Thank you for an answer finally. I know it conflicts with your anti-war views, but you finally said it.
Sorry it took you that long to have to admit Saddam is bad. (admittedly a simplistic view)
As far as reading comprehension, sorry dude, you didn’t have a good answer, so you had to present it in doublespeak and bullshit because you are against the war.
It WAS a simple question.
And I have to sleep for work in the morn, I will rag you tomorrow.
Cheers.
I haven’t listened to the link, as it is late here, but I’ll take a stab at answering Klaatu’s question all the same.
Leaving Saddam in power will promote neither peace nor justice in Iraq. Based on his past record, it is likely that Saddam will cause the deaths of some number of Iraqi civilians.
The war as set up by the Bush administration will promote neither peace nor justice in Iraq. It will almost certainly cause the deaths of many Iraqi civilians. In a country as divided as Iraq, civil war is far more likely than stable democracy. This war has never been intended to help the Iraqi people – that’s just a reason cooked up afterward to sell it to the American public.
If we really wanted to help the Iraqi people, we would have never blockaded food and medicine from entering the country for years following the Gulf War, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands through malnutrition and preventable disease. We would not have set up the Food for Oil program, where the only access the Iraqi people then have to food is through a murderous dictator who has proven time and again he has no interest in their welfare. If we wanted to help the Iraqi people, we would have made their welfare the topic of these last few months, rather than feigning interest in disarming weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war.
I truly feel sorry for the Iraqi people. However, the actions of the United States represent its citizens, and as a citizen I find the actions of this administration to be indefensible. They are behaving recklessly, and there is a very real chance they are going to make things even worse for the Iraqis, as war ravages their country or if civil war follows the removal of Saddam. It infuriates me to see the suffering of the Iraqis so transparently coopted as validation for the actions of the Bush administration which have absolutely nothing to do with helping the Iraqi people.
If my car’s transmission starts making funny noises, ignoring the noises will not fix it. But neither will shooting it with a shotgun. Some problems take patience and time to solve, and it’s usually better to go slow and make sure you know what you’re doing, than to get impatient and use the only tool you know how to operate.
Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve gone from anti-war to “I have no freaking idea” to “Please, just hurry up and get it over with before North Korea goes crazy on us.”
I don’t have any delusions about war making life for the Iraqi people worse, or in fact ultimately a whole lot better. I just don’t think it was a good idea for us to get involved in a war with Iraq with so much else on our plate (North Korea and the economy, for instance,) and I’d rather not piss off so much of the UN. Morals and ethics don’t enter into it quite so much as politics for me. I realize I couldn’t possibly know enough from my current situation to make a moral judgement on the war.
Not all of us who were against the war at the start were against it because we were wailing “Think of the little Iraqi babies! And the wide-eyed Iraqi puppies looking skyward for the first bombs! Oh lord preserve us!”
This I agree with.
However, I don’t think us removing him and putting in ‘our guy’ will promote peace or justice, either.
Whyever not?
I guess it depends on what you consider “peace” and “justice”. For me, “peace” is characterized by not worrying about Saddam’s psychotic little kiddies gunning you down in your car because they thought you were driving too slowly. “Justice” is characterized by knowing that if your ruler decided to kill a few hundred citizens, he won’t be able to get away with it.
But feel free to expand on your comments. Obviously, I’m pointing out some of the very worst examples to come out of Iraq. And I’m equally sure you’re going to point out the United State’s attempts to install puppet dictators in Central America. Now that we have those extreme examples out of the way, feel free to point out, without resorting to “We’ve done it before!” jingoism (because I have a higher respect for your intelligence, spooje… please have that same respect for mine), how you are concerned that US intervention in Iraq can not promote peace and justice.
Reuben, for this and indeed the rest of your post, I would dearly love to buy you a beer some time. Very well said.
When we attack, the peace will be gone. I define peace as the absence of war. So I chuckle to myself when Bush says Saddam is a threat to peace, so we must attack him.
I don’t believe that peace or justice is the reason for us going into Iraq. I agree with Rueben. Call me a crazy conspiratory theorist if you like, but I think this is an example of wagging the dog. Our attention is being diverted.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of Saddam and wouldn’t mind seeing him deposed. I just don’t want to spend $70 billion dollars to do it. (don’t ask where I get that fiqure from. I don’t know. If you have a reliable estimate of the cost of the war, feel free to provide it) We’ve got lots of homegrown psychotic kiddies to deal with. Lots of real problems that have nothing at all to do with despots or Islamic extremists.
The (purported) belief in some quarters is that Iraq has a coherent pro-democratic underground movement which will, once Saddam is deposed, take over the government and work with the US in the reconstruction of the country.
I think this is a fantasy.
I think the opposition to Saddam is split along lines of special interests. Kurdish separatists, various stripes of Islamic militarist, who knows what else. If the central government is destroyed, these groups will all start pulling in different directions. The US can counter this by installing and supporting a new central government … which will be viewed by many Iraqis as merely a puppet of a foreign oppressor, and reviled and hated on that basis. Dissident groups will become terrorist groups, the new government will clamp down on them, and a whole new cycle of oppression and terrorism will begin …
And ten years from now, the average Iraqi will look back on Saddam’s regime and think of it as the good old days - specifically, the good old days before the Americans came. And if someone asks for his support in bombing an American military base, or slipping some anthrax into America’s water supply, Mr. Average Iraqi will be very likely to give it.
That’s what I think will happen, anyway. I could be wrong. I pray that I am. But I’m very much afraid that I’m not.
I thought his condescension was uneccessary but hysterical.
I thought he did a great job of shutter her ass up.
This is a perfect example of how ignorant people are when they blind themself to there own belief rather than investigate both sides of the story, the “little girl” did nothing but make herself out to be another liberal IDIOT, there is no arguing with ignorance, if you ask a person of intellegence a question they sould be able to give you an answer, you may not like it but at least it is an answer, she couldn’t even do that. Ignorant people like to argue but they usually don’t have a clue as to what they are arguing about. This countries biggest problem is with ignorant peoplesuch as this “little girl”, I’m not the most intelligent person in the world but I do know I listen to both sides of the story first before I jump to one side or the other. And another note, I have a son who about to be in the middle of all this and support him and the PRESIDENT in this ousting of a TYRANT.
I think you are right.
I think Reuben has nicely summed up one of the major reasons that some are against this war.
Yes, those lazy Iraqis who can’t depose their own tyrant. What are they thinking? What is standing in their way, except large-scale oppression, or the risk of execution for even being accused of speaking out against their tyrant.
Nothing? Nothing? The liberation of an oppressed population living under a tyrant is nothing? Restoring freedom and liberty to a people who have been tortured, raped, and suffered mass execution is nothing? Guaranteeing rights such as freedom of assembly, freedom to leave the country, and freedom to speak out against their leaders (a freedom that so many of those who oppose the war enjoy) is nothing?
One clear benefit I see for Britain is that when this war is over, and when we are victorious, there will be one less TYRANT running around who is willing and able to use weapons of mass destruction on his own people.
As for the benefits to the Iraqi people, those are clear. Freedom and liberty, which is God’s gift to all people.
This statement crystallizes your position perfectly. When it comes right down to it, you (and all those who oppose this war for the reasons you have stated) are selfish. There is no clear benefit for you, so why should you care?
There seems to be an overall lack of compassion in your statement. I am not going so far as to say you have no compassion, but there is clearly no compassion in your statements above. Some are willing to let the Iraqi people continue to suffer because “Iraq is not an imminent threat to us.” However, I am thankful that President Bush and all who support him are not willing to let the innocent civilians of Iraq continue to suffer.
Those that support this war have always been against Saddam Hussein being in power. But after the Gulf War, diplomacy was attempted. And America and the UN have been patient. Extremely patient. Diplomacy has failed, thanks to Saddam’s blatant unwillingness to cooperate.
Two things. First, on a personal level, the increase of terrorist attacks against our country has prompted us to begin a campaign of systematically eliminating terrorist threats. Saddam happens to be one of these threats. Second, I would rather not wait for another “Halabja-style atrocity” to depose this tyrant. I am unwilling to give Saddam “time off for good behavior”. He has performed enough atrocities to validate this action against him and his regime.
Ditto here. If the choices are A and B, and you show that B doesn’t promote peace, you have not proven that A promotes peace.
Iraq, the good old days.
Has it even been established that A and B are the only choices on the menu?
Nice to see Libertarian posting again, by the way; welcome back.
Well if that’s not the funniest fucking thing I’ve read this week, I don’t know what is. Out of interest, which god gifted it to them, and if he’s done so why do they need to be freed or liberated?
Let me try to explain something to you. The objection to this war is not down to selfishness, cowardice or any other of the moral faults you’d care to attribute to those who disagree with you. It is down to the concern that waging war will cause far more trouble than it will solve. That war is an exercise that may cost trillions of dollars, and god knows how many lives, but will offer no benefit.
Why do you think that the people of Iraq will be grateful for being bombed? Why do you think that setting up a western friendly regime will be viewed as anything other than rehashed colonialism? What proof do you have that any regime we impose will be either stable or more friendly to the people of Iraq? How do you think other muslim countries will view this - an act of genuine altruism, or a new crusade? How much damage has this caused between previously close allies? How many questions do you have to see raised before you accept that there are reasons other than cowardice or selfishness to be wary of war? Fuck me, how screwed up is it that we now need to justify being against war - shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be against war until shown proof of WMD’s as well as decent reasoned proposals for the replacement government? If this is such a clear case why don’t our governments just put together a nice clear website answering all these questions - they don’t even have to waste money on postage.
In the film The Quiet American, Michael Caine says to Bredan Fraser, “So you give people the right to choose.
They vote, and they elect Ho Chi Min. It’s complicated”
A guy we put in power may well be better, in our perspective, than Saddam. He may end the things that we consider heinous. But that does not mean that we will earn the gratitude and love of the Iraqi people. They might end up hating us even more. I don’t know.
What do you mean will be?