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Thread: *moved* What's up with the weak U.S.?

  1. #61
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    look at the results--we liberated that country from a brutal, oppressive regime in a matter of weeks. it was one of the most efficient military operations in history.
    LMAO!!!!!!!!!! God forbid that we 'liberate ' anymore countries.
    \"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.\" -- Dom Helder Camara

  2. #62
    LMAO!!!!!!!!!! God forbid that we 'liberate' anymore countries.
    i'm not generally a proponent for nation-building. as long as the new warlords aren't proponents of flying planes into buildings, i'm ok with doing business with them. if the UN can maintain a semblance of order with the Kharzeid government, it will still be better than it was before. what concerns me about the warlords is the increased drug trafficking since the Taliban was routed. i think opium is the number one crop in Afghanistan now.

  3. #63
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    but you're making my case for me. saddam is killing his own civilians. he has murdered thousands of Kurds directly, and thousands of his own civilians both directly and indirectly. most people don't characterize him this way, but he is actually the biggest killer of Muslims in the world. if you accumulate the deaths of his own civilians with the mass slaughter of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq conflict, it adds up to millions of Muslims. his goal is to kill more civilians. yes, civilians die in war and the knee-jerk reaction is always to assign blame to the US for civilian casualties. but who started the Gulf War? saddam started it by invading Kuwait. so if you assign blame where blame lies, saddam hussein is directly responsible for all civilian and military casualties. this isn't moral equivalency--he invaded an ally of the United States and we responded by liberating Kuwait. he's at fault.

    as for civilian deaths in Afghanistan, i don't know the exact statistics, and any unnecessary death is unfortunate. but who started the war against the West? it was UBL, al-qaeda and his sympathizers, funders and motivators around the world (including the taliban). if the taliban would have cooperated and handed over UBL, the bombing campaign would likely have been unnecessary. look at the results--we liberated that country from a brutal, oppressive regime in a matter of weeks. it was one of the most efficient military operations in history. also consider that sources estimate anywhere from 100 to 4,000 civilian casualties because some people include militant taliban as civilians (Human Rights Watch estimated 1000). the taliban exacerbated the situation by stockpiling weapons and quartering troops in hospitals, mosques and schools.
    So your only excuse for the US killing civilians is, "well they started it"? I couldn't get away with that excuse in first grade. What make you think you're going to?

    try to think logically for a second. you make no distinction between dropping bombs on people on purpose or by accident. that is really the moral argument at the very heart of the matter. hussein kills on purpose--he murders his own civilians and used chemical weapons against allied forces in the Gulf War (see Gulf War Syndrome causes). civilian deaths caused by the allied forces were by accident. there's a huge moral difference. tens of thousands of Iraqi troops surrendered and they were given food and water. prisoners taken captive by Iraq were tortured and displayed on tv as propaganda. so who are the good guys? you seem to think the allies (which Australia was a part of) are just as evil as hussein for liberating Kuwait. that's utter nonsense.
    Try to think logically for a second. If you were in Iraq and you saw bombs falling from the sky. Would you say, "oh don't worry, it's only the US dropping bombs by accident." The fact is when, the US goes to war, they usually end up dropping bombs on innocent people. I'm not going to speculate as to whether that was on purpose, calculated for the greater good or sheer accident. The fact is that to the people getting bombs dropped on them. It makes no difference. They're still bombs and they still kill people.

    well i'm glad you admitted they're communists. i think people protesting for peace is a great thing. in iraq, if people protested saddam, they would be murdered. i think the peace protesters are just largely misguided. they want peace, but they don't understand the concept that peace can only be achieved through war sometimes.
    I never denied they're communists or whatever because it doesn't matter. If they want to protest for peace that's fine by me. Peace can, be achieved after war has taken place but by definition war is not peaceful. But peace can also be achieved without any war taking place at all.

    . and yes, given the evidence of the effects of communism around the world (USSR, N Korea, Maoist China, Cuba, Cambodia, etc) i do think communists are crazy.
    I assure you that communists are not crazy. They might have very different political beliefs to you and I but they are quite sane.

    what are those reasons? what are the other ways? the anti-war and anti-Bush factions always have criticisms, but they never have solutions. what are your solutions? do you want more UN resolutions? because we all can see what good those do. do you want to sit down and talk with saddam and hope he'll see the error of his ways? good luck with that one. what exactly do you propose?
    Hmmm...other ways. How about letting the UN actually do its job without jumping the gun and starting a war? How about more sanctions? How about using any diplomatic means available to get Iraq to disarm. War should not be entered because Iraq is not disarming fast enough or because it's the easy way out. War should be entered when all other diplomatic efforts have failed completely. If you ask me "well haven't the US exhausted all the possibilities", then my answer is no. Bush's first response to 9/11 was bombs. It should have been his last. He didn't even try any other ways of solving the problem. I ask again why it is that Clinton lead a relatively peaceful two terms compared to Bush? Why is Bush so keen for war?

    first of all, the first statement is slander. to suggest that the US government has no problem killing civilians is false and irresponsible.
    No it's not slander. It's fact. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gulf war and more recent events in Afghanistan. The US chose to drop bombs on areas where they was a very high likelyhood of killing civilians. If anyone is being irresponsible, it's not me.

    our country specifically develops precision weaponry in the hopes of eliminating civilian casualties.
    Yes and until they develop weapons that have a "don't kill innocent people" option, war should be avoided at all costs.

    compare that to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. compare that to suicide bombings in Israel. compare that to the first bombing of the World Trade Center. our enemy targets civilians, and you would accuse us of being the same? shame on you.
    Like I said, in the end it doesn't matter why bombs are falling from the sky and killing people. It's the bombs that people have a problem with, not the reasons. Put your self in the place of someone living in Iraq. Would you honestly care about Bush's cause? Or Sadam's? My guess is, you'd simply prefer not to have people trying to kill you. That's why these people are protesting for peace. For everyday people like you and I.

    and i said protesting is ok, just as long as they don't do it in Baghdad. when they protest in Baghdad, aiding and comforting the enemy while impeding the US military, that is treason.
    They called Ghandi a traitor too.
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  4. #64
    So your only excuse for the US killing civilians is, "well they started it"? I couldn't get away with that excuse in first grade. What make you think you're going to?
    i think my argument was a little better than that. you're not going to drag me down to your level by paraphrasing two whole paragraphs with a childish phrase. counter the argument, don't restate it in a stupid way.

    Try to think logically for a second. If you were in Iraq and you saw bombs falling from the sky. Would you say, "oh don't worry, it's only the US dropping bombs by accident." The fact is when, the US goes to war, they usually end up dropping bombs on innocent people.
    i think that's already been established.

    I'm not going to speculate as to whether that was on purpose, calculated for the greater good or sheer accident. The fact is that to the people getting bombs dropped on them. It makes no difference. They're still bombs and they still kill people.
    thank you, Captain Obvious. in all your writing you never once address the real issue, you just pour on the ethos all day. quit your crying and be a man--innocent people die in war. but the question i believe we are trying to answer is how best to deal with saddam hussein and the worldwide spread of militant islam. you are so reluctant to ever criticize the real evil ones. saddam hussein is the biggest murderer of Muslims in the world, but you call the Allies evil for doing what is morally right by liberating Kuwait and punishing saddam for his contempt for UN sanctions. somebody has to deal with the really hard jobs, and also deal with the constant bitching of duplicitous nations like france who are only trying to hide their own involvement in illegal violations of the UN embargo.

    history will prove Bush right, just like we were right for saving Europe from Hitler in WW2 and toppling the USSR in the Cold War. you say "they're still bombs and they still kill people." i say evil dictators kill people--bombs save people. hitler was a mass-murderer. Allied bombing defeated him. milosevic is a mass murderer. Allied bombing got him convicted of war crimes. UBL was a mass murderer. now he's probably dead in a cave somewhere under a daisy-cutter. they say he's still alive, but i have doubts. try to get with winning team here--being weak facilitates more saddam husseins to go about their business.

    back to the original point i was trying to make earlier, militant islam is at war with you whether you like it or not. UBL and his acolytes see Western civilization as decadent and their only goal in life is to kill infidels. how does one defeat such an enemy? how can you reason with someone willing to lay down his life because he honestly believes that killing as many infidels as possible will send him to heaven? the only way to stop a suicide bomber is to kill him before he kills you. collateral damage is just an unfortunate side-effect, and my theory is that iraq is just a stepping stone to dealing with the whole middle east.

    I never denied they're communists or whatever because it doesn't matter. If they want to protest for peace that's fine by me. Peace can, be achieved after war has taken place but by definition war is not peaceful. But peace can also be achieved without any war taking place at all.
    Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism -- Carl Jung
    you should go to iraq some time and ask if you can speak to saddam. talk some sense into him--you know, reason with the man. and then maybe you'll be able to do what the UN has failed to do for over 12 years. give peace a chance! lol.

    I assure you that communists are not crazy. They might have very different political beliefs to you and I but they are quite sane.
    i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. maybe Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot weren't practicing "real" communism, but they still killed hundreds of millions of people under a red banner. i'm not making those numbers up. do a google search to find some estimates from various sources. i'm not going to open up a debate on why the communist manifesto is crazy--i had to begrudgingly read it in high school and it's a boring topic. i think communism is wrong, but you can believe whatever you want. being a communist doesn't stop people from being elected, even in the US. just look at hillary clinton . her book, "it takes a village," is a blueprint for a communist society.

    Hmmm...other ways. How about letting the UN actually do its job without jumping the gun and starting a war? How about more sanctions? How about using any diplomatic means available to get Iraq to disarm. War should not be entered because Iraq is not disarming fast enough or because it's the easy way out. War should be entered when all other diplomatic efforts have failed completely.
    before ConfirmedKill moved this thread to its new, dubious title and started shamelessly promoting hate-speech as actual political commentary, the topic was the weak UN. i've already stated my opinion on why the UN is worthless to US national interests. the founding fathers of the US warned against "burdensome diplomatic entanglements" but FDR screwed all that up back in '45. there have been 14 UN resolutions and saddam hussein has laughed at each one of them. eventually, the civilized world has to stand up and push back or there is no point to having the UN in the first place.

    If you ask me "well haven't the US exhausted all the possibilities", then my answer is no. Bush's first response to 9/11 was bombs. It should have been his last. He didn't even try any other ways of solving the problem. I ask again why it is that Clinton lead a relatively peaceful two terms compared to Bush? Why is Bush so keen for war?
    no no no. Bush's first response was to "bring the terrorists to justice." despite calls for blood from war-hawks like me, we jockeyed with the Taliban for weeks trying to extradite UBL before it became obvious that they not only were unwilling to cooperate, but they were with UBL all the way.

    i'm not going to talk in circles with you about how clinton was so peaceful. clinton was weak. while he was commander-in-chief he passed up several chances to capture UBL. on clinton's watch, North Korea violated every last tenet of the nuclear appeasement pact we signed with them while we fed their million-man army. clinton severely weakened the powers of the CIA by restricting their ability to hire informants. thanks to him, nobody knew India and Pakistan had nuclear weapons until they set some off. he crippled the US military by cutting funding through all branches. even though he shook hands with Middle Eastern leaders for several photo-ops, the current wave of violence broke out in Israel during his last term. add that to all the irresponsible military campaigns in which he engaged US troops (that i already mentioned and you failed to address), and clinton was an utter failure as a world military leader. maybe getting BJs from underage interns instead of protecting the sovereignty of your country is ok in Australia, but here in the US some people tend to frown upon it.

    No it's not slander. It's fact.
    you're confusing your opinions with facts.

    Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gulf war and more recent events in Afghanistan. The US chose to drop bombs on areas where they was a very high likelyhood of killing civilians. If anyone is being irresponsible, it's not me.
    well i'm glad you decided to rehash the old Hiroshima and Nagasaki issue from WW2. in each case you just mentioned, war was declared on the US in a brutal fashion and we were forced to respond. Pearl Harbor, hussein invaded Kuwait, and 911. pay no attention to the fact that none of the aggressors gave half a thought to civilian casualties. my response to civilian casualties resulting from foreign aggression? -- war is hell.

    Yes and until they develop weapons that have a "don't kill innocent people" option, war should be avoided at all costs.
    and then let's all plant a tree and sing kumbaya. i really wish you didn't write that. it really detracts from your credibility. unless that was a joke, how do you expect to be taken seriously?

    Like I said, in the end it doesn't matter why bombs are falling from the sky and killing people. It's the bombs that people have a problem with, not the reasons. Put your self in the place of someone living in Iraq. Would you honestly care about Bush's cause? Or Sadam's?
    what are you talking about? being in the warzone wouldn't deter my motivation for doing what is right. it does matter why the bombs are falling, and hussein can easily avoid them by complying with the UN. he won't though, and the US and her allies will finally start the real war on terror.

    My guess is, you'd simply prefer not to have people trying to kill you. That's why these people are protesting for peace. For everyday people like you and I.
    it's 'you and me,' and i would prefer to have honor than be a coward and hope nobody gets hurt. i can only turn the other cheek so long before i hit back.

    i'm sure you're just waiting to post your next response. you've been given vigorous positive points for all your retorts, no matter how short and irrelevant your arguments are.

  5. #65
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    We can throw quotes at each other all day here so I'm not going to continue this debate. You can declare victory and tell yourself that you are a "real man" as you so eloquently put it. Whatever floats your boat. I will consider myself fortunate to have been educated by so knowledgable a teacher and take my "weak", "Australian" arguments elsewhere. I retire knowing that I debated without taking cheap shots or putting words in the mouths of others.

    But before I go understand this:

    1.) Just because someone protests for peace, doesn't mean they are a traitor, anti-American, a communist or any of the above. Most of the people protesting for peace just want peace. It's that simple.

    2.) If you don't agree with someone's political viewpoint, it doesn't mean they're crazy.

    3.) Pawning the lives of civilians in America for the lives of civilians in Iraq does not give you any sort of moral high ground. It just keeps America's own backyard clean. Maybe that's all you need to be able to sleep at night.

    Word to ya mother.
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  6. #66
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    I have been following this debate with some interest. Indeed I have interjected thoughts before including a history lesson on the use of atomic weapons in WWII and the use of chemical biological weapons this century.

    SMIRC I believe you willingly gloss over many good points made by Moby Duck about civilian casualties. I don't understand why. While I do not find myself as militantly minded as Moby I am free to admit that I agree with most of what he said.

    As to civilian casualties they do happen in war. There is no way around them and that is unfortunate. America has proven as, or more, protective of civilian lives as any nation on earth during conflicts while still following accepted practices of that conflict. That means that you can point to the WWII and see many instances where numerous civilian casualties were caused. Bombs were not accurate and saturation bombing of cities was an accepted practice. This led to enormous civilian casualties. However, even there, America normally attacked cities of military importance and targeted industrial centers rather than civilian populations. Germany, on the other hand, targeted civilian populations in an effort to demoralize England. England and America learned from this because it was that shift that may have saved England since the previous bombing of industry and airfields had almost brought the RAF to its knees.

    If you want to point out civilian casualties caused by the US (and her allies Britain, Canada, and Australia) you should look at Berlin or, better yet, Dresden. Dresden was a minor military target but was a huge political target, why? because the Russian army was close enough to see the effects of the bombing and moved into the city in a few days. That attack was a message to our Russian allies as to the strength of our air force. America bombed it by day, Britain and the Commonwealth bombed it by night. Deliberate saturation bombing followed by incindiaries to cause a firestorm that killed over 100,000 civilians. Historically Dresden stands out, not because of casualties, because it is one bombing campaign that should be considered a crime against humanity. One out of thousands. Historically the precedence is that the aggressor is to blame for the casualties. Only in this debate is America blamed for all the casualties caused in all the wars we have participated in irregardless of provocation, circumstance, or truth.

    Civilian casualties are an accepted cost of war. Tragic, yes, but to say you should not go to war unless there are no civilian casualties is saying you will never go to war. We no longer meet on battlefields where a relatively few civilians can pack up and leave. In fact we never really did except for a few battles. Sieges of cities have been disastrous to civilians throughout history and it is a lot easier not to kill "innocents" with a sword than with a 500 lb. bomb.

    To some the no war idea may be acceptable and in an ideal world I would love for it to be true. We do not live in an ideal world. There are madmen like Hussein around. There are dictators and tyrants who feel free to kill their own civilians and then extend their terrorism to the rest of the world. I believe that by stopping Saddam we are attempting to alleviate his killing spree. One report in the news shows that Saddam has already threatened the southern most Kurd city with chemical attack when the first US bomb falls. He has warned the city publicly that he will wipe it out in retaliation against any US aggression. I find that odd and insane that a dictator would tell his own civilians that he will kill them for the actions of a foreign nation. Odd and insane for most, pretty normal and common for Saddam. Of course since he is linking to American actions I suppose we will be blamed when he does it.

    I do believe Bush made a mistake. I believe he wanted the same type of consensus that Bush Sr. had with the Gulf War. If he had prosecuted the war quickly then there would have been the standard hollow protests by a few nations trying to improve their stance with moslem nations (France for example) a few real protests by people who idealogically oppose all wars (I disagree with them but at least they are true to their beliefs and nature so I respect them) and a number who would wait to see if he was successful to decide whether to support a victory or profit from a defeat (I would put most people in politics in this category except for those who have hitched themselves irrevocably to Bush's coat tails).

    As it is the debate has been allowed to rage and tensions have risen. I now believe that Bush would be wise to wait for one more UN resolution to be passed and wait for its time to run out, which I believe it will, then he should strike without seeking more UN approval. I honestly feel he should drop the US/UK proposal, allow France's and Germany's delaying proposal and then we should all hope and pray that Saddam and Bin Laden do not use the ensuing months (three I believe) to set up a series of terrorist attacks that I am sure will not be designed to minimize civilian casualties.
    SodaMoca5
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