Iraq invasion: Am I a wishy-washy hypocrite?

Great Debates
1

In general, I tend to side with the anti-war advocates. I don’t trust GWB and never have. I know there are ulterior motives to going in. I don’t think enough of a link between Saddaam and Osama has been established. I HATE to see BIG OIL profit from the conflict and taxpayers footing the bill.

And yet…
…Secretly in my shame-ridden heart, I’d love to see the US kick the #(@!* out of smug Saddam and his kin, especially that clearly psychotic son of his.

…I’d love to see some semblance of resolution to this situation. And while even a best case scenario quick military victory would be followed by short term chaos and years of reconstruction, at least it would lance the boil and get the healing underway.

In short, I’d like to avoid war but at the same time, have it over with and enjoy the fruits of victory. I can’t help hearing Jack Nicholsen’s testimony in “A Few Good Men” about wanting to go about my normal life and just stepping aside so the military can do their job while I look the other way. I don’t want to know and don’t especially care how they get information out of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, I just want them to get it. Pretty hypocritical, eh? Am I that alone?

2

yes

3

Perhaps you are letting your dislike of Bush get in the way of your actually beliefs. Would you fell better about the war if there were a Dem in the White House?

4

Fist of all, BS. This really adds nothing to the debate.

To the OP: I think, like you, I am quite ambivalent here. I have not really seen very many good reasons for this conflict, and tend to have a red mist descend over my vision whenever I have to look at the smug homunculus in the White House.

On the other hand, the part of me that yearns for simplicity figures that there are some folks out there that need an ass kicking. All that I can suggest is that you probably want to look at the whole issue as logically as you can, and resist reductive thinking.

5

Youre a fence-rider. Nothing wrong with that. There was someone here a few weeks ago tryig to form a club about that. You want to have all of the facts before taking a perilous step. Thats totally understandable.

For me, getting the opportunity to Kick Saddams ass or camel is sufficient reason to go in there and do it. EVERYone in the UN agrees with that Saddam is evil and must go. All they are quibbling about is when and how.

Ride your fence. Get as much information as you need then act when you feel confident. Some of us will be over there kicking Saddams ass (or supporting the brave people who fight to preserve our normal way of living) The rest will be here making sure that the politicians are kept honest (or as honest as politicans can be) Thats called democracy. Something the Iraqi people havent had in many decades. Another righteous reason to go in there and kick ass.

6

You are not alone davesink. I am a Canadian that has always voted Green party or at my rightest, the NDP (left of liberals). Therefore on principle alone I’m supposed to disagree with this. I have also read all the debates on this MB by people much smarter than me. That most westerners are hopelessly naive when it comes to untangling the complicated politics of the region.

But, I can’t help it, I think Canada should support an invasion of Iraq, even without UN approval. There may be some painful years to follow and some terrible civilian casualties. In the long term, I think Iraq, the middle east, and the world will be better off because of it.

7

I’ll take “yes” for $200, Alex.

8

I’m sorry, am I being whooshed here? Several posters have chimed in with news to the effect that the OP in not alone in how he feels. How does this equate to “yes”, and more importantly, how is it contributing to the question?

9

To the OP:

I am exactly in the same boat as you, and that boat is sitting right on the fence.

First of all, this is not a black and white issue here. So let me tell you how I interpret things that are going on. First of all, there is no debate that Saadam is a sick F*&^K who needs to be taken out of power. Not even France and Russia disagree with that.

But here is where it gets grey:

This war is not just about Weapons of Mass Destruction or helping liberate an oppressed people or gaining control of the oil, or protecting Israel, or finishing up George Sr.'s unfinished business…it’s about ALL of those things. And France, Germany and Russia are not vetoeing the U.S because “they are a peacful nation that wants to preserve the peace”. This whole thing does boil down to money (like almost everything in this world). France and Russia have major oil development contracts signed with Iraq, that cannot be put into effect until the U.N Sanctions are lifted, but will be totally cancelled if the U.S institutes a regime change by force (because the U.S will control the new regime). So France and Russia are playing the “preserve the peace” card, just like the U.S is playing the “get rid of W.O.M.D” card.

So why am I on the fence? The last thing this world needs is another war, and more killing. The whole mentality of “you killed my brother, so I’m gonna kill your whole family” doesn’t work. It doesn’t work any better for street gangs like the Crips and Bloods, or Italian Mafia, or Palestine/Isreal or the U.S retaliation for 9/11. Violence just brings more violence. BUT, I am a realist as well, and as much as I don’t want violence, I do know that Saadam has been in power too long. His people have been oppressed too long. And he does have W.O.M.D that he will use to threaten Israel, and supply to terrorist organizations. And he is playing games with the U.N, and has been for 12 years. So for all of those reasons, I want to go in there and take him out of power, as quickly and with as little casualties as possible.

I wish this was as simple as Hitler invading Poland, and trying to take over the world. And I hate the fact that we are going to make a pre-emptive strike (which IIRC we have never “started” a war with a country, other than the Revolutionary War…but we were not a country yet). ANYWAY, I don’t like it, but we are living in a different world than 1942, and the rules of aggressive action by a country like Iraq have changed. They don’t have to invade another country to be a major threat to the world. On top of which, the stakes are ALOT higher with Biological, Chemical and Nuclear Dirty Bombs.

At first I had hope that the inspectors could find stuff, but it has been increasingly evident to me that games are being played with them, and even if we give them 4 more months, I don’t think they will find the “smoking gun”. By then, it will be the middle of the summer, and our enlisted men and women will be in more peril than they already are.

I do believe in a democracy, and I do welcome any and all protests. I just hope that the mass protests don’t make our enlisted men and women feel like we don’t support them, and start to defeat their morale.

Finally, regarding your post about “stepping aside and letting the military do their thing”. Again, I am on the fence about this. I have never been in the military, and have no idea what it would take to win a war, nor do I have any idea how to interrogate a sadistic terrorist who thinks his god wants him to kill innocent civilians (and therefore would rather die than give up the information). I am probably being naive, but I just put my faith that the U.S military will do it as quickly and with as much regard to civilian life as possible.

Below is my information about France & Russia and the oil contracts. I don’t know how to do a link.

WASHINGTON’S OILPOLITIK

By Michael T. Klare

The most detailed survey of recent Iraqi oil deals appears in the 2001 edition of World Energy Outlook, the annual publication of the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental body based in Paris that the United States helped create. According to this survey, Iraq has sold off development rights to areas holding an estimated 44 billion barrels of oil — an amount equal to the total proven reserves of all East Asian countries combined. Among the companies that are parties to these deals are such European giants as ENI and TotalFinaElf along with Lukoil of Russia and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC).

These development projects cannot be implemented in the current political environment, which places Iraq under U.N.-imposed economic sanctions. But if sanctions are lifted, and the current regime (or one that it allows to be formed) remains in power, Iraq’s vast untapped reserves will fall under the control of non-U.S. companies. Some of these companies will, no doubt, want to sell their output to the United States; others, however, may prefer to send their oil elsewhere, or to use these supplies for political advantage. In any case, the United States can have no assurance that they will be available to satisfy America’s future energy requirement. Obviously, the only way to prevent this from happening is to engineer a “regime change” in Baghdad, and install a government that will cancel these agreements.

10

Well, if it makes you feel any better, there are some wishy-washy hypocrites on the right, too. Like me, for instance.

I despise the idiots who march around with “No blood for oil signs.” I regard much of the anti-war rhetoric I’ve seen and heard around the world as dishonest and/or cowardly. And if there is war, I’ll hope and pray that U.S. forces succeed.

But there’s another part of me that keeps saying “Never mind whether we’re justified- this COULD turn out to be a very bad idea.”

That Saddam Hussein is evil goes without saying. That he deserves to be ousted is self-evident. But among the things that AREN’T evident are:

  1. Who replaces Saddam Hussein?

  2. Might that person be WORSE? (Suppose, for instance, Saddam’s ouster leaves a vacuum that’s filled by a new Islamic fundamentalist government.)

  3. How much will a war cost?

  4. Are there more dangerous enemies we could be combatting with those resources, instead?

  5. The French annoy me, just as they annoy President Bush, and for all the same reasons. Their reputation for duplicity, hypocrisy and cowardice are well-deserved… but while it’s fine for ME to say that (I’m a nobody posting anonymously on a message board- what does Jacques Chirac care what I think?), a U.S. President can’t afford to. I can say whatever insulting things come to my mind, without worrying about the consequences. The President CAN’T (or at least, he SHOULDN’T).

I’m sure that calling referring to France and Germany as “Old Europe” felt good, as does calling them “irrelevant.” But from a diplomatic standpoint, that was foolish and ill-advised. At SOME point, the U.S. will need allies desperately again, and it makes no sense to antagonize them needlessly.

So… I WANT to support U.S. policy, and I hope a war, if it comes, goes well for the U.S. But I’m not at all happy about the way President Bush has gone about this.

11

Well I have an ambivalent sentiment about this issue to. On one hand I am a pacifist, on the other I dislike bush and I hate Saddam. So my wet dream is that the american win this war but at a terrible cost in lives. Why? So next time you are not so happy with your trigger. It seems that the only way you are going to question your goverment is if thousand of your soldiers return home in bag. Sorry for all those dopers that have relatives at stake in this war.

12

ESTILICON - that is one of the most HORRIBLE things I have ever heard. I don’t care what side of a subject you are on, but how could you say that your wet dream is a terrible cost in lives. You may not agree with the policy of the U.S Government (as many of us DO NOT). But to ever wish for thousands of people to die in hopes of proving a point to a couple of leaders is sadistic. I did NOT vote for Bush. He is, in my opinion, one of the worst choices for president that the electoral college has EVER made (and THEY made it, because Bush did not win the popular vote). BUT I would never wish a large loss of life to prove him wrong. And to say that we don’t question our government is naive. What do you think all of the protesters were doing these last few months? Did Bush listen? Of course not. So what would you qualify as “questioning our government”?

I would love to know what actions the American people could take that would satisfy you enough that you do not have an orgasm at night at the thought of many people losing their lives.

13

yeah, what empfsu wrote.

Remember, Estilicon, whatever you write is now a matter of record and can come back to haunt you. I hope your dreams never come true.

Damn, that was some nasty shit you wrote…

14

Okay, I’ll say it, I support President Bush, I even like him, I AM from Texas ya know, I support getting rid of Sadaam, but I do not like war and anyone who says that they do is SICK in the head. I am a father of a young girl though, and I think about the fathers of young girls in Iraq who must cringe when Sadaam’s son, Uday, is trolling the streets looking for a date for the night. Who is a father going to complain to as Uday drags his daughter off to rape and degrade her? He has no one to turn to, and as abstract as this thinking is to some of you, to me, this, and other horrors that Sadaam and his regime have inflicted upon the Iraqi people, all the while pretending to be such a noble and caring leader, would be enough reason for me to take him out.

15

I’m right there with ya Fireman44.

I support Bush, and I am not ashamed to say so, and yes I am from Texas as well. YEEHAW!!!

I do not like war because it changes people forver. And I do not like the thought of our troops losing their lives, but if we do not have those brave men and women willing to sacrifice their lives (and I’m mainly only talking about the soldiers in the field of battle) for us, then where would our freedom be. What if we just shrugged off Pearl Harbor and sent a letter to the Axis asking them to please leave us alone, would we be debating this topic now, would be be practicing our religions with comfort, or bashing somsone elses because we can? (I am Christian-babtist btw so no harm meant to any of you good faithful folks out there). Well, the people of Iraq cannot do any of these, and I know many, and almost all have totally agreed on this and the fact that Saddam has to be removed. I just wrote this paragraph for Estilicon, who needs to really think about all of the people that he has wishfully condemned byhis own words.

On another note, the whole deal about war for oil, and that BS did not come up until after protesters began running out of things to rant about. Since when has the United States of America ever gone into a country and taken control, even if we set up some type of temporaray government, we do not keep control without the local peoples’ consent. This argument was actually brought up once before in the news, and the statement given to it was- “That oil belongs to the people of Iraq, thus we do not touch it, and yet we still use our own dollars to help rebuild the country after it has been deconstructed.” It basically went along those lines (had to have been on the fox network, not like you’d ever hear a piece of info. like that on a liberal news channel.) O, and have you watched the documentary on Iraq that is/was on the history channel just two nights ago, even for puvlic cable, I still couldn’t believe some of the things that were shown which Saddam did to the people of Iraq. No wonder why Bush wishes to remove him from power, of yea and the fact that he helped in the aiding of an injured top notch terrorist a few years ago recover from his wounds. Hmmm, yup sounds like a good enough reason to me to place it under WAR on TERRORISM. And eveybody knows, that if and when Saddam finds a way to get a WMD to a terroist, he will, A.S.A.P.

Did you ever stop to think for a second also, that Bush never did really get a chance to run the Government and prove what he is to us, because he has been having to spend every waking moment chasing down people from Bin Laden’s group, and the Al-Queida network, etc. and not just make America a better place, but make the whole world a better place. So…why not give him a second chance, y’all sure had no problem doing that for Clinton even after the scandals were revieled.

Have a nice day :slight_smile:

16

My wet dream is that some day, all you smug “pacifists” are forced into a situation where you actually have to fight for something. I don’t mean waving some stupid placard on some liberal arts campus in New Hampshire. I mean forced pick up a rifle and actually kill another human being to defend all those freedoms you find so precious.
Personally, I think that Sadaam needs to go. I don’t think the Iraqi people can dispose him by themselves and he will certainly not willingly give up power. So I guess it’s once again up to us to actually get anything done.

17

Thanks for the back-up RSC, but I don’t know if they will allow two Texans who back Bush to post at the same time or not, so I’m trying to space it out a bit!
The people of Iraq deserve a chance to at least taste democracy but with the current regime it will never happen. Although right now I think the French stink, and have something to hide in Iraq, if they had not stepped in 200 some odd years ago and helped us, we would not have sent Gen. Cornwallis back to England a defeated man.

18

[sarcasm]Read about Vietnam, that should really get you off.[/sarcasm]

I dont have relatives at stake, am against the war, and am offended.

19

My first thought when all this was started properly a few months ago was that we shouldn’t do war - war kills people, killing people is bad, therefor war is bad. Ipso facto.

However, the more I think about it, the more i think that war is evil, but at times a necessary evil. Now, is war NOW a necessary evil? And I think yes, yes it is. Saddam (I’m on first-name terms with him by now) is a nasty piece of work, and the world needs to be rid of him.

However, there are a few things that do concern me. As a Brit, I have to think about what we should do. It seems that the US is gonna be storming in no matter what. UN? We don’t need no steenking UN! So should the British follow suit? And this is the problem. We need to show solidarity with the US (after all, they ARE, no matter what the semantics of the situation, right on this one) but it would alienate us from the rest of the world as it’s gonna alienate the USA. The USA are big enough to cope - however, we’re not. We need the rest of the world more than the US does, and that means that by storming in, it’ll cause us a lot of problems.

What do fellow posters think of the latest resolution (not the 2nd - the 18th, as a matter of fact!)? We give Iraq a shopping list of what we know he’s got, and he’s gotta show where he’s put it all. Very cool - and it might shut up all those people who think of Saddam as a victim of Western cruelty. WHatcha reckon?

20

Ok, I am beginning to think that it was probably a mistake to decide to join this thread.
We know that Bush is planning a world campaign against terrorism, the first one was Afghanistan a pretty quick and clean victory then goes against Irak, this time there is no conection with terrorism. In fact Bin Laden has more things in common with Bush that Saddam (I’ll bet Husseim gives a damm about god and praying). Remember the excuse about this war is the fight against terrorism, Saddam is an evil dictator, granted but he is not a fundamentalist terrorist.
Who is next? because there will be a next one, if this war happen and it is another blitz the pro-war faction will have have both afghanistan and Irak to use as an argument. Meanwhile it is a given that with an stronger american pressence in the middle east, fanatics will increase their terror campaign instead of of the other way around
I have an interest in the fight against , my country suffered two of the worst terrorist attack ever and it seems that a third one was prevented, worst in our northern frontier with Brazil and Paraguay there is a strong muslim pressence and it seems, also and Al-Quaeda cell.
Colombia is mentioned to go after Irak.
My contribution to this thread was inspired by the vietnam war. It is my impression, I accept that I could be wrong, that americans usually don’t give a damm about the victims of their wars. Nicaragua, Granada, Chile, etc, etc, were battles against communism. Millions are still suffering about the consequences of your involment in the region and you simply don’t care.
In fact before finishing I will give another example but now from my history, the best favour the English ever did us was to beat the hell out of us in 1982, next year the last de facto president (Reinaldo Bignone) transfered power to elected president Raúl Alfonsin. 3 days before we launched our attack on the islands there were protest against the junta all wover the country. The day of the invasion thousands cheered our militar dictators.
There is no better way to blind the people than with a victorious war.