Damn fool war

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
61

“He made concessions?? He backed down? NO! There is a cease-fire agreement, there are UN resolution that he agreed to. He did not back down, he did not submit to these agreements. He made the rest of the world concede to him!”

Sure he made concessions. He allowed inspectors in after he originally kicked them out. That’s a concession. You are no longer arguing your point. You are throwing a temper tantrum. “It’s not true! No, no, no, no, no! Waaah!” By the way, I love the exclamation point. That really makes your argument so much stronger.

“Europeans are pacifist after the decimation of their homeland by 2 World Wars. Why does Europe matter anyway? Iraq is a threat to the US, to Israel and to the rest of the Gulf region. Europe is primarily against the war due to financial reasons.”

The issue here was my challenge to your assertion that world opinion was actually in favor of the war. Sliming the Europeans as bloodied sissies does nothing to prove your statement. On the other hand, insulting people and changing the subject is exactly what a kid throwing a temper tantrum would do. “Waaah!”

Yes, the visible coalition is smaller than it was in the original Gulf War, however there is support and that is a fact. Who, what, where, when is irrelevant.

Excuse me, but didn’t I understand you to claim that it was a “strong” coalition? If you want to prove that it is that isn’t the number and the quality of the membership an issue? Again, you refuse to address the issue you yourself raised. “Waaah!”

And if you want an explanation for point # 2 (most of the administration’s justifications are BS), why all you have to do is read my earliest post. You might want to at least try as I think your comprehension abilities could use the exercise.

“braintree: I’m not sure exactly who is from la la land here. Sadam made concessions, after he was forced too. But his concessions were always hesitant, half hearted. Why shouldn’t they have been…like Hitler”

xtisme, you misunderstand my point. The question being debated is who started this war? We did. Saddam tried the Hitler thing when he invaded Kuwait and we kicked his butt. His army was at a third of the strength that it was in 1991 because of sanctions. He allowed inspections because he was afraid of the invasion. He appeased us. Before WWII we appeased Hitler. He attacked, we attacked. Therefore, Hitler started WW II and we started this war which I am not ready to name just yet. You may think it’s justified. That’s a different argument. But we started this war. We invaded Iraq. And as long as we’re comparing Saddam to Hitler, can you name anything like Hitler being disarmed by two-thirds of his strength and then being forced to allow inspections before WWII? Everyone keeps citing WWII but there is virtually no comparison. Mussolini weren’t kicked out of Ethiopia but Saddam was sure kicked out of Kuwait.

As for him shooting rockets at our guys, the funny thing about that is that your reference is the first one I’ve heard of in months (and, as you can tell, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject). Overwhelmingly the pro-war crowd never even mentions them. That includes Bush. So the fact that you mentioned them is interesting but irrelevant since they weren’t prominently used as a justification.

Now, about Americans thinking that Saddam was responsible, it just so happens that I’ve heard more than one person cite the war in Iraq as an example of us “getting even” for 9/11. Gee, where do you think they got that idea?

By the way, I would like to point out the absurdity of Bush’s position. He made it clear months ago that he wanted “regime change.” In other words he wanted Saddam out and it was also clear that Bush wasn’t too particular as to how it was accomplished. But at the same time he’s demanding that Saddam disarm himself. If you’re Saddam, this boils down to being told “disarm so we can kill you because, if you don’t, we’re going to kill you.” Even if someone’s not an evil son-of-a-bitch there’s no way they’re going to disarm. I sure wouldn’t.

62

Please read this article:

And then tell me you don’t support the war. I read an argument that basically said, “Well, there are lots of other despots out there worse than Saddam. Why are we picking on poor him?” To that, I say, you gotta start somewhere. And Algore wasn’t about to do it!

63

Hi. OP here. I guess I’m only half surprised that this spun so far out of control. My intent was to say, “Go, Cecil!” I kind of figured the response would be about his comment, or maybe even our speculations as to his politics. A few people did do that, but now it’s just the same old, same old.

I’m going to request that this be moved to Great Debates. For the record, I am saddened by the national tone of bloodthirstiness I have seen over the past year. I do not believe the issue of this war is cut and dried, but I do believe that its most verbal supporters made no show of caring for the fate of the Iraqi people until very recently. Despite the immediately positive reception US forces are experiencing, I expect that history will bear out that their interests are not the interests of our leaders. We were lauded in Afghanistan, too. Fat lot of good we did there.

My opening remarks were meant as a show of gratitude to Cecil. Many Americans opposed and continue to question this conflict. For someone as prominent as Cecil (who has a history of examining many topics in what I consider to be a fair and thoughtful manner) to publicly offer such a remark reassures me that we can’t all be fools.

Thank you, Cecil.

Now, on to Great Debates. Moderator?

64

I’m getting really sick of that line of ‘reasoning.’

Being against the war isn’t the same thing as not ‘supporting what they do as soldiers.’

It’s easy enough to recognize the troops have been asked to do a tough job, make huge sacrifices, and to respect that they are honorably doing what’s been asked of them, but at the same time believing those sacrifices should not have been asked of them.

You can believe the Vietnam war was a mistake while still respecting the great job the American troops did over there, can’t you?

Not all the soldiers in Iraq right now would have made the same choices, were they the president. If you don’t believe that, I hope you believe that not all soldiers deployed by Clinton would’ve made the same choices as Clinton did.

The troops are doing what they’ve been asked, and everybody hopes they come back safely, and damn near everybody thinks they’ve done a great job, whether they support the war or not.

65

“In regard to the liberals out there…Why can’t they get over the fact the W is, in fact, our president?”

Because he won by chicanery and lost the popular vote? Never mind the chads. It turns out that 50,000 voters, mostly black, were purged from the voter rolls before the 2000 election for being felons when they were, in fact, innocent and never so much as charged. Who was responsible for this atrocity? Kathrine Harris (See Greg Palast’s “The Best Government Money Can Buy”)!

Imagine if Janet Reno had tried something like that. You’d never hear the end of it.

Oh, and the fact that he lies about actual government affairs. And then, after he’s done lying, the son of a Bee invokes the almighty. That really burns my arse. Big time.

66

Waaaaaaaah

67

Do I understand correctly that you registered today, specifically so that you could post that? :rolleyes:

68

Please read braintree’s post to me a bit up :stuck_out_tongue:

69

It’s alright. It means he’s gotten to the point where he isn’t even pretending to make an argument.

70

But there are no weapons of mass destruction.

No gases. No bioweapons. No atomics.

Even the missiles used in the fighting have been identified as below the maximum range allowed by the UN.

All the chem warnings have turned out to be false alarms or pesticides.

If there are no WMDs, then we have committed a terrible crime, with thousands dead as the victims.

The soldiers believed what our government told them.

And GWB lied.

All your idiot flag-waving & prevarications don’t change that.

This is not “politics as usual”. This is not about Al Gore. This is not about freeing people. It ain’t about Clinton or cigars or liberasl or any of that bullshit!!

People are dead! Dead forever! And it’s our fault.

Don’t any of you think of your own immortal souls!?!?

71

I will give you a proper response when I have a chance, just busy in the office :slight_smile:

72

Ah. Touche.

73

Holy OP going down in flames, Batman. I guess Arnold Winkelried left early for the weekend…

Umm, I suggest that the dozen new SDMBers read around a bit before they post any more, and try to get an understanding of which discussions are relevant/appropriate for which forums.

And welcome! I hope you’ll all stick around for other debates and ignorance-fighting after the “damn fool war” topic has burned out.

74

First of all none of these were devleopments that occured after Bush took power, which was my original point. Secondly many arab nations support the palestinians and palestinian terrorist groups in much more direct ways then Saddam’s. Second the terrorist training camps are in the portion of Iraq no longer under Saddam’s control. The north is not in Saddam’s control and hasnt been since well before 2000.

75

Since this thread was directly triggerd by a comment made by The Master of All Knowledge and Captain of his Own Ego Himself, it seems to me that it belongs right where it is now.

In any case, I’d like to quell the fires of discontent by suggesting a day of prayer and fasting in honor of Jane Fonda.

76

ummm tell me this did you sit back quietly and wait for the next election when Clinton was in power? Since when does election to the presidency equate to silencing debate for the next four years. Am I to understand that you suggest we always unblinkingly support our soldiers no matter what we think of their actions. If so then you may wanna get on Donald Rumsfeld, and Tom DeLay who both openly criticized the war in Kosovo. I do not hate W, I sincerely regret his being president but my feelings for the war would not be any different if someone else was leading the US. Is it so hard to believe that one can have a legitmate moral objection to the mass killing of civilians. i suppose even the Pope is workin some kind of political angle in your opinion.

77

Yes, people are dead. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people have been murdered by a tyrant over the last 25 years. I wish we had taken him out 12 years ago. We would have saved thousands of lives. All those people who were tortured and gassed are dead forever.

Unfortunately, most of us really didn’t know how truly awful Saddam was until recently. I had him more on the order of Castro, but with a Napoleon complex. I knew about gassing the Kurds, but not what he had done to everyone else in the country.

And as for conservatives not caring for freedom, democracy, and human rights, that’s just stupid. That’s as absurd as saying liberals don’t care for capitalism and profit.

78

I, for one, am sick of the tactic of using our own soldiers as hostages. Hell, yes, I support our troops! I support them so much that I want them safe at home. I support them so much that, if it were up to me, they would never have been put into danger in Iraq in the first place.

As for the justifications for this war: Ask yourself, which target has the higher priority, Saddam or bin Laden? If bin Laden, why are we no longer attempting to bring him to justice, even though we know he’s still at large? And if Saddam, why didn’t we go into Iraq first, before Afganistan? There is at least one explanation consistent with these facts. It’s possible that the government, under pressure to be seen doing something active about terrorism, first tried to defeat the terrorists by military force. After discovering painfully that it’s quite impossible to defeat terrorists by military force, they withdrew from that fight, but were still under pressure to do something. So they decided instead to use military force against a nation. Now, it may be that this is not the correct explanation for what’s going on. It may be that there are other explanations consistent with the facts, and if you have any ideas on that score, I’d like to hear them. But the official rationale of the administration, that we are attacking Saddam because he is a threat to us, is not consistent with the facts.

I salute Cecil not only for his intelligence, but for his patriotism. Yes, that’s what I meant to say. It takes a lot more patriotism to say that the government is wrong, and acting against the interests of the country, than it does to just wave flags and blindly support the President, right or wrong.

79

We are still pursuing Bin Laden, just because it isn’t on the front page does not mean that it is not happening.

80

Does this mean that Pres. Bush can only react to things that happen after he is inaugurated???
Pres. Clinton said, in 1998, when we fired cruise missiles into Iraq, that Iraq had WMD and he would use them if given the opportunity. The UN inspectors said the same thing. That is when they were kicked out. Clinton, for various reasons, was never able to address the Iraq problem completely. Bush, free from some of the baggage that Clinton carried, and bolstered by a reduction in the isolationist attitudes of many americans due to 9/11, was able to do something about Hussein.

Syria is a problem, and I hope we can solve it diplomatically. In Iraq we had congressional approval for military action and UN resolutions supporting our arguments. We don’t have that in Syria, and that will hamper our attempts to eliminate the terrorist support in that country. Saudi Arabia is another problem, but is much more delicate of a situation, seeing that they can singlehandedly create a global recession with their oil power.