Iraq Civil War ?

[GROUCHO MARX]

I guess the real message of those opposed to the invasion of Iraq is that Iraqi human life is worthless.

Mass graves of Iraqis are meaningless. The rape of 11 and 12 year old girls by Saddam Hussein's sons is inconsequential.

I wonder how many people were not abhorred at the mass killing of Jews by Hitler. They were, in large part, German Jews. It was an internal German matter.

I see the same attitudes in so-called African-American leader toward the killing of African-American gang members. Their lives are disposable. If it's not in my backyard, it doesn't concern me.

America has done a good thing by removing Saddam Hussein. I won't back off that statement. I respect others right to disagree, though I don't understand it.

 

[Shannow]

Groucho, I agree that the lives aren't worthless, neither are the 12,000 killed as a result of the war.

If liberation was THE reason for going to war, then why was the WMD, immediate threat argunent the one the we and the U.N. were fed ?

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Shannow, this is precisely the reason I didn't address the WMD issue.

If a cop stops a car for speeding and finds kidnapped children in the trunk of the car, should the driver be released because it's later found out he was not speeding? Would the cop be reprimanded for this mistake?

As far as the cost of life goes. it's terrible for the families of the military personel who have lost their lives. I say a prayer for each family every night. I hope there is consolation for them someday. My niece's husband is in Iraq right now and I wonder every time a report comes that more GIs are killed.

That being said, there is nothing worthwhile that comes without a cost. The generation that fought WW II paid such a price. These young men and women are paying a price for the rest of the world. All I can do is thank them and hope it is an advance payment for today's children.

If people think they were lied to, they have every right to be upset. The bottom line is a ruthless tyrant and his despicable sons no longer can wield their evil on the people of Iraq. If others think this is bad, so be it.

 

[Shannow]

Groucho, I'm very happy that Saddam is not aprt of the equation anymore.

I'm just not happy how we got to that point, and I would most certainly have supported a U.N. movement to dethrone him.

I'm not happy with the special interest groups who were given rebuilding contracts.

But I'll reiterate, I'm glad HE is gone.

 

[TooSlick]

Groucho,

Are you saying the ends justify the means in this case?

If every country adopted the principle of "pre-emptive" war on the basis of less than perfect - or massaged - intelligence information, we would have world wide anarchy. For example, India and Pakistan would have nuked each other long ago and we'd probably be in shooting war in North Korea. The US is supposed to be setting the example for the world and we have lost tons of credibility over this entire episode. Even the Brits and Aussies have very mixed opinions over Iraq and they'd follow us to H--- and back again if we asked.

Of course Saddam was an SOB - however he was also an SOB we have been in bed with for several decades. You continue to lie down with swine and you wake up one day smelling like s---. All I ask is a little more reflection in foreign policy about the long term implications of our actions. I don't think that is too much to expect ....

 

[ex_MGB]

Are you saying the ends justify the means in this case?

Point of Order: When one envisions a goal, one simultaneously envisions the means whereby to achieve the goal. This is a reiterative process. Success lies in organizing the non-obvious.

 

[Shannow]

Well I suppose that the WMD were successfuly removed from Iraq, so yes...we have been successful !!

(unfortunately it looks like we were successful before we attacked)

 

[labman]

quote:

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Originally posted by Shannow:
Well I suppose that the WMD were successfuly removed from Iraq, so yes...we have been successful !!

(unfortunately it looks like we were successful before we attacked)

---

1 Saddam had and used poison gas in the past.

2 If he had nothing to hide, why did he throw the UN inspectors out?

3 He definitely had a program to acquire or develop and manufacture WMD.

4 He may have gotten rid of the last ones just before we invaded.

5 We couldn't count on him not acquiring, bring out of hiding, etc. WMD the moment we turned our backs or elected a president too unconcerned to do anything.

6 Who knows what is still buried somewhere in the desert, maybe even over the border in Syria or Iran without their knowledge.

7 We couldn't prove he didn't have WMD. Why not take out the tryant rather than take a chance?

 

[TooSlick]

Any and all WMD's are completely worthless against a nation state that can retaliate in kind....

As proof the US and the Soviet Union have been aiming tens of thousands of nuclear warheads at each other for over fifty years, but these weapons can never be used. Any use of these weapons against the US will result in a massive and conclusive response against the nation-state that supplies them - that has been standing policy for at least fifty years. The #1 rule of any despot is to stay in power and you don't do that by going after the big dog on the block. Saddam was a thug and a regional bully - if it wasn't for the Saudi oil fields we would not have been the least bit concerned about him.

If and when biological and/or nukes are ever used on US soil, an investigation will no doubt reveal they were purchased from organized criminal elements operating within the former Soviet Union. Chemical weapons and simple explosives can be made in your garage by anyone who made it through HS chemistry, so there would be absolutely no point in trying to import those. Look at the ANFO bomb used in 1993 in NY - I think it was mixed in NJ as I recall?

People need to stop being so scared about these things....compared to the cold war, the war on terrorism is minor league stuff. One lucky sucker punch does nothing to alter that reality ....

 

[Shannow]

labman,
after the weapons inspectors were let back in, and reported a fairly high degree of co-operation, why did WE ask them to leave ?

The other question in my mind is those ones that Colin Powell showed me on my T.V. Why didn't they just point the U.N. weapons inspectors at the sites shown, proving it conclusively, rather than withdrawing the inspectors and starting a war ?

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Ted, I'll have to respectfully disagree with you about terrorism vs. the cold war.

I have heard Theodore Sorensen speak with respect to the Soviet leaders versus Saddam Hussein and his ilk. The Soviet Union was a highly industrialized nation. They had much more to lose in a conflict of nuclear proportion. The Soviet leaders were well aware of this.

Terrorists, on the other hand, place no value on anything. This includes their own lives. How do you contend with someone who places no value on their own life? This is far more dangerous proposition. It may be that this war is like the war on drugs....not a chance of winning.

Everyone must decide if it's worth fighting.

 

[buster]

Terrorists are flat out nuts and no comparison to previous cold war foes IMO. They are comprised of some of the most radical, fundementalists on the earth. I fear terrorism much more.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

I'm not justifying anything, I'll leave others to decide that. Shannow said he is glad Saddam's gone, I am too.

I'm also glad Libya has decided to turn a new leaf (we'll see).

If any other entity now thinks twice before attacking our country on our turf, I'm happy.

Ted, your military experience has given you a mistrust of the government, welcome to the club. A healthy mistrust is always a good thing.

 

[TooSlick]

Groucho,

No child in the occupied West Bank, or in Pakistan, or any of dozens of other God forsaken places is born a terrorist. Terrorism results from a combination of dispair, fustration and rage, often mixed these days with a malignant perversion of one of the worlds great religions. The key to fighting terrorism is to intimately understand the economic, social and cultural conditions that make it so appealing, for too many angry young men in the Third World. I flatly reject the notion that this is some sort of inevitable religious war between Christianity and Islam. I think that's just a defeatist attitude to have, as well as a self fullfilling prophesy.

Terrorism on the scale we have seen cannot survive without the explicit support of a nation-state, and at least the implicit support of a fair number of it's citizens. As a practical matter, people who are satisfied with their lot in life don't fashion vests made of Cemtex and step onto crowded school buses; nor do they drive bomb laden trucks into buildings.

Our ultimate salvation from terrorism will never come, until the child born in Kabul or Karachi can awake to greet the day with the same sense of hope and wonder as the child in Kansas City. When and if that blessed day ever comes, perhaps we will at last have seen the end of war.

[ February 20, 2004, 04:02 AM: Message edited by: TooSlick ]

 

[Jason8691]

TS-You are right about that, but a change like that will take several generations. We as a country can only do what we are capable of at this time, and that is to eliminate those radicals. Given their hatred for us, our religion, and way of life, I dont think its possible for us to have any influence on them whatsoever. Their change is going to have to come from witnin, and I personally dont think that will happen for a very long time. All of the debates on who is right or who is wrong, what the democrats would do or the republicans would do are irrelevant. Clinton ignored the problem, we payed for it and he is criticized, Bush took action and he is criticized for the way he did it. Everybody has the right answer when they are sitting in their living room drinkin a Bud, but if they were in charge it would be different.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Too Slick,

Terrorists are not born, of course. They are indoctrinated at an early age to hate and despise. This is not limited to any one group. The states that "support" the Palestinians, are happy with their situation. They serve the purpose as a nuisance to Israel, a deadly nuisance. The Palestinians are the poster children for a terrorist cause. There is no real impetus to change that from the "supporters" of the Palestinians.

 

[ex_MGB]

When you whine about unrest in the ME ...blame a good bit of it on western man.

We seem to forget how the Caliphate exploded out of Arabia in all directions in a massive wave of conquest and conversion unparalleled in history.

Moving West, within 100 years they had conquered Spain (Gibraltar is named after the conqueror) and were in southern France attempting to establish the Caliphate of "Frankinstan" (Europe). It was only due to Charles "the Hammer" and his "immovable wall" of Frankish soldiers who stood firm "as a rock of ice" before the light Arab cavalry, that the Moors were stopped at Tours. Meanwhile, in the east they were running rampant in northern India.

Their imperium was consolidated in the Sultanate. A thousand years later, 1683, Vienna in the heart of Europe, was under siege. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire did not fall until after WWI.

Interestingly, Nietzsche thought that Western man was much closer to Middle Eastern thought than to the Greco-Roman culture. Indeed, Algebra and Alchemy were touchstones for Western science.

 

[Propflux01]

quote:

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Originally posted by Shannow:

after the weapons inspectors were let back in, and reported a fairly high degree of co-operation, why did WE ask them to leave ?

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Well, lets see, the yu were kicked out first, then the spineless UN wouldnt do anything about it, so U.S. steps up, now we have a possibility of a country actually getting overrun. So what do we do with all this stuff...Hmm, send it to Syria, and to Iran (they already have found far advanced uranium processors than what iran admitted to having) THEN we let the inspectors back in. Since they don't find anything, and the US gets impatient with the whole mess, we go in. So get those inspectors out unless they want a grave in Iraq. So now, we do it, and waht the result. Shaky situation in Iraq, a pissed off world, but all of the sudden, alot of cooperation from 'axis of evil' countries, and syria, Iran has been 'accomodating' lately, etc. So the big picture sees a changed attitude in the world. the US is no longer 'forgiving and forgetting' Was it right in the end? I think it had some good effects, and some bad. I have been in the Military since 1984. I have seen a close part of this 'big picture'. And I finally see some light at the end....

 

[buster]

Hopefully we repond, in the right way, which ever that maybe (I'm not a military strategist like everyone else thinks they are

) and we subdue this uprising. Right now, it looks like what was always debated and that is what could happen after we remove Sadam could be worse. If we get this under control, and stabilize the country, things could go well. However, it doesn't look too bright. If their is ever a Shiite fundementalist goverment, some will be wishing Sadam was back in power as sick as he was. Stay tuned....

People that thought without a doubt that this was the right thing to do and would go easily, meaning Iraqi's jumping up and down and thanking us, are a bit off IMO. And unless something good comes out of this, either WMD's or a stable Iraq, your going to have a hard time convincing anyone it was the right thing to do. Especially if you lost a loved one over their. This could also put Kerry in the White House and kill our economic recovery. Bush will get the blame even though he was taken down the wrong path by Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumy....the archetects of this war. Lets hope something good comes out of it.

[ April 05, 2004, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: buster ]

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by buster:
Bush will get the blame even though he was taken down the wrong path by Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumy....the archetects of this war. Lets hope something good comes out of it.

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They work for Bush and he choose to follow their advice. The blame or credit for the Iraqi operation lies clearly on Bush's shoulders.

Bush's advisors assumed that once Iraq was militarily defeated that the resistance would fold. They were wrong. Nearly all of his pro war advisors are chicken hawks (pro-war, never served in the military). There-in lies the problem.