Dontreadonme


So I refuse to understand the ramifications and repercussions as seen by other people? What would those be exactly Dontreadonme? Your having yourself a straw man tea party over there. Lots of big boy words up there yet you make no point here. Before you said I take centrist positions that don't require substantation, now you say I am couching a defense through the western prism. What you don't realize is that Ive actualy agreed with roughly half of the things you say, but because I dont top off my arguments with unsubstantiated rants like you, I'm a blind patriot, or see things through a western prism. Oh well.



Well you have the potential to be a text book politician, you just figure your audience is mildly retarded, thats where you mess up, otherwise you got it down. If you want to deny your own arguments, or invent stances for a fellow debater, you should at least be less obvious than you are. I mean sometimes you let on like I'm going to forget things you said a week after you said it, lol. Or right after I say something like I disagre with us hiring militias in most cases, you pretend I never answered such questions. Bias arguments can be based on more than politics by the way, as I said before. You may not mention parties all that much but you do fixate around highly elaborated claims that make me wonder.



Nope you completely put those words in my mouth, thats not what I said, get serious. Remember if your going to invent arguments you need to figure your fellow debater has more than a 1 day memory. This is what I said word for word.....

insurgents are primarily responsible for the people they kill directly, as are we for the ones we kill directly.

Now I'm going to be very patient with you and break this down since you don't get it. If we kill someone in a crossfire we bear most of the responsibility for that death, in this case the insurgents are partially responsible because if not for them we wouldn't have been shooting.

Now I'm going to flip this and apply the same exact standard to our enemy......

If an insurgent kills someone in a crossfire they bear most of the responsibility for that death, in this case we are partially responsible because if not for us they wouldn't have been shooting.

Make sense?

Additionally much of the time civilian casualties are inflicted intentionally by the enemy, agreed?
Which is much less frequently true of our troops, agreed?
Lastly, Overall they have caused more deaths directly than us, which means they bear more responsibility overall, agreed?

Which one of those arguments is fallacy, I'm confused?

I think I make a pretty fair argument, that doesn't excuse us of any responsibility as a nation but why is it you and many others spend the majority of your war related post portraying us as the problem, and us as the bringer of destruction? Where are all your post talking about how vital it is that we take terrorist seriously? How often do you make post such as that at this point man? Once a month? Twice a year? How often do you and much of the left talk about why Bush is a screwball and we are responsible for all this death and destruction? Once a day? Three times a week? At the least, more like 5 times a day for many.





Yak yak yak, I am not using the term collateral damage to say we are not responsible, but there is a difference between collateral damage and the intentional murdering of innocent civilians.



Lol, how do you disprove a question? I thought you answer a question, you cant disprove a question, that doesn't make sense.

He asked questions, I gave my answers. you can disprove a certain position or statement, but a question? Thats like saying disprove this question.......

Is American foreign policy generally damaging to America? Well lets hear you disprove it.

Anyway I voted today and I'm going to relax and see what happens here in N.C. tonight. I may pop in later to see what interesting things you have to say this time. You have a most triumphant day, now ya hear. Thats my Bill and Ted way of saying bye, lol

So, Net- how would you feel if everyone you know and loved were just "collateral damage" and the people that killed them apologized and said "oops"?

Net, I'm not some people. You can't use arguments other people who agree with me have made. This debate largely focuses on our foreign policy actions result in anti-Americanism. This obviously does not happen if aid is all we are giving. There's really nothing to discuss about aid.

Really? So if a foreign policy initiative results in as Rudy Giuliani put it "the Terrorists' War on Us" [I thank God every night that he won't be able to smell the White Houth...er, White House] which causes thousands of American deaths, we weren't wrong to follow through on that initiative? If the government doesn't take into account the possible American deaths that could occur as a result of their foreign policy just how in the Hell are we to trust it to do anything abroad?

CP

Well this is interesting. You're using an almost exact parallel of the argument many of us have been making in this thread about our foreign policy. Perhaps you are not aware of this; perhaps you are but are of the "we are at war with Eastasia;we have always been at war with Eastasia" type. I don't know.

Why do you think 9/11 happened? What brought groups like Al Qaeda into existence? What is the history of the Islamic fundamentalist movement? What is our history in the region? Who have we supported and what have our actions been? If you can answer these questions honestly, you will begin to understand the term "blowback."

And if you want to get to the beginning of the chain, look at the history of US involvement in western Asia. How did it start? Who was the aggressor nation? Who supported anti-democratic regimes in order to keep a cheap and plentiful oil supply? Who deposed leaders who didn't tow the line? Who sold arms to Iraq and Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt... hell, everyone over there?

For the purposes of not sending this thread down the water slide of diversion, I'll just stick to the foreign policy side of things: heck yeah. If I were Barack Obama, I'd be sitting down with Ron Paul or Bob Barr or one of those guys, inhaling his point of view on these matters, and hammering out a foreign policy that somehow resembles human logical truth of honesty. This is going to be John McCain's weakness in the fall: for the past 8 years, he like so many his colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been trumping up of a foreign policy that is wildly divorced from the consequences of America's actions. In the span of 2 years these guys uprooted two extremely important nations in the middle east, detained an appalling number of "enemy combatants" in gitmo (what's going to happen to them/us when they get out?), armed then re-armed every other fly-by-night competing faction in the sunni triangle, handed unprecedented regional influence over the Iranian government, which was on the verge of electoral collapse before our needless bluster re-energized the otherwise pro-american iranian people, meanwhile we basically gave our finest retail military equipment to a pakistani general who was more interested in nuking India than finding Osama Bin Laden -- then these same politicians turned around and said that we can't leave iraq because America doesnt surrender and because a bunch of internet liberals called Our General a "betray us."

Never do you here them say: <<You know what? We've made some mistakes. And it's not just the 4,000 American lives that we lost -- though we mourn those -- or the trillion dollar debt we've racked up -- our apologies to our grandchildren. The biggest mistake we made is that our poorly thought through actions have reaped disaster in the lives of millions of faraway people who didn't even have a smidgen of a vote in the process. Someday we'll probably pay the price for that folly. Chickens come home to roost. Let's never do this again.>>

You get to a point where I don't care what Ron Paul or Barack Obama believe, so long as one of their respective platforms account for the fact that there is more to foreign policy than political posturing, I'm on board. The fact that I agree with both of them on so many of the same points regarding foreign policy is great -- hurray!

Okay, so lets clarify our words; who exactly is 'the United States' in this context? Because to the best of my knowledge the people responsible for the nuclear attack of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the firebombing of Tokyo, are all long since dead. So are most of the people responsible for the deaths of 2 million people in South East Asia.

Even the claimed 100,000 deaths in Iraq is highly suspect, if we're really 'clarifying our words'; since the majority of deaths in Iraq have been at the hands of other Iraqi's, unless your aware of incidents where American soldiers blew themselves up in Iraqi markets then I'm hard pressed to see how you can justify any claim that the US forces in Iraq have killed 100,000 Iraqi's... or even 2 million people in South East Asia.

If your going to start claiming that the entity known as the USA has some kind of collective responsibility, then I'd say the entity known as Islam has a far greater responsibility to answer for.

The United States does not act in a void. I'll never be able to understand why Americans can't understand this. Its as if the political divide in your country simply doesn't lend any possible perspective on anything beyond itself. You are merely one group of people amongst many. Other people, have their own motives, someties they coincide with American motives, some times they don't. They act on those motives, on their motives, not on yours.


In other words, your guilty for something that happened way before you were ever born.

There is a religious aspect to this argument that never ceases to amaze me when it is made by socialists (I'm not claiming your a socialist quarkhead, just noting that your argument is a contemporary socialist argument). Socialism was conceived as an antithesis to religion and yet modern socialists appear to go out of their way, not only to protect religion, but even to adopt its core belief's, such as the notion of inherited guilt.


I can. The Hanseatic League. They were a trade federation that started out in Northern Germany and as they got bigger and richer, spread out across all of Northern Europe. Their whole philosophy was based on trade and they shunned both politics and war. Some people have called them the first European Union.

It didn't make any difference though. Once the Hansa grew in wealth, they found they needed to use military force just to survive. Their trade attracted unwanted attention from any and every one in the region and they had to defend their vital interests too. They eventually ended up being the military top dog in the Baltic, even going so far as to promote crusades in the Baltic states. With hindsight, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why a peaceful trade federation would have to resort to brutal military means in order to survive.

They did last a few hundred years though...


The word colony has a very definite meaning. There is no such thing as 'an industrial, democratic version of a colony'. Your either a colony or a client state. If you wish to complain about what the west is doing in places like Iraq, Afghanistan or else where, then that is your right, but the fact that you need to use an outdated buzz word like colony underlines the vague nature of your argument.

You can choose to call Iraq a puppet state (for example) rather than a client state if it supports your argument, but lets not forget Iraq was a willing client state even before the Iraq war. The notion that the Iraqis just want to get rid of the filthy infidel invaders is over simplistic. I mean, if we're still clarifying our words here, lets at least admit that Iraq has no common national, nor ethnic agenda. It is a mess of conflicting groups, some of which look upon the presence of US troops with gratitude, some of which with hatred and some with pragmatism.

The Romans, and the later colonial powers did not invade other countries to help them. They annexed other lands in order to possess them. There is a clear difference in helping a person so you can trade with them and stealing from them.


Interesting example given that the French socialists were all to happy to lend support to colonial uprising. Even to the point of sabotaging the ammunition being sent to their own soldiers so they would be slaughtered.

I'd also like to ask, what did you think would happen? I'd love to see that question addressed honestly by every one in the United State who harps on continually about the hypocrisy of their government without ever stopping to consider what the alternatives are or what their own share of responsibility is for the security of their country.

And also, what do you think will happen if you do pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, if you do stop funding the House of Saud and cease all support to Israel?

Because the American experience gives rise to a state of denial - You just havent lost enough people or enough time hasnt passed for the U.S. as a culture to move on to acceptance. For the last 100+ years foreign policy mistakes resulted in dead people "over there". Experience in places like the U.S. has meant that even world wars have not had significant cultural change to foreign policy.

Get your policy wrong and your cities catch fire and civilians die is the norm but not yet in U.S.

The U.S. just hasnt had in its culture ,from its parents knee of, how the mistakes were made and then learnt why on the next block in this town, just like lots of others, there is a newer building. It doesnt have the tales of how the old lady Mrs So and So down the road was the only survivor when her home was bombed, just like Mr Whathisname.

911 for the individuals involved was tragic. For the U.S. culture, it was only just enough to go into denial.

2000 dead is just a weeks bombing in strategic town in the UK in 1940, a small town in France caught up in D-Day, a couple of villages accidently bombed in Germany in 1944. In Russia just a couple days in the 900 day siege of Leningrad, A hundredth to a thousandth of what has been visited on the Iraqis.

Lets put it starkly, The US is not at the stage where nearly every one of the voters for the president knows a civilian personally that was killed/injured because of foreign policy mistake.

2,000 into 240-300 million means its one person in about 100,000. IMO rapid significant cultural change occurs around the 1 in 1000 where the death/casualty rate impinges on personal networks. BTW The least affected large European country in WW2 was the UK with civilian deaths around 0.1%-0.2%. France was 0.8% Germany was 2% Soviet Union was 7%. Iraq is running at 1% to 2%. The U.S. is only at the stage of "I know someone who was in New York when 911 happened".


As others have stated: legitmate no - inevitable yes. It was ever thus. Ask a french peasant in Northern France in the 14th Century about France's foreign policy towards the English, I think they would understand consequences of foreign policy mistakes and the impact on civilian populations.

Ever tried to have a reasoned debate with someone in denial?

Most of your numbers are off. The USSR lost nearly 14 percent of its population, the Germans eleven percent. There were practically no male Germans left between the ages of 18 and 23 by the end of that war. The Germans certainly did change their foreign policy after that. Had the Germans won however, their future foreign policy would have reflected that as well. As was the case with the Soviets, no? Our foreign policy reflects what we learned from WWII as well. The outcome of those engagements has determined most everyone’s future rather than the death tolls.

Just throwing this out there top anyone who wants to answer, because I'm curious. Does one cross the line into enabler by doing nothing? There's a consequence to doing nothing too. It's been statistically proven in many many studies, that NOT using the bomb on Japan would have likely resulted in much higher loss of life than using it. If we hadn't gone into Kuwait Saddam would own a lot more of the ME, have much more money due to a vastly increased oil supply, as well as a nuclear arsenal. This is a fact (the IAEA said he was 'clean' until the nuclear program was discovered after the Gulf War). On the other hand, al Qaeda would probably not be such a problem today. Every move one makes geopolitically will lead to unforseen outcomes. Someone isn't going to like you. Do nothing, something bad could happen. Do something, something bad could happen. We're left with what's left. What to do with it now?

And we aren’t the only players on the chess board. It's interesting when so many speak of our hubris and then pretend we're the only players out of the other end of their mouths. Whose hubris is that? We aren't the only players. When one nation or another lets a convicted terrorist go for “good behavior” after serving only four years, that will have an effect. When a nation grants passports to convicted terrorists, that too will have an effect. Are those nations “asking” to be attacked or setting up a policy that will lead to attacks? I personally think that's foolish, but I won't turn around in hindsight and say they asked for attacks if or when they happen. We’ll only know the answer by the outcome, and with the outcome everyone knew better in hindsight.

I didn’t think that parking our forces in Saudi was wise. I thought it was extremely foolish at the time, but I was a very very very (did I say very?) lonely voice back then. Now everyone screams about how stupid that policy was and how we should have seen it coming. Well, it was foolish but I don’t think attacks are or were justified or even foreseeable. We have bases all around the world, and that hasn’t been used as a justification for attacks on US soil. I argued with an Iranian on a British subway that we would never invade Iraq. The very idea seemed unconscionably stupid to me. But I was proven wrong, and the majority supported it at the time. But looking back I can also see how 911 made it very difficult to turn back and evacuate after 12 years of patrolling the no fly zones. Credibility matters too, and there are only so many times a nation can threaten 'dire consequences' and not see them through. Saddam played chicken with a super-power, didn't account for his weapons, and lost.

"What might have been" isn't an option, and it's dishonest anyway because we're looking back through a straw and can't see every variable. Had we not gone to war with Great Britain for independence, would they have likely given it to us bloodlessly anyway as they did to all of their other colonies? Or, did our Revolution pave the way towards them giving all of their colonies away bloodlessly? We only know what happened, and Great Britain isn't justified to kill us today because of the Revolution, nor are we now justified to kill the British because of their "imperial legacy" on us as a former colony.

So, Quarkhead, I suppose since you link the USA and its "Imperial" policies to all other nations and their "Imperial" policies that you have a suggestion as to what our underlying foreign policy theory in the USA should be? If you would be so kind as to elaborate.

These are thoughtful question that I've pondered as well. I think we can all agree that taking certain actions (or not taking those actions) can have disastrous consequences. However, I think it's impossible to "do nothing". The world isn't filled with isolated entities whose influence on the world stage can be precisely calibrated. Every nation's economy, trade relationships, culture, etc. has an effect. To "do nothing" would imply that we aren't already doing something, that is, already having an effect on the world, which is patently false. Perhaps, you mean, should we keep to the status quo? But even the status quo may have negative effects as well as positive ones.

Thus, I conclude that the "doing something vs. doing nothing (or status quo)" dichotomy is a straw man argument. It doesn't exist in the real world. In other words, we are always "doing something".

That said, I fully concur with you, Mrs P, that there are times to take a certain action betting that the consequences for that action will be more favorable than the consequences of not taking that action. That's the only rational thing to do; we try to predict as realistically as possible the outcome (or blowback) of our choices. When people's lives are at stake, the more work we should do to be sure that the outcome is worth the risks. But, of course, humans, being human, often don't make rational decisions; instead they'll make emotional decisions. An emotional decision permits us to ignore the consequences of an action and instead focus *only* on the immediate benefits of that action. As a fight or flight response, it is necessary for survival. As a mechanism to promote foreign policy goals, it is counter-productive (and likely disastrous).

I completely agree with your read on the US's use of nukes on Japan, Mrs P: more lives would have been lost had the fighting continued. The decision to drop nukes ended the war with Japan earlier than it would have. However, this doesn't change the fact that the US did use nuclear weapons on Japan annihilating 200,000+ civilians in the process. We used nukes -- weapons of mass destruction. Using WMD has a special level of moral responsibility all on its own. Annihilating 200,000+ people in a second isn't the same as that number dying over the course of months.

As for the motivation for the Gulf War, it's not clear that the outcome for Kuwait would have been as you predict. What was clear was that infidel troops in Islamic holy land was huge negative risk. I was also that lonely voice describing the blowback risk. Had we been able to get Arab troops to be the military force in Kuwait so much the better. Unfortunately, we likely would have been forced to address the Israel-Palestinian issue (in a less pro-Israel way): something which we didn't want to do at the time.


We play "what might have been" games as part of the effort to learn from our mistakes. Without hindsight, we will make the same mistakes. I'd rather us make different mistakes .

My definition of an enabler is someone who devotes their time and expertise to a goal that is not representative of either themselves or the ideals of their nation, who succumbs to the delusion of changing the system from within. Hence, they play the system hoping for gambler's odds by pining at the notion they can either endure through their term, or somehow make a difference when the house odds of participating in an atrocity generating situation are pretty high.

Said another way, regardless of one's opinion of Mr. Bush and his current predispositions, allowing a leader to make use of the human resources to realize his ambitions has by default accepted the institutions's point of view. Supporting said troops makes one complicit by freeing the standing army to serve at the pleasure of the president for better or worse and provides one element that cannot be readily bought, human acceptance. Even grudging acceptance has allowed congress to avoid pinching the power of the purse and thereby contribute to the war effort by abrogating their duties because of convenience.

Enabling is play on human loyalty, because that is what is being twisted, and to myself represents a form of exploitation. The more empathy and committment displayed the better resources can be allocated to in proactive manner. Do you think it is an accident that America has the largest military budget in the world? The pyschological hoola-hoops required for the public to sustain this hyperbolic effort are nothing short of enormous. 1/2 of every dollar goes into a war economy that serves no practical purpose to then which people can then blame the Chinese. I hate to say it but this is socialism!

In human terms enabling excuses addiction by avoiding conflict and resolution. Such behaviour strikes me as the same thing one finds in AA groups. If one member has a problem the spouse keeps apologizing by inventing plausible scenarios and creating excuses to keep the family going.

By framing past events into a two dimensional 'them or us' narrative, we open the door for unlimited exercises in depravity because when the question involves 'us' we always will side with ourselves. This way we can avoid addressing points of view that may be outside our perspectives. Applied in the real world do you really think Saddam could have maintained his hold on Kuwait without interference from Persia or another Arab neighbour? Have people considered that by dropping those bombs into Japan American diplomancy would be forever restricted by the fact they could force through a third option - the air war. Without the heavy reliance on technology the reality of that time would have been to make concessions, which would have been a wonderful skill to have in Bush's term. What is that exactly? The composure and the patience to deal with people whom you do not like but must deal with because of practical necessity.

I''m using civilian deaths not total since the its the impact on the "roost". Its the home cities destruction that creates the fundamental change. As regards the USSR the deaths provided the justification for the Iron curtain and propped up Stalin. Speaking from a country that was supposed to be on the winning side but ended up with physical and economic destruction, I can say the destruction and death did dramatically change the future and the attitudes of the next 60 years.


I sought to explain the attitudes I didn't say it was avoidable - You are lucky your cities didnt burn but the down side (every silver lining has a cloud) is you have a cultural blindspot. A cultural blindspot that I see in working for American companies. Over generalising 30 years of working for Americans, French, Netherlanders, and Germans and the British. Americans just dont understand the European attitude to really, really bad news, and we dont understand the american attitude. Europeans prefer to hear the worst and then adopt an grim enduring attitude (advantages and disadvantages). The Americans dont want to hear bad news seeing it and anyone giving it as "negative" prefering to remain positive (advantages and disadvantages). This approach to greet really bad news with a grim edurance will become part of the Iraqis, as will the Palestinians and as did the Vietnamese. Count your blessings that you don't empathise culturally through shared civilian experience with Iraq, Europe, Palestine, China, Japan - it has a very, very high price.

Your GB and the US analogy doesnt work because the cultures have changed dramatically since then. Even by 1815, 1776 was forgotten The Napoleonic wars had changed the UK. Remember WW2 and Palestine are within a generation of living memory. a better one is Vietnamese and the U.S.

I am not sure of you numbers but even if you are right the only difference between the conventional bombing we were doing before the nuke and the nukes was that nukes got it over quicker. We had already killed over 50,000 civilians with conventional bombing and would have killed far more than 200,000 if the war had gone on. Remember “bombing” circa 1940s was far from precise.

.

Well Saddam was killing civilians and looting the country but the real issue for the US was imo the oil money and what he was doing with it. He was heavy into WMD and (as we confirmed in 1991) only a couple of years from nukes. With the increased revenue from Kuwait and nukes he would have been a de stabilizing force in this key oil producing region. We might not have put troops into the Saudi Arabia if he had not threatened it.

In any case our support for Israel could just as easily have been the trigger that would have set of Bin Laden. In any case letting Saddam “have” Kuwait would have been very dangerous.

Yes, in fact I do. Quite easily too with twice the amount of income coming in to buy more weapons and finish his nuclear program after doubling his oil supply. Iran would not have stepped into that after their recent longterm war. If they had that level of manpower they wouldn't have resorted at the end to clearing their minefields with children, decorated with plastic 'keys to heaven' imported from Taiwan dangling around their necks.



I think I understand your point better now. Actually, reading through your post above again, I'm not sure why I chose to argue with it anyway. I think your assessment is pretty accurate, and fair, overall.

Is this what you're saying? The only difference between WMD and conventional bombing is that it happens quicker. I don't know what to say to this. But, I will remember it.


It's not clear to me that "letting Saddam have Kuwait" would have been very dangerous. Dangerous for whom? The Kuwaitis? Almost certainly. The US? Not at all. With the oil glut of the 1980s still in full swing, with Iraq severely weakened from the Iran-Iraq War, it was the underlying motivation for Saddam's designs on Kuwait.

Anyway, why are you so concerned about WMD? Didn't you just get done saying that it's like conventional bombing but quicker?

Well then think it over. We could have reduced every city in Japan to rubble (without nukes) and killed more people before we invaded and killed even MORE people as we invaded– would that have been smart? We could have had another 100,000 dead ourselves – would that have been smart. The war could have lasted another 6 months or more.

Ever see the Japanese films of kids and old people training to defend the Island? Ya we could have had a real bloodbath – free of nuclear weapons.


Can you imaging Saddam with Kuwait (and their oil) and nukes? If you think this would have been good I have no comment except ...

No worse than if someone came into my country to protect it, then said OOPS! sorry this is too hard, we didn't think war would be hard or a sacrifice. Oh well, sorry for screwing up your country by the way, have a nice day! and take this bobble head doll as a gift from us, as we give you our sincere apologies for saying one thing and doing another.



Conservepat


Ok, your right my apologies for that.

However Providing aid of various kinds is what the bulk of our foreign policy consist of across the globe, why not discuss that? Is it because its not negative enough, or what? I mean I don't get it. Every time someone talks about our presence in the world its always the same arguments, and its ok to be critical of certain aspects of our foreign policies but many of these foreign policies have been important for us to have whether or not there was a global reaction to most of the wars we have fought. Its like the first gulf war, technically it was a win and we accomplished our primary mission of protecting Kuwait.

Yet that war was seen by many nations as us policing the world again, and we did risk having Saddam do something monumentally stupid simply due to our presence their, but this doesn't mean we should curl up into a little ball and cut off the world because sometimes there are possible negative consequences to our actions? Thats the risk you take when you go to war, but if your intentions are good, which I believe ours have been in most cases, then using our military and economic might to do what we can isn't a bad thing.

I know its not picture perfect Pat, and that sometimes plans backfire and people criticize us but in general I think we have helped other nations far more than circumstances where we have done harm. Without our presence in the world there are multiple nations that would economically collapse altogether, I read that on WIKI. So despite that stiff criticism we get, I guess the United States today across the world is like the ozone layer, in that we wouldn't be missed by everyone unless of course we were gone, or curled up into a ball.

Does any of that make sense?



If the U.S. on the other hand never went to war because of the death associated with all wars, the outcomes of WW1 and WW2 would have been so vastly different that its hard to say what the world would look like today. Hell you think Germany would have just stopped because they decided that killing Jews by the hundreds of thousands was wrong? To answer your question I trust this nation over Russia or Germany to be the worlds most capable superpower, we may not be perfect, but there is a lot worse out there thats for sure, and it took stand up presidents in our nations past not to sit on their rear end like cowards simply because war is risky. Hell anything thats worth it is risky.

All those people that died of radiation sickness and cancer by sacrificing themselves to clean up the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster and bury the site in tons of concrete, that was risky. Any act of putting yourself in possible danger for a greater cause is potentially risky, but its people like that who become the hero's behind any story. In most cases they take these risk under their own will.

Likewise When you become a soldier of the U.S. military one of the first things you do is take an oath to protect this nation form all enemies both foreign or domestic. People who do this are well aware that sometimes these wars we fight are complex and controversial like the war in Vietnam was. In short the arguments you make are not unique to this war, taking risk is the sacrifice of any war, fought by anyone, for any reason, additionally this is not a draft military, and we don't recruit children who are unaware of the risk. On top of this people continue to enlist today even with knowledge that there is a high probability they will end up in the middle east. We're actually in the process of expanding our military, we recruited more Americans in 2007 than we did in 2006, and this will be true again this year.

I got the chuckles when several members told me 6 months ago that the idea of expanding our military was unrealistic and wouldn't work, in a country of over 300 million people they assumed these recruits couldn't be found with the publics knowledge of the Iraq war. Yet recruiting levels are up, and I'm under no impression this wont work, it already is.

Now I wont use the arguments of others on you again, but when you talk about the risk of this war, you seem to do so in a way that disregards that all wars are risky, while not taking into account that today our men are enlisting aware of the risk involved.

quarkhead


I'm very aware of that parallel, and I try to point this out all the time. My beliefs on this war are based for the most part on all the same information and concepts people like you go by. What I'm doing different is I'm not using facts to jump to elaborate conclusions. An elaborate conclusion is not simply the position of not supporting the war, many people who don't support the war make perfectly sensible arguments all the time. An elaborate conclusion is when a position is reached while disregarding other facts.

For example some people say president Bush has turned this nation into a dictatorship, and Ive heard it put as bluntly as that many times, even on this site many times. Yet in order to come to that conclusion some facts are debated, while others are completely disregarded. To be specific, these people will talk about how Iraq is a sovereign nation, they will talk about civilian casualties in the middle east, they will talk about how Iraq never attacked us, or they will talk about how our foreign polices in some cases attract negative attention.

What they wont talk about is the countless things that separate us so far from evil dictatorships and terrorist organizations. If you were to talk about what this nation has in common with dictatorships, and terrorist organizations, and I was to talk about what separates us from dictatorships, and terrorist organizations, you would be talking for 30 minutes, and Id be talking for 3 days. We have much more in common with the United Kingdom or even Canada, yet the comparisons are drawn between us and some of the worst elements on the planet as a political smear tactic. This is why the majority of the people doing it have politics that are opposite of the current administration. It didn't take long debating politics for me to figure this out, as obvious as it is.

Now I cant remember you making such comparisons specifically, but I know you don't challenge such arguments much, or at least I haven't seen it. This is probably because your stance on Bushes foreign policy actually benefits from all those who are willing to elaborate the Bush administration and our foreign policy in general.





See this is what I'm talking about, I've had this conversation with a couple members already. Our foreign policies are highly complicated, Id be lying if I said I understood it all, but what I do understand is that while there are a certain amount of evils in any gouvernment, that no two are the same and the truth about America is that we have done things that are both controversial, and in some cases things that were obvious mistakes.

Now when you talk about such things, without being specific, what you do is portray this nation in a light that benefits your anti - bush or anti - war stance. Half of the things your saying sound 10 x worse than they really are when you cram them into 1 sentence, for example you asked...........

Why do you think 9/11 happened? What brought groups like Al Qaeda into existence? What is the history of the Islamic fundamentalist movement?

Now Its obvious what your answer is to your own question, and that you believe we are responsible, otherwise you wouldn't have asked it as part of challenging my stance which is generally pro - intervention, get involved, and stand our ground. Now the truth on this is so much more complex than people like you let on, it really is. You may not get challenged here on that much, but its because 75% of the people here share your stance on foreign policy.

So to challenge this general concept of this nation being responsible, I'm going to be very specific in letting you know where I stand and what I think.

Are we partialy responsible for Saddam, or Al Qaeda? Yes, keyword being Partialy

Did we intend for the outcomes that came to be? No, and even you probably agree here.

Does our partial responsibility and the role we have played here a sensible reason to belive that we should not be involved? No

To elaborate the one most responsible for the actions of Saddam is Saddam, period. The ones most responsible for the actions of Al Qaeda is Al Qaeda, and thats all there is to it. Not to mention that there are others that were much more involved with the formaion of Al Qaeda than us, and others that aided Saddams military in the 80's as well.

This is originally from my 50 page War on Terror Post, and later was broken down into this smaller post........

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...mp;#entry230730

This talks about the role we and others played in aiding Iraq in the 80's. Note the underlined part that shows the extent of how many nations funded Iraq in the 80's....................



Citation for the above info can be read about here......... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weap...ass_destruction


Now regarding Al Qaeda, as I said yet again we did play a role here, but Al Qaeda is generally anti-gouvernment and was formed largely on that principal. However The Soviet Union played a much more direct role in their formation than we ever did, remember the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan? Thats when they formed, it was in direct response to that more than anything.

So its apparent to me that things are much more complex than you and others let on. When you try and cram the truth into 2 sentences by talking about how responsible we are, all you deliver is a half-truth that by no coincidence just so happens to support your stance on American foreign policy.

Phew that was a mouthful

Exactly. It's amazing how many 'patriots' couch their argument in sports analogies instead of engaging in any form of critical thought. I suppose it's easier that way for the narrow minded. But for all the talk of winning or losing, when asked to reconcile our foreign policy practices against our principles as a democratic nation [such as we are]..........we hear crickets......or nonsensical diatribes that avoid the tough questions.

One of the reasons that our foreign policies have resulted in unintended consequences is that we did not form and keep a strong, consistent narrative. If we intend to conduct action X for a stated goal, and then that goal morphs according to political expediency, public opinion or other internal/external influencer's...........in many cases the indigenous population in that region will feel that they've been sold a load of manure. For all of the economic aid and humanitarian assistance that we have provided, much of that came with conditions that were nothing more than attached manure.

From Richard Haass' article in Foreign Affairs Magazine, titled The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Dominance:

The war in Iraq has also contributed to the dilution of the United States' position in the world. The war in Iraq has proved to be an expensive war of choice -- militarily, economically, and diplomatically as well as in human terms. Years ago, the historian Paul Kennedy outlined his thesis about "imperial overstretch," which posited that the United States would eventually decline by overreaching, just as other great powers had in the past. Kennedy's theory turned out to apply most immediately to the Soviet Union, but the United States -- for all its corrective mechanisms and dynamism -- has not proved to be immune. It is not simply that the U.S. military will take a generation to recover from Iraq; it is also that the United States lacks sufficient military assets to continue doing what it is doing in Iraq, much less assume new burdens of any scale elsewhere.
Link

Will those patriots ever fully understand blowback and consequence management before our empire goes the way of all other empires?

Net, the topic of the thread is why it's verboten to imply that our foreign policy invites terrorism and anti-Americanism abroad. What could we possibly have to say about aid? Aid doesn't result in terrorism nor does it result in anti-Americanism...So yes, because it doesn't have negative effects, it isn't really applicable in this thread. That said, I do understand that aid makes up the bulk of our foreign policy.

I'm not talking about isolationism. I'm saying if we should stop interfering in the business of sovereign countries. Now, in the case of Iraq; the case was made that Iraq posed a threat to America, in which case we have a right to invade [as long as the war is pre-emptive and not preventative]. But I'm not talking about pacifism or isolationism.

I agree that America has done good over 50% of the time it has aided a foreign country...But when America did not do good, or failed, it's failure or evil act was an incredible one [destroying West Africa via the slave trade, supporting dictators, etc]. But I do agree that the number of good deeds we have done outnumber the bad.

Those examples don't work, Net. We entered WWI largely due to the Zimmerman telegraph [in case you're not aware: Germany sent Mexico a telegraph stating that it would help Mexico reclaim the Southwestern US] and we entered WWII because we were attacked by Japan [and then Germany declared war on us]. In neither case did we initiate aggression.

I'm not talking about wars by themselves, Net. I'm talking about supporting dictators who brutalize their citizens, preventing foreign citizens from having a democratically elected government and things like that. Of course wars involve risk, that doesn't really have much to do with what I'm saying.

Again, I haven't been talking about the risks of this war, I'm talking about the risks of disrupting the affairs of sovereign countries. We entered Iraq to protect ourselves, it doesn't apply.

CP

ConservPat


Or perhaps its not applicable to any thread, well by the standards of many anyway. Most people for example say they support our troops in Afghanistan, including most of those that think Iraq was a mistake, yet how often do they talk about the foreign policies they support, as if they support them? Take a good look at this site Pat, hell take a good look at any site for that matter. Nobody arguing that Iraq was a mistake, seems to want to talk about why our active military role in places like Afghanistan is important, I just don't see it. Well perhaps rarely.

Even if they say they support action against Al Qaeda, generally they are very brief in discussing it. Then I hear arguing points in relation to AL Qaeda (not Iraq) that make me wonder if some people are on the verge of changing their argument on Al Qaeda, just like so many people did on Iraq. For example people that are generally against the Iraq war and talk about that 24/7, are now arguing that our foreign policies lead to the 9/11 attack, and I wasn't hearing people argue that near as much 4 years ago.

When is the last time you dedicated a post to how important it is we remain on the offense against Al Qaeda? On the other hand, when was the last time you spoke of why the Iraq war is a mistake? Yesterday? What then are your priorities? I predict that the same people who supported Iraq early on, (which was a majority in 2003), but don't support it today, will demonstrate the same behavior regarding the War on Terror as a whole, eventually. Maybe not all of them yet, but eventually. Its already started in fact, less people support military action against Al Qaeda today than in 2002/2003.

We have millions of Americans, many of whom supported the Iraq war in 2003, who today talk almost solely about what it we shouldn't be doing day after day after day, instead of talking about what exactly it is we should be doing! If these people were concerned about terrorism, id hear them talk about it at least half as much as they talk about how that attack was our fault, or how Iraq was a mistake.

Maybe one good thing will come out of leaving Iraq early, by electing a Democrat this year, if that happens. Maybe, just maybe people will then shut the hell up and talk about terrorism as if it is a problem again, maybe for once we can put this screwball game of politics back in the bag where it belongs and concentrate on our global concerns rather than what decisions of the past were mistakes, and who is to blame for it. Is that wishful thinking? Or will new rhetoric be invented to replace the old?

One of the most influential presidents in history I believe was John F. Kennedy, I may not have agreed with all his politics, but leadership is defined as much by core values as it is by methods, and of all the things he said, it was this quote that got remembered probably more than anything else he said.......

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Today we have reason to be disappointed in our government for not living up to their end, even I believe this is true, but sometimes the source of a problem is much closer to home than one would think. For example, I'm convinced that if we lose the war in Iraq it will be due in part to its lack of support by the public. I'm in a position where I say (this is screwed up, or that is screwed up... ect ect) but I maintain my support because early on I was one small part of the supportive crowd that was necessary for this war to begin. The elected officials that supported the war in high enough numbers for it to begin, were elected by everyday Joes like myself, who also generally supported the Idea of an invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Today people relieve themselves of that responsibility by saying they were somehow fooled by Bush just like many elected officials were fooled, but deep down when I look at history, and the fact that this war was based on concepts that other administrations agreed with, I know this game of solely blaming this administration for its position is a cowardly crock of sh... I mean stuff.

The buck may stop at the feet of our president, but it starts right here at the decisions and actions of the American public, and its time people start saying they were wrong, if they no longer support this war.




Self defense was one argument, this is true, but no deceit was delivered because the true purpose of this war was never denied. Additional arguments were made in regards to our security and Saddam still having WMD from before, but the primary objective was never made secret, and if people had their heads out of the sand in 2003 they would have known that this war had a primary objective that was (long term), and directly involved liberating Iraq. (Operation Iraqi Freedom) remember? One doesn't need to look any further than the wars name to know what it was about, but pre-Iraq war statements and documentation such as this were clear indicators as well.........

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAR303A.html

On March 20, the United States began its military campaign against Iraq. The self-stated goal of this action is to remove the current Iraqi government and replace it with a U.S.-friendly regime. Washington has also expressed its desire to occupy Iraq until the Middle Eastern state is stable enough for self-government.

Its things like this that completely discredit the argument that people were somehow fooled into supporting this war with Bushes claims of WMD or national security. If they were fooled its because they cant read, or hear, period. Or heard what it is they wanted to hear. WMD and national security were additional concerns that were argued by this administration, but remember that similar arguments were made by Clinton and Bush Sr, and for good reason, Saddam had WMD thats not a theory. The same Saddam regime was aggressive to those outside Iraq, and was already responsible for countless deaths, carried out in a manner that made a mockery of the Geneva Convention, thats not a theory. After the first Gulf War the same regime tried to assassinate Bush Sr., and continued in its efforts to remain a formidable military force in the region, and thats not a theory either.

The only theory I see is that somehow millions of people remember Bushes concerns regarding our national security, and WMD, but conveniently forgot that the main objective of this war has always been the long term goal of bringing democracy to Iraq.






What if I was comparing those wars to the War on Terror, minus Iraq? I support the Iraq war, but thats another issue. This line of debate began with the concept that our foreign policies in the past helped lead to the events of 9/11, which was a war initiated by an attack on our soil. When people start talking about our position in the past being partially responsible for attack like 9/11 that pulls Iraq out of the argument. Iraq has little to do with what happened on 9/11 so to repeat my prior statement...........

Sure, there are consequences to many of our actions overseas, in most cases however this does not mean that we were in error by being involved.

I stand by this, there is a global response, and sometimes a response from an enemy, to our actions overseas. Like going into Iraq in 1991 for example. However if your intension's are good, thats whats important, not how a terrorist may perceive such an action. Remember this was when AL Qaeda first began its focus on America, this is unfortunate, and they were in no position to use Desert Storm as an excuse to bomb us. That war had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and any president who is going to base our foreign policies on the possible aggressions of our enemies, does not belong in the white house, they belong running a day care center.



Well, I agree in that I believe we have made such mistakes in the past. Trusting Saddam and using him to our advantage despite the obvious signs that he was a nut case early on was a mistake, no doubt about it.



Well disrupting the affairs of sovereign countries, is often part of war. When we went to Japan in WW2, they were a sovereign nation, and we were certainly disrupting their affairs, and rightfully so. If you want to make the argument that Iraq never attacked us, and thats why we shouldnt have gone in, then make that argument, but your point of disrupting the affairs of sovereign nations, goes hand in hand with most wars we have fought in the past, and it doesn't make them any more or less justifiable.

Most people agree that Afghanistan was the right decision, Net. This [as you know] is a debate site, what would we have to debate regarding a topic that has near 100% consensus?

The reason why I am not overtly dedicating posts to the topic of the danger of Al Qaeda and how important it is to remain on the offense against it is simple. Al Qaeda's threat is blown out of proportion, A, and B, this is a debate site, who the Hell would I be debating with if I were taking the side "we should aggressively fight Al Qaeda". Of course I believe that. With that having been said, the definition of 'aggressive' is what we can debate.

Talk about terrorism as if it's a problem again? Net, the War on Terror is FOREFRONT in American politics. My God, one only has to turn on a TV to see that. I'm absolutely sick of talking about terrorism primarily because I'm not afraid of terrorism. I'm not terrorized which, sadly, cannot be said of many of our fellow Americans. It's as if America has post traumatic stress syndrome, constantly thinking about 9/11 and how they don't want it to happen again. Of course we don't want it to happen again, but Christ, are we to be overcome by that fear? It's like someone who's been hit by a car and then chooses never to cross any street again. God only knows how astronomical the odds are of dying in a terrorist attack and yet that issue is in the forefront of American politics. You know what 100% of Americans think about, healthcare, education and retirement. 100% of them. Why don't we focus on issues with whom the average American stands a slightly better chance of actually having practical interactions with?

A government which has broken as many laws and taken as much money as our has has a lot of nerve asking me what I can do for it. I will not 'do for my country' what I believe to be wrong. If that means taking issue with its foreign policy decisions, then that is exactly what I will do.

I was wrong for initially supporting the war. I, like my government and its intelligence agencies [and those of other governments], believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons that constituted a threat to my country. That was not the case, and as a result, my support for the war was in error. Is that what you're looking for?

This is nonsense. The President sold the war to the American people [myself included] on the precept that Iraq was a threat to America that needed to be neutralized; 'liberating the Iraqi people' was simply a byproduct of disarming the country. After realizing that there were no weapons in Iraq, our mission statement 'evolved' into fostering democracy in the Middle East. But to say that our main objective at the onset of the war was anything but disarm a brutal and insane dictator is absurd.

I'm not clear on what you're saying here.

Net, it's not as if before we began stationing troops in Islamic Holy Land there were a group of happy terrorists who were content with America's place in the world who became angry terrorists when we stationed troops in Islamic Holy Land. There were non-terrorists who were content with America's place in the world who became angry terrorists when we stationed troops in Islamic Holy Land [among other things, I'm simply using that as an example]. Our actions frequently create terrorists. That's the point. We need to avoid creating terrorists as much as we can.

Net, once again, I'm not talking exclusively about war. I'm talking about America's tendency to support vicious and brutal dictator when we see it as beneficial [usually to economic interests]. These are the acts we need to cease immediately. They do not have anything to do with American security, in fact, they put our security at risk by creating anti-American sentiment which manifests itself in terrorism. Of course we intervene in the foreign affairs of a country when we go to war, duh, no one is arguing that. What I am arguing is that it is those cases when we are not at war with a country and at the same time interfere in its affairs when we put ourselves in danger unnecessarily. Do you understand what I'm saying? When we go to war, we have no choice but interfere in our adversary's affairs. The instances when our government is not at war with a country and attempts to interfere in its affairs that result in terrorism, plain and simple.

CP

ConservPat


To keep the events of the past alive and fresh in our minds so that we don't revert back to the type of mindset we had on Al Qaeda in the 90's. This isn't about encouraging fear, its about keeping the most important reasons of why we are in the middle east alive in debate. With an issue that has nearly 100% consensus id think our debates would cover the topic now and then. Thats what I was trying to point out, the ironic fact that so many people say they support the war on terror, but don't talk about it. This goes beyond debate boards

You know Ive actually heard stories of soldiers being denied air time for rallying support for both the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic candidates are so vague in debate about this topic, that I wonder if their heart is in it, or if they will only support action against terrorist if it supports them in the polls. Just because supposedly we all agree we should be going after Al Qaeda, doesn't mean we wouldn't be talking about it. I guess my point is that I'm wondering if some of the people that say they support this war, really do, or really care at all. I have to be weary at this point considering what happened regarding the support level of the Iraq war, and the fact that negativity is up on our position in Afghanistan already.



I don't think its blown out of proportion at all, considering the agression they have already displayed toward us. Our interest should be their interest, whatever interest them, should interest us. No lenience, and no pity, and certainly no more assuming a bunch of yoyo's in a desert are all bark and no bite. 9/11 showed us that you don't need a 1 million man army to kill thousands of people and start a war, the most dangerous possession a madman can posses is actually not a possession at all, but rather a careless state of mind that is willing, and determined.



I'm not afraid of terrorism either, and Ive heard people argue this way many times. Just because you remain concerned about something doesn't mean your intimidated by it, or afraid of it. However some people have become downright complacent about the threat of terrorism, to the point where many dedicated right wing media pundits are now arguing that America will need another 9/11 before we understand that this isn't a problem we can run away from, and I'm to the point today where I'm starting to believe them. I'm hearing things now that I wasn't even hearing 2 years ago regarding both wars.

The best explanation for this increased pessimism and disregard of terrorism, is in my eyes the nearing presidential election. The left is desperately trying to use the war, to associate it with Bush and the opposing political party. In doing so they often generalize about the war in Ahfganistan and the war in Iraq as if the two are the same. Vague criticisms are put fourth that in many cases could apply to either war, and since both wa