Conservatives only, no debate.
Due to the recent events, the pro/anti war kettle has been stirred again.
Please give me your best argument in favor of the thing you feel strongest about regarding the war in Iraq.
(Cites are appreciated but not necessary.)
Just a bit of structural advice - a link to your complementary thread for liberals will help prevent as much crossover noise from folks that miss it once the threads start shifting position on the boards.
whuckfistle’s poll for liberals: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=229396
Where do the people with brains post, who reject these stupid labels? Those that do not accept this is a bipolar world?
Your OP is deeply flawed. I can only imagine you think that if you are conservative you are automatically “pro-Gulf War II”. Not so. I’m English, have only ever voted Tory, but would not regard myself as obliged to follow a party line on any particular issue.
Which thread does that qualify me to post here in your view? I would claim both.
Assuming I pass, the thing I think strongest about regarding the War in Iraq is that joining in was one of the worst foreign policy decisions the UK have made since, oh, certainly Suez. My take is that it has and will continue only to increase the frequency and severity of global terrorist activity, polarise world opinion (is your OP-mind set a symptom or a cause?), lead to the deaths of many thousands more innocent civilians, increase the threat to stability in the Middle-East and Asia, damage economies and breed hatred for decades to come.
I also think the US have to call it a draw (i.e annouce the War is won) or recoil in defeat eventually, lacking the will to sustain a unwinnable campaign. Look at the War on Drugs…
A conservative estimate is that it is an unmitigated disaster.
notquitekarpov, sorry for the confusion.
Just a note;
I actually would like to be able to make an honest comparison of the black and white that seperates the two mindsets.
If you would like to post but don`t know where, then either start your own thread or look for the numerous others that are out there already.
Sorry, I should have been more clear.
I want the threads to be a display of feelings without the need to debate or defend.
Ah, you mean just those two mindsets… fine. I noted at least one post alike to mine hit the liberal thread.
Fine, I can see the need may exist, as every “Iraq” debate thread soon seems to go down the same general lines with cries for “cite” every two posts and/or trolling contributions from the usual suspects. Acknowledging that there are many views but asking for contributions only from the two extremes is pefectly valid if you set it up properly.
Unfortunately creating a deliberate non-debate will probably die as a thread from the lack of an “uumph” factor IMHO - the fact that an hour passes between posts suggests this may be happening already.
Why not start with a brainstorm on each thread - getting (without too much detailed support at this time) all the pro war ideas down - and then develop what seem to be the best from there?
Exactly, --I would like to be able to summarize each group of thoughts and then maybe start a debate (in GD) that way.
This is also a chance to lay down your position so you`re on record.
Well, I’m in the UK and count myself a libertarian, not conservative, but it seems to me that the war has gone astoundingly well for America. Few casualties, true colours revealed, an evil dictator overthrown…
The big problem Bush has is that the press has revealed itself to be astoundingly biased. The BBC’s anti-American pro-statist bias has long been known, for instance. Partly this is the nature of the beast - deaths etc sell papers - and partly it’s due to lack of PR skills by the military, but mostly it’s bias, pure and simple. The views of soldiers posting from the area simply do not tally with what we see in the press. For instance, I haven’t seen any American coverage of the Iraqi officer recently revealed as possibly having been the source of the 45 minute WMD claim, and didn’t see it on the BBC website either.
Now and in the future, America has much more influence. Countries will listen.
Quite frankly, I’m not surprised that your “liberal” thread next door is teeming with opinions, while this one is foundering. I’ve gotten into several discussions about how the SDMB skews left, and one could cite the lack of success with this thread as evidence. But I digress.
I think karpov is probably right that you can’t divide it into only two different sides. However, if we take your “black-and-white” football and run with it for the moment, the conservative take is that things are now going extremely well since Saddam’s capture and the Democrats have nothing left. I did a little bit of browsing before posting and came upon Free Republic, a staunchly pro-Conservative discussion area. Let’s just say, the SDMB it ain’t. I don’t think I’m allowed to post quotes from there, so I’ll direct you to this page discussing an open editorial. Basically, it seems that conservative opinion all centers around what I think is called, “the Powell Doctrine,” that says the U.S. has both the responsibility and right to do what it believes is necessary to protect itself, especially pre-emptive attacks.
Also see this page discussing an article about “Anti-war myths eroding.” I must admit, however, to not reading the linked article or even having heard of the Jewish World Review, as I’m actually afraid to see what else they have to say.
This maybe related to the author of the thread. I suspect that if Reeder opened a thread of this same title it might receive a greater number of responses.
I didn’t even see this thread until I finally bothered to open it’s complementary thread.
A bump might be appropriate every now and then.
So, here ya go.
I’ll bump it later with a reply to the OP.
Thanks Tam.
Well I’m probably not a conservative, but here goes anyways…
I can think of many good reasons why the war should never have been started, and I don’t think it was in the best interest of America, however what really bothers me about large groups opposing the war is this constant obsession with legality. Yeah! Lets bring in the lawyers – they’ll make a better world for us all. Yeah the law should be raised above common sense and morality. Against the war? Fine, but don’t go quoting some regulations to me.
Personally I was cautiously for the war, not because of any weapons of mass destruction Saddam might have hidden away (oh, I think he probably had a few, but no big threat to the west). Not because of links to terrorism (oh, I think he supported terrorists indirectly and directly, but who doesn’t). But because the Iraqi population was being crushed under the steel boot of the worst dictator currently (but hopefully not for long) alive. So in that light the war went amazingly well. Relative few casualties, nothing like the hundred of thousands being bandied about before the war. The Republican Guard you say? Wasn’t that something in ancient Rome? Bloodbath at the gates of Baghdad? I guess you’re talking about the Mongols. The peace, not so good as the war. But acceptable and it’s still early in the game. Mistakes have been made – that’s to be expected, but again the scenario is nowhere near those being thrown about before the war (complete anarchy, widespread self justice, famine and starvation, and again mass deaths)
This being IMHO I’ll throw in a few personal observations on how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb:
“The day Saddam was captured there was again a wild spontaneous Arab demonstration in front of the American embassy here in Denmark. And again they were there not to protest against something the evil Americans had done, but rather to thank America for what she has done. And throw tacky plastic flowers on the embassy steps.”
“In the kindergarten of one of my children is an Iraqi girl (very cute little princess BTW), or Danish girl since she was born here. And the reason she was born here is her parents were forced to flee twenty years ago. Three weeks ago they were able to return to Iraq for the first time in twenty years. After returning the father has taken to wearing a small American flag on his suit.”
“A few months ago I was at a hearing with the Danish Prime minister (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) about something to do with Europe. Anyway a man stood up and excused himself for speaking off topic, but he wanted so much to thank Rasmussen for backing the US in the war. BTW. that man was an Iraqi refugee – who had been in contact with his family before in Iraq, during and after the war. He wanted so much to say that he though it was the right thing to have done, because all he heard was bickering, bickering and bickering.”
”After Baghdad fell a very unusual and spontaneous demonstration took place in Copenhagen; a cortège of Iraqi refugees in their cars, honking and shouting – in mad happiness. Driving past the American embassy to scream their thanks, it was quite absurd to see on the opposite side of the embassy camped down for the duration of the war, was the left wing anti-war demonstrations with their international solidarity banners. Who exactly is it you guys feel solidarity with eh?”
”I have a friend (yeah yeah :rolleyes: ), an Iranian refugee. He tells me that when he was a child in Iran one of the only things that kept him going was a dream the Americans would invade Iran and free them from the cursed Islamic mullahs. Unfortunately for him they never did and he ended up spending a good part of his youth isolated in a cell unable to stand up. He says it did something to him, broke him in some way, that he never quite will be himself again. Perhaps that’s the reason he starts simmering and frothing when he sees those so called anti imperialist and global solidarity spoiled brats.”
In my opinion, the war in Iraq wasn’t justified by any single argument. It’s everything.
It isn’t just the fact that Hussein may have had WMD, or was torturing and killing his people, or was defying international law more frequently than Robert Downey, Jr., defies drug laws, etc.
It’s the fact that Hussein may have had or been developing WMD AND every major intelligence agency in the world believed he had WMD AND he thwarted any attempts to find out whether or not he was developing WMD AND he held himself out as an enemy of America AND he was torturing and killing and starving his own people AND he defied 17 UN Regulations AND he supported terrorism AND he was exacerbating the Israeli-Palestinean conflict AND he tried to assassinate George H.W. Bush AND our policy of containment required a substantial and endless investment of money and lives AND our policy of containment basically sentenced thousands of Iraqi civilians to death (UN Sanctions cut off the money flowing into Iraq from oil, and thus increased the likelihood that the people who weren’t killed tortured or killed by Saddam directly would die from starvation, malnutrition, or inability to access medicine) AND after Sept. 11th, it seems better to be safe by taking out dictators that would harm American civilians rather than just trying to contain them and deflect or prevent their attacks (the John McCain argument) AND American prestige and credibility required following through on our threats AND it seems like a good idea to have a functioning democracy in the Middle East AND it will add to the stability of the Middle East AND if a new Iraq becomes an ally, it will diminish our reliance on other strategic allies AND Iraq had attacked and was a threat to its neighbors AND Iraq had attacked and was a threat to our allies AND the cost of removing him was unlikely to be very high. There are probably others, but I can’t think of them right now.
The presence of all of these factors is, in my opinion, the most persuasive argument in favor of the war.