War is the worst thing ever. Worse than Brittney Spears and disco. It should be the very last option. Only when everything else has failed, once you have tried diplomacy, civil disobedience, guerrilla warfare, and everything else, should war even be considered as an option. Some people, like Howard Zinn for example, argue that war should never be an option, that there are always better ways. Zinn, who served as a bombardier in the “good war,” WWII, makes a compelling argument, I think. Check it out: Just and Unjust Wars
In this case, though, the other options have not only not been tried, but they are avoided like the plague. In fact, every effort is being made to ensure that there will be a war. This is just a monstrous crime against humanity.
Yes, really. You said you would become a civilian shield for the Iraqi’s (you really love Saddam, eh?). Civilian shielding is generally considered a war crime.
And every scenario you’ve seen has heavy bombardment as the plan? Well, since you never offer any cites, and dispute anything from the State Department to the BBC, I doubt I’ll be able to convince you, but most of what I’ve read says that the new war would target the Iraqi government and chain of command, along with military targets. Very little civilian infrastructure targetting, if any.
But what I read were probably lies distributed by the Crypto-Fascist Great Satan Root of All Evil United States of a Lying America, or something.
Give us a cite for the assertion that hundreds of thousands died as a result of water treatment plants or electrical power plants being bombed. My water has been shut off at times, my electricity has gone out, and I haven’t died. What is wrong with you?
Oh boy. The old “we have to stop the new Hitler argument.” As if anybody was proposing that we offer Kuwait to Saddam before he sets out to conquer the world. :rolleyes:
Actually, the Chamerlain-Hitler pact had little to do with stopping Hitler, and everything to do with egging Hitler on to take out Stalin. Actually, the allies had numerous options to avoid WWII that they missed, the most important of which was simply not supporting Mussolini and Hitler.
Here is a good article by Michael Parenti about the Allies’ role in starting WWII: The origins of World War II
Uhh, civilian shielding is a war crime when the leaders put civilians in harm’s way, not when civilians go and stand in solidarity with the people of a country in order to stop a war.
And, you are really getting desperate when you bring out the old “either you support a war or you are a Saddam sympathizer” argument.
In particular, they note, "… allies would be needed, not to provide troops but to provide bases and facilities from which to launch operations.
Why Turkey matters
Real estate matters - especially in an air war.
…
Moreover the US war plan would be to attack Iraq from many directions - air bases in the region will be critical."
What I am saying is that I don’t believe you. I think that your assertion that there were only 240 casualties from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is bullshit.
I think you either made this up yourself, or (more likely) pulled it from some far-left conspiracy website without any more credibility than most of the rest of your cites.
I think you are making a misstatement of fact. I want you to prove what you say, by providing a link to some credible source that backs you up.
Simply responding with the single word “Really?” is not sufficient. You have made so many other ridiculous statements, that I am unwilling to take your word for it.
I hope I am making myself clear here.
This is Great Debates. See if you can live up to that standard.
Why is “guerilla warfare” on the list of things which should be tried before considering “war”? “Before you consider war, you need to consider all the other options, like, for example…war!”
I am not under the impression that guerrilla wars, as opposed to other kinds of wars, are notably gentle on civilian populations. Quite the reverse–better, for the civilian population, to have the Army go dig in in a nice neat line way the hell and gone out in the desert somewhere and have the crap bombed out of it by B-52’s. Hard on the Army, certainly, but definitely easier on the folks back home than having war waged by a combatant force which seeks to, in Mao’s terms, “swim like fishes” in the “sea of people” (which in turn leads to “draining the sea” and all that implies–read up on what has happened to the “Marsh Arabs” of southern Iraq). To use a hypothetical example which should be near and dear to Chumpsky’s heart, it would surely have been easier on the Vietnamese population if the U.S. and ARVN on one side and the Viet Cong and NVA on the other had lined up on some nice flat plain someplace and simply had it out.
Modern high-tech warfare, as practiced by the United States military, is no picnic for civilian populations, but it beats the hell out of some protracted guerrilla struggle. Even if we accept at face value all the left-wing claims of U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties in Iraq, it wasn’t the war which was so deadly to ordinary Iraqis, it was the sanctions. But of course “sanctions” have typically been one of those “peaceful” measures which we are told must be tried before the “last resort” of war. (I do note that Chumpsky didn’t include sanctions in his list, so perhaps he understands this.)
Well, this has gotten interesting again. For a while there, Comrade Chompsky, who’s rhetorical thermostat may be set just a tad too high, was taking rather a thumping at the hands of the Usual Suspects. Now, it appears, they are reduced to sniping at rather trivial points. The “Nibbled to Death by Ducks” treatment.
The creme de la dumb has to be Daoloth’s assertion that persons volunteering as “human shields” are committing war crimes. Oh, my! Stop those Gandhi-maddened Canucks, lest another example of blooddthirsty Canadian perfidy be committed. I haven’t laughed so hard since they shot Ol’ Yeller.
But the competition is fierce, Da Dog is not to be ignored.
Google “Civilian deaths Iraqi sanctions” and dive in, lad. Minimum of ten pages. The increased incidence of water-borne diseases amongst Iraqi children is, to these eyes, well established. Can’t let them have chlorine, you know. Dual purpose. To this end, we will let Iraqi children contract cholera and other hideous diseases that properly belong in history texts. Are these the sternly noble actions of a great nation? And your “water has been shut off at times”. Please tell me this is in error, that you were not seriously implying some sort of parallel between your inconvenience and an Iraqi mother watching her child shit himself to death. Perhaps you can snatch back some shred of dignity with which to cover this obscene argument.
And finally, Shodan presumes to lecture on proper debating technique. He puts his finger on an assertion of Kuwaitia casualties. Rightly so, it does seem a rather flimsy statisic. But rather than go to any trouble of offering countervailing numbers, he relies on the “Liar, liar, pants on fire” technique so beloved of the Usual Suspects. Then he sniffs piously about his opponent’s failure to live up to the standards of Great Debate. This does for hypocrisy what Nijinsky does for dance.
Chompsky, m’lad, when you keep your temper and restrict yourself to hard facts, you pound the opposition into hawk pate. Jolly good, that, and a pleasure to watch. But take this tip from Ol’ Uncle Luc’: stick to those hard facts, they’re all you need if you are right.
I’ll bet you lunch on that. While I hate to sound like Chumpsky (shiver), it’s gotten to the point where U.N. inspectors could sieve through every grain of sand in Iraq and Hussein could submit to a full body cavity search and, if nothing was still found, W. would say that it just proves how clever Hussein is at hiding things and we’d better invade to find out what he’s hiding.
W. is on a crusade. We will invade, the only question is when.
Just so. As much as I would love to believe that there is any fact, any finding, that would dissuade Fearless Leader from his determined course, I cannot. He has painted himself into a corner, he has to come back with Saddam bin Ladens head or else.
If he does not, the Hawks will have conniption fits. Even if they and thier ilk represent only 5-10% of the Republican support, in a nation as evenly divided as ours that spells doom. And the rest of the public will wonder just what all the hubbub was about, why all the endless displays of righteous wrath, the film clips of stern jets arising bomb-laden from the decks of aircraft carriers, if only to have a negotiated settlement.
The inspections are a ploy. If a caussus belli can be found there, so much the better, Our Leader would like nothing better than to drape the doilly of UN legitimacy over his actions. But he has already made it abundantly clear that he has no intention whatsoever of being bound by UN decisions. Unless, of course, they agree with him, in which case its a mandate.
If they UN looks it all over and says “Well, this aint the best situation, but it isn’t worthy of an actual war”, Our Leader will rush to the microphones to spew soundbites about “appeasement” and “Neville Chambermaid”.
As a pessimist, I love being wrong. I state, unequivocally, that I hope Minty is entirely right, and I am revealed to be an utter chowderhead. But, after all, I am from Texas, and he is still in Texas. Speaks volumes as to learning curves.
The problem is that the administration may be shooting themselves in the foot. They’ve made a bit deal recently of having “solid evidence” of Iraqi WMDs. Now their going to direct the inspectors to these locations. But what if the inspectors don’t find anything? The Bushies will look silly and the international community will have nothing to do with a war. Blair might even back out. I’d put even money on no war if this happens. But who knows. We’re in for an interesting news week, regardless.
Your bugbear is sanctions, elucidator, while Chumpsky’s is war. Chumpsky was implying that if there is a war with Iraq next year, “hundreds of thousands” of civilians will die because of US bombing of civilian infrastructure like water treatment plants. That’s a far cry from the supposed number of deaths that have occurred over the course of a decade because infrastructure from the last war was never rebuilt. Iraq wasn’t flattened in the manner of postwar Germany or Japan, and there was hardly a civilian holocaust among the latter two nations, was there?
BTW, if a high number of Google hits were an indication of truth, I would be convinced by now that the lunar landings were a hoax. (Though Chumpsky will probably be along any moment now with a link to a twenty page document written by a hack author who has never been published outside of the Internet, asserting that this is just the case.)
And food for thought, elucidator: your partner claims that everything, absolutely everything should be tried before going to war with Iraq. Does that mean that you two believe that deadly as they supposedly are, more sanctions would be a good thing under these circumstances?
No, it should be clear by now that Dubya has a genius for setting just these kinds of traps for his opponents. He let Congress work themselves into a lather over the fact that they weren’t being consulted over the Iraq war, then turned around and dumped the whole issue in their laps–forcing them to take a vote on it just ahead of the midterm elections, in which Congressmen and Senators couldn’t afford to look “soft on terror”. Bush has done something similar by giving the UN inspectors just enough rope to hang themselves with. After the inspectors come back with a report that they couldn’t find anything, the president will reveal the irrefutable evidence of Iraqi WMDs that he’s had on his desk all along–thus making the inspectors look like fools and removing their credibility.
Well, it all depends, doesn’t it. Some hawks are offering positively rosy scenarios: the Iraqi’s won’t fight, they will truss up Saddam and offer him to the first CNN crew they can find, etc., etc. But as any student of history knows, war is chaos made manifest, the best laid plans don’t count for much. It is entirely common for people to fight for thier homelands regardless of thier disdain for a particular regime. If a “retreat to Baghdad and fight it out” scenario becomes fact, the civilian casualties will be somewhere between considerable and massive, no one knows, and anyone who claims to know is either a liar or a fool. It may be a fine point of debate as to the nature of those casualties, whether it results from shrapnel or cholera, but to the corpse in question it is probably too fine a point to be significant, especially when one is absorbed in the process of decomposing.
If the argument can be reduced down to “doing everything possible short of war”, well, of course. What civilized person would demand less, especially as there is little or no chance that Iraq can withstand an American assault. Surely no one here imagines there is any real threat of losing such a war? The cost, and the horror, of this war will be visited upon the Iraqi people.
What is the number? Thousands, surely, tens of thousands, likely, hundreds of thousands? Entirely possible. Done in our name, on our behalf, by our soldiers. As they pledge thier lives to us, we should pledge our honor to them: that they will not be called upon to kill or to die for anything less. That they fight for facts, not theories. That we call upon them to defend us from real and present danger, not some grim future scenario based on geopolitical clairovoyance.
As to the Google reference: I commend the deft evasion of the point. I do not pretend, as you imply, that sheer number of Google hits proves any kind of point, merely that the information is at hand, you may avail yourself of it at a moments notice. Which I’m pretty sure you already knew.
So, your admitting that the antiwar claim that Bush has played politics with this war or it’s timing is true, OK. And this administration could help inspectors find a smoking gun but won’t. How do you know this? And why is this a good idea? Making the inspectors look like fools helps us where, at the UN? Or maybe it just shows Bush shouldn’t have gone along with this inspection business in the first place. Oh well, you tell me.
