Wars: Are they good or bad?

There's nothing of the sort going on with Bush. If there's any vindictiveness here, it's to finish the Persian Gulf War that never truely ended.

No, the war is to stop Saddam before he starts slaughtering his own citizens with nuclear weapons. Also, what do you think are going to be the first two countries he comes after? The US and Britain. I'd say that attacking now to save millions of our lives is perfectly justified.

Hussein removed the UN weapon inspectors. At present, there's no way to know for certain what he's got in his arsenal.

BTA is correct. If the Middle East begins to think we're fickle, they'll start increasing their prices.

At present, only Britain is willing to help us in this, and together I highly doubt that this will be a long conflict. We destroyed the Iraqis during the last attack, and I have seen little evidence that Saddam's army is any more powerful now than it was then.

The Palestinians started that conflict, not the Israelis. Israel wants peace. Israel has not threatened any other country, and has not made any hostile moves except in self-defense. That makes me think that if you want to play the "Good Guy, Bad Guy" game, that Israel would be the Good Guy.

Am I for war? I'm honestly not sure, but I do feel that our attack would be justified.

 

Wars suck. Period.
It's different if your army is invading Iraq, and you probably don't get all the horror over the news.

 

Blackthorn TA:

Convenient or not, these are my sources.

USA and USSR left Vietnam and Afganistan after ten years of war not six months and not before the casualties were far more than expected . How may american soldiers have been killed during the gulf war? I don't know their number but I don't think that it could cause a protest wave from american public.
Also, it seems that you forget the Iraq anti-Sadam movement. I remember that they have requested help from USA and other western countries in order to overthrow Sadam, but they did not receive help from nowhere and they have been slaughtered by Sadam's forces. I don't think that the provision of equipment or political support would cost american lives.

Rastor:
Sadam slaughters his citizes for 30 years. He has, also, bombed Persian army with chemical weapons but USA and Britain did not care, because during this period Sadam was their ally and spearhead against Iran.

Palestinian issue is very complicated to be considered as "good guy vs bad guy". You write that palestinians have started the conflict. When someone is conquered, he starts a liberation fight not the conqueror. Just think what the British said during your war of indepedence.

 

About the Iraqi nuclear capability: In 1983 a student at Princeton designed a nuclear bomb by himself. That was one student. Now in a country like Iraq there is bound to be someone with enough knowledge to design a N bomb. The real trick to aquiring a bomb is getting enchanced uranium, and the proper type of plutonium(forgot which type it was), both of which are very rare, and are very expensive, which i doubt mr Hussein could attain or afford.
So the only thing they could get with the plans of nukes is an "A" in princeton

About Israel and the Palestinians, i do not support any types of terrorsim, but israel has violated god knows how many un resolutions, suppress the people so much that palestinians have to resort to secret schools to teach their children.

And what about the fact that the israeli connections to 9/11?
here are two things that might interset you people that believe everything that comes on CNN.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide."
-- Carl Cameron, as quoted in The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale

About the gassing of kurds in iraq, uas has no right to talk about this, because a certain something that happened in waco,tx

think about it, then awnser.

p.s. sorry about my previous post, i was just REALLY hammered, if i offended someone, i hereby appologize

 

He was also placed in power by the CIA, much like Osama. Makes you wonder, huh...

On a slightly different issue, but relevant: I learned today, by a russian-american friend of mine, that Stalin had Zhukov sent to a Ghulag after the war. Zhukov! The guy that was responsible for the defeat of the Germans at stalingrad, the guy responsible for most of the Soviet offensives and victories! And when I asked why, the reply was 'because he was so powerful and popular that Stalin fealt threatened'. So the guy wan the war for Stalin and what he gets as a thank you note is, Siberia.

Now the analogy may be flawed, but it gives you an idea. USA puts dictators/fundamentalists/other whatnots in power, to acheve their goals. These guys eventually get far too much power and/or become popular enough to threaten the US (in their own way). US responds by classifying them all as 'evil' and asking for 'regime changes'.

Now I am not saying that Saddam (or Osama) are not bad guys. They are rather bad (to put it mildly) in the first place. But the US should have known that (and learned from history). Instead they went ahead and did what they did. And the WORST part is, they never even learned from THEIR OWN mistakes (let alone other people's mistakes, i.e. history).

A friend of mine once said:
'An intelligend person is the one that learns from his mistakes. A wise person is the one that also learns from mistakes of others'

Unfortunately, it seems that the US administration is none of the above. And that is sad, and scary.

-thanos

 

@Thanos: I don't know what "history" you are referring to. These two examples of US placed leaders ending up biting the US were products of the Cold War. Are you suggesting that we should have learned against placing one by the results of placing the other? We didn't have problems with either of them until pos-Cold War, so both had already been set up by then.

The only other regime-change that has become an embarrassment, at least that I can think of off hand, would be Fidel Castro. And numerous effective CIA-sponsored regime changes have occured aside from that, which is what gave the US the undeserved confidence that lead to the batch of mistakes.

And I can't recall offhand any other countries making similar mistakes that the United States could have learned from. Sure, colonialism lead to puppet regimes of many imperial powers, especially Great Britain, but did any of those actually come back and hurt the imperial power?

In short, don't give up on the US government yet. The entire power of the nation rests, ultimately, in the hands of the voters.

(An entirely new frightening topic )

 

...as the Florida elections proved without a doubt.

Tne point, Deviant Mage, is that, if you play with fire (read: put someone like Saddam or Osama in power), expect to get burned. The reason is simple: they pretend to be your friend until they get enough power (and popular support) to bite you back.

The lesson that the US didn't learn, then (or even now it seems) is that, ultimately (as you put it), you should let the PEOPLE decide who they want as their leader, not impose 'leaders' (a-la Chile, or even Greece for that matter) that are nothing but dictators.

-thanos

 

could you tell me EXACTLY where you heard we put Osama in power? Keep in mind, sending weapons and instructors to oppose the soviets is very different than acutally installing him.

Also, if you think we "haven't learned our lesson," explain to me why Afghanistan HAS chosen its own government.

on a different note, what the hell is with all the America bashing in this topic? Especially since over half has been ignorance and speculation.

On original topic: Yes, I think war is justified. However, I go with Colin Powell's approach to the problem.

 

If they want Saddam dead why go to a war when there is a thing called assassination? Why waste lives in a massive conflict when all it takes is a one shot or its equivalent?

Ara
(Still asleep, especially after math...)

 

arabwel,

assassination of Saddam is easy to do. but controlling the effects of such an act is not. fingers will be pointing everywhere, the denials spurred (i don't think we would be expecting anyone to claim the responsibility) by such an action might even trigger war, probably a much bigger one. and nobody knows who will be the players of the "new" war.

i do not want to comment about the US-Iraq conflict but i know i'm against war among any nations... even wars in sp.

 

Do you really reckon Iraq have some dangerous nuclear weapons? All they say on the News is that they are, they aren't, they are, they aren't...

 

Wars rock! Eventually they are a wonderful opportunity to try out your new toys and to let out all your negative feelings while sorting out the weak War is evolutionary progress, yay!!! Not to mention the wonderful chance to define yourself as good while fighting someone even worse than yourself

PS: Great thread btw

[ September 17, 2002, 11:18: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

I bought up assassinating him before and I stick to it. There are other ways to assassinate someone besides walking up and shooting them.

America's government only care about something if it helps them. Did they help our peace keeping in East Timor, you betcha they didn't. Are they gonna take out Saddam for oil, you betcha they are.
Sure, there are other reasons for killing him than oil which they're doing it for but oil is most likely a major deciding factor.
Anyway, America has Britain and Australia as allies and should probably be able to do the job but what effect would it have on everyone after that. The people over there would more that likely hate us, this has already affected Australia's wheat export to Iraq, what effect will it have on everyone else?
And I must agree, paying money to allies is a smart move, it tends to keep them as allies.

 

Assassinating evil presidents is cool. I second that. Excellent choice, no-frills politics - why negotiating when you have special forces and aircraft carriers?

I think that sovereignty rights of independent countries are rubbish anyway, elected leaders or dictators - where's the difference? If you don't like them - kill them! This is the guaranteed strategy for peace and stability on earth Only a dead villain is a good villain! Go for the heads!

 

Here I am just about to start my own war with 8people!! Grrrrr...

 

On the topic of assassination:

A while back the US was a part of a many-nation agreement to end assassination in non-war times. Now, it's not as if "Us silly, obese Americans are too stupid and greedy to assassinate Saddam." Even if the US was to try, it is a well known fact that Saddam sleeps in a random, different house every night, and that he has scattered body doubles accross his country, and he has had those doubles have major plastic surgery to make them look more like him. This makes our assassination life difficult, so to speak.

 

Last I heard, we have a trade embargo against Iraq and do not buy anything from them, so I fail to see how oil is of any consequence.

They don't already? That's a shock!

SlimShogun is right, the assassination attempt would fail. Saddam is far too wary of that for it to work.

[ September 18, 2002, 00:47: Message edited by: Rastor ]

 

I'm sure you realize that Iraq actually has an army , not to mention the various biological weapons well-hidden here and there (though this is just an educated theory, I have no more proof of this than the next guy).

WW2 suddenly comes to mind. You know, when the US fought Japan *and* the Nazis, that's two very big fronts, and still managed to come out pretty well (relatively). Granted, is was over 60 years ago, and things have changed, but to the best of my knowledge, the US is much more capable of fighting on multiple fronts now than it was then.

One of the many reasons the US didn't drive deeper into Iraq in the Gulf War, was because there were those who remembered the extensive casualties suffered by the *Vietnamese*. Think of it, the Vietnamese lost over a million soldiers, and still won, that's determination. Nothing is more dangerous than a cornered animal (or person or nation).

Oh, and Arabwel,

-Aristotle.

So, I think we should go to war with Iraq. However, I do not think that the US should start its own crusade, since it's more than likely that if the US charges into Iraq, with only Britain at its side, a rather large portion of the Mid-East will likely unite to fight off the "Western Powers," especially if there are a few brilliant fanatics that use a great deal of propaganda to convince their people that the US and Britain are "evil." What, IMO, the US should do, is gather all the evidence they can possibly collect, and present it before the UN council. Unfortunately, this is the only option I can think of that (I hope) won't plunge the world in another great war.