5 More GI's killed today in Iraq. Is it worthwhile?

Actually I'm totally serious. Your implication is that every dead US soldier died in vain and that their surviving family and friends are in total agreement with "your propostion". Somehow I doubt that it is true or accurate.

Yes, there will be grief. That is only natural. Grief is not regret, however.

I am just challenging the depth of your convictions. If you are so sure that you are right, then this should be a piece of cake and you'll be invited over for Sunday supper by surviving parents, spouses, and loved ones.

If the war was in vain, then yeah, someone would have to tell the families that. I would hope that the people responsible for getting us into the war would have the guts to do so, but if for some bizarre reason they needed me to tell them, sure I would. Why wouldn't I? Me NOT telling them doesn't make it any more or less true.

I still don't understand where you're coming from. How is whether people are willing to tell families that their kids died in vain relevent to whether a war was worthwhile or not? It either was or it wasn't. It's impact on the families of those who died doesn't affect that.

 

Originally posted by Major:
If the war was in vain, then yeah, someone would have to tell the families that. I would hope that the people responsible for getting us into the war would have the guts to do so, but if for some bizarre reason they needed me to tell them, sure I would. Why wouldn't I? Me NOT telling them doesn't make it any more or less true.

I still don't understand where you're coming from. How is whether people are willing to tell families that their kids died in vain relevent to whether a war was worthwhile or not? It either was or it wasn't. It's impact on the families of those who died doesn't affect that.

<b>I'm just positing a conceptual test to measure the depth of your conviction that was seemingly expressed that the surviving family and friends of dead American soldiers feel that their loved one died in vain.

If your convictioin is deep, you would jump at this opportunity to make a small gesture to ameliorate a wrong. If your criticism is shallow, you would recoil at the prospect of doing this.

I'm betting that more often than not you'd get your face slapped if you said that... rather than being invited to Sunday supper.</b>

 

If your convictioin is deep, you would jump at this opportunity to make a small gesture to ameliorate a wrong. If your criticism is shallow, you would recoil at the prospect of doing this.


Huh? Who would jump at the opportunity of having to tell people that their sons or daughters died in vain? And how would it ameliorate a wrong? What kind of f***ed up world do you live in?

I'm betting that more often than not you'd get your face slapped if you said that... rather than being invited to Sunday supper.

Probably so - what's your point? I doubt anyone would want to hear that their son or daughter died in vain. If the war was not worth it, then it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, though.

Closing your eyes and ears to the truth doesn't change reality.

 

Bingo.

Who's truth matters as it pertains to why we went to war with Iraq? The Administration's or reality? Truth is obviously not absolute in a time when one has to define what "is" is.

 

<b>Major</b>: I said it was conceptual. I'm not asking or urging anyone to try it. How many times do I have to point that out? I'm just asking people to play out that scenario in their mind.

If the family believed that their loved one died in vain, they wouldn't slap your face? They would hug you and thank you for your sympathy. If not... they might slap your face.

If you are really having such a hard time wrapping your mind around this little exercise, you might really have doubts about the conviction you express that these soldiers died in vain.

 

If the family believed that their loved one died in vain, they wouldn't slap your face? They would hug you and thank you for your sympathy. If not... they might slap your face.


I doubt that. I don't care how strongly someone feels about what happened to their own kids' death. They still aren't going to want it confirmed by others.

If you are really having such a hard time wrapping your mind around this little exercise, you might really have doubts about the conviction you express that these soldiers died in vain.

First off, I've never said that the soldiers died in vain - that's a very different issues than whether a war was worthwhile. Obviously, many millions of lives will be better because of the war, so the soldiers did accomplish something. However, worthwhileness is a measure of cost/benefits.

Secondly, if I think the soldiers died in vain, that doesn't mean that the families of those soldiers would agree. I still don't get what one has to do with the other.

 

<b>Major</b>: What death could be more in vain than one that was not worthwhile? You seem to come down on the side that the benefits were not worth the cost; is that a correct analysis?

 

Major: What death could be more in vain than one that was not worthwhile?

If the US goes in and liberates a country and frees 5 million people, at the cost of $20 trillion and 2 million American lives, the deaths were not in vain, but the war was not worthwhile. Good did come out of it - 5 million new people would be free. That doesn't mean it was a smart decision on the part of the U.S.

You seem to come down on the side that the benefits were not worth the cost; is that a correct analysis?

I don't think you can make that determination yet. It depends on how the administration pursues post-war liberation. The original argument was removing a threat of WMD - turns out that was likely a load of crap. Now the benefits would be freedom for the people. If 6 million women get put under Islamic law, or if we allow a new brutal dictatorship to come into power, or whatever, then no it wasn't worth it. If we actually foster a real democracy with real protections & freedom for the people, then yeah, it probably was.

Unfortunately, nothing I see from the administration so far, from the beginning of the war to now, shows any competence in terms of post-war planning. Wolfowitz and others have admitted themselves that the planning was far from adequate. Everything from ignoring state department planning to CIA warnings about post-war conditions occurred under the watch of this administration. Unfortunately, I still don't see significant improvements in this area so I don't have a lot of hope, especially if Bush makes the timetable the priority over doing it right.

 

I think Americans are prepared to lose far more than 500 lives in a war. They are prepared to fight a war.

The only difference is that the war should be necessary and just.

 

A) I think that the soldiers who fought in Vietnam died in vain...what that has to do with whether they did their duty, what their families would say about it, etc. is beyond me.

The obvious rebuttle to this...sorry, gid, but ridiculous post...is that the merits of any war are not decided by the feelings of dead soldiers' families. By that criteria every war is just. Not only doesn;t prove your point, but has nothing to do with the overall point about the justification of the war.

The US soldiers sent to slaughter the native americans did their duty...and I'm sure the families of those who died thought so as well. Does that somehow mean that the government's actions against the natives was justified!?!?! If you think not, would it have been a sign of your convitions to have popped over to the dead soldiers' families and tell them so? Or Nam casualties? Has nothing whatsoever to do with the point...

 

Bravo!

 

1. Not the threat of war, the threat of reprisal. That is a constant. Going to war is the only way to take that away, and according to the NIE, realize the threat.

2. Wow. In another thread I talked about this rebuttle of the NIE...It has NOTHING to do with their accuracy, but EVERYTHING to do with what we actually knew, what we were actually being told. We said our intel was saying something when it was saying the reverse, plain and simple. As far as we knew, Saddam was no threat to us directly or indirectly.

3. Tyrants are always unstable? Actually, according to polysci, tyranny is among the most stable of forms of government, and much more so than, say, democracy. Would you say the RUssia and surrounding states are more or less stable now than when they were under a dictatorship? Are their possession of nukes more or less of a threat? Democracy is among the least stable forms of government known to man. But more to the point, aside from that broad stroke of the brush, Saddam had done nothing to demonstrate instability, but in fact had repeatedly shown that he had a pragmatic priorization on maintaing power, as shown by the fact that he didn;t use his WMDs against us in GWI.

 

Originally posted by MacBeth

A) I think that the soldiers who fought in Vietnam died in vain...what that has to do with whether they did their duty, what their families would say about it, etc. is beyond me.

The obvious rebuttle to this...sorry, gid, but ridiculous post...is that the merits of any war are not decided by the feelings of dead soldiers' families. <b>(That was one of my points)</b>

By that criteria every war is just. Not only doesn;t prove your point, but has nothing to do with the overall point about the justification of the war. <b>(The characteristic that I was responding to was "worthwhile" which has a human connotation that "justified" does not as it is more of a political/ethical qualifier)</b>

The US soldiers sent to slaughter the native americans did their duty...and I'm sure the families of those who died thought so as well. Does that somehow mean that the government's actions against the natives was justified!?!?! <b>(I'm not sure where this comes from. My point was not about duty but that these soldiers were volunteer soldiers not conscripted ones. To me that makes a difference when considering the price they ultimately had to pay)</b>

If you think not, would it have been a sign of your convitions to have popped over to the dead soldiers' families and tell them so? Or Nam casualties? Has nothing whatsoever to do with the point... <b>("Popped over?"... I'm glad you were taking my proposition seriously!! LOL. My point was that sympathy could have expressed with a sincere sentiment for a death in vain that was not worthwhile and it probably would not have found a whole lot of agreement with the bereaved. Most of the families of dead soldiers that I've ever seen interviewed testify to the pride that the family has in the service and sacrifice of their loved one)</b>

 

Giddy...I honestly haven't got a clue what you're trying to say here. I never brought up the feelings of soldiers' families, you did, but you seem to be asking me to defend the position I din't take, or to accord my position with your ( odd) interpretation of what should follow that position.

 

i won't argue with you, except to say this...one bullet ends the reign of a dictator. you're one heart attack away from change. it does not necessarily end the reign of a representative democracy or a republic. my thought was simply that if there was concern about these weapons falling into the hands of others in that very region of the world where this theat seems to emanate, then you can see how we might view this as threatening.

i honestly don't know what to think about all of this. i hate to look through what we know today to judge decisions made months ago. i'm also certainly not sad to see saddam out of power and captured. but at the same time i understand your concerns of creating a false sense of danger in order to justify a war that you might not justify otherwise.

 

That, too, was my position. Others brought it up as a legitimate measure of the worthiness of this effort in Iraq. I'm not asking you to defend the position. I can't, won't and don't. You raised the question without realizing that I had raised the same concern. No wonder you're confused.

Regarding <b>MadMax's</b> post: There is the tyrant (who can be unstable-- as in psychologically or emotionally) and the tyranny (which can be very stable, i.e. be very entrenched).

 

MacBeth, you have completely avoided my question to you. America was attacked on September 11th, 2001. How do you propose we respond. It's a simple question that doesn't need to be danced around like you did in the above post. The point I'm trying to make here is that there is really only one way to solve this problem and inaction is not it. Maybe you can inform me of some way in which inaction solves America's problem here. I doubt you will be able to as I've thought for hours and hours on the subject and keep coming to the same conclusion. That a conflict between the middle eastern nations and the U.S. is unavoidable as long as middle eastern Muslims preach intolerance of other religions and cultures. That's right, at the end of the day no matter how much we try and sugar coat it, it is race vs race or more accurately way of life vs way of life. Not a way of life vs way of life like the Cold War in which both sides were extremely hesitant to use their nukes, but a conflict in which one side has proven it has no problem at all attacking our citizenry on a large scale without any prior warning. Sure, we might be able to delay this inevitable confrontation, but in the end I think you have to change the way the middle east thinks, something that will not be accomplished without force based on my experience from living in the middle east. Capturing Osama Bin Laden alone does not end this conflict. It creates a short period of false peace until the next leader/organization grows bold enough to attack America on its own soil. The simple fact that a terrorist attack of epic proportions can be carried out inside U.S. borders cheaply and with very few men is enough reason for me not to sit around playing "wait and see".

Personally, I think I'm preaching to the choir on this one. You clearly have a pretty good undertanding of the issues surrounding this conflict. What I think you lack is a clear understanding of who the enemy is. You can't get this from the news because foreign media is controlled or straight up outlawed from entering some of the middle east's most Islamic nations. You can't get this from our government because they've done their best to hide the truth about these cultures most probably as a condition of the Saudi-American oil relationship. I wish you lived nearby so that I could show you my collection of articles collected from the "Saudi Gazette" and "Arab News". I'm talking page after page after page of anti-western sentiment born not out of dislike for the American-Israeli alliance, but out of a stone aged way of thinking that is taught in the schools and in the mosques-- that all non-Mulsims are hellbound infidels. In countries like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bharain, Syria, and Sudan such views are not the minority view, but the majority and one trip into the countryside to meet the rural peoples of these countries will show you just how dangerous it is to allow that thinking to continue.

From all of my experience, I can only conclude that the current middle east can not go on as it has. Doing the right thing is not always the nice thing and never have I seen a situation that that applies to more than this current situation. Us or them. That's the way it is.

 

MacBeth,

Once you come to the conclusion I've come to. The question becomes how do you start? A message has to be sent with the least controversy possible. There is no controversy free course of action. There is, however, Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The whole world knows of this tyrant and that he has proven he is a threat to the world by his own actions. No one would really miss this guy if he were to go away. Furthermore, you have the U.N. inspection teams leaving Iraq in 1998 saying that there are large stocks of chemical weapons which Saddam has still not accounted for. There is the justification you can use to try and convince your people, and maybe even the world, as to why you must bring an end to Saddam's regime in Iraq. But you have alterior motives. Iraq, like Iran, Egypt, and Turkey, is populated by a more forward thinking type of Muslim. An educated society that can (1) give a chance of democracy succeeding in the middle east, and (2) probably not respond as violently to a U.S. invasion as the peoples of some other Arab nations. In fact, you can say you are freeing these people from one of the world's worst tyrannical regimes. Iraq is also bordered by Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Occupation, and the eventual hopeful alliance between America and Iraq gives America the opportunity to establish a much needed large military base in the middle east, something that is needed now that Saudi Arabia has denied the U.S. military presence in their country. Our planes could be less than 10 minutes from targets in any of these three problematic border countries. If that isn't a deterrent, I don't know what is. Furthermore, an occupation of Iraq will require a ground invasion. One rallying cry for the peoples of the middle east post-Gulf War is that the U.S. hides behind it's technology and that it's people are far too soft and weak to endure a ground battle. While widely believed throughout the middle east, this is, of course, 100 % nonsense. A quick, successful ground invasion or Iraq takes away this source of emboldenment from those in the middle east that wish America harm. A message is sent and a false perception is destroyed. Your hope is that this will be enough to scare potential terrorists back into their holes knowing all to well that this will probably not be the case, but you are now inside Iraq with a gun to the heads of your enemies. They know that there will be a horrible price to pay for their actions. At this point, you hope that Iraq's democracy succeeds and provides an example to other middle eastern nations of the kinds of prosperity their own countries could experience under a different government. Polls show that a third of Saudi Arabia's population is under the age of 30. There are not enough jobs within the kingdom to go around for such a large, young population. In fact, there has been talk about coups to overthrow the Saudi Royal Family for as long as I can remember. You hope the dominos fall your way while always having the back up plan with your presence in Iraq.

Does this approach guarantee 100 percent success for all of its goals? Of course not. But it is a hell of a lot better than waiting for these countries to come to their senses on their own. I believe after a lot of pain and time, this scenario provides the best possible future for both America and the middle east. If you can think of a non-violent apporach to this situation, I'm all ears. I haven't heard one yet that does anything but compromise American safety in exchange for nicer relationships between the U.S. and the governments of the world.

 

Paragraphs are your friend.

 

Sorry about that. I was on a role and proper grammar was not too high on my priority list. I apologize if the post(s) are hard on your eyes.