I see where you're coming from, and believe me I don't think it rests easy with those of conscience to sit back and watch atrocities being done when you could do something about it...It's just that the cost of going the other way alone ( against global majority) is much much greater...You might be able to re-define a country like Iraq, or the 17th century US for the better by invading on your own, but you definitely re-define the world for the worse by eliminating the value of global opinion that we have spent so long in supporting/constructing to replace it with another version of the Most Powerful Country Dictates, however benevolent you may feel that country is to begin with. Remember what they say about power and absolute power.
Jag, I am not going to get bogged into all the subjective matter with regards to why I disagree with your anti-war stance. In the end, our theories behind how we feel can are open to subjective discussion which neither of us will find commond ground on. So id rather not try to disect your posts, as others have done. However, Ill give you a simple explanation as to why I am pro-war that is not debatable, because it is how I feel and that is, I am afraid. And I am tired of being afraid. My whole life, my friends, family and now my wife, tell me how unemotional I am and how nothing ever gets to me. But ya know what? Sept. 11th got to me. Big time. It scared me. I am afraid and feel like I live in fear every day. I, along with every other American, shouldnt have to worry about suicide bombers. We shouldnt have to worry about hijackers crashing planes into major landmarks and killing thousands of people. We shouldnt have to worry about an Islamic fundametalist driving a truck full of explosives into a Nuclear plant. We shouldnt have to worry about a terrorist releasing biological agents into the air or into our water system. We shouldnt have to worry about some maniac dropping chemical agents from a Cessna over our town. This isnt Palestine, this isnt Israel and this isnt any other unstable land where we should have to worry about crap like this. This is America and I, along with a good majority of this country are tired of being afraid. I couldnt give a crap about world support. I am not worried about France. I dont live there. Im not worried about Germany and Russia. If terrorists had blown up the Eiffel Tower and killed 2,000 French, do you think they might feel different? Call me narrow minded if you will. I am not naive to the fact that our stance is unpopular and will have long term reprocussions. But Id rather deal with Anti-American sentiment than have to deal with sealing up a central room in my house that I dont have or having to have an evacuation plan for my family in case a dirty bomb is dropped in our area. Also, I am not naive to the fact that removing the current Iraq regime will eliminate the threat of terrorism. Of course it wont. But if doing so keeps Hussein from selling just one small nuclear weapon or chemical weapon to a maniac who wants to enact another Sept. 11th, then we should do so. I am not for waiting for the UN Inspectors to find something. If Iraq doesnt want it to be found, it wont be found. Period. What if we had waited another month, or two months or a year to wait on diplomacy, like advocated by France and Germany? What if, during that time, Iraq is able to get a chemical or biological weapon snuck into our country and kills another 3,000 Americans? I am not willing to take that chance. I am tired of being afraid and will support any action that helps reduce my fears.
PS - Once we wipe out the regime, and if we never do find any solid evidence of WMDs, then it will be a disaster, like some have suggested. However, I believe in my administration and if they are certain they will find WMDs, then I am confident too. Like I said earlier, some will call this thinking naive, but thats just how I feel.
Excellent questions, IMO. 1) The list for wars which qualify is almost endless...the Thirty Years War, the Crusades, the First World War, VietNam, etc... I will, for the purposes of brevity, concentrate on the Crusades and the First World War.Both need never have been fought if the leaders of the aggressive party had held themselves to the standard of just warfare. Neither accomplished anything of any positive value, except perhaps the influx of learning and technology the West recieved by being exposed to the much more advanced Arabic states they opposed for so long. A case can be made for that leading directly to the Renaissance, but it was an oblique course of events, and not in any way the intention of the aggressor in the Crusades, any of them. A) WWI was fought for two reasons, neither of them worthy of letting slip the dogs of war. A1) The foremost reason was the sense of conservatism which Britain and to a degree France had maintained even after the fall of the Congressional system. This sense was challenged when Bismark no longer ruled Germany in effect, as he had sought to keep Germany from ruffling UK feathers by either getting involved in colonialism, or building a nay, both of which the UK, in her wisdom, deemed areas she had dominance in, and loked askance at any interlopers who sought to get a leg up. Germany,meanwhile, was opposed on all sides as being the upstart by forcing it's way in among the Big Boys of Europe by imrpoving it's industry, economy, and military to such an extent that the others could no longer pretend that she didn't really exist, especially after the Germans defeated the French in the Franco-Prussian war, and seized the Alcase-Lorraine region. As Germany reasoned that the only respect she gained was that she took by sword, she grew more and more beligerent. Tensions mounted, especially in the form of the Naval Competition, a race to see whether the UK or Germans would develop bigger and better ships first...( incedentally this is the period when the Titanic was built)..and the advent of the SuperShip, or Dreadnought made the question clearly a military one. The needed little priming to explode. A2) The Alliance System...this was the disorganized remnants of the Congress system built by Metternech, but largely destroyed by the Greek Revolution, and buried by the rise of Prussia. Without a governing body with which Europe could hope to resolve issues non-militarily, the continent broke down into different camps of alliegance...and, through the rise of the German Power, eventually was reduced to two camps..Imagine the Cold War without Nuclear Deterrance, and you have the system of 2 sided alliances which made up pre-WWI Europe. When conflict arose between two of thos minor allies, one on each side, as the result of a terrorist action, the entire continent soon was plunged into what began as a pursuit of glory on both sides, but soon revealed itelf to be the greatest disaster mankind had seen since the Plague...millions upon millions dead, with nothing accomplished but the excercising of national egos. Historians agree that the only significant result of World War One was World War Two, which can easily be seen as an extension of same. Had the jingoisitic idiots who plunged the world into the War To End All Wars never done so, we would never had heard of the little house painter with the funny moustache, other than as something of a pretty good art forger. Who knows what we would have heard of any of the millions upon millions who gave their lives at the alter of Folly. B) the Crusades were the result of an appeal, originaly that of Urban II, but soon copied by many, to rid the Holy Land of the Infidel...ie the Turks. Several things are wrong about this, but the Europeans believed their superiors, heard of the booty gained, and set forth to the East to conquer, with varying forms of organization. Several disasters awaited them, not the least of which was the often disastrous consequesnce of people who grew up and died within a couple of miles of each other, had little or no knowledge of the world outside their village, and essentially did what their leaders told them, marching to the East to conquer the Infidel. Now remember that this was not the days of CNN, and globes in school rooms...the East was the direction the sun rose in in the morning, and 50 miles and 500 miles were, to the average peasant, indistinguishable... So your mob or peasant, armed with pitchforks, spears, and religious zeal would set out in the direction of the rising sun, march for a day or three, find a village, assume it to be the infidels they were warned of, and sack the town and put the villagers to the sword...never realizing that this village was in their own country, or possibly an neighbouring European nation to the East, and the people there only would have understood the word infidel if one of the Crusade recruiters had been round to rally the troops. Those Crusades that did reach the Holy Land were at first confused...not because the Infidel Turk had already been conquered bu the Saracens, and arab people of infinitely higher social and technological advancement than either Europe or the Turk, and also a society of religious tolerance to such an extent that it's leaders were already having all religious places of worship repaired from the years of neglect they had revieved under it's formert occupants...including Chritian churches and temples...No, that didn't confuse the crusaders...one dark-skinned disbeliever was as good as the next when the pope told you that killing and rape were the way to heaven, and the way to heaven on earht if you got enough booty in the process...no the confuion arose because, in the truest tradition of propoganda, the Crusaders had been told that the infidel were warlike, violent, and had hooves and horns...Yes, that's right...hooves and horns. The Crusaders, no maatter how many men, women, and children Infidels they killed, could find nary a one which fit that descrition...Solution ot the dilema: Our Leaders Lied To US? Er, no...The Infidel is cunning as well as wicked, and hides his true self so that we will lose heart...What to do? Kill them even more for their double-dealing ways. It went on like this, while Europeans carved out their own lands, like the Kingdom of Antioch, etc. Some of them, a good few, in fact, were there for honest to goodness religious reasons...most of them had ulterior motives at least on the side. In the end, after millions of deaths, and one instance where an entire Crusade sposored by a request from the Holy Father of Byzantium to help him ight off the Turks stopped off in Constantinople on the way to see thier benefactor, and decided to skip the rest of the voyage and sack the city instead, after all this, the Crusaders were pushed out, and the Holy Land and it;s environs was back to being ruled by Arabs the way it had before the genrations of warfare began...The results were that the previously incredibely tolerant Arabs had developed, after years of being slaughtered for their beliefs ,something of a similar attitude as theri European adversaries, and the region had learned to mustrust those from the West who come to take and kill...an attitude still in evidence to this day, and part of the reason why they were so slow to adopt "western' improvements over the years since the West replaced them as the center of Civilization. 2) Re: Ideal wars...The point isn't that the few sacrifice for the many, although that has happened, but that the cost and benefit are equatable. Wars which were necessary, given the circumstances at the time, from the perspective of the defenders include World War II ( WWI being a given factor) the Gulf War, and much of the Napoleonic/Revolutionary Wars of the late 18th and early 19th Century. 3) Re: Fighting a war properly, and the dynamic of strategic fog of war...Too long to get into, but essentially it is the duty of a militry commander to A) Not enter into a war without a clear objective, a clear overall campaign strategy, and a willingness to cease if circumstances make achieving the former and keeping control of the latter prove elusive. In other words, while flexibility is an essential ingredient for a successfull campaign, when you bend so far that you lose control of the war, but let it take on it's own dynamic, and re-set you objectives accordingly, you have failed. When your plan was faulty to begin with, either by not propoerly assessing the situation/enemy/self, not allowing for unforseen obstacles, or being built upon suppositions rather than knowledge, or when the commanders continue to fight when their objective has become a realistic impossibility, or when the situation leading to the war has changed, making the objective unworthy of war, that commander has failed. All of this is assuming the commander is on the offensive, or in a mutual war. When you are being invaded, the rules change. 4) See my response to sino above, re: cost vs, gain of Empire mindset. 5) I have supported the Gulf War..for some good reasons,and some I have come to regret. At the time i was farily young, and didn't have much more than a layman's knowledhe of military/diplomatic studies, and this was why I was for the war at the time; 1) I saw SH as the aggressor, and believed it the duty of the world to stop aggressors from conquering other nations just because they can. I stand by that position, and it alone still justifies the war, INO. 2) I saw the war as the first real evidence of a new world, a post-Cold War world where the might rested not in opposing camps kept from eachother's throats by the threat of mutual destruction, but in the hands of the global majority. I was very hopefull that the Russians support, in particular, meant that issues were now being decided on right and wrong versus East and West. While I now see the US as the greatest threat to this possible future, just because if what we're doing to the power of global opinion as we speak, I ahve not given up hope for it, and certainly don't regret my stance on this as the time. 3) Regretably, i was also somewhat immature, and saw the prospect of a war as exciting...not just becasue it was like a real life movie, or because CNN's coverahe made it seem like an episode of Dkes of Hazard or the A-Team, where the drivers always crawled out of the cars after the horrific crashes, and the worst gunshot wounds were taken in the shoulder, but because it seemed to define my generation. I grew up with the mythology of the 60's as my parents generation...defined by VietNam, Warergate, Woodstock, and JFK...Ali and the Beatles...and I suppose I assumed that without those kinds of seminal events my generation lacked definition...and I saw the Gulf War as something akin to that for me and mine. I deeply regret my self-centered view in this respect, and am sensitive when i see it in some of my students about the present situation. 4) My only objections at the time were minor, and in no way altered my support. I was a little skeptical of getting involved selectively, ignoring other problems in the world, but SH invading another nation against the will of the world was enough of a reason in itself. And I had some vague dread about getting into another VietNam, not based on fact, but the recent history of superpowers, and was of an age where that would involve me. I considered signing up, and had decided to do so if it seemed to be going on long enough that my signing up wouldn't be sacrificing my present life ( excellent job, sholarships,etc.) to serve in a peacetime armed forces after the war i was supporting was over, but I was afraid of the possible consequences. Frinds of mine joined up at this time. I have cited other just wars above...I hope I have answered your questions. Peace JAG
I made this same argument with Giddyup a couple of months ago. The topic of American slavery came up because I contended that Saddam being a tyrant wasn't justification to go to war, that we should not be responsible from freeing people from their rulers, as opposed to liberating the Serbs. The point I am getting at is you are right, this country did handle its own problems eventually, and we weren't invaded. As McBeth stated, among Industrial Powers, we were scorned for being the last major power to have legalized slavery, and yet we weren't invaded. So if it is your logic, and I'm assuming you are for this war, why is Okay now to liberate a people from their own gov't as opposed to the U.S. solving its own problem on the issue of slavery.
1) Aspirations? yes...but so d o many others...and they are held in checkby the balance of power in the region ( see Iran-Iraq war) and are really none of our business. Re: Nukes...I have addressed this above, but will follow by asking A) Why didn't he use them in '91 , when we KNOW he had them, if he is so out of control? How do you KNOW that he intends to use them? 2) Now tyou are arguing the pragmatism of the US political system which should have nothing to do with international politics unless we let it. 3) Addressed above...not our concern from a dictatorial position, because that is subjective, and a slipperty slope.Aslo see cost vs. gain post I made to sino. 4) If the admin's excuses for the war are confused, what does that say about either the admin, or the war?
I, along with every other American, shouldnt have to worry about suicide bombers. Codell, I hear your fear. Among other things what some of us are saying is that we trust the experts and analysts at the CIA whose assessment is that this war will increase the danger of suicide bombers to the US. The administration is too optimistic and perhaps compromised by their potnetia business dealings with the post war Iraq to analyze things clearly. President Mubarak of Egypt a modrate Arab country that has made peace even with Israel has predicted that the Iraq War will generate a 100 Bin Ladens. We could turn this country into an Israel with respect to suicde bombers if we keep screwing with these people needlessly or if we aren't careful and for what? We can deal with our energy needs. Israel itself would be better if we force them to peace and a two state solution. Israel can't kill all potential terrorists and neither can we.
I think that your fears of the US trying to rule the world are overblown. I hope/believe that we aren't out to do this. What's wrong with hoping that Iraq could prosper the way that Japan has after WW2?
Sonny...a few points re: your hope/belief. In the past year the White House has said or done all of the following things: 1) You are either with us or against us. That is stating that any nation which doesn't support the US is an enemy, or a potential enemy. That is saying that the US sets the bar for everyone to rise above or fall below, that the US has determined that no one can excercise their right to remain neutral short of the facts, or just because they want to be neutral. 2) That the US will not tolerate any nation coming xlose to equalling itself in terms of military strength, and would see any such development as a threat. That is saying that we have determined that we are the only ones 'allowed' to be as strong as we are...the impications of this are frightening. Couple that with no 1,and take asecond look. 3) Have said that it is tolerable to attack other nations for representing a potential threat. Add this to numbers 1 and 2...scared yet? 4) Have said that, contrary to the 50 odd years spent developing it, the idea that the real power rests with the global majority is irrelevent when the global minority is the most powerful, and agrees with itself that it is in the right. Add that to numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4...and I don't know about you, but I am very, very frightened at where this is heading. Mix in the fact that we believe the above so strongly that we have invaded another country, against the UN and world opinion, and have already made noises about moving on to tothers when this one is done, and you might not be as optimisitic. Then throw in the fact that many, many people, from the former President and current Pres' father, to the military leader in the past Gulf War, to several ambassadors, intelligence chiefs, experts in diplomacy, and almost every other world leader says we are not doing this right, and I don't see how just 'hoping' for another Japan gets us anywhere. I believe we are in a very dangerous place right now.
Hey MacBeth/JAG, I know you might not believe this but you and I had a symphonious agreement about something a long time ago... just wish I could remember what it was.
Oh, you are absolutely dead on....I don't believe it. ( That works better out loud than on screen)... If you remeber what it was I'd like to be reminded. Truth is I have a hard time with remembering who I have argued/agreed with in the past beyond a few notable exceptions...
It was when you were JAG and I believe it was in this forum as I live in North Carolina and rarelly see Rocketball. I'll never remember it but just let that mystery be a solace to us both!
I think you are right, we are in a dangerous position. I totally understand your fears that you pointed out. I just have faith that we are doing the right thing. I know it sounds simple, but that's it. For the points that you made: I supported this stance, especially when it came to eliminating terrorism (Al Qaida). Some are saying that they are going to far with it now, just using the threat of terrorism to impose their will on nations. I don't think that is justified, yet. For me, Iraq supported terrorism and they are in the same boat as Afghanistan. Now if we try to invade France because of terrorism fears... When the nations that are trying to come close to us are terrorist supporting/communist regimes, then I don't think we should let them get as strong as us. It would not be safe. Especially when we know how these countries treat their own people. It's not like we are telling Australia that they can't have WMD's. We are telling Iraq, who has gassed their own people. I see a big difference. We know that they will use them. Like I was saying on #1, if those nations are a viable threat then yes. Iraq is a huge problem in the middle east, that WE helped create. I am glad that we are cleaning up our mess. It is definitely arguable how much of a threat Iraq is/was. But what is for sure is that Saddam (without UN/US restrictions) would have a nuclear program. Don't you think that a nuclear Iraq is a threat? Just like North Korea is now. I want the UN to be a viable world body. I also see how we are blowing them and the world off when we act without their approval. I don't know if the UN can work though, nations are just looking out for themselves first. Much like we are. I don't know what to do about that. I support Bush, but his foreign policy has been brutal. He has been as smooth as sandpaper. I would really like the US to reach out to the rest of the world and show our benevolence, not just our military might. The facts can be spun either way, but I still think the glass is half full.
Americans should not have to worry about where Vietnam is on the map. Americans should not have to worry about how our foreign policy affects other people around the world. Get my point? Americans are blissfully ignorant about what our government does in our name around the world. To point, you appear to be surprised that the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened. I posit that our past errors in Middle East foreign policy were being redressed. Maybe going forward, Americans should pay closer attention to our foreign policies and the potential consequences therein. Maybe Americans a should demand greater deliberation and circumspection from our President and Congress wrt foreign policy matter. Sadly, I did not see this as the case with our war with Iraq.
My point was that Americans did fight a war on slavery. The difference was, of course, they fought themselves rather than having someone else fighting them. But there are two things about that: 1. I don't think there was any other nation who had the resources to invade the US. Nor was there enough leadership to organize any coalition for that matter. Also, the world might be scorning the US for slavery, they were not outraged like people are outraged by Saddam's acts. The issue is not DID, but SHOULD, some country outside of the US do something about slavery? I think that question shouldn't be dismissed. 2. The concept of "nation" is not absolute. The Civil War was fought by one part of the country telling the other part that they were wrong. The country could have split. Then it would become an invasion, rather than Civil War.
You are correct, but there were no radicals running around back then with the technology to blow up thousands of people, no bio weapons, no nukes. So, times have changed, and thus history is ineffectual when dealing with this current conflict. DD
This post hits it on the nail for me. I think it is very naïve to think we will be viewed as the liberators. And we think Saddam is the worst of the worst, and I don’t think that is so--at least in terms of being threatening to us. Bin Laden and folks of this ilk are the worst of the worst, because there is no possible negotiation with a religious fanatic who believes America must crumble at all costs. To me each day this war goes on and another Iraq kid loses a mother, father, brother or sister be it from our bomb or even from a Saddam missle or bullet will be another ripe future holy warrior ready to give up his life just to seek as much carnage on our soil as possible because America started this war. My hats off as well to all those posters in this thread on both sides who have mostly kept the inflammatory rhetoric down and stuck to the issues. As for Giddyup's 1st point—I have little doubt Saddam does have full control of all the camps within Iraq borders. Such camps at some scale exist in the US and Western Europe as well despite much better information, tracking and technology of our governments. On the 2nd—Saddam has a very strong reason not to work with Al Queda --he knows they will attack anyone without their world view which Saddam does not share (Saddam is an infidel to them). Saddam wants to expand Iraq, get rid of Israel, maybe even had aspiriations to brutally run the whole ME, but neither in actions nor words has his goals been the demise of the West--except maybe now that all is close to lost for him and his regime. Saddam could have sent chemical/biological weapons into Isreal with the 1st gulf war—he probably could still do it today, so far he hasn’t gone there. We are dealing with a sadistic and brutal general and politician--but not a lunatic. I am more worried about the terroristic lunatics and think this war increases 10x, 100x, 1000x the next potential ones.
