Michael Ken Nielsen brought the following video to my attention. (Don’t worry, it’s work safe…unless your boss is a Bush supporter, I suppose.)
So is it STILL too early to call it a Vietnam-like quagmire? Especially after McCain asserted that we might well be there for the next hundred years?
ttp://www.youtube.com/v/h5Vf4VbLfv8&hl=en”>
• 
Wow. Reminds me of that one troupe’s tribute to the war you linked to here months and months ago. It was just as funny. Wish I could remember the group’s name. “A$$hole…. A$$hole… A soldier I will be…”
It was by the Asylum Street Spankers from Austin. I highly recommend catching them in concert.
Um, so how many candles do you put on a cake for something that is five years old, but officially over four years and ten months ago, but still creating casualties and deaths?
And why is this guy in a head mask handing me all these candles?
And why have I never heard of a candle company named I.E.D.?
And why are the candles exploding in my hand?
I like his song “Don’t Cancel Doctor Who”.
The classics are also still good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE
Who gives a crap what you think. We’ll stay there as long as we want and no matter how many of you wimps think it was a mistake, we’ll do what we like and nothing you can do or say will stop us.
signed
Ðìçk Cheney
Hey, even McCain thought it would be a cakewalk… so we should elect him president next, right? Or maybe just stick around for another 100 years?
McCain’s words have been conveniently taken out of context. When he means the next 100 years, he means permanent bases, like what we have in Germany and Korea, (since World War II and the Korean War). And no, comparing it to Vietnam is like comparing apples to oranges. The situation is no way as dire as it was in Vietnam, and to say so is to exaggerate. While most of us think it was a mistake to go in the first place, we should be able to admit that the surge has seen significant improvements. Even if we hate the war, we should still be rooting for success over there.
Comparing Iraq to Korea or Germany is comparing apples to VW Beetles. And outside of some diminished violence it’s still bad(civilian deaths up last month, 2007 deadlier than 2006) a great deal of the success can be explain by the cease fire of the Mahdi army.
There has been almost no improvement on the politiical front. Almost none of the things Bush promised at the start of the Surge have come about.
If McCain cannot see the difference between this and WWII, then he is not fit to be President.
I don’t know what success is, so I root for the return of our troops from that fiasco.
Comparing Iraq to Korea or Germany is like comparing apples to watermelons. Watermelons are much bigger, redder, there’s a bunch of fanatical little Gallaghers ready come up behind us with a sledgehammer and explode all over us.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist jumping on the metaphor fruit bandwagon.
I like the version on THE DAILY SHOW where they showed that if you view the President’s reports on the war in reverse chronology, things actually look like they’re getting better! If anyone has a YouTube clip of this, please add it in a post!
Well, putting things into perspective, about 33,000 American soldiers died during the Korean War, and we’re still there; and about 400,000 American soldiers died during World War II, and we’re still in Germany and Japan.
It stands to reason that we’ll be in Iraq for quite some time — which anyone with half a brain should have realized the day this war started.
Regarding WW II — think about it. For every one soldier we’ve lost to date in Iraq, 100 American servicemembers died during WW II. Every single one of those men and women had hopes, dreams, families — the works. If you add in civilian deaths and military deaths of all the nations involved, the death toll estimate skyrockets to more than 48 million people. Was WW II worth THAT human cost?
You tell me. But you’ll have to explain very carefully why those tens of millions of people were any less valuable than the comparatively tiny fraction of people who have died in the current nation-building effort in Iraq.
The fact is they weren’t. There is really no “good war” or “bad war.” In terms of human cost, all wars are bad, because the human cost of most wars will invariably be far, far greater than if one side or the other had just rolled over and capitulated before a shot was ever fired.
But, whether it is “defensive” or “offensive,” war is usually about preserving one’s political ideology, freedom, cultural identity, religious identity, or a combination thereof. Are the lives of thousands, tens of thousands, millions, or tens of millions EVER worth such a price?
Again… you tell me.
For those of you who think the Iraq war was “not worth it,” let me ask you this: Why was, say, losing 360,000 Union soldiers during the American Civil War to free 4 million slaves worth it, but losing 4,000 American soldier to free more than 25 million Iraqi slaves “stupid”?
The Iraqis weren’t really slaves, you may argue? Well, 15 million Shiites and five million Kurds sure were. They were second or third class citizens with no power who were routinely brutalized, lynched, beheaded and murdered (sometimes en masse) at will by the ruling minority.
Food for thought.
They weren’t Americans.
And Abraham Lincoln wasn’t black… and FDR wasn’t a Russian communist… and Truman wasn’t Korean… and Kennedy wasn’t Vietnamese… and Clinton wasn’t Somali… and, well… you get the idea.
-“a great deal of the success can be explain by the cease fire of the Mahdi army.” True, but a good deal of success has also come from the strategy of General Petraeus. Let’s give our guys some credit.
-“And outside of some diminished violence it’s still bad(civilian deaths up last month, 2007 deadlier than 2006)”. Unfortunately, also true. However, American casualties have dropped significantly. So, while there is still a long way to go, there has been progress.
-” If McCain cannot see the difference between this and WWII, then he is not fit to be President.” I’d say a guy who has not only given service to his country in the military, but also years in the senate fighting for principals that were often at odds with his own party (lobby reform, critical of Bush’s initial handling of the war) and has extensive foreign policy experience, is more than qualified to be president.
-“I don’t know what success is, so I root for the return of our troops from that fiasco.” Success is peace in Iraq, with a functioning democratic government. Not saying it’s easy, but ultimately that’s what success would (hopefully) be. And all of us should be rooting for that, even if one hate’s the war and/or hates Bush. Success in Iraq doesn’t mean Bush was right, or won, or justify invading it. But it does mean the Iraqi people and our troops, are no longer subject to violence.
This was well done both musically and lyrically. Thanks for showing it to us, PAD!
Posted by: Patrick at March 21, 2008 08:54 PM
McCain’s words have been conveniently taken out of context. When he means the next 100 years, he means permanent bases, like what we have in Germany and Korea, (since World War II and the Korean War).
Maybe, but if McCain’s options are:
A) withdraw the troops
or
B) stay there for 100 years keeping the country from descending into *complete* anarchy
McCain would choose B. So it isn’t inaccurate to say that he’d be down for a century in Iraq if that’s what he thought it would take.
See, I can understand and even kind of agree with the argument for staying if that argument goes like this:
“We made a mistake by going in, we wrecked this country, and therefore we have a duty to do everything we can to repair it.”
But McCain seems to think that it was a great idea to begin with. He seems to be saying that regardless of how bad things get, it will all be worth it in the end. If he could go back and do it all over again, he’d invade all over again, because according to him absolutely nothing could possibly be worse than allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in charge for one more day.
I’d say a guy who has not only given service to his country in the military, but also years in the senate fighting for principals that were often at odds with his own party (lobby reform, critical of Bush’s initial handling of the war) and has extensive foreign policy experience, is more than qualified to be president.
Yeah, he used to vote his conscience (or at least what I thought was his conscience) instead of along party lines.
But now he’s sucking up to the Bush administration and recently voted against a bill that would’ve banned waterboarding.
That was when my last shred of respect for McCain evaporated, when I read about that. I thought that no matter what, I could at least count on him to do everything he could in order to ensure that the United States did not use torture. Now he is pro-torture. Now I am anti-McCain.
Success is peace in Iraq, with a functioning democratic government. Not saying it’s easy, but ultimately that’s what success would (hopefully) be. And all of us should be rooting for that, even if one hate’s the war and/or hates Bush. Success in Iraq doesn’t mean Bush was right, or won, or justify invading it. But it does mean the Iraqi people and our troops, are no longer subject to violence.
This situation is, as I see it, lose/lose. Let’s say that those objectives are achieved. That will mean the ordeal of the Iraqi people is finally over, which will be good.
It will also mean, however, that Bush will be bragging about how his vision came to pass.
He’ll talk about how all of the critics of the war were just too short-sighted and weren’t thinking long-term, like he’ll claim he was.
He’ll talk about how the outcome in Iraq proves that the United States can successfully democratize (if that’s not a real word, that won’t stop him from using it in all likelihood) any country it wishes to.
By then, whoever is President might consider repeating the process in another country somewhere.
That President won’t think about the toll such an attack would take on the people of the country.
He or she won’t think about the civilians who might be unfortunate enough to be underneath the bombs, as the song says.
He or she won’t think about the aftermath, whether the quality of life will be better or worse.
He or she won’t think about how attacking any other country that has not attacked you first is wrong.
No, he or she will think “If we can make Iraq into a democracy, we can do it in this place too! Sure, why not? Let’s do it.”
The way I see it, if the American people and American politicians look back on this war as having any positive outcomes at all, it will set a dangerous precedent and make them more willing to start other wars.
So…perpetual hëll in Iraq vs. having this done again and again in the future. Lose/lose.
Posted by: R. Maheras at March 21, 2008 11:39 PM
For those of you who think the Iraq war was “not worth it,” let me ask you this: Why was, say, losing 360,000 Union soldiers during the American Civil War to free 4 million slaves worth it, but losing 4,000 American soldier to free more than 25 million Iraqi slaves “stupid”?
The Iraqis weren’t really slaves, you may argue? Well, 15 million Shiites and five million Kurds sure were. They were second or third class citizens with no power who were routinely brutalized, lynched, beheaded and murdered (sometimes en masse) at will by the ruling minority.
All 20-25 million of them? Or were the majority of them left alone for the most part with the ruling minority making examples of people now and then? (Please don’t bring up the gassing of the Kurds, since that happened 15 years prior to the invasion and Saddam hadn’t done it a second time since.)
How many of them think that the current situation is a whole lot better? At least under Saddam they weren’t living in a war zone.
Finally, if you want to talk about being treated unjustly and even brutally by the system, take a look at the United States prison system. There are innocent people in there (as DNA testing continues to prove) and there are people in there for possession of marijuana (which hurts nobody aside from, possibly, themselves). There have been people locked away for engaging in consensual sex (Lawrence v. Texas). And so on.
So even though the U.S. is by no means as bad as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, it would be a gross exaggeration to say that in the United States nobody innocent ever gets victimized by those in power. It would also be inaccurate to say that it doesn’t happen very often, because it happens a lot.
So, using the same logic that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq, somebody should declare war on the United States. Somebody should “liberate” the country. Any civilian deaths resulting from such an invasion would be justified, because they would be for the greater good. Even thousands and thousands of civilians deaths would be acceptable, as it would be a regrettable but necessary consequence of making the United States into a truly free country.
No, I don’t believe that should happen. But when you talk about how this was so great for the Iraqis, you really should think about how you would feel if it was done to you.
Posted by: R. Maheras at March 21, 2008 11:39 PM
For those of you who think the Iraq war was “not worth it,” let me ask you this: Why was, say, losing 360,000 Union soldiers during the American Civil War to free 4 million slaves worth it, but losing 4,000 American soldier to free more than 25 million Iraqi slaves “stupid”?
Hmm… The American Civil was fought by and for Americans in …. AMERICA! It was on our own turf, not half a planet away in a country that did not ask for help. An uprising like that, a “civil war”, needs to come from the country’s own people to EVER have a chance at doing any lasting good. It CANNOT be forced upon them by an outside strong-armed force that has no cultural clue what it’s doing. If it’s not worth it to them, we will fail no matter how much effort and money we throw at them. If we really felt the overpowering need to liberate slaves, why didn’t we liberate the millions of Asiatic child slaves toiling in sweatshops and brothels, sewing our Nikes and entertaining our businessmen? Or the millions of enslaved Africans in the eastern sub-Sahara – routinely beheaded, beaten, raped, persecuted, murdered, etc. – also often by Muslim extremists?
Sorry. I forgot those people don’t have supplies of $120/barrel Crude….
R Maheras: And Abraham Lincoln wasn’t black…
Luigi Novi: But the blacks were humans beings being dehumanied in America.
R Maheras: …and FDR wasn’t a Russian communist… and Truman wasn’t Korean… and Kennedy wasn’t Vietnamese…
Luigi Novi: No, but those regimes either posed a threat to the U.S. directly, or it was believed, indirectly through the scourge of communism.
R Maheras: and Clinton wasn’t Somali…
Luigi Novi: No, he wasn’t. But he had a desire to perform a humanitarian act in Somalia, and despite that, some of our soldiers got killed and dragged through the streets, thereby illustrating that, just with Iraq, even if there is a noble cause or emergent positive effect of such intervention, it can come with a price to our troops, something for which their families might want us to be a bit more selective in where we send them and why.
That’s kind of like saying if Lady MacBeth had half a brain, she should have realized her husband would break and become a hallucinating paranoid the day she pushed him to kill his predecessor. Who would have thought a 400-year-old play taught in high schools about morons would still be performed dramatically today?
People aren’t robots, in spite of their own and your belief they are. Reason is the contrast to privilege, and privilege is the contrast to reason. Reason is everything to a robot, but reason can’t be everything to anyone. Your wondering why people don’t remember they aligned themselves as robots at the start of the invasion… that’s dark, dude. Dark and oppressive.
I would assume the reason most people oppose this war is that it appears to be sacrificing American, allied and Iraqi lives to achieve nothing of dire need to America. The Civil War and World War II were terrible things, and anyone who calls them “good” has no perspective – but they achieved tasks which were vital to American interests – preservation of the Union (the abolition of slavery was not really a primary goal) and the defeat of an Axis which had attacked this country and threatened to consume its allies. The War in Iraq began as an attack on a third rate despot who had confined his crimes against humanity to his own country and its immediate neighbors. It’s stupid to pretend Saddam Hussein was a nice guy, but just as stupid to pretend he posed a threat to the United States. Sacrifice of lives to achieve something important is a sad necessity; Sacrifice of them to nothing is idiocy.
“and there are people in there for possession of marijuana (which hurts nobody aside from, possibly, themselves)”
I know this is a complete aside from the actual topic, but I had to relate a story about how completely untrue this is.
My current girlfriend (who was my best friend for 5 years before we starting dating) was dating a man who had been smoking marijuana consistently for 20 years. His memory was completely shot. He smoked pot in front of me a few times. One day I made a joke about it to him. He angrily screamed at my best friend, because he claimed he did not want anyone to know about it and she must have told me. Because of that, he also attempted to beat her.
Just because Marijuana slowly erodes your brain, in contrast to Cocaine which very quickly erodes it, doesn’t make it any better. My father (whom I do not speak to anymore at this point) has done cocaine for for 20 years, and has never hurt anyone besides himself. So I really have no clue how Marijuana is much different.
My apologies for posting twice, but thoughts come to me very scattered when I just wake up 🙂
“needs to come from the country’s own people to EVER have a chance at doing any lasting good. It CANNOT be forced upon them by an outside strong-armed force that has no cultural clue what it’s doing. If it’s not worth it to them, we will fail no matter how much effort and money we throw at them.”
I’m just curious: How does a group of oppressed people, that is probably without money, leadership and hope do this? How do they go about fighting back without some kind of support? I’m not sure that we, as everyday citizens, have ANY clue what the average Iraq citizen feels. Especially since there is no way in the last 20 years it could ever be broadcast to us.
Are we expecting a group of “good” terrorists ala V for Vendetta to show up in dramatic fashion? Or is oppression only to be fought when its taken up as the celebrity trend of the month like Darfur?
I’ll be crucified saying this but if Clinton was in the White House and he was the one to do all this with Iraq we would have a complete 180 as far as news coverage. The talking heads on TV would be spinning it to be the greatest thing the US has ever done.
I’m not saying you guys here would be singing a different tune but the media bias is unashamedly obvious.
Please don’t bring up the gassing of the Kurds, since that happened 15 years prior to the invasion and Saddam hadn’t done it a second time since.)
Rob that is just a weak, weak argument Saddam gassed the Kurds many times. They are still finding mass graves today. Much documentation was used during Saddams trial to prove he was the spawn of Satan and needed to be taken out.
Now however we need to make sure the vacuum isnt filled with bigger spawns. As for the U.S. not doing anything at the time would continuing not to do anything about it be better?
Regarding WW II — think about it. For every one soldier we’ve lost to date in Iraq, 100 American servicemembers died during WW II.
This comparison doesn’t hold. The Iraq war is in a country the size of California, against an “enemy” who was no threat to anyone outside the Iraqi borders. WWI was fought through all of Europe, most of the Pacific & most of North Africa against 2 enemies who were invading every country they could get to. And we defeated both those enemies in less time then we have so far taken in Iraq.
As for the U.S. not doing anything at the time would continuing not to do anything about it be better?
Yes. You wait until you’re attacked or you don’t attack at all.
In Speed, Keanu Reeves’ character decides to shoot the hostage when confronted with a hostage situation. Presto: the bad guy no longer has a hostage, and can be dealt with directly.
But in that movie, he only shot the hostage in the shoulder. That shocked the bad guy so much that he let the hostage go and left himself open. Imagine if he had shot the hostage in the heart instead. No decent person would do such a thing.
When the Bush administration declared war, they decided to shoot the “hostages”, in this case any Iraqi people who were not able to get out of the way of their bombs. They didn’t worry about whether those “hostages” died as a result, just as long as they got the bad guy. They’ve got innocent blood on their hands, and they should answer for it.
The surge is like running the pumps on a sinking ship. It buys time to man the lifeboats, call for help, and maybe try to patch the hole in the hull if you’ve got the equipment.
If you don’t actually do any of those things, what’s the point?
I’ll be crucified saying this but if Clinton was in the White House and he was the one to do all this with Iraq we would have a complete 180 as far as news coverage. The talking heads on TV would be spinning it to be the greatest thing the US has ever done.
I wouldn’t say crucified, but I certainly greet your claim with incredulity.
Putting aside that Clinton wouldn’t have done it…Gore wouldn’t have done it…hëll, even W’s father wouldn’t and didn’t…everything that Clinton did was second guess and trashed to within an inch of its life. If Clinton had invaded Iraq, it would have been cited as being an attempt to distract from other “activities” and by this point the talking heads would be talkling impeachment.
PAD
I still find it amazing that if you watch some of the CNN interviews with W Sr after the Gulf War and he talks about how much of a bad idea and how stupid it would be to go into Iraq and all those good points that he made, which most were good points, are never re-addressed to Jr.
Just because Marijuana slowly erodes your brain, in contrast to Cocaine which very quickly erodes it, doesn’t make it any better.
I have a brother who is addicted to cocaine, and a father who is addicted to alcohol. Both substances have been highly damaging to their lives, and to the lives of people around them. But the fact that cocaine use is outlawed hasn’t really helped my brother or anyone else at all, or made his case any better than my father’s.
So, what is the point? I’m not sure if there is a point to it all, but if there was, I’d say, make drug use solely a health concern, why make it a crime? Makes no logical sense, except perhaps to fuel the sense of moral superiority of people who don’t use drugs.
Ops. Forgot to make it clear that the first paragraph of my above post was taken from another post. The rest is my response.
Putting aside that Clinton wouldn’t have done it…Gore wouldn’t have done it…hëll, even W’s father wouldn’t and didn’t
Lou and Carl Cannon (authors of “Reagan’s Disciple”) have argued that Reagan wouldn’t have invaded.
Posted by: Rene at March 22, 2008 05:51 PM
So, what is the point? I’m not sure if there is a point to it all, but if there was, I’d say, make drug use solely a health concern, why make it a crime? Makes no logical sense, except perhaps to fuel the sense of moral superiority of people who don’t use drugs.
Yeah, I agree. If taking the occasional bong hit were proven to cause people to go on crime sprees I might feel differently about what the penalties for possession should be. But it doesn’t, and although I’m sure that using it too often is not good for you or people who care about you I have met a number of people who told me they routinely smoked weed and whose brains seemed to be working just fine. They certainly didn’t strike me as dangerous people who needed to be imprisoned.
Ahh that’s weird, I read this blog every day or so from the UK and it’s odd to see something from over here linked up. Was going to say there’s an anti-war medley up on his Myspace but it’s gone now.
Here’s another anti-war vid anyways http://youtube.com/watch?v=gdYFOABd1DM
the current nation-building effort in Iraq.
Ahh, if only we were prepared for nation building from the start. But we weren’t.
We didn’t go to build Iraq, but we did a helluva job tearing down what they had.
The thing is, the case could be made that we shouldn’t have gone to Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan or Iraq.
We’re not still in Japan or Germany for the sake of their military needing us to keep control in the country. We shouldn’t have had to be in Korea for the last 50 years, and it’s nonsensical to think that we can continue doing this in the future with other countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Seeing some of these drug-related posts and the “It doesn’t hurt anyone else” theme going on, take it from me. It hurts other people. From the people in the other car when a toked-up driver hits them or the family of the user when they OD, it hurts other people.
As far as the war goes–I only wish I had something useful to say.
Michael T : I’m just curious: How does a group of oppressed people, that is probably without money, leadership and hope do this? How do they go about fighting back without some kind of support?
And the Bolsheviks had Kalishnakovs when they overthrew the Tsar? And the French had tanks when they stormed the Bastille? And billion-dollar Blackhawks helped the farmers at Lexington and Concord? No, you’ll never get me to believe that statement. Revolutions are made when the people en masse have had enough of their persecution, and finally take a stand. And if the act of submission to authority is so ingrained by culture that revolution is not even a concept, you can try to rile them until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t happen. We can’t even speak their language, let alone understand their culture.
Is it harder to do when you only have bricks and bayonets against tanks? Sure, but the Afghanis beat the Russians and the Iraqi’s are knocking our boots off with little homemade IEDs; it may not be much, but the Afghani’s won their war by holing up and bankrupting the Russians in an endless stalemate – the direction we’re headed. The only country I would not recommend this in is China, because with a Billion people, you will never run short of troops. Yes, India also has a billion, but they are much more disparate with cultures and religions than China, and a group consensus is far less likely.
We also, as a really dumb nation, have forgotten that the whole reason we were looking at war was for retaliation for the planing of our towers. Iraq had absolutely NOTHING to do with that. Most of the hijackers were of Egyptian or Saudi heritage, and we’ve never, ever given a thought to even politely asking them for reparations (although Saudi women are so enslaved they can be beaten to death with rocks for the crimes of relatives – not even their own crimes). The invasion of Iraq was a pee-poor excuse to detract from our failing to locate – if we even really tried – bin Laden.
Susan O says: We also, as a really dumb nation, have forgotten that the whole reason we were looking at war was for retaliation for the planing of our towers. Iraq had absolutely NOTHING to do with that. Most of the hijackers were of Egyptian or Saudi heritage, and we’ve never, ever given a thought to even politely asking them for reparations (although Saudi women are so enslaved they can be beaten to death with rocks for the crimes of relatives – not even their own crimes). The invasion of Iraq was a pee-poor excuse to detract from our failing to locate – if we even really tried – bin Laden.
Susan, Show me where Bush claims Iraq was responsible……He does believe Saddam had some ties and/or backed Al-Qaeda and Iraq would have been a perfect safe haven for future attacks. he has never claimed Iraq was directly responsible.
he has never claimed Iraq was directly responsible.
He didn’t have to. He just insinuated it over, and over, and over, until like half the people in this country believed it.
He got exactly what he wanted, support for his little war, and he never had to say it.
Rob Brown wrote about the Iraqis being slaves under Saddam: “All 20-25 million of them? Or were the majority of them left alone for the most part with the ruling minority making examples of people now and then? (Please don’t bring up the gassing of the Kurds, since that happened 15 years prior to the invasion and Saddam hadn’t done it a second time since.)”
OK, we’ll look at the world through your lens for a minute.
Let’s say that in 1940, Roosevelt had said, “Hey, instead of fighting the Germans and Japanese, let’s just make a deal with them, and urge the Russians and everyone else to do the same. Europe and Asia will not be ravaged, tens of millions of lives will be saved — especially hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. After all, the MAJORITY of people living under the Nazis and the Japanese will be just fine.”
But that’s not what happened. Instead, Roosevelt opted to plunge us into a war that killed nearly 50 million people. Was it worth 50 million lives to keep Hitler and Hirohito from eventually mass murdering six, eight or 10 million people, who, like the Kurds you flippantly seem to disregard, were considered a “nuisance”? Yes? No? Maybe? And when is the ratio of those killed by a war versus those who might be liberated or kept free by a war “worth it”?
That is always an incredibly tough decision for any president, and no matter what final decision he makes about going to war or avoiding war, there will always be those who will argue he made the wrong decision.
Rob Brown wrote: “How many of them think that the current situation is a whole lot better? At least under Saddam they weren’t living in a war zone.”
I’ll wager any of the millions of Kurds in Northern Iraq will tell you they are glad Saddam is gone, and, while there is still much to be done in that part of Iraq, life is much better for them now than it had been at any time under nearly three decades of Saddam’s rule. Keep in mind that Saddam just didn’t gas them, he was systematically destroying every one of their villages.
http://www.theotheriraq.com/press_michigan.html
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001407.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-25-1223407209_x.htm
Susan O wrote: “Hmm… The American Civil was fought by and for Americans in …. AMERICA! It was on our own turf, not half a planet away in a country that did not ask for help…” and “… If we really felt the overpowering need to liberate slaves, why didn’t we liberate the millions of Asiatic child slaves toiling in sweatshops and brothels, sewing our Nikes and entertaining our businessmen?”
The Civil War was just one example I cited. In reality, where a president decides to commit troops to battle, whether it’s in our own back yard or in Europe, really doesn’t matter. Wherever it may be, lots and lots of soldiers and civilians are going to die in the process.
And so what if Iraq didn’t invite us into their country to free their slaves? I don’t recall Germany inviting us into their territory during WW II to free their slaves either.
As for pushing to liberate child-labor slaves in Asia, that’s fine by me!
Luigi Novi wrote:” But the blacks were humans beings being dehumanied in America.”
Yeah, but that practice had been going on for hundreds of years in the New World (a practice, I might add, that was developed and/or fueled by Europeans like the Spanish, French, Dutch, Italians, English and Portuguese). It took Lincoln to finally step up and take a huge (and, in human terms, enormously costly) stand to abolish slavery in America once and for all.
Luigi Novi Wrote: No, but those regimes either posed a threat to the U.S. directly, or it was believed, indirectly through the scourge of communism.
Through the Lend Lease program, FDR helped the Russian communists against the Nazi threat at a time when Germany was NOT a threat to U.S. national security (as a matter of fact, we were still a declared neutral power). The Korean War and Vietnam were, at best, MARGINAL theoretical threats to our national security. However, by comparison, problems in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East ARE direct and serious threats to our national security.
Jeffrey S. Frawley wrote: “I would assume the reason most people oppose this war is that it appears to be sacrificing American, allied and Iraqi lives to achieve nothing of dire need to America.”
Whaaat? I hate to break this to you, but a loose cannon in the Middle East is a HUGE threat to our national security and the national security of our allies and trading partners. That plastic keyboard you are typing on, and the car you drive, the containers your food comes in, and most of the other niceties and essentials in your life, are due largely to that black, gooky stuff pumped out of oil wells in and around that area you say we need not be concerned with.
Michael Brunner wrote: “This comparison doesn’t hold. The Iraq war is in a country the size of California, against an “enemy” who was no threat to anyone outside the Iraqi borders. WWI was fought through all of Europe, most of the Pacific & most of North Africa against 2 enemies who were invading every country they could get to. And we defeated both those enemies in less time then we have so far taken in Iraq.”
First, you put “enemy” in quotes like Bush and Cheney were the only people in the U.S. who perceived Saddam as a serious and dire enemy to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Most people on both sides of the aisle in Congress, along with the presidential administrations of Bush Sr. and Clinton, publicly stated so over and over again. The quotes are everywhere. All you have to do is look them up.
Second, what difference does it make that WW II was fought in a large theater, and the Iraq War in a smaller one? That’s irrelevant. So is the WW II time frame. The key thing to remember is that the U.S. lost 400,000 troops during WW II, and a total of nearly 50 million people died.
Third, as I mentioned earlier, exactly when is it OK to sacrifice troops and collateral civilians when the president is deciding whether or not to go to war? And how many troops and collateral civilians is it OK to sacrifice?
That’s a trick question, because there is no “right” answer.
Each president has had to make his own call about when and why to go to war. Historically, you may think some presidents who opted to go to war made the right choice, but do you really think most of the tens of thousands (or tens of millions) of noncombatants who died as a result of those wars would have agreed with you?
The fact is, Roosevelt’s fundamental reason for going to war against Germany was basically the same as Bush II’s reason for invading Iraq… and Clinton’s for invading Haiti… and Reagan’s for invading Grenada… and Bush Sr.’s for invading Panama: to free the people living under, and eliminate the perceived threat, of a military dictatorship.
Here is just one example, from May 1st, 2003:
“The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.”
He does believe Saddam had some ties and/or backed Al-Qaeda and Iraq would have been a perfect safe haven for future attacks.
You don’t know what he believes. Aside from him, nobody knows that. You only know what he claims to believe, or have believed.
You are trying to establish Principle™ to the 2003 Iraq Invasion by citing Principled™ analogies from US History, or precedents of the cold war forgiven by present conventional wisdom.
However, by lying to the public ~1000x on the issue of Irag alone — saying they had evidence of things they had no actual evidence of (there’s a public search database) — Bush has established that he is Unprincipled.™ Your analogies were not Observably Hostile to Principle™ as the Bush administration has been. Nothing analogous to those lies to the public were present in your analogies or forgiven precedents. Slavery, Pearl Harbor, and the Communist Revolution were not fabricated by the presidents of their time.
By comparison, Joseph McCarthy got a generation of radicals blacklisted from the media. George W. Bush instead killed hundreds of thousands of people and traded in a dollar in stability for the 3¢ of getting rid Saddam Hussein. Please put aside the protectionist sniveling for once and try to establish some kind of attachment with reality.
R. Maheras –
And so what if Iraq didn’t invite us into their country to free their slaves? I don’t recall Germany inviting us into their territory during WW II to free their slaves either.
Maybe you recall that Germany declared war on us?
Most people on both sides of the aisle in Congress, along with the presidential administrations of Bush Sr. and Clinton, publicly stated so over and over again. The quotes are everywhere. All you have to do is look them up.
Yes, other people called Saddam a threat, but none of them engaged in an invasion that they knew would would kill thousands of soldiers.
what difference does it make that WW II was fought in a large theater, and the Iraq War in a smaller one?
The deference is that we were able to defeat 2 global spanning, aggressive empires in less time than we could defeat a small contained nation with almost no military. It is relevant because we had to beat back these empires from their outer reaches to their homeland to do so. It is relevant because they were conquering every country they could, whereas Saddam was a threat to noone but the Iraqi people. Ans with the no-fly zones he wasn’t even a threat to the entire nation.
Roosevelt’s fundamental reason for going to war against Germany
Roosevelt didn’t go to war with Germany until they declared war on us. Roosevelt went to war with Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor.
black, gooky stuff pumped out of oil wells in and around that area you say we need not be concerned with.
We can also get oil from Canada, Russia, Venezeula & from our own oil wells. Add the underused ability to create non-oil technologies, and we don’t need mideast oil as much as you believe we do.
life is much better for them now than it had been at any time under nearly three decades of Saddam’s rule
Except for the loss of electricity, water, overburdened hospitals, sectarian violence, colloria outbreaks, suicide bombings, womens loss of freedoms, food shortages, buildings reduced to rubble, I’m sure things are just peachy.
Seeing some of these drug-related posts and the “It doesn’t hurt anyone else” theme going on, take it from me. It hurts other people. From the people in the other car when a toked-up driver hits them or the family of the user when they OD, it hurts other people.
It sure does, Sean. My point is, not everything that has the potential to hurt other people should be a crime. And I’d never understood how making it a crime helps drug addicts and their families. It never helped mine one iota. It seems the trouble it causes (more people in jail, drug commerce empowering organized crime, further social stigma to drug users, etc.) far outweights any benefits repressive policies could have.
Seeing some of these drug-related posts and the “It doesn’t hurt anyone else” theme going on, take it from me. It hurts other people. From the people in the other car when a toked-up driver hits them…
Which is why I never said anything about how it should be legal to smoke weed and drive immediately afterwards, just that it should be legal to smoke weed. At the very least it should not be punishable by prison time. We have more than 1% of U.S. adults in prison right now for the first time ever. It’s time to seriously consider how many of those people are truly threats to society and whether putting them there helps or hurts.
…or the family of the user when they OD, it hurts other people.
As far as I know you cannot OD on marijuana.
As for any long-term effects resulting from excessive use, there’s the same risk of that with alcohol and nicotine.
“Roosevelt didn’t go to war with Germany until they declared war on us. Roosevelt went to war with Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor.”
No, Roosevelt just bent over backwards aiding the enemies of Germany until Germany declared war on us.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have. But he got us involved long before Germany declared war.
Your sheltering the FDR analogy for GWB is detached from reality. Please put down the Republican Kool-Aid and pick yourself up a big steaming cup of Why-don’t-you-look-where-you’re-going. It’s always in season.
Pat Nolan speaks from his back side:I’ll be crucified saying this but if Clinton was in the White House and he was the one to do all this with Iraq we would have a complete 180 as far as news coverage. The talking heads on TV would be spinning it to be the greatest thing the US has ever done.
And which talking heads are you referring to?
Look, I know you far right types can only work if you pretend to be the victim (Oh, that 5% population is attacking my 95% religion!. Oh, that 10% lifestyle is attacking my 90% lifestyle…Oh! The have not’s actually want to have!) but can you stay in some sense of reality?
Let’s list the pundits:
On the Right:
Bill ORielly
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
Lou Dobbs
Those Fox and Friends folks
Brit Hume
Neil Cavuto
Chris Wallace
Greta Van Susteren
Pat Buchanan
Joe Scarburough
Chris Matthews
on the Left:
Keith Olbermann
Alan Combs
…
…
…
I guess we’ll go with Dan Abrams too, though he seems to more be along to try to get some of Olbermann’s ratings.
So really..where are the lefty talkers that you and your ilk do so go on about?
To be fair, Scavenger, I’m not entirely sure that Lou Dobbs qualifies as right-wing on issues other than immigration. Chris Matthews can be a dìçk sometimes, but he doesn’t seem like a complete righty either. And while I don’t watch Fox News, I think that I read Van Susteren was reasonably fair (although that is obviously not saying much by Fox News standards).
But yeah, all of those others you listed definitely qualify.
I wasn’t paying attention to the news when Kosovo got bombed, so I have no memories of what the coverage was like. Can anybody tell me?
Btw, if I had been paying attention back then and if the bombing resulted in the deaths of civilians, I would’ve probably been opposed to that too. Makes no difference to me who orders that kind of thing, which party they’re from; I don’t believe in it.
Roosevelt just bent over backwards aiding the enemies of Germany until Germany declared war on us.
Go back and read your history books. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, we declared war on Japan, Then, being Japan’s ally, Germany declared war on the U.S.
Yes, we helped our allies through the Lend-Lease program, but we weren’t actually involved until the above chain of events. This was hardly “bending over backwards” aiding Germany’s enemies (Who, by the way, were our allies).
I wasn’t paying attention to the news when Kosovo got bombed, so I have no memories of what the coverage was like.
IIRC, It was a lot of “Clinton’s trying to distract from the Lewinsky scandal” & “He’s wagging the dog”.