# Is your country's enemy YOUR enemy?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 8, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558 "2016-04-08T16:43:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/21 "2016-04-09T14:00:19Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Interesting. Assuming that you’re American (correct me if not,) do you think Saddam should have been allowed to keep Kuwait after he invaded and captured it, and that the United States shouldn’t have reacted to 9/11 with a military response?
> (These aren’t rhetorical questions; I’m serious.)
Saddam claimed to have a historical justification for annexing Kuwait, but I haven’t studied it enough to pass judgment on Saddam’s claim. Read about how America got Hawaii. Should America have been allowed to keep Hawaii?
As for your second question, I won’t repeat all the arguments over again, but pure vicious hate-filled revenge is never a justification for imposing decades of destitution on the homelands of tens of millions of perfectly faultless people who were not a threat in any way. That’s not a rhetorical answer, I’m serious.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/22 "2016-04-09T14:09:19Z")
In general, yes.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/23 "2016-04-09T16:19:13Z")
My enemies are country’s enemies \*because \*they’re my enemies - the fact that my enemies insist on launching missiles and sending suicide bombers against me, and against civilians like me, is why my country chose to make them its enemies. My enemies’ conflict is with _me_, and my country is the one doing the fighting.
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/24 "2016-04-09T16:27:04Z")
no, that’s an incredibly simplistic and divisive mindset.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/25 "2016-04-09T16:31:34Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> My enemies are country’s enemies \*because \*they’re my enemies - the fact that my enemies insist on launching missiles and sending suicide bombers against me, and against civilians like me, is why my country chose to make them its enemies.
Or, someone is power decides that they don’t like that particular country such as Iraq in 2001 or the absurd 1983 invasion of Grenada.
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### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/26 "2016-04-09T16:39:07Z")
Sometimes your country’s enemy is your enemy. Sometimes _your country_ is your enemy. So no.
> [@TokyoBayer](#):
>
> Or, someone is power decides that they don’t like that particular country such as Iraq in 2001 or the absurd 1983 invasion of Grenada.
Alessan is an Israeli, so when he says “my country’s enemies” he’s referring to groups which have spent the better part of a century trying and failing to wipe his country off the face of the Earth.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/27 "2016-04-09T18:25:54Z")
One problem I have in answering this question is that it’s not clear what **Jim** means by “enemy.” I would not say that the United States and China are currently enemies, for instance, even though the two are often at cross purposes. They’re our competitors; they’re our rivals. But neither is actively trying to kill the other’s citizens, and neither the US government nor China’s thinks they would benefit from the sudden disappiearance of the other state. We’re just jockeying for better business positions against one another. The same is true with us and Russia, though to a lesser degree; it would be an easier transition to our being enemies with them again.
Now the likes if ISIL and Al-Quaeda are another matter. They wish us actual, physical harm. ISIL’s focus is elsewhere at the moment, but they have killed Americans before and surely will again, and our military is killing or trying to kill them. I"m confident that if I were foolish or brave enough to go to Syria and found myself alone among a group of ISIL fighters, I would be at the very least held captive, probably beaten, and eventually [del]executed[/del]. Similarly, if I discovered that my next-door neighbor was a member of an ISIL cell, I’d call the FBI pretty damn quick. They’re my enemy and I am theirs.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2016, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/28 "2016-04-10T11:22:21Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> One problem I have in answering this question is that it’s not clear what **Jim** means by “enemy.”
Even more murky if you add in the concept of frenemies.🙂
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/29 "2016-04-10T18:09:42Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> That would be a “no”. You pick your enemies for yourself, your country doesn’t do it for you.
Agreed.
“The enemy is _anybody_ who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.” (Joseph Heller)
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### Author:  [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-countrys-enemy-your-enemy/751558/30 "2016-04-10T19:09:55Z")
Need an ‘It is about my grand kids and the future.’
Since I can not shoot at them, … Well, IMO, all politicians at the federal level and CEO’s and owners of corporations worth over 10 Million $ are the worst possible enemy for my grand kids & the future…
No matter who sent me or where they sent me, or why they sent me, or however it came to be, if a person or group is shooting at me & my family, friends or buddies in that situation, ‘enemy’ it is and death will be dealt if possible. Their location, nationality, or rightness will be meaningless to me.
IMO, if I will not defend my nation ( and in no way is the world capable of ‘Kumbyya’ yet ) so nations are here for a while longer, and if I do not help with it’s problems, & if \* I actively try to help tear it down ( not the same as trying to change for the better ) at the behest of an other nation or group\* then I do not deserve to enjoy the privileges of living in it.
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