Put us both in Boot Camp and we’ll see who gets farther dumass. It’s called Endurance Training.
Some of us have nothing but strictly functional goals in mind. Respect that.
monsiour_quebec
You mean the white house website actually lists world domination as its goal? If that’s true I guess I stand corrected.
We suffered terrorist acts other nations could only dream of - in their worst nightmares.Wow. That's one of the funniest things I've heard all day. Did you ever wonder WHY all these middle eastern people are so thoroughly pissed at America?
Yes; 9/11 was a tragedy, but shit like that happens weekly in some parts of the world, and half the time it’s being done by someone funded by the damn US government. Like, oh, say, I don’t know, that Bin Laden fellow?
“You mean the white house website actually lists world domination as its goal? If that’s true I guess I stand corrected.”
That’s right, it’s a .pdf file called the National Security Strategy, it says clearly that the USA is basically entitled to attack any country which is suspected of harbouring terrorists (with no evidence judging by Iraq & Afghanistan). This ‘war on terror’ is conveniently open-ended, so it can literally go on forever, as long as the president wants it to. ie the USA wants to control the world by force & to do so permanently.
monsiour_quebec
Hmmm…Well I sure don’t make the connection with world domination. I mean they don’t actually say world domination. Is pursuing terrorists the same as world domination? Maybe if you say so…I just don’t see it.
Go to the http://www.newamericancentury.org/ website, the Project for a New American Century. The PNAC members include many of the Bush administration like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle. The goals of the PNAC are to establish American values in as much of the world as possible. This is a nice way of saying “grab for power” or world domination.
The PNAC was pushing for an Iraq invasion back in 1998, before any of their members even came into power. This is all documented.
“Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it.”
~ Mark Twain
“We suffered terrorist acts other nations could only dream of - in their worst nightmares.”
And can you explain to me what makes the loss of 3000 American lives a bigger tragedy than the loss of 7000 civilian Iraquis lives? Why is one terrorism and the other just an affordable consequence to your goals?
Lumpy
But Clinton and his crew were seriously considering an invasion of Iraq around 1998 too.
Restless said - And can you explain to me what makes the loss of 3000 American lives a bigger tragedy than the loss of 7000 civilian Iraquis lives? Why is one terrorism and the other just an affordable consequence to your goals?
Is intentionally targeting and killing civilians the same as collateral damage in war? I know, you will say it?s not war because it wasn?t justified. It was though, under the terms of the original cease fire Saddam had to play nice. He didn?t for over 10 years and we finally had to enforce the cease fire. We didn?t need UN approval because we had it from back in 1990-91 but the public has a short memory (understandably), so we tried to look good in the eyes of the world. We didn?t need it for legal reasons though.
Anyway, I didn?t want to turn this into a debate over the legality of the war, but I felt it was necessary in order to have you address my original question. So, is intentionally targeting and killing civilians the same as collateral damage in war?
If you’re Joe Average Citizen, and your kids are killed, does the fact that it was collateral damage in a war make it easier to take? Does it make you feel less like getting revenge because it wasn’t intentional?
Whether intentional targets or not, civilain deaths are civilian deaths and the average Iraqi who has a family and goes to work every day and doesn’t give a shit about the US, or Isreal, or Palestine, or Osama Bin Laden doesn’t deserve to die or lose his family any more than the 9/11 victims did.
Caber McJock
Nope, no one who is innocent deserves to die. But intent goes a long way. That is (largely) the deciding factor in Western law.
Criminal law, that is.
". So, is intentionally targeting and killing civilians the same as collateral damage in war? "
The pratical effect is the same and this is what matters to me. Unless you actually had some valid reason what happened in 9/11 wasn’t any bigger of tragedy has the 7000 civilian lives that got lost in Iraq in this second round. Sure, Saddam and a few others got put out of the way, but so what? Maybe there were people in the twin towers that could be the greatest sons of a bitch alive but this is hardly a validating argument for killing 3000 people is it?
My issue is that you find acceptable the killing of thousands of innocents when NO DIRECT THREAT to your country has been proved to exist, so when one of these poor fanatical religious bastards that had some loved one killed by your troops comes to get his revenge just suck it up and quit playing the victim.
Of course it has the same effect but the people outside the tragidy don’t view it the same way. You must be able to see that.
"Of course it has the same effect but the people outside the tragidy don’t view it the same way. You must be able to see that. "
Damn, I typed a long that got lost.
I can see you don’t view it the same way, but to me it’s just the same. A death is a death. Your intent means nothing in terms of minimizing the suffering caused by innocent casualties. How many millions will have to die before you understand? 3 to 5 millions aren’t enough? If you do some research and sum up Vietnam, Laos, Cambodja, Iraq, Afganistan and all the other wars the USA was involved in, minus both world wars, you’ll get to a number between 3 to 5 million civilian casualties. And you are the good guys? I whish I don’t live to see you going evil…
When you include Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, are you includiing the deaths of Pol Pot, and the vietnamise communists?
Still, you are right, lots of innocent civillians get killed in war. If you were in charge though, how would you have handled it differently? If you just sat back and didn’t fight Hitler, Fascists, communists, then the world would have gone to shit in a hand basket last century. And if you do decide you have to fight then there are going to be civillian deaths.
Larry, I don’t think a solution that kills more people than the actual problem is a good solution, in the case of veitnam. I never mentioned your involvement in the world wars because there, as bad as it was, it had to be done. It’s certainly not the case with Iraq, nor was it with Vietnam or Laos.
But good for you that you can almost admit you may not have had the best course of action in your past military history. That is already something, some others probably believe it was all done in defense of freedom and demnocracy.
Restless
I do think that Iraq was necessary however I do not think that our involvement in indochina was. I think that we had to establish a do not cross line for the communists in that part of the world at that time but it should have been in the set in the south china sea and gulf of Thialand.
I believe that fighting communism was every bit as important as was WWII. That’s why I’m willing to accept the often ugly facts of our geopolitical involvement over the last 50 years. As I said in a previous post, now we are playing clean up (mostly).
As far as Iraq is concerned, I do think we needed to get rid of Saddam. I’m sure this has all been said before but, We knew as late as 1995 he had lots of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was farther along in his nuclear program than thought. So we went in and cleaned it up. However, he was still playing coy with the inspectors and ultimately kicked them out. This doesn’t seem like the action of an innocent person. I know what you are saying though, we didn’t know for sure so what right did we have. Let’s face it though, if anyone wanted us hurt it was Saddam. How much of a stretch do you think it would have been for him to hand over any WMDs to a terrorist group. Seriously, anyone can see how potentially dangerous this is. I don’t want proof in the form of thousands of dead new yorkers or any other americans for that matter.
It is also great that in the process of protecting our own asses we can free the iraqi people. However, I don’t like it when the administration acts like that was its goal, because it wasn’t. If that was the case we would be liberating nations until the cows come home. Hell, all of africa and the middle east needs to be liberated but I don’t think we should risk american soilders unless american intersts are at risk.
Anyway, as far as the threat to this country is concerned, I don’t think it was to hard to connect the dots regarding iraq and terrorist groups. You would propbably feel differently if your country was threatened and I’m not saying that to be a dick.
“I don’t think it was to hard to connect the dots regarding iraq and terrorist groups.”
What do you mean with dots? Like Iraq is an Arab country and so is Al Qaeda?? That’s your link? Why didn’t you go for Saudi Arabia then? I’m sorry but this is the kind of thing I can not swallow.
Restless
Ok, I’ll use an example. We hated the communists and bin laden hated the communists. It was in our interest to give bin laden weapons to harm the communists. Similarly, it is not a stretch think that Saddam would give WMDs (assuming he had them) to bin laden to harm us. They both have the appropriate mindset. Whether or not it would have happened, who knows but it seems a very real threat - too real as far as I’m concerned. It is true that a similar arguement could be made regarding any number of other countries, but the most immediate threat seemed to be posed by Saddam (lots of close seconds though). Don’t forget, the war effort was ramping up before the shit hit the fan with North Korea, that may be a more imminent threat than Saddam, but it would have been immpossible (politically)to refocus the effort.
Whether or not you agree with the action in iraq, I hope you can at least see that it is not entirely black and white regarding the threat he might have posed. I certainly concede that there is really no way to know for sure, but I believe it was the right thing to do everything considered.