields actually)

That's not why the US went in. It went in because it said Iraq had WMD's.

Did it find any? No, so now it's excuse time......

Hypocrisy at it's finest.

Who supported and encouraged him?

Who supplied the gas, and weapons? The US mainly, and it's allies to a lesser extent.

In fact, it was Donald Rumsfeld, who went to Baghdad to shake hands with what the US thought was their best Arab ally. 1988 if memory serves me.


The US didn't go in because of the murdered Kurds, or the war with Iran.

What about the other despots that make Saddam look like a boy scout?

What the US did was create an unnecessary war, and a mess.

And instead of just fighting in Afghanistan, it's now fighting Iraqi insurgents, as well as terrorists who are flocking from far and wide to have their go.

The Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan, and the coalition are losing the support of the Afghan people.

Once that happens, the war there will be lost.

Imagine if the resources used and wasted in Iraq were used in Afghanistan?

The British and the US were selling arms and technology to Iraq for years.

But off-course, that doesn't get mentioned when you have Republican propaganda.

Deposing Saddam is just one part. How come we have four generals saying there weren't enough troops and demanding Rumsfeld be sacked?

The US learnt nothing from Germany, unlike what has been quoted.

After World War 2, a lot of the German army were kept to enforce law and order, regardless of the crimes they committed.

They should have done the same thing in Iraq, instead of rushing to war with an ill conceived plan.


If the US has done everything so good, why is it such a mess.........

 

"countries of any size or military significance with the will and ability to contribute much or anything to the effort"

Those that you mentioned DID help, but they were too small or too poor to add SIGNIFICANT amounts of men or materials. Underground help, yes, including France, whose government rolled over and HELPED the Germans. DeGaulle had a few ships, which he wouldn't commit, and a few troops, plus some underground resistance fighters. Undergrounds were always small; helped where they could, but were pretty limited. China, what was left of it, was still fighting, but was losing BADLY, and had already lost a lot of its territory. New Zealand should probably have been included as a "key" player, but that's nit-picking. The point is that there weren't many helping significantly.

Everybody from Interpol, to the U.N., to the CIA and Congress during the Clinton administration said that Iraq had them, and there's good evidence that they DID. There's also evidence that it's now hidden in Syria, another prime candidate for attack.

No hypocricy at all. The only hypocricy is pretending that nobody but Bush believed that Iraq had them.

The same people(U.S. government, not just any given administration) that supported and furnished aid to Stalin during WWII. Allies change as threat assessments change. Always have, always will.

There have been worse, but NOBODY makes Hussein look like a boyscout.

Just like WWII, the "war" was ongoing long before we comitted troops to it. It just wasn't going on HERE. And you can make a good case for starting OUR involvement with the FIRST attempt to take down the World Trade Center towers, which was back in 1993. The fact that they miscalculated and only blew up the underground garage doesn't change what they were trying to do. Or the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Or with the bombing of a couple of our embassies, or whatever. But just like WWII, it was going on long before we got our noses bloodied. What you see as "the war", I only see as recent battles in a much larger confiict.

I wouldn't call it wasted. If we were more heavy in only Afghanistan, then most of the same groups would have flocked to Afghanistan to fight. And it's still not certain if we'll actually win the hearts and souls in either place, although it's a fight I think is worth fighting. If we don't stop the tide somewhere, it won't stop, period. We can argue strategy, but we don't have all the facts, and wars often don't go according to plan. We had our butts handed to us more than once during WWII.

Not in RECENT years. Again, remember Stalin in WWII.

Deposing Saddam is just one part. How come we have four generals saying there weren't enough troops and demanding Rumsfeld be sacked?[/quote]
Four disgruntled out of how many generals? Those 4 are all you ever hear about.

And some of the German army went underground, became terrorists, and kept on fighting, blowing up our troops and installations, and we kept hunting THEM down for at least a couple of years after the formal surrender. Some of the former Iraqi army are being trained and used today, but a LOT of them are on the wrong side; you don't WANT them being "used".

Was is usually a mess. Guerilla war is always a mess. Those that only remember the first Iraq "war" generally have unreasonable expectations. That was fairly clean only because we didn't go in and take out Hussein's government and supporters then. We let him retreat and regroup. And again, Iraq, and even Afghanistan, are only battles; the "war" is much broader than just those two countries. The jihadists' aims are global and long-term. Our focus is usually local and short term. Huge difference.

 

Whoa ho! You guys have been busy while I was away!

For the past several years, I've been hearing the same arguments in live chat, in the media, in articles online, in conversations. Whether the UN dismantled 98% of the weapons before we went into Iraq as Bliss says? What the sources are for the U.S. decision to respect or not respect the Geneva Convention number 3 in its holding of prisoners. However, I'm living in the country of the truely bad guys of the world. Germany. Everyone to this day asks how the German people could have allowed the atrocities of their government to take place during WWII. No lack of analysts in this area.

So ... I would like to invite both sides of this debate to come back to the heart of the decision-making area, and that is to the self. The only person who can decide if torture is right or wrong, whether armed conflict is the only way to solve a problem or not, is the self, just on the basis of how it feels.

Does it feel right to know that our government supports torture, even sleep deprivation and loud music, cold blasts of air, or whatever has been approved of in the army manual. Does it feel right that we as a people who have advanced to a level of rhetorical/intellectual/philosophical combat, have regressed to using physical violence to sway people's sentiments? Is the only method we have against the jihad movement violence? Or is our anti-American image worldwide at the basis of these conflicts? Would it be possible for us to improve our image, for instance, by addressing the criticisms we are getting worldwide? Are our values Christian?

To me, quite frankly, things we are doing as a country worldwide, some of them, don't feel right. As an American who is a foreigner travelling throughout the world, I am a tiny ambassador for American values, as are all Americans, whether in business or tourism. How we conduct ourselves among others, whether we offer curiousity about other cultures, a willingness to learn names that are difficult for us to pronounce, a willingness to listen to values that sound odd, this presentation of ourselves influences people around the world.

These decisions, whether what our government is doing is right or not come down to only one thing ... does it feel right to me?

abri

 

footnote:
that was a funny typo ... his name is Blix, not Bliss
that's how my brain works
abri

 

True, but so were Australia, Ireland, Scotland and Canada, and they were mentioned.

Every little bit helps. To leave other countries out ignores the huge sacrifices and effort they made.

A country can only do it's best. Not every country has the population or money of the US.

But only the US wanted to invade.

The U.N inspectors repeatedly said they couldn't find them, and they wanted more time, but the US didn't allow that because they knew better.

We all remember the fake Nigerian uranium document, and other lies that were told.

And even when the administration knew better, it didn't correct the record.

Instead, it waited for the press and other countries to detect it's lies.

That isn't the issue, and it's not relevant to the comment I made.

The hypocrisy is complaining about all the people that Saddam killed when it suits your argument, but ignoring the decades when the US supplied him the weapons that you're now complaining about.

I don't recall the US complaining about Iraq years ago.

You can't have it both ways. Saddam was a great guy for decades and did nothing wrong, then all of a sudden he is a danger and has killed thousands.

If that's not hypocrisy, the meaning of the word has changed.

That's great "logic". Start a war anywhere, because they are all just going to flock there...........

It's all right for you saying that, sitting in a nice safe house and suburb.

Spare a thought for the innocent casualties, who have done nothing wrong.

I still remember the poor Iraqi boy who lost both arms, and saw his parents and sister incinerated by a US missile.

Go and tell him and others, that it wouldn't make any difference because insurgents are just going to flock anywhere.

It was NEVER supposed to be a guerrilla war or a mess.

What happened to, "the soldiers will be greeted with flowers and chocolate"?


Your "argument" isn't based on fact. The current mess, and previous incidents are proof alone.

But you'll just conveniently ignore them.


You still haven't touched on why the US supplied arms and money for years to Saddam, and ignored his murdering, till now?


The answer is obvious, because it suited them.


It would be refreshing for a politician (I'm not left or right, I hate all politicians) to just admit they had made a mistake, but that's not likely.

And anyone who just blindly supports a political party, and agrees with everything they do, has about as much credibility as they have.

 

GT all due respect I'm amazed you posted the view of a politition and defended it

I stayed out of this thread because goobar and abri were having so much fun and bringing up some great unbiased points,it was refreshing to see people discussing an important issue using only what they have seen in the world just as I do without using evidence from an obviously biased viewpoint,all statements that are from any 'group' should be ignored it comes down to a simple point conflict of interest,in the UK we are very strict about this, take the police force for example your not allowed to be affiliated with any group,club,administration ect. as you may use your power to serve the 'group' rather than serve the people you are being payed to protect and serve,this goes for any government,obviously you cant get into government without cash,but we've deluded ourselves so much we believe good people will control government because of democracy .LOL.

whoever has the money to run gets voted in we dont have a say in the matter,the only people who have the money are big business,I would like to see this discussion stay clean of politics,they arnt fact or evidence they are opinion,opinion swayed severly by a conflict of interest,big business wants the oil,even the propoganda that GT posted admits to this

The well educated rational saudis's... bwahahaha, The simple fact is TOUGH!Its thiers,even if we didnt want the middle eastern countries to keep thier oil its thiers we have no right to that oil,they can sell it to who they want,its called free trade, we have to find ways not to be at the mercy of opec oil,we have to start to wake up and smell the coffee admit to global warming,admit we arnt investing enough in renewable energy sources,admit we must shrink the size of out engines but instead we dream up this ellaborate hoax that we must take control of middle eastern oil as it is the only choice

Which ever way you look at it its about OIL its just been admitted from whatever source GT got this from,if they have control of the oil they MIGHT,just MIGHT not sell it to us,EVEN THIS is too big a risk for the oil barons who now run the administration

What amazes me is that people use examples of the middle east and WW2 in the same sentence HELLO!WW2 was about a super race Hitler wanted,the middle east is about the oil that we want,if another 10,000 of our people were killed by terrorists would the government feel bad? NO! they dont think like usI wish they did, I also wish people would stop delluding themselves,they think in statistics, I'm up in this Poll,I'm down in this Poll,do you honestly thing they care about the thousands that are killed by Tobacco?They dont, what they do care about is votes,its FACT that every time Gas prices rise Bush's ratings plummit, the gas must keep flowing,the disturbing fact is when there is a terrorist attack everyone rallies around the flag and supports whatever the government does, just like if aliens decided to invade our planet we'd all stick together and fight them

A clear example of this in our country is our police chief in the war against terrorism he has a record of killing one guy and wounding another both innocent but is being commended for doing a good job because we're against this huge global threat terrorism and we shoot and ask questions later

If these guys were IRA we'd be going crazy,but they're not they're crazy islamist terrorists

As insomniac said you cant pick and choose the peices that fit the arguement,you cant give Saddam WMD tell him to invade Iran as jimmy carter did because the current Iranian administration doesnt fall in line and then attack him when he invades a country thats providing you oil,everyone in the WEST new when saddam took power he executed alot of his closest friends just to prove he could and didnt care, as a message to his ememies,we knew what he was like but we ignored it as insomniac said because it didnt fit our global plan for control of the middle east

I wanna put this question to people,if we knew no muslim would EVER commit another terrorist attack on the west and you knew this should we pull out?Knowing that they would have the oil and they would finally be able to have a stable economy after all we have had our turn and used our oil as we saw fit,its now gone

We have been bombed for years by the christian IRA I have friends who have been hurt in the bombings but I dont think all christians or Irish people are evil even though they have bombed innocent people for decades,it was only a few that caused 9\11 or 7\7 less than 30 idealists but alas we must combat a whole country,we have dominated Ireland decades but it was only when we left them alone did the violence stop

THAT ISNT THE MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES PROBLEM,ITS OURS,NEED AND HAVE ARE THE REASONING OF THIEVES

I hope people post what they think as I have,we wont all agree,but I'd love to agree all our opinions are,our own

PS England play sweden today in about seven hours I'm gonna be Soooo toasted,if you have any sense put some money on us

Thanks for the discussion guys

 

Wow! Hot opinions every which way. But about the IRA, things didn't begin to calm down until Blair started talking to them. Maggie Thatcher wouldn't talk to them and so they kept blowing things up. I'm not a big fan of Jihad, but I would have liked to see Bin Laden hauled onto my TV screen to explain why he had pilots fly into the WTC. Some people's arguments, once exposed, whither.
abri

 

Actually, it was a California lawyer's position, not a politician's. I do see a global problem, and parallels to the world's mindset (ignore) leading up to WWII, but rather than inflaming what was a fairly peaceful thread, I'll bow out and leave this one alone.

Apologies to jvk_goober. This was your thread; didn't mean to drop a lit match into it.

 

That's even worse.

 

Noooo Rikky wanna play,lol

I might take your position GT and argue with Insomniac just for fun