It is widely believed that Saddam’s war strategy is to draw the Allied forces into urban combat. His hope is to cause a large number of casualties on the U.S. side, which he hopes we won’t be able to stomach, and turn this war into “another Vietnam.” Following that line of reasoning, antiwar protestor’s are some of Saddam’s most effective allies. I’m not saying that Saddam wouldn’t fight even if the U.S. was much more united than it is. I’m saying that there are probably generals in his army clinging to this string of hope, who may have surrendered or caused a coup were this not the case. I’m not attacking the protestor’s motives (maybe in another post), but looking at this pragmatically, aren’t they hurting our troops, not to mention Iraq’s?
Follow your reasoning closer, and you’ll find that troops that kill civilians, even by mistake, are REALLY Hussein’s most effective allies.
The people hurting the troops are the ones sending them into a cynical, deceptive, unethical war. Blaming the people trying to bring them home for their deaths is Orwellian.
Daniel
Pragmatically, there are casualties because Bush decided we were going to invade a country. Let’s keep the blame where it belongs.
Suggesting antiwar protesters are in any way responsible for combat deaths is akin to a bizarre conspiracy theory. It’s tinfoil hat stuff.
This is true, the best connection is indirect at least and even that makes the assumption the the anti-war protestors are more concerned with loss of innocent lives than anyone else. The truth is that no one wants to see innocent civilians killed and the protesters certainly don’t have the moral highground there. In fact their implicit support for a brutal regime and continuing sanctions (how else are we supposed to deal with Saddam) mitigates their moral mandate to a great extent in my personal view.
That’s obviously debatable, the fact that the US would persue the most humane war possible regardless of the presence of protesters is not.
Are you the ghost of Nixon or do you just play him on a MB?
But that’s just it. Antiwar protestors are trying so hard to bring home the troops and save their lives, but 9 out of 10 troops don’t want to be brought home without completing their mission. These soldiers weren’t drafted. They don’t share your sentiments and don’t want your “help.”
That’s too freakin’ bad that the soldiers don’t want my “help.” Although I’m as concerned for their lives as I am for any human life, I’m not so concerned about whether they want to fight in the war. Bringing them home would result in a greater good than keeping them there will do.
Your logic remains Orwellian.
Daniel
:rolleyes: Touche.
I just call them like I see them.
Oh and guess what… this isn’t Vietnam.
I was actually taking to the OP. Maybe somebody needs to get over themselves. Sometimes it’s not about you.
*crosses fingers and hopes this is about me 
Clive Staples L, welcome to a hornet’s nest. You have poked it with a stick.
You are making the useful idiots or fifth column argument.* It’s an oldie but a goodie. There is some truth to it. Here’s a website practially devoted to exposing it. They are far more blunt about things than you were.
It also begets notions of internment, the HUAC, or the Alien and Sediton Acts. You can’t restrict the right to protest peaceably. In SF, however, it’s time for water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas. I digress.
I giving you the benefit of the doubt. Your OP was worded fairly innocuously. But, given the subject matter, predictibly got a somewhat prickly response. Debating this issue, ever, is problematic. In the middle of a war it’s worse.
*“useful idiots”–Lenin “fifth column”–from the Spanish Civil War, refers to civilian dissenters as being within a metaphorical fifth column (the military term) within the city.
Far from being Orwellian, the OP is quite logical and correct. There is little doubt that domestic dissention gives renewed hope to the Iraqi forces, making them fight harder and less likely to surrender. Which increases American casualties.
This, in and of itself, does not preclude all dissent. Still it is a factor that should be acknowledged and weighed against other considerations, rather than swept away and dismissed out of hand.
Some might argue that the protestors favor bringing home the troops which would lessen US casualties. But this only works to the extent that they have a realistic chance of bringing them home relatively soon. To the extent that they don’t, they are needlessly prolonging the war and increasing casualties - on both sides - to no avail.
In your concern for “any human life,” do you make any distinction between who is innocent and guilty; i.e. are you pro abortion while being anti death penalty? Not that I want to get into that can o’ worms.
I rest my case.
Well, they’re getting my help. I continue to protest because if this invasion goes well, the lives of those soldiers will be in even greater danger, because Bush will turn his attention to other countries that in his opinion need “regime change” and once again the armed forces will be doing the grunt work for him while he takes the weekend off. Sooner or later Bush is going to pick a fight with a country that will give us some real opposition and a lot more of those soldiers will die. Not to mention the most appealing targets for the anti-American terrorism this invasion is breeding are going to be military outposts in the Middle East.
By the way, I think your numbers come from a toothpaste commercial.
-fh
:smack: Sorry about that 
Actually now that I’m here. The protestors are calling for a lack of war. Not a humane one.
I’m also glad to see you’re killing people with those conventional weapons and not those nasty WOMD. Good show keep it up.
Beagle, thanks for the welcome. As you can tell by my number of posts, I’m not a regular. I just poke my head in every few weeks and see if I have anything to add. I decided to be an OP today, but I’m glad to see that the “useful idiots” argument has come up before. I didn’t use that term trying to be innocuous, but managed to strike a nerve at any rate. I just wanted to make sure that smart people have considered this argument and see what they had to say about it.
Do you think our Mistress of Morality might have overlooked someone else who deserves just a tiny bit of the blame? :rolleyes:
And, it’s too freakin’ bad that the Iraqis don’t want your “help.”
So, Daniel, just who are you helping, other than Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party?
Yes and that is much the same as calling for appeasement. It also implies a view of the threat that rogue regimes present to the world that I cannot, in good conscience, agree with. If the US isn’t able to enforce disarmament on Iraq then we show the world that we are not serious about regimes with WMDs. The very “lack of war” the protesters are calling for implies more containment, more sanctions, more political oppression. It implies a hands-off approach to dealing with those who seek dangerous weapons, an approach that is more likely to bite us in the ass as any proactive approach taken today. Whether that situation is, in the long run, as humane as any “humane war” is not clear but regardless… stopping now is not an option.
The L. A. Times wanted me to be a member to read that story. I bet this story also illustrates your point.