You fucking Canadians and your perfect grammer. :mad: 
Yeah, it’s been happening recently… in Iraq!
(Gee, I have no idea how these tangents start…)
~grins~
I saw it and considered responding, but here in Austin Texas it’s nearly five in the morning. I think it’s time for some sleep, although if I can’t nod off I’ll respond.
Check ya lata.
Same here, CST as well. Damn board keeps losing me sleep time!
Sleep is for wussies.
Rather than going back and trying to find the quotes, I’ll just try to reply FinnAgain.
I’l weasle out and say that it was way too late for me to post and my thoughts, though clear in my head, weren’t commited to the screen in a coherent way. So I’ll try to re-write it.
I’m old enough to remember the Vietnam war. And one thing I remember clearly was that there was a lot of sympathy for the Vietnamese. American troops were coming home and were caled baby killers, creating a national trauma for a big part of that generation. The reasons for war were not important, no one was exactly cuddling the Viet Cong terrorists/freedom fighters, but IIRC, they did get funding from private citizens/organizations in western countries.
Too many Americans came home in bodybags and too many Americans at home thought that the war was not just or heroic or necessary. Without popular support at home, with draft dodging, protest marches, anti-war themes in popular media, the war in Vietnam was lost at home, not on the ground over there.
So if the Iraqis can sway the opinion of the American public, the way it turned around regarding Vietnam, they would have a much bigger chance of seeing the US troops leave and then create their own future. I’m not seeing that this will happen and I doubt that there’s central organization, the way it was in Vietnam, so I doubt there is a coherent strategy among the Iraqis.
I’ve said it before on this bard and I’m saying it again - The best way for the US to wein Iraq is not waging war, the best way would’ve been to drop tv sets, sat dishes and start broadcasting dubbed American programming to the masses. It would not take long for them to start thinking about a better world and then deciding to get rid of Saddam. Going in when the insurgency started would have made the US troops feel welcome there, helping the liberation.
And the best thing the Iraqis can do now is adopt the way of Gandhi. Sitting down in front of a tank and not moving is a suicide mission which will gain a lot more sympathy than wrapping semtex around your body and running up to a US guard post.
And BTW: 
sticks out the tongue.
Debates aren’t about feelings. If you want to express your feelings, come to the Pit. But even then, you must avoid physical threats directed at board members (including those who are serving in Iraq).
…this post was linked to in another thread, and the phrasing of the OP made me think of this situation:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5189622&postcount=1
Can we please have clarification here from the mods? In light of the warning given Aldebaran, would Ryan_Liam be given a warning if he were to make the same post today?
Now, as you can tell from my profile, I wasn’t alive back then.
But, from what I understand, opposition to the war came more from our actions than the VC’s. No?
That’s pretty much my point.
I’d disagree. From everything I’ve read, it was virtually impossible for us to win a land war in Vietnam. The war was lost from the moment we started it, the people of the country just caught on later.
But, I wasn’t alive then, so if you request I’ll happily look up cites. And, hey, I may even be wrong.
But, you said yourself: too many bodybags, too little support at home.
Why wouldn’t the same formula ‘work’ in Iraq?
Agreed. Well, sorta agreed. Personally I support the rescinding of the EO banning assasination.
Yeah… but if your home was invaded, would you try to kill the invaders, or let them crush you with their tanks? And, if you knew that if you killed enough of them, they’d leave, would that influence your decision of tactics?
Eh… that’s no steeenkin tongue. I’m talking a real tongue stickin’ out. I wanna be able to land a plane on that sucker. To me, the SDMB tongue-sticking-out-smiley just looks like a weird grin.
Nobody else noticed this?
It’s late in December, so this will probably be the last time I say this in 2004: that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year. (And it’s an election year!) But it’s likely the Big Winner. PLEASE tell me you’re kidding. Violating the UN no-fly zones was an attack on the USA? There are no words. You’ve given me a headache.
Nope, you made the assertion, so it’s your burden to document it. I haven’t read every Iraq-related thread, but I’ve read a large proportion of them, and I remember nothing of the sort.
One could say the exact same things about you with a lot more justification. Isn’t that strange??
So, which part did you find the most offensive? That he eulogized a family servant? That he didn’t provide a name, country, or age for her? What, exactly, is so heinous about any of this that it required listing in your catalog of sins by Aldebaran?
Does it offend you that he could love a woman who was like a mother to him, just because she was a servant rather than a blood relative? Are servants a lower order of being in your little world?
Just what relevance, exactly, does this woman’s name, age, or land of origin have to his grief at her passing? Other than to satisfy your obsessive need to know where Aldebaran is from and where he lives?
Eva it seems you joined the very month I’m talking about. I’m not surprised you do’bnt remember. But here’s the thing, if I show one guy snuck a comment through- it doesn’t prove me right. You can prove me wrong with a single citation. If you don’t want to bother I don’t blame you, but I’m not going to search and post every single un-mod-answered instance of anti-arabism in that period to “document” my assertion.
IOW, I think I’m right and you can easily prove me wrong if you are so inclined. Your failure to accomplish such an easy task makes me more confident, in fact. But hey, remember whatever you want.
Yes.
The My Lai massacre and the misnamed Christmas Day bombing lead to violent protests in the US. Most notorious is of course what happened at Kent State. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the war, including social repercussions in the US.
I have no cite for this, but I don’t think it’s true. If there had been a wide support at home for the campaign and if the powers that were figured that the cost-benefit ratio was worth it, of course you could’ve won. If nothing else, you could’ve nuked them. I think the meme that it was impossible to win was created to appease the hawks and right wingers in the US, so they wouldn’t mind the US pulling out.
But it’s a two sided thing. Sending GIs home in body bags can break the moral of the public at home, but you need to paint the GIs as scumbags too. Even with the (can’t remember the name of the) prison incident, I don’t see that there’s a widespread and violent opposition to the war.
During the Vietnam war, civilians set themselves on fire to protest the war. We’re far and away from that.
Since I don’t feel very patriotic or have a strong national identity, asking me that question will get you a quirky answer. I’d never give my life to defend my country. My family and friends, yes. But I just happened to be born here, patriotism is not a strong trait with me.
Of course, should the invaders curtail my freedom, try to put me in slave camp ASF; of course, I’d fight them. But only to save my own sorry ass and the asses of those close to me.
To answer your question in a more theoretical way - yes - I think the gut reaction of many, possibly almost all, would be to pick up a gun and make those suckers pay. However, I’d hope that cooler minds would prevail and adopt a non-vioent strategy. You can come along way by literally throwing spanners in the machinery and making things come to a screeching halt, without hurting a single enemy. This would speed up the process where the American public perceive the GIs as scumbags and thje Iraqi civilian as innocent victims being stepped on.
A slight nitpick: they didn’t just “violate” the no-fly zones; they fired on U.S. aircraft, manned by American pilots and legally patrolling the skies under U.N. sanction, the purpose of which was to keep Hussein and his henchmen from slaughtering thousands of his country’s own people in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
Hussein also financed, and therefore helped further, suicide bombings against Israel, which contains many U.S. citizens, and even more relatives of U.S. citizens. In other words, he was actively and publicly promoting terrorism against U.S. citizens and allies.
Hussein tried to assassinate Bush 1.
Hussein was known to have at least been attempting to developing WMD, and had shown previously that he had no qualms against using them, even against his own people. He was a threat to Israel, the entire middle east region, and the U.S. He would eventually have caused us, either directly or indirectly, great loss of life.
As far as Aldeberan goes, I’ve not had a problem with him in the past and have even taken up for him at times. But I’m wondering if he had the same outrage toward the deaths of innocent Iraqis being killed either directly or indirectly by Hussein and his henchmen and their policies as he does because of their being killed by Americans. Far more innocent Iraqis died every year as a result of Hussein’s rule than will ever be killed as a result of the American action in Iraq.
I suspect the answer is no.
If this is so, he has shown the entire premise of his outrage to be bogus and hypocrital, as his view would then be exposed as simple anti-American bias rather than concern and anger at the loss of innocent Iraqi life.
I was under the impression that they simply painted our jets with radar and we used rader seeking missiles to destroy their 'em once we were so acquired by their targeting systems. Do you have a cite? (admittedly, I don’t right now…)
This statement is so false I’m not even sure where to begin…
He didn’t finance suicide bombings, that’s just a flat out distortion.
He did offer to pay suicide bombers’ families after the fact, but that’s hardly financing the act. There’s also the suggestion (sorry, again no cite) that the Palestinians never saw a dime from him, and his pledge was simply to increase his ‘street cred’ in the Muslim world.
But, no, he was not actively promoting terrorism against US citizens, that’s absurd. There are Danes and Somalis and Russians living in Irsael too, does that mean he was promoting terrorism against Denmark, Somalia, and Russia?
Come on!
But, it was also shown that due to sanctions he couldn’t have ever made those WMD. Thus, he was effectively contained.
And, how on earth was a threat to the U.S. ?
I have to call bullshit on this.
I’ve seen death tolls around one hundred thousand, surely hussein didn’t kill one hundred thousand every year?
Furthermore, is it possible to be less upset by an ‘in house’ problem than a foreign power invading and raising shit? And yet, still be upset by both?
Not about feelings? That’s complete bullshit.
I don’t know if Aldebaran was serious about taking up arms against the Americans in Iraq or not – just as I don’t know how serious some Americans are when they talk about wanting to kick the butts of those Iraqis who don’t seem to go along with our plan for their freedom.
Although I have a great-nephew shipping out to Iraq and he signed up for the military, in my opinion, his Commander-in-Chief should never have sent any U.S. troops there. Saddam should have been removed by other means. The situation has been made worse by our presence. I suspect that it is going to lead eventually to civil war and a situation even more threatening to the United States. The people that we supposedly wanted to liberate don’t seem to want us there. But we don’t really seem to want them to have that choice. Those are my opinions and naturally my opinions affect my feelings.
I’m certain that your opinions also affect your feelings and I respect that.
But beyond love of country and family, there has to be, it seems to me, a basic understanding that we are all the same. Aldebaran has the same love of family and culture. He sees Iraq invaded and I think that he believes, along with many non-Middle Easterners, that it was not for good reasons or even honest reasons. I expect him to be as loyal to the things he loves as I am.
What you and I may see as an enemy, he may see as a freedom fighter. (I don’t speak for him; I don’t know that that is true. But those labels have often been applied to the same people.)
Ever look up the meaning of insurgent in the dictionary? It does not have a “bad” meaning.
I want non-violent solutions only. I’m not interested in the nationality of a dead child or a grieving father.
I wish you peace also, duffer, and respect that we differ on this. I hope that both you and Aldebaran will continue to post your feelings.
I was almost 30 when the war ended. I agree that it had become impossible for us to win a land war in Vietnam. (Nuclear weapons were obviously not a viable option or they would have been used.)
It wasn’t draft dodging that lost the war. There were still plenty of young people to catch in the net and still others who volunteered. And not everyone who refused to fight was just “dodging the draft.” I refuse to give Pacifists such a flippant description.
Protest marches didn’t lose the war. They called attention to some of the realities of war and to some of the negative aspects. And most importantly, they called attention to the lies that we were being told by our own government.. These lies are part of the history books now and were later admitted to by Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara among others. Both political parties were involved in these lies. If you are not familiar with them, you need to read a good college textbook on American History.
Anti-war themes in popular media? Not at first. That came after we had been in the war for several years. Even then, we were sheltered from the worst of it. My first exposure to actually seeing the worst of the day to day horrors (other than still photography) was on an evening news program in Europe in the summer of 1972.
Nothing that I have said should be construed as criticism of any individual who has served our country in Vietnam or in Iraq.
Gaspode, are you from Sweden? I was in Denmark during the “Christmas” bombing in 1972. My Danish friends kindly kept the news from me, but were very sensitive to my feelings about the war. And I do remember that the Swedes allowed many who objected to fighting in the war to immigrate to their country. For that, I will always be deeply grateful.
Pax
You couldn’t prove this to save your soul. Double dog dare you to even try.