Opposed To The War In Iraq (NRR)
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Many of you have stated that the War and it's complex issues can't be boiled down to simple black & white/right or wrong. Here are three simple, Yes or No questions that I would love to know where those who oppose the war stand on. These are not trick or complicated questions so if you feel the need to go into great detail or cut and paste articles from the Internet, don't bother. Yes or No answers will suffice. 1) If WMD's had been found in Iraq would you then support the decision to go to War in Iraq? (Just the decision to go, not the tactics used once we were there)2) Do you believe that it's possible WMD's will be used against Western/Democratic civilization during your lifetime?3) Has any war that the U.S. has been involved in over the last 100 years been warranted and justified?
Comments
1. NO
2. ABSOLUTELY
3. WW1/WW2
2) Absolutely.
3) Yes I believe WW2 was justified, and actually I believe the last Gulf War was justified.
1) [hans blix] NO [/hans blix]
2) no. i have to err on the side of optimism, even though we stand a chance of getting hit. we dont stand as good chance at getting hit as indian subcontinent, israel, europe IMO. but isnt this what the "liberals" were whining about for decades while US war corporations proliferated weapons and nukes THROUGHOUT The world?(along with their coldwar Soviet butt buddies)
3) phillipines, panama, cuba, puerto rico, honduras, turkey, greece, iran, korea, nicaragua, guatemala, dominican republic, granada, el salvador, chile....
oh wait, do military "interventions" and "occupations" count or does it have to be a formally declared war? oh shit, double wait, i dont support none of those invasions...although granada did probably pose an "imminent threat" by cheyney standards.
rock, i think american military has been used in large part to protect american business interests, to the general detriment of workers and civilians and democratic governments at home and abroad. interventions, CIA tacit support, arms shipments...not all that many noble endeavors.
Cosign.
2) Yes, anything is possible.
3) WWII (Spanish-American war - excuse for overseas empire, WWI - no, Korea - went from protecting S. Korea to trying to take over the entire peninsula, Vietnam - proping up dictators and then sticking around because we had to save face aren't good reasons. There are a ton of smaller military interventions as well Grenada, Dominican Republic, Philippines, etc. etc. etc.)
Bingo! It's called opening markets with aircraft carriers.
Read any book by any ex-CIA agent and this will be spelled out loud and clear. Why is there a revolving door between the CIA and Wall Street?
Remember when Republicans said things like "beware the military-industrial complex"? Now most can't even write their own speeches or draft their own legislation - it's spoon fed to them by lobbyists with buckets of cash. Money that was often privatized at the cost of the taxpayer.
The only thing that has been keeping the stock market somewhat level are the sectors that are directly connected with the current cabinet: Big Oil, Big Guns, and Big Pharma. If it wasn't for Bush's war machine the DJIA would look like the Nasdaq.
Bush needs this war because it's his last chance to not be the worst president in the history of the Republic. But some of us, including most of the rest of the world can see this because they have not been indoctrinated like many in this country.
NO.
YES.
WW2
Yes.
No. I don't even think WWII was justified. Hitler was supported as a means of suppresing the communists. This is a historical commonality. The world will always prefer a fascist than socialism. Just look at Chile, 1973.
WWI was a war for markets. Most of these wars are a product of globalisation and imperialism. This is not the place to argue these points though, but they're part of my answer to the question. I don't want to waste Rockadelic's thread arguing these points
*pearl harbor, doggee
1. NO
2. Fuck. I hope not. NO
3. WWII*
The sensei has spoken! I think canonical is referring to the realpolitik of entering into world wars. Sad but true, there was not enough public support within the US to fight Germany based its imperial and genocidal actions. So war with Japan was pretty much pre-ordained... certainly before Pearl Harbor the US had plans to go to war with Japan. WWII was the best thing that ever happened to the US economy... well, apart from slavery.
There are usually quite a few years of political, economic and diplomatic warfare between nations before they line up their tanks and start shooting. If you get your history from the History Channel, with its exciting battles, and charismatic generals, you will miss 99% of this context.
Spliffy is speaking the truth right here, holmes.
It wasn't about support. There was an act at the time (Can't for the life of me remember the name) which didn't allow the US to join the war. Eventhough, behind the scene, the US was supporting things with money and arms through other countries (IE: Canada). Damn... I'm forgetting everthing as I get older.
Edit: I believe it was called the neutrality act. And the act which allowed the US to support Britian (And other countries) was called the lend lease act.
OK, this sounds right. But there were definitely still a lot of ethnic germans in the US at the time, so the whole anti-Hitler thing was not so black and white as it seems today.
There were germans everywhere... All were called back to "the motherland" by the Nazis. My guess is that some fools believed and went. My family has been in Canada since the 1800's and during WWII, many joined the fight and went off to fight the Nazis. That didn't stop people from calling me a nazis a shit load of times growing up tho...
I hate to talk about WWII tho... Since it's my belief that if people would have listened to the likes of people like Churchill. WWII might never have happened.
"Peace in our Time" people...
As for question #2, sad to say that Bush is practically daring the rest of the world to nuke us. Which is a big reason why I want him out of the White House. He allows the biggest terrorist attack in American history, in response, he flails about like an idiot and invades a country that had nothing to do with it, he tells the rest of the world, "my way or the highway; you're either with me or against me" (which is incredibly stupid as the US, contrary to what many Bush shills seem to believe, is in no way a self-sustaining country), and he seems to go out of his way to piss off as many people as possible while those same shills cheer him for being "tough on terror" when in fact he's a gigantic pussy and an idiot.
2) Anything is possible.
3) WWII was certainly justified. Unlike most of my peers here, I am willing to admit that the cold war probably made sense. That includes a long list of very shady dealings in other countries where most of the hot fighting was done in that era. However, there was a very clear enemy that had major firepower and the willingmess to use it. We had to deal with it.
Now ROCK sack up and detail your answers to your own questions.
not to fall off track here, but our country has long lost the title of a democratic state. More like a Capitalist state.
my answers....
1. No
2. It's undeniable, but moreso it's our Middle Eastern interests that we are worried about getting attacked, i.e. Israel, Saudia Arabia and so on...
3. WWII
hooray for reasonable dialogue.
1) no (because it was sold on the back of 9/11)
2) yes but it's more likely to happen overseas than in the US.
3) WW2. and I was more or less in favor of invading afghanistan.
Actually, I cosign with this. I was in favor of going into Afghanistan because that would be seeking out the people behind 9/11. As soon as the word "Iraq" entered the picture, though...forget it.
Yes
Yes
Yes
I should leave it at that as I asked for simple Y or N answers but since I know I'll be attacked for not giving the SS "correct answer" on #1 I'll give my reasoning.
1) For me, this is a slam dunk....If I knew 100% for sure that Saddam, one of the most evil men on the face of the planet, a man who killed 100,000+ of his own people as confirmed by the many mass graves in Iraq. A man who has directly and indirectly supported and praised terrorist attacks across the earth. A man who at least on the surface appears psychologically capable of using WMD's. A man who would not cooperate with the U.N. on 18 occasions had WMD's, I would feel that he would have to be stopped at any cost, even War. But only after we asked him pretty please with sugar on top to turn over these weapons. If you're going to argue that even if he had these weapons he couldn't effectively use them, then I change my answer to declaring war 15 minutes after he attains this ability.
2) Not only do I agree with most of you that WMD's will be used in the future, my biggest fear is that these types of weapons will evolve into simplistic, easy to afford/use devices to the point where ONE maniacal person could cause the death and destruction of the entire planet. Look at how these weapons have evolved in the last 50 years and imagine what they might be like 50 years from now. Scary shit.
3) WWI, WWII, and most of the others excluding Viet Nam.
What this thread has acheived for me is to understand where alot of you stand on basic, to the point issues and quite frankly it scares the shit out of me.
Almost everyone thinks that WMD's will be used at some point, yet all of you would not take military action against a guy who DEFINITELY has and is a good candidate to use such weapons against Jews/Christians/Western Civilization/Democracy.
Be assured of one thing....when these weapons that everyone agrees WILL be used, are used against the West, they will make no distinction between Liberals, Conservatives or Independents...they will kill us all....and at that point the "blame game" will be moot.
Since these questions were hypothetical I really don't see any point in telling me how stupid or incorrect my opinion is or 23 page Internet articles proving that Saddam is just a misunderstood, peace loving, Dorito eating nice guy.. I respect your right to see things the way you do...it just scares me that so many appear unwilling to rid the planet of such obvious evil. Could it be that your blind hatred for George Bush just makes it impossible to suggest that even under hypothetical circumstances, you might agree with something/anything he does??
Saddam with WMD's scares me alot more than Hitler and his limited forces.
Saying Saddam had WMD and that he could use them against the U.S. is a big jump. It's an even bigger jump when you say that he could've given them to terrorists.
That's where sanctions and inspectors actually worked.They stripped Iraq of the ability to make even these battlefield level WMDs.
Ummm....you need to step back and take a breath....
1) My question was hypothetical and stated that if Saddam HAD the WMD's that you claim GWB lied about, would you support the War in Iraq....
2) You won't find ANYWHERE a statement made by me that says anything about Saddam giving WMD's to terrorists.
3) You are SO predictable with your line of thinking that I had the foresight to put in the caveat about you claiming that he couldn't have actually used the hypothetical WMD's...and you did it anyway!!!
The answer would still be no, because Bush was still talking about battlefield WMD. The administration went on to make the claim that it could be given to terrorists. So whether it was "hypothetical" in your statement, or in "real life" as Bush did, Iraq's WMD still wasn't a threat to the U.S.
Sorry, I'm not caught up in your hypothetical world. I'm just a simple man who sees things in black and white, right and wrong.
I for one don't think for a moment that our country is ANY safer from ANY form of attack as a result of the Iraq takeover...
In fact we've galvanized a whole lot of the world against us as a result...
Watch it, according to some you are coming very close to excusing mass murder by terrorists.
Sorry, I'm not caught up in your hypothetical world.
Then you shouldn't have entered it