War and those who wage it
 

I hate war. I loathe the people who support war as much as I do the people who participate. That’s a psychologically complex thing for me to say because I am a volunteer veteran of war myself. So by simple logic I should hate myself too. I put on a military uniform of another nation and went to battle in a country that had nothing to do with my own. Maybe I hate myself some, but I forgive myself in the same way that I forgive the dead and those veterans who speak out against war, protesting in favour of peace and non-aggression. Forgiveness and compassion are not the same thing, though.

COMPASSION and NATIONALISM.
Why should I feel compassion for American soldiers dying in Irak? On the same token why should I not? I could tell you that I feel no compassion for them because I’m not an American - and most all of you would accept that explanation. But that’s a huge load of the bull’s most foul excretion, and it goes both ways.

The national news will report about a plane or bus crash (or some other catastrophe) in some part of the world and then tell me whether or not any of my countrymen were involved and how many. Who is it that decides that I should care about the death of my countrymen more than the victims of any other nationality? Whoever is responsible for that immoral sentiment, let him be damned. None-the-less, I must be a grave minority on that score because I doubt that many will agree with me.

The thing is this: The people on this board, who have scolded me for being calloused about the death of Americans in Irak, are foolish from my point of view. Yes, they are, because none of them have said anything about all of those Iraki soldiers who died fighting the American invasion. For my fellow, American forum-members, those dead Irakis mean very little, while the death of a handful of Americans is “tragic”.

One often says that we should support “the good guys”, and indeed the whole idea with solving Irak’s problems was based upon that “good guy/bad guy” theory. So who were these Irakis who fought and died against the American invasion force? Did Irak actually have those dreaded Weapons of Mass Destruction, making it “necessary” to brush aside all political discussion/negotiations and take to armed intervention? No, they didn’t. So all of those dead Irakis died at the hand of the American “bad guys”. The Iraki soldiers were the “good guys” (Lo! And behold!) and they all had families who mourn them, but some of my forum “colleagues” here aren’t concerned about them because they weren’t Americans.

FINAL ANALYSES
I see the situation from two separate perspectives. From a completely compassionate point of view I sympathize the death of the Americans in an equal measure with the death of the Irakis - but from a political “good guy/bad guy” point of view, I have much less sympathy for the Americans than I do for the Irakis and for that reason I feel that dying Americans is a necessity. Does that make me calloused? It shouldn’t, because I’m neither American nor Iraki and yet I feel compassion and sympathy for both sides. If you still think I’m a nasty guy though, well ….. then I’m sure that I don’t care.

I’ve come to see my own personal experience in the very same way. I have less political sympathy for my fellows-in-arms and myself because we also served with “the bad guys”. We took an enormously disproportionate amount of lives from those who only wanted freedom for their people.

Live and learn, it is said. But do we?

This isn't really a thread about war and those who wage war. It's about America, and Iraq...and your working our what ever you are working out. Unless you want to talk about Sudan, or perhaps the Philippines, or maybe Chechnya...there are lots of places where war, and those who wage war are. You chose to talk about America and Iraq. Then again, it does get more news play then the Chechn repels blowing up a truckload of Russian soldiers.

No, we should not feel any more or less compassion for the Iraqi soldier or the American soldier...or for the Iraqi insurgent, or the foreign national in Iraq working as a soldier for the insurgency. All are doing what they believe is right, today.

Actually I thought that was a very interesting piece. It is about war, and it is about those who fight in wars. I found it thought provoking.

Or indeed the Russian army raising the Chechn capital city to the ground.

And what thoughts did it provoke, Dana?

Same debate for five fucking years, and nothing at all added by this half-assed construction of it.

I found it to be nothing more than an attempt at justifying the bullshit thats he has been posting over the last week. I wish i could have seen it in person. He was tripping all over himself trying to take back the "hope more yanks die" comment.:headshake

Well perhaps he could find a Shi'ite/AQI Iraki message board where he could share his grievances.

I recognised the tendency to report primarily on one's own countrymen, in news reports about accidents or military engagements. I also think the distinction between viewing those deaths at an emotional level (and therefore with great sympathy) and viewing them at a political level is an interesting one and fits my own dualist response to news about the war at times.

It's easy enough in the heat of a board argument to say something you then regret/retract or soften with caveats, once you've had time to reflect. Better to make that clear and 'take back' the comment, than brazen it out and defend something you shouldn't have said, or which didn't accurately reflect what you meant.

yes, his post does go someway towards attempting to justify himself, but it also goes a good way towards explaining and clarifying a viewpoint that is (if I've read this piece correctly) a complex one.

I think you guys are reacting to the overall impact of AD on the board this week, rather than reacting to the post on its own merits. I think it has some interesting points to make and I think it clarifies AD's position well.

So, Grozny was originally built underground, then? ;)

Dana PLEASE.

His argument is:

1) Americans are wrong to criticize me, because they have no compassion for the side they consider to be the "bad guys".

2) I have found America to be the "bad guys" and I have no compassion for their side.

If you don't get it yet, read those two points again until you do.

Who are you most concerned with? Your Mother, father, brother, sister, cousins nephews grandparents..... or some complete unknown from 1/2 way around the world?

If you knew of someone traveling in "country X" and then heard/saw a news report of an accident "country X", would your first instinct be concern for that individual? Of course! Thats why they report it the way they do. They are NOT implying that any one is more important than any other.

I'd also like to add that I hate war too and if we took a poll I think we would all agree that war is a nasty bad thing.
Point is there are necessary evils in the world and war is one of them. I am NOT speaking specifically about any particular war, nor do I "want" war. Idealistically there would be no war, but that is not realistic. Nor do I feel that war is a good way to solve some issues, but it may be the only response to some and one may also be at war through a defensive response. Should we work to prevent war at virtually all costs? Yes, but that is not an absolute.

I agree Classicman, but how will we know when we are at our last option and how do we know that is the best in every scenario?

Some wars, such as WWI and WWII, are ones we were more or less forced into, but others, as Iraq, are ones that could easily be prevented. I wouldn't necessarily say we should strive to prevent war at virtually all costs no matter the situation, but avoid unjustifiable wars at all costs. In WWII, laying down every option to avoid war with Germany wouldn't have solved anything, but just upped the death toll of Poles, Jews, etc. We have to have a basic outline of what a justifiable war is and try to avoid the unjustifiable wars, while doing our best at preventing justifiable wars, but not hesitating if our involvement is inevitable.

Thats why its important we elect the right leaders, for those dcisions will be in their hands.

If it was that easy...

Some people only care about their nearest and dearest, others care more widely about those in their neighbourhood. Some others care about their state, and yet others care about their countrymen.

Others care about humanity as a whole.

Yes I'd save my children before saving anyone else if that were ever a situation I might find myself in, but I'd still have compassion for others regardless of where they were from...except maybe the one who was trying to kill me or mine. Then I'd probably feel a little bit less concerned for their outcome.

I think it comes down to how close you think your enemies are and exactly how and who you percieve those enemies to be. I suppose some people see the general population of Iraq to be the enemy while others see only the sunis as the enemy while others see the shiites as the enemy, and others still see the US and coalition forces as the enemy.

Everyone that is killed in this war deserves compassion. They are fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, sisters, mothers. They are children of someone. They have love in their lives and they give love to someone. These people are human beings, and no matter what side of the political fence they are on, they deserve compassion, as do their families.

War is terrible and everyone involved in it grieves about the outcome for themselves personally, or for their state, or their country, or for their humanity.

btw, I think this thread should be in philosophy.

Careful, your party affiliation is showing. WWI was a war of choice.

I must agree.

I agree 100% Thats all I'm saying. The closer we are to someone the more we care - period. Its just natural and normal.

….. and if you mean “they”, as “we individuals, who do what we think is right” then I can’t help but agree with you.



Mis-quoting isn’t such a good thing, really. Did I say “no compassion”? I don’t think so. If you don’t get it yet, read my post again until you do.


You do understand.



That’s an excellent point because it speaks of the complexities of confrontation – and in the case of Irak it can support the invasion or even critisize it. Your point is real life stuff rather than the usual black/white sensationalist thing that most people prefer.


Precisely.

So we were justified in WWII since no amount of talking would have ended the genocide until... there was no one left to genocide? Let's think about Iraq. 1998 Saddam killed 5,000 Kurds. Gassed them. Furthermore, over Iraqi missiles were launched at population centers inside Iranian cities between 1980 and 1988 resulting in almost 13,000 casualties - mostly civilian. There were several thousand killed on the Iraqi side, mostly Kurd, by the Iraqi Air Force dropping chemical agents on them from the late 1980s through the early 1990s.
WMD? Saddam offered no proof that the remaining stock of missiles laden with chemical agents he used in the 1980s and 1990s were ever destroyed. Furthermore, just because we have yet to find them, everyone is so quick to claim he didn't have them. He had them. He used them. This is a fact. Did he bury them? Did he export them to Syria? I don't know. But there is nonrefutable evidence he had the chemical agents (like sarin, mustard... etc), as well as the delivery method (missiles), and a history of using them.

http://www.slate.com/id/2063934

BTW, Human Rights Watch aren't exactly pro-Bush.

Not that I am a fan of the Iraq War. I was/am primarly against it because the obvious outcome was going to be civil war (I am a big Thomas Friedman fan, and he forcasted this 2 months before our invasion). However, I have no doubt Saddam was an evil person, that killed his own people, and that he had the ability to produce WMD. He already had them, already used them. The UN inspectors were making NO progress. Saddam was not making people available to interview, he was not allowing them inside facilities. When he did allow them inside facilities, he did not allow them full access. When he granted interviews, it was not without one of his agents listening to the conversation - therefore none of the people could say anything without fear of reprieval. In previous instances in which Iraqis defected, he had their entire families killed.

Did you know they found over 20 MiGs BURIED in the sand? Buried MiGs. Wow.

Iraq is larger than California. With all of our technology, we can't find all the meth labs, or even missing kids, in California. Everyone is so quick to jump on the "see, he didn't have any" bandwagon just because the WMD haven't been located. My bet is they are in Syria, or buried deep.

BTW, they have found over 500 weapons filled with chemical agents - mostly artillery shells with Sarin gas. BTW, it is against the Geneva convention to use those. They have also found over 1500 gallons of chemicals that were most likely to be used to make these chemical agents.

I wish people would educate themselves on the facts about WMD and Iraq. It was not just something Bush thought of out of thin air. Iraq had a history of using them.

After having the same argument for five straight years, I tire.

Your argument that they did not have WMD, even though the UN, the organization you love, acknowledged that at some point in time, yes they indeed had WMD?

Its so easy for you to forget that. I wonder why? It doesn't fit into all your arguments?

I am not/was not for the war. However, it is paramount for any discussion for you to have the facts straight. Even the inconvienent facts that do not support your position.

I have taken your position on the war for five years. But I tire.

There is a big difference on the reasons why we went to war with the Axis Powers and Iraq. We did not go to war with Germany because of the holocaust, we actually didn't know about it until after the war, but for various other reasons such as the drastic imperialism and spread of fascism throughout Europe and eventually the entire world. Both Germany and Japan were not going to be stopped and the only way to defeat them is if the United States joined in the war.

The reasons for going into Iraq are still not fully known to the public because our administration obviously lied about their true intentions with Iraq. And guessing at their reasons, we can see them as more imperialistic than self-defense which makes sense with the entire neoconservative agenda which led the attack and propaganda.

We did not know if they had WMDs or not, I'm almost positive their was no definite proof either way before we attacked. We could assume they did because we gave them those weapons in the Iraqi-Iranian war and we didn't think they used them all on their own people (which is another difference between Iraq and Germany).

Either way, we should not have gone into Iraq because we thought they had chemical weapons and we have to question whether we should attack a country just because they have WMDs anyways.

I agree. The US should not attack just based on WMD. Pakistan and India have had WMDs since the 90s, yet we did not attack them. France has WMDs, but we don't attack her either. And true, we didn't do it for any altruistic reason - to save the Iraqi people.

My point is that AD continually makes it point to say we invaded based on WMD that don't exist and that the UN was making progress. The UN was not making progress, and it cannot be ascertained that Iraq did not have WMD, considering for several decades Iraq did. AD needs to base his accusations against the US on fact, not on feelings of hatred towards the US.

The UN had made tremendous progress. However we never realized how successful UN inspectors had been until after the invasion. By 1995, Saddam had even destroyed all his hidden weapons. This in part because his in-laws had defected and told the complete story.

In 1998, Clinton successfully destroyed any remaining facilities that could have produced any advanced weapons.

Saddam was bluffing. He had to. He had no serious military capacity. In hindsight, he may have been on the edge of a coup d'etat. He was a threat to no one. But even more obvious, Saddam never had any interest in attacking the US. It is well known that Saddam was doing everything possible to restore American support without exposing to enemies such as Iran how militarily weak he really was. Saddam's entire agenda even before 1990 was to nurture American support. That gets lost among those who hear extremist spin.

UN inspectors were far more effective than the UN inspectors even knew. Saddam was completely defanged - a threat to nobody. He was bluffing which was his only option.

I wish I had that kind of poker face..I'd say it worked.

Team America is just a dick. Get over it, or not.

Either Saddam was bluffing or there was a complicated bluff of Saddam by his own guys. If a dude is whacking people like Tony Soprano, you might just tell him what he wants to know, rather than the truth.

If you're Saddam's top nuke guy, you might not even tell anyone that the program is a fake -- and so they may all believe it's real, and all that belief may be picked up by intelligence. You may even have a payroll of guys whose job it is to carry test tubes from point A to point B.

don't be ridiculous. GWB knew it was all a bluff, he just didn't want us to know that he knew what they didn't know which was that it was all a bluff.

He knew that he knew? Or did he know that he knew it was a bluff? Or did he think he knew that he knew that his guy thought that HE knew so that he made him think he knew so he wouldn't get killed?

he knew. ya know?

:rollanim:

From what I've heard, the whole intel community believed that their intel on WMDs was accurate - that there were WMDs in iraq.
I'm thinking UT's hypothesis is more or less the way it worked. Whether the higher-ups knew the truth (that there were none) or not, the grunts drank the administration kool-aid, and our intel found plenty of information indicating the existance of WMDs. This worked out well until, uh, we went in and found nothing. I'll bet a bunch of them are as surprised as anybody else.

It's got to be tough to be the pres.....I can see it now.

"Do they have the shit?" "Hell yea, they got the shit." "Are you sure they got the shit, cause I'm gonna start some shit." "fuck yea, we're sure. They got the shit."

3 years later.....

...inside a thought bubble. " Dammit! I'm in deep shit."

All in all, I'm glad it wasn't me making that call.

So Ibram, it was ok to go in there because we knew there were WMD's, right?

No, it was o.k. because we are Dicks. Saddam was an ass hole. Dicks fuck ass holes. That's just how it works.

(if you can't tell, I"m in a fairly flippant and sarcastic mood today.

In my opinion, you earned it. Oh and thats not what my d*ck f*cks. just to be clear thats NOT how it works over here. just my personal preference.

It would be wrong even if he DID have them.

But it was wronger after the UN weapons inspectors didnt find anything.

I thought thats how you felt, but wanted to recheck.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/spr....02/index.html

Now unfortunately that is from Colin Powell's presentation to the UN a month before the war, and much of the other things Powell presented were discredited. Still, it wasn't him talking on that conversation.

Same debate for five years, but this still bugs me. "Evacuated everything" November 2002.

But you know, it really doesn't matter if he had them or not. If a guy holds you up in the street and says he has a gun in his jacket, it doesn't matter if it's a gun or if it's only his finger. The threat is the part that matters; you don't play odds with your life.

And on the world stage, the rule is, when you get those weapons you have to be very strict and careful about the statements you make about them. And here is where Israel is the ideal: they have nukes, but didn't even *admit* it, for decades, much less brandish them about with threats of destruction. That is how you must behave; you don't get to both threaten to have nukes, and also sponsor public events where you encourage the crowds to ritualistically chant "Death to America", or death to anyone, for that matter.

Though you do have to consider that Iraq and Iran have to show a front while Israel didn't. If Iraq and Iran were making nuclear weapons for defensive purpose, which was a good possibility, it would make sense that they would announce it.

If you get nuclear weapons to reassure that you will not be invaded, what is the point of not talking about those weapons? It is much like the situation with Russia in Dr. Strangelove if you've seen that.

If you are getting nuclear weapons just to have them or because you want to defend yourself but you don't need a front, then I will agree with you.


To further the point with your example. Why would he put his finger inside his jacket? To get attention? Maybe. But if it was because he felt threatened and was scared of being attacked (mugged) and put his finger in his jacket pretending it was a gun yelling "hey, don't fuck with me, I've got a gun", it is a little different scenario.

I'm not sure what language that first sentence is in. Certainly not English.

Well it all depends, I suppose, on what you think of nuclear weapons. Those who were sentient and thoughtful before 1989 have lived under the threat of it, which turns it from something really really really bad into something that is unthinkable under ANY situation except for having been launched upon. That's the only diplomacy I would support.

We do not have to wait for the Iranians to have nukes, to have seen them use nuclear diplomacy unwisely. Ahmadinejad has talked about hopefully seeing the end of Israel "if we are just patient for a little while longer". This is unacceptable language from a country even dabbling in nukes. They don't get it.

If they wanted nukes as defense against Iraq, well we have sort of neutered that reasoning for the time being. Which makes it hopeful that a recent intelligence report suggested that the Iranian nuke program actually took a breather in 2003, stopping all work on it.

I don't see how Ahmadinejad's statement translates into actually performing a nuclear attack on Israel. He wants to see the end of a Jewish state in what was Islamic land, it is a very popular belief in the Islamic world but that doesn't mean he will do anything more than give support to groups that directly oppose Israel. As I've said before, Iran does not have the suicidal goal of "nuking Israel off the map", but becoming a regional power, which would be cemented if Iran became a nuclear power.

There is also the subjectivity of what he means by the "end of Israel". Technically my view of the solution in that area, the bi-national to one-state solution, would be the end of the Jewish state of Israel. I don't want to kill any Israelites, just that a Jewish state in that region will keep causing problems in the future so a secular state will be the best solution. If Ahmadinejad means bombing the region into the ground, then we have a different situation but I have not heard any concrete evidenced pointing to either of those two meanings.

On top of that, many other nuclear powers have talked about taking down other countries but never actually resorted to using nuclear weapons. The United States is the sole exception but, while still unjustifiable, the conditions were different than today. The United States publicly announced its intentions to eliminate Communism but we never nuked the USSR. The Soviets can say the same.

I do have some uneasiness when it comes to Iran and nuclear weapons but I still don't believe they would use them for offensive purposes. Going against US and UN regulations to get nuclear weapons makes sense when looking at Iran's goals, but performing a nuclear attack or selling nuclear weapons to terrorists to attack Israel will directly go against their goals because there would be no Iran afterwards. I don't trust Iran either but they are not that stupid.

Yes, but I still wouldn't be that surprised if they continued in hopes of preventing an attack by the United States, which isn't unreasonable.

Then you haven't been listening.

Some Ahmadinejad quotes:

...But I'm sure he means a "storm" of secular diplomacy will "annihilate" them, right?

Then you have not been listening - there is more than just a physical resemblance of this guy to Hitler.

Okay, but that still isn't enough evidence to show that he will actually go through with it. He is a politician. There is much reason to guess that he has said many of those statements to boost his support with the anti-Israeli population.

Besides, Ahmandejad does not control the military in Iran, Ali Khamenei does. His quotes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Kha...rael-Palestine

I'm not advocating war with Iran, but that is an absolutely asinine statement.

I just had this image of you being played by Joe Pesci from Lethal Weapon:

"okokok, guys, he hasn't...it's not he's actually done it, right? I mean suuuure his finger is on the button, right? okokok... but it's not like he's actually pushing hard on it, right? okokohshit- he pushed it. okokok guys, you were right, he was serious."

Oh quite the opposite. It kind of guarantees an attack, but it doesn't have to be by us.

In 1984 Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear program out of existence.

It's that subjectivity which guarantees the attack, too. Yes, if you are a nuclear player, you cannot make statements that can possibly be interpreted as nuclear threats.

Theres obviously more cards on the table but I don't see how his statements are any different than what the Democrats were preaching in 2006. Both are blowing smoke, just that Ahmandejad's is much more dangerous to the world if they do go through with it.

I recognize the risks, but I don't see needed physical intervention. I could really care less about non-physical intervention as long as it hurts the people of Iran as little as possible.

I was talking about once they already have nuclear weapons, not when they are in the process of making them. I should have made that more clear.

piercehawkeye45, I'm going to annihilate you!

Of course I'm speaking metaphoricly... or am I?
Would you bet your life on it?
How about if I lived in your neighborhood instead of states away, would that make you consider it more carefully?
How about if I was standing at your front door with a machine gun? Wouldn't that raise your level of concern about how metaphorically I'm speaking?

I would put my life on it if you were a kid who routinely blew hot air and threatened people with your father's gun but has no way of getting to it and while I don't have a great relationship with your father, he has no intentions of hurting me.

In fact, that has happened to me before and I never got shot.


But realistically, what are we suppose to do? Bomb every country we don't trust that is thinking about building atomic weapons? Ahmandejad is an idiot and a fool who is putting his country in danger but bombing other countries on unproved assumptions is not the best idea right, especially now after Iraq. If Ali Khamenei starts making comments like Ahmandejad's or if Ahmandejad has a chance of becoming Iran's supreme ruler than I would be worried, but there is nothing to back the assumption that the supreme ruler is willing to commit suicide to wipe Israel off the map. The only evidence is that someone who does not control the launching of nuclear weapons is making threats and that Iran supports anti-Israeli groups. It doesn't count out the possibility that a nuclear attack on Iran can happen, just that I seriously doubt it will.

You have two options here. 1 - be proactive. or 2 - wait until after the fact. Remember, we are talking about a nuclear war.

Choose now.... _____

Ah, but what if that kid shaping a piece of metal, he said was going to be a duplicate key to the Dad's gun cabinet? Doesn't that change your level of concern? Wouldn't you try to prevent it?

What relevance does the duplicate key have to the Iranian situation?

well if gun case = nuclear weapons, then the duplicate key = nuke program?

In my example.

Me = Israel
Little kid threatening me = Ahmandejad (president of Iran)
Little kid's dad = Ali Khamenei (supreme ruler of Iran)
Gun = Nuke program

Ahmandejad does not have the say on whether a nuclear weapon should be launched or not, Ali Khamenei does. A duplicate key would imply that Ahmandejad would take control of the military without Ali Khamenei knowing, which I don't see how that fits into the example.