Scary Situation Brewing in the Middle East...

You can't destroy all of civilization, but you can certainly destroy someone elses... Does that make it right?

To me, the line is drawn because weapons like WMDs and techniques like firebombing cities are minimally effective at destroying or disabling an enemy fighting force. Rather, their purpose, first and foremost, is to affect civilian targets... and either completely demoralize or obliterate your enemy... innocents and all.

That's where I draw my line... and you can accomplish the same kind of destruction with conventional weapons... one misplaced cruise missile.

 

So you believe an extreme minority is for the war and every other American is against it. If that was even remotely the case George Bush would no longer be in office and the Republicans would have been decimated in the last election cycle. Is that what happened?

There is ample evidence that most of the violence is coming from non-Iraqi nationals and the remnants of Sadam's army/secret police. Is that any surprise that there is violence in the middle east against american soldiers and those aligning themselves to have a free society?

The world took a stance against the US in Iraq? Who, France, Germany, China and Russia who all had major ecomomic stakes to lose with a US led invasion. It may be presented in many media sources that the US went it alone but how many countries supported the US invasion?

 

Why the attacks ocurred? Next I suppose you will give me some line of 'bs' that the US deserved to be attacked by a bunch of religious nuts.

 

Why do you hate the US so much? How would Canada have faired in that little skirmish in Europe without the 'big bad US' at its side? And I am glad that members of your family served, I have several members of my family who never made it home. Thank you for your sarcastic view of their sacrifices. Pathetic.

 

The fate of Usama isn't important; it's too late for an international trial, or his head on a pike, to have much impact on anything, especially Iraq. Most will realize that the day after he's killed or captured, should that occur.

Since Mr. Bush's invasion, the number of Muslims and others who already hated the US enough to sacrifice their lives opposing us has multiplied.

Mr. Bush says we're winning. Mr. Cheney says the Iraqi insurgency has almost burned itself out, and that we may yet find Iraqi WMD. Does anyone think any of this is true?

Suppose a country invaded the US. Suppose that country is India, and that before they invade us it's "liked" by 30% of Americans, "disliked" by 30% and 40% admit they don't know much about India and/or don't care. This might approximate Iraq vis-a-vis us in 2002.

Suppose further that the color of the skin of their soldiers is mostly darker than ours and that they practice a religion most Americans disdain. Their cultural practices are strange and/or disgust many of us; some Indian political leaders even drink their own urine.

Suppose they softened us up for invasion by intensive bombing of Washington, killing about 10,000 civilians. Another 10,000 are killed in the resistance put up in other major cities. Our command structure collapses; Bush, Cheney and the administration disappear, and Congess can't meet. India's follow-up invasion attempts to occupy Los Angeles, New York, Chicago---every city big enough to have a pro sports franchise.

* Would we resist, even if only on a city-by-city basis?

* Even if some of us hated Bush and his cronies, and were actually glad they were nowhere to be found, would we greet the Indians as liberators, showering them with flowers as they rode triumphantly through Dallas, Miami and other places?

* If the Indian Prime Minister said to the world---and us--- that there was no reason to be alarmed, that they only wanted to change our form of government to a parliamentary democracy, with weekly direct accountability of the PM to the parliament; and that they had no intention of claiming or stealing any of our land or resources; and that they'd leave "as soon as they could"; but that they also wanted to establish long-term military bases in the US: do you think most of us would accept his word, and allow Indian troops to fully occupy, and set up without opposition a military-controlled administration of, all major cities?

* Would we try to organize and fight a "resistance" against the Indians, using any available weapons and tactics, especially those that instilled constant fear and confusion in them, maximizing the killing of their troops compared to our losses?

* Would we accept help from sympathetic Canadians and Mexicans who came across our borders, some of whom were even better at fighting the Indians than we were---even though in some cases we suspected their motives and the apparent brutality and recklessness of their tactics?

* For how long would we resist? After two or three years, if all the Indian troops were still here, would we give up and stop fighting them? Even if it seemed they indiscriminately and stupidly kept killing hundreds, finally thousands of our wives, parents and children in their attempts to control us, and seemed cavalier in dismissing it to the rest of the world as "normal collateral damage"?

* Might the actions of the Indians rekindle a fierce nationalism in many of our people? A determination to drive them out at almost any cost? On the part of many of us, a virulent hatred of them, no matter how well-intentioned they said they were, and even though their soldiers handed out candy to our children?

 

I know we don't agree on this point but you have just reinforced my earlier point about unconditional surrender. When the will of the people and the military is destroyed, it becomes much easier to mold a society. Again many of you will gasp, when i say mold a society, but how many of you would prefer the german and japanese governments and societies which sprang up after world war II to the governments and societies pre world war II.

 

Malron, please reread the post again as I was speaking from the world's perspective not domestic.
How many people in the world are there, Malron? How many Americans are for the war? Let's assume 100% of US citizens are for the war. Get a calculator, maybe crunching numbers will be more constructive for you to understand it.

There wouldn't be any evidence if we haven’t gone there on the first place. Now you have a mess that is difficult for anyone conceivably to get out of. Obviously to you there is no complacency involved and nobody is at fault.

It’s a given that other countries who had financial stakes in Iraq didn’t want to support us. Why should they? They have their own interests, are we so special that everyone needs to agree with us on everything? We seem not to care about lots of places around the world when the need arises. So suddenly we had a streak of altruism when we went to help Iraqis? You must be joking. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We pursued Taliban, and that was a legitimate target. Resources should have been kept for containing former Taliban and massive endeavors should have been taken pursue the leftovers, which dispersed from Afghanistan to neighboring countries. The efforts should have been seriously taken with the rest of the world in order to pursue real terrorists, not dictators and regimes who might or could harbor terrorists. For example there are rumors that China is harboring Osama. Do you think that the US should go preemptively to war with China based upon rumors? And build democracy in China? Besides there is no evidence of any intelligence gathered, even in Israel which has the best intelligence about Middle East and it’s enemies, confirming that Saddam was in any way connected with Osama and his thugs.

And where is the coalition of the willing? Few thousand Brits, some Australians, few South Koreans, twenty from Salvador, few Danes, few Dutch, few hundred Poles, all together if I am not mistaken 16 countries, so Malorn, take a calculator out again, and add all the population of all the countries of the willing and come up with this massive global support you seem to be informed about. For that matter, I have been even out of curiosity following the press from few countries that do support US in Iraq, mainly Great Britain (BBC) how Brits are divided and how many really are to support the US. Then if you feel like it I have listed PAP, which is a Polish news agency. Poland it's the third largest supporter of the US and you can discover that Poles are completely oblivious and like the rest of the countries which did support the US out of possible financial influences, and now regretting as they have lost credibility with the rest of the European partners. The same applies to Italians.

Now, Malron, there was a coalition of the willing wanting to pursue WMDs, which existence was fabricated or over exaggerated out of certain interest or fear factor. Now the coalition members are all massively pulling out. Just a few days ago the new government in Poland declared pulling out quite substantial number of its soldiers. There was even a major article about it on BBC. You can probably look it up.

 

While i am genuinely concerned with the opinion of the rest of the world i will always be much more concerned about the interests of the US and its citizens. In fact I would guess that a true majority of the world's population would not even really know anything is going on in Iraq.

I believe that most of the leadership in the middle east including the terrorist leadership is petrified of democracy taking hold in Iraq. I would imagine their concern would lie with the 'domino theory' replaying itself across the middle east as it has across eastern europe.

Europe does not exactly have a stellar history over the last 100 years of making the right decisions when it comes to diplomacy and where to draw the line. I am not saying the US has all the answers, I am saying that France, Germany etc certainly don't have all the answers either.

 

Wow. Ten pages of testimony that the terrorists have won, and
quite some time ago at that. How much time are you guys spending
on this??
.
Your standard-issue prayer rugs will be showing up shortly.
.
_H*

 

Do NOT put words in my mouth, son.

No country truly "deserves" to be attacked. In many cases, these "attacks" can be predicted though. Much like how - in typical Civil Servant fashion - the various Intelligence branches somehow failed to connect the dots.

Makes one wonder if that was on purpose

 

I don't. You come off as if the U.S. is to be thanked for everything the past century. It's that attitude that has turned off many potential friends and allies.

In case you didn't know, I'm a dual citizen. Even spent 4 years in the Utah National Guard. Ever carry a rifle in service of YOUR country? Or are you another armchair tactical "expert?"

Yes, I also have a few family members who paid the Ultimate Price. Including my Dad's baby brother who got killed in Vietnam by friendly fire. As a baby my Uncle - who was 15 at the time - used to spend a lot of time visiting and playing with me.

Apparently, he made a great babysitter too. To this day my Dad refuses to talk about it, it hurt him so much. He was even going to go through the picture album and destroy every picture of baby Jay with his baby brother. Fortunately, my Mom hid those pictures and gave them to me when I turned 16.

So don't give me any bullshit about pissing on their Sacrifice.

 

And what do you think is my concern? Do you think that I wouldn't want everything that's the best for our interests and the world at large? Hence this debate, politicians make mistakes, leaders make mistakes and in order to improve one has to debate issues and constantly check and balance their decisions, which ultimately might benefit us, citizens.

Malorn, in fact I would guess that majority of the US population does not even know anything what is going on in DC.

which of the middle east countries have terrorist leadership? Are you talking about Palestine or Iran? What others? Those would be only 2 countries what about the rest?

You cannot compare individual states of the Middle East with their individual regimes to former Soviet Republics or countries of former Soviet Block. As the Eastern European countries and former Soviet Republics were governed by a strict directive from centralized apparatus out of Kremlin, where regimes in Middle East have no connection to each other, other than religion (excluding Israel). So the Domino Theory is rather far fetched. To prove the point, look what happened in Lebanon, and it’s anti-Syrian antagonism. Probability of revolutions on a scale what happened with toppling of Pahlavi are more likely to happen within individual states in upcoming decades rather than years.
It’s rather too early for the masses to embrace western style democracies within a short span of time.
The only democracies in the Middle East are Israel and Turkey and Europe has a hard time dealing with a lack of transparencies for Turkey to join EU.

Malron, Europe is not a single country and the matters of European history are very complex. I bet it is very difficult for you, it takes a great deal to master a history of the United States alone, pair that with the histories of all European countries even if it is pertaining only the past century. You can single out a few countries, like you did, and it would not represent European history. There are examples of some European countries that one can prove that they have “stellar history†of “making the right decisions†when it comes to diplomacy.

 

Jack,
Felt like reading history text books over and over again, thank you for giving us an opportunity to visit such hypothetical scenario, but serious political advisers and leaders tend to be living in the world of the hubris and history will repeat itself again and again and again.

 

Our country is doing such a good job at protecting us "I can't believe nothing has happened yet here in the states", that we forget we are at war.

When we are at war, we all make sacrifices for the good of the whole. I know it "feels" like its "party on!", but we are still at war and we live in an illusion of safety.

I have no problems with invasion of my privacy for the sake of finding terrorists any more than I mind getting fisked at the airport like a criminal so we can catch criminals?

Whats the big deal if you have nothing to hide?

Once the war is over, we can afford more privacy... but even then we must allow a certain amount of vulnerability and trust to our government or we will end up with another 9-11.

I get disgusted with the Gov as much as anybody for their careless selfish ways, but thats because they are made up of people. We will always be vulnerable to people. We are the dummys that voted those people in!

I agree we cannot just give liberties away that someone will obviously abuse... but in times of war... we need to have a little more grace on the government......

and those of you who don't like Bush... thats ok.. It would suck to be him.... no matter what he does or how good he does it, he will get crucified anyway.

But at least he is doing something!... I remember when Pres. Carter allowed our hostages to remain so for I believe 18 months, trying to negotiate and sweet talk them into being friends and understanding us while the whole time they laughed at us and despised us, and saw us as fat spoiled sissies. The moment Reagan stepped in they were released! I wonder what made them "understand us then?"

I too agree with Malorn on many of his viewpoints about War, but he may not agree with all of mine. War is ugly.. it destroys innocent babies, women, and children... but lack of it is much more cruel.... go look in Africa and you'll see what I mean when cruel rulers go unchecked.

I'm surprised pres Bush hasn't just resigned and said "screw all of you...... you guys do it yourself since you know all the answers!" He's a better man than I.

Give the president a break!... especially in time of war!.......
I can't remember such a time when there was so much lack of respect for the highest office in the country.

What gives?.... did he take somebodys birthday away or something? I think his genius will be recognized later. We ARE NOT a nation that understands discipline.

Its a very scarry thought to think how "Gory" it would be if someone else would have made it to the presidency in these troubled times.
Pres Bush was a breath of fresh air to the mamby pamby leaders we've had recently.

I'm tired of a leader who can't make a decision because they think with thier heart, thier head, thier balls, and thier fears all at once so they're paralysed into doing nothing!

I have no use for a fearful leader who is intimidated by terrorist! He shouldn't be the leader of a nation?.. He should be doing the servicemens laundry or something!

Do you really think the Gov has the manpower or interest to eavesdrop on your conversations to see what your saying to your boyfriend or tax broker?

Some of you guys are the same ones that think someone is trying to hack into your computer to see whats in your little bank account! Ha!... why waste thier time when there is big money out there to get?

The government is trying to keep us safe for crying out loud! when they prove themselves different, then you can talk... just how would you do it?.. maybe you should be president and save us all and show them how its done?....

Its so easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize like a spoiled child who never likes his bannana split no matter now elegant it looks or how many cherries is on top?
Who likes a kid that whines all the time and nothing is ever good enough?.... have we all turned into whiners?
Yea Big oil is out of control and drug companies are having a party and someone should do something about it.... but how about the things that are doing well?

There is only 24 hours in a day... you can't fix everything at once! And you be everything to all people.

I for one, think our country is doing an awesome job and I'm amazed we have been as safe as we have been ...and our service men have something quite indeed to be proud of that in the fact that we are so lulled into sleep in our saftey and security only proves how good of a job they are all really doing!

Don't you think its kinda funny how France who was in bed with and defending those who supported terrorism has now changed thier tune when their country started getting blown to hell with car bombs and terrorism?

Maybe if the government wasn't protecting us so well and a few things happened around here in the name of terror we would be a little more sympatetic to the fight on terrorism?

Do you really think nothing has happened here because they don't want us?
Are they not mad at us anymore, and they are now our friends?
Are they just busy elsewhere now, and have forgotten about us?

Wake up man.. we're at war!

If you really want to make friends with the terrorist so they won't hurt us, they have just raised the enlistment age to 40..maybe you can join and go make a difference!

 

will those be pictures of your oil and its contaminates?

 

I am sorry, is this a straw-man proposal?

 

You mean a man with no brains or no heart?.....

any man who has no heart has no brains.... and if a man has a brain with no heart, he is scarry if he is president..... but if a leader has a heart AND a brain, then he is a good leader, but they will fight each other.... because many times there are no solutions and many times some has to die so that others may live.

 

A "straw-man proposal" is a simple draft proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to provoke the generation of new and better proposals. As the document is revised, it may be given other edition names such as "stone-man", "iron-man", and so on, etc.