As I’ve always understood it, the reasons for war, at least in the classic sense, have boiled down to one thing: real estate. An aggressor attempts to appropriate the territory of another sovereign nation, and then that nation and its allies go to war to retrieve that territory. Since the invader nation, by definition, will impose its will upon the invaded, freedom is a large part of the fight. In WW2, Germany and Japan invaded many nations and territories, and the Allies fought to liberate those places. So WW2 was a war for “freedom”.
In more recent times, even the Gulf War fits this description. Iraq invaded Kuwait; Kuwait’s allies drove them back. What puzzles me about the current conflict in Iraq is the “freedom” argument. We claim to want to bring freedom and democracy to that country, and yet one of our supposedly staunchest allies in that region, Saudi Arabia, has neither. In fact, the Saudi government presides over one of the most restrictive theocracies in the world.
Of course you could make the argument that “we can’t tell other countries how to run their affairs.” Well, if that’s the case, what right do we have trying to re-form the Iraqi government?
And as far as our freedoms are concerned, I think they’re pretty safe from Al-Qaeda and their ilk. Unless they plan on overthrowing our government (which is extremely far-fetched, no matter what the wingnuts on the right claim about Obama), our freedoms are secure–at least from them. Which brings us back to real estate and territory–but that’s a subject for a different thread.
“Lesser” according to our own self interest, not according to the people we help torment and kill. As someone once said, it doesn’t matter to the dead if they were killed by a righteous authoritarian government or an evil totalitarian government.
Outside our own borders, there was little to choose between us and them. That’s exactly why so many chose them.
I have to wonder though, how many people were shot by West German police as they tried to escape into East Germany. Yeah, United States, Soviet Union, West Germany, East Germany, it’s all pretty much the same, innit? Only thing different is the nameplate on the bosses door, eh?
And did I say a thing about West Germany ? No. Would we still have supported them if they WERE shooting people trying to escape, or worse ? Yes. We’d even have helped; sent them trainers on torture techniques and such.
Ask the people tortured by people trained by Americans, or who lived under American supported dictatorships. But hey, tyranny, torture, rape and murder is all just fine if it’s done for the glory of free market capitalism, right ? Far superior to tyranny, torture, rape and murder in the name of Communism
ah, ok. I can see your point insomuch as there were a lot of people who just wanted revenge after 9/11 and didn’t care who. Still, revenge is the motive there(however misplaced), not just a desire to kill. I was thinking of the motivations of the government itself, as that would seem to be what you were getting at with your first two examples of oppression and exploitation(both of which I agree with as tactics employed by the US, though I think power and money are the actual goals).
Exactly. No difference between the capitalist dictatorship we suffer under today, and the communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union. All different names for the same thing.
My, you can’t make an argument without distorting what I say at all, can you ? I specifically said, outside our own borders we weren’t very different. Which I’m sure you know, but decided to conveniently ignore.
Of course, the USA treated West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France the same way that the USSR treated East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the cold war. The USA created puppet states out of them ruled by totalitarian dictatorships entirely answerable to the USA’s dictates. Oh wait, it didn’t. France left NATO under Charles DeGaulle and there was no military response. Hungary and Czechoslovakia tried to establish socialist/democtratic rule and they were invaded by the USSR to squash any attempt to leave thier thumb.
Yeah, the West and the US did shitty things during the cold war like propping up third world dictatorships in the name of political expediancy, as did the USSR. The differance is that the USSR supported totalitarian dictatorships with the end of setting up the world as a set of totalitatian dictatorships. Please tell me you can see the differance - or wait, why do I bother.
You actually believe this? Really? All that money pumped into the Marshall plan to rebuild these nations economies and make them viable democrocies after WWII to make them strong enough even when they were so far away must have been some sort of mistake since we must have intended them to be turned into third world tin pot dictatorships, because it would have been easy to set them up that way if that what we wanted, since we could have done that with ease and a hell of a lot less cash.
No one can argue the people in the military have a difficult and dangerous job defending America’s interests and enforcing our foreign policy.
But I certainly resent the notion that our “freedom” is provided to us at the discretion of our military. I read this comment and the McCain comment as "because you weren’t in the military (like John McCain) your opinion is less valid. And of course the next step after that is “we, the military, will tell you what your opinion should be.” and now we’re a dictatorship.
The fact that we have an effective military protects our country(and to some extent) our freedoms.
That being said, a majority of our wars haven’t been anywhere as noble as “fighting for freedom”.
And to go with the comment that the OP posted. I have a lot of respect for McCain’s service. McCain as a Presidential Candidate, on the other hand, has none of my respect and I do not feel obliged to vote for him just because he served. I also find it annoying when people try to guilt you into voting one way or another, or even implying that by not voting a certain way, you are undermining their sacrifices.
If by military, you mean the government, they only provide the direction. The soldier who fights the fights"we" tell him to, are the ones that get things done. One soldier is not the military, although without his resolve, the military is nothing.
Whoever said that about McCain is a schmuck. Both for false patriotism, and because of the implied assumption that someone in the military service is automatically a better candidate. At best you could argue that it says something about your intentions and character. But it says nothing about actual qualifications to govern. And qualifications to govern, as well as position on certain issues, are much more important considerations in electing someone than that we want to give them a trophy prize for their military service.
As far as ‘fighting for our freedoms’, each soldier has their own personal reasons for general service and/or involvement in specific conflicts which vary from soldier to soldier and also do not necessarily reflect the same reasons as whomever is deciding on and planning specific military engagements. I would guess that most soldiers have the motivation either of “serving my country” or “career opportunity” or “do something about 911”.
I think it’s been a very long time since we’ve truly fought for our freedoms. We have ostensibly fought for freedom in general, or to increase our strategic position internatinally which has the side effect of keeping our freedoms more potentially secure.
Exactly. Fighting to protect American interests makes sense–imagining a US without oil before alternatives are widespread is scary and maybe that is worth fighting for. But saying it’s about freedom somehow makes the survivors of dead soldiers feel better…?