Today's anti-war movement is a multigenerational affair

Glynch are you ever for any war? Even in Afghanistan you were against it. What's it take?

 

glynch:

Are you a pacifist in nature? Or is it simply that your threshold for justified war is extremely high?

Personally, I'm undecided on the Iraqi issue, but I try to resist using the general language of "anti-war" movements. They're usually a bit too Utopian. Better to focus on the specific merits of the individual topic.

I think that pacifists would have much better luck if they addressed each issue individually. They're never going to persuade most people that violent conflict is always avoidable (even people who are generally sympathetic, like me). They might, however, make a good case against invasions of Iraq (and the like) even if it's impossible in others (like Afghanistan).

 

http://maddox.xmission.com/hippies.html

http://www.i-mockery.com/ale/hippies.htm

 

The more I think about the war on Iraq, the less I get sold for it. The public tolerance in duration and casualties for this war would be rail thin. That's not a great sign in going to war with "our enemy" or a perceived evil doer of the world.

A war with a clear mandate would mean that the people wouldn't care as much if they were losing as long as they knew that they were in for it to save lives. This war would have the stigma of greed and political undertones.

Let's just hope they find some uranium or plutonium before we attack....

 

Do hippies even exist anymore? I mean, isn't that like a zoot suiter or flapper? Greasers? Bobby socksers? Squares? Beatniks?

How is it that these names seemed to die, but whenever a liberal cause is evoked, it's always "the damn hippies"? Given that the vast majority of hippies are now baby boomers (formerly yuppies), maybe we should blame it all on "damn" BMW-driving, 401K-planning, business-casual-wearing, white suburbanites.

 

Jeff, did you ban t4651965? Just curious.

 

I did not.

 

It's not that I don't support war. But I don't trust the agenda of the current administration. They're trying to pick fights with everyone at once.

 

Remember one thing....we didn't pick THIS fight...but we will damn sure win it

 

I think you are a hippie man. I am part Jimmy James, hippies freak me out!

I just wanted to be funny...

 

I don't think he is a 100% pacifist because it seems that he agreed with the intervention in the Balkans.

 

No sir, we ARE picking these fights. Bringing down the Taliban regime because they harbored the terrorists responsible for 9/11 was the right thing to do.

Killing off Iraq may be the right thing to do.

North Korea however is a problem that I believe we should leave to China. They want to be a superpower so let them waste their soldiers and money policing that area of the world.



Personally my philosophy about the entire war on terrorism is that we should be spending more time assassinating terrorists rather than mounting huge conventional offensives.

 

I know. Me too.

 

Yeah, he considers himself a militaristic bully.

Then why were you against the invasion of Afghanistan. Should we have sent in Interpol?

Which would seem to be an internal contradiction. Nonsensical babble. 'We are pariahs but people actually agree with us. We are alone but not. We have no allies but we do. No one else wants to take out Saddam, but some people want to take out Saddam besides us.' That makes sense.

Yes, since then we have invaded half the world ....What destructive militarists we are...I mean, destructive militarist capitalist imperialist dogs....Oops, forgot the 'Yankee' part.....Destructive militarist capitalist imperialist Yankee dogs...

Yes, more lives would have been saved if we had allowed Afghanistan to remain a safe haven for Al Queda. That it stupid.

No connection to 911 does not mean no threat. Nor does it mean not just. It would be just simply to remove a genocidal dictator. Regardless of the WMD debate.

 

As someone who was deeply offended by Sonny and Jeff's derogatory remarks about Hippies after having spent a hell of a lot of time having a hell of a lot of fun being one (and still feeling like one at heart, despite having two kids and living in suburbia ), I must say that I can't follow all that, glynch... "just war type cost benefit analysis" sounds just like Robert McNamara during the heyday of LBJ and Vietnam.

I think Iraq is a mistake at this time, with the crisis of North Korea, but I'm glad we went into Afghanistan. It may be hell to get out of, but it was something that had to be done. In my humble opinion, of course.

 

Invading Iraq is just going to fan the flames for another generation of suicide bombers.

Not that we've historically considered the longterm point of view though. We're all about instant gratification.

Here's the insane point of view. In a culture like the middle east you better be prepared for total war, as military conquests don't do a great deal to affect the plans of someone who plans on blowing up an airliner on your home soil.