# We need to fight them over there to help train them to fight us over here **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 29, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920 "2007-05-29T14:52:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/101 "2007-05-29T21:27:35Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] The liberals act as the useful idiots of the islamics these days. [/QUOTE] No, the conservatives do, by doing exactly what the Islamic fanatics want. And that’s when they aren’t outright allying with them on issues like homosexuality and abortion [QUOTE=Trotsky] And.. You didn’t live there. I know people that fled. A lot didn’t make it when the communists poured in. It would’ve been worth it to save South Vietnam and turn it into another South Korea.. And kept it free. [/quote] And a lot didn’t make it when **we** poured in. Dead is dead. And we didn’t want it to be free; at best, we’ve never cared about freedom, and that’s when we aren’t installing puppet dictators. [QUOTE=Trotsky] Iraq is a more pure ‘nation building’ situation. I’d say in the post cold war era, rogue nations are a bit more dangerous than before and it just might be necessary. [/QUOTE] So someone should invade America and install a new regime ? [QUOTE=Trotsky] And people wonder why I think the leftists encourage the murder of the opposition.. It’s because your type openly supports the results of mass genocide. [/QUOTE] And what do you think you are supporting, with your “attack everybody Islamic” strategy ? How many people would we kill in conquering and occupying Iran and Syria and Pakistan ? [QUOTE=Trotsky] That 600k # is debunked. If you’re talking about Iraqi insurgents and jihadists, and old Saddam army bastards, ok. You cry for them. [/QUOTE] It was only “debunked” in the minds of the far right. They used the same techniques used in other war zones and disaster areas; the number was only disputed because it makes America look bad. And a lot of people are dying who are not “Iraqi insurgents and jihadists, and old Saddam army bastards”. [QUOTE=Trotsky] People like me? Do you have any idea? I’m pro women, pro individual, anti communism, anti islam. [/QUOTE] If you are pro-Iraq war, you are anti-woman and pro-radical Islam. Women were far better off under Saddam, and the Iraq war was a huge boon to the Islamic fanatics. [QUOTE=Trotsky] In their mind, it leads to the formation of a global caliphate. Take out the top satan, and you can bring in the islamic leadership of the world. A nuclear strike, or multiple ones, will have you strounging for long pig. I guess that’s ok though in the end, just a ‘criminal’ matter. Or maybe it’ll never happen.. It’s just too impossible, right? [/QUOTE] Yes, it’s impossible. [QUOTE=Trotsky] You can’t imagine how much I disagree with you on that. Hitler probably would’ve agreed to just have the eartern hemisphere. [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: Ah, yes. Trusting Hitler worked out SO WELL for Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/102 "2007-05-29T21:29:32Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] …and which has nothing to do with your original assertion. [/QUOTE] If you mean my assertion that Vietnam is “safer” now than in the past, certainly it is – because there is no more war and no more foreign domination, not because it is a police state, which it certainly is; but its incarceration rate compared to ours is not irrelevant to that evaluation. The point being, that if we pull out of Iraq and it ends up a “police state” as a result, that is probably still better than what will happen if we don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/103 "2007-05-29T21:40:47Z")
I’m not afraid of a police state, but a police state that is friendly to international terrorism gets me all worked up. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/104 "2007-05-29T21:46:11Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] If you mean my assertion that Vietnam is “safer” now than in the past, certainly it is – because there is no more war and no more foreign domination, not because it is a police state, which it certainly is; but its incarceration rate compared to ours is not irrelevant to that evaluation. [/quote] It’s the proverbial price of butter in Denmark. What happens in the US has no bearing on how safe or unsafe it is in Vietnam. North Koreans are very “safe”, too. But note that many people are risking their lives to leave those “safe” places to go to places where they are less “safe”. > [@](#): > > The point being, that if we pull out of Iraq and it ends up a “police state” as a result, that is probably still better than what will happen if we don’t. I’m not arguing about Iraq, just questioning the assertions you are making about Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/105 "2007-05-29T21:49:35Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] I’m not afraid of a police state, but a police state that is friendly to international terrorism gets me all worked up. [/QUOTE] A national government, at least, can sometimes be talked out of that, but you need much more carrot than stick. Getting tough with Iran (I assume you’re referring to Iran, as Hussein’s Iraq was never friendly to terrorism) will only make them dig in their heels and make Iranian dissidents rally 'round the flag. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/106 "2007-05-29T22:01:35Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] I’m not afraid of a police state, but a police state that is friendly to international terrorism gets me all worked up. [/QUOTE] Which one ? America ? We’ve never minded funding terrorists, as long as they are our terrorists; IIRC we’re doing that right now to try to destabilize Iran. We just don’t **call** then terrorists, just as any dictator we support is “authoritarian” and not “totalitarian”" ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/107 "2007-05-29T22:07:32Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I’m not arguing about Iraq, just questioning the assertions you are making about Vietnam. [/QUOTE] It’s an interesting debate, certainly, but better to have it in a [different thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422789) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/108 "2007-05-29T22:09:20Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] The communists and islam want it all. [/QUOTE] Again, what the Islamists \*\*want \*\* is immaterial if they are unable to achieve it. I’ve repeatedly asked you to describe the nightmare scenario by which the Islamists will conquer the world. **You have failed to do so.** May we now take it as a given that the Islamists do not represent a threat to Western Civilization as a whole? And that the danger that they do pose is in fact much more limited in scope? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/109 "2007-05-29T22:16:29Z")
Getting back to the OP: Does anyone seriously dispute, at this point, that our occupation has turned Iraq into a training ground for terrorists, who might later attack the U.S. on other fronts? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/110 "2007-05-31T17:26:09Z")
Relevant (to the actual OP, I mean) [editorial:](http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-geyer_31edi.ART.State.Edition1.4370227.html) > [@](#): > > Think of what has happened in only the last week in the Middle East. In northern Lebanon, in the long-established Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, out of the blue arose a new al Qaeda-related insurgent group, Fatah al-Islam. Within days and even hours, the recurring hell of the Middle East was loosed, and refugees poured out of the camp in terror. > > There had been none of this kind of terror networking in these northern camps. Indeed, since this camp was established in 1949 to accommodate refugees from northern Palestine after the creation of Israel, it has housed one of the more formal and conservative of peoples. > > But it was soon established that these new “insurgents” or “terrorists” – or whatever they really are – had arrived at the camp only recently, that they marched in one day with brand-new weapons, ready to fight. > > Two points grip you: > > •The first is found in the words of French scholar Bernard Rougier, author of Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in Lebanon. “The main point is that these camps are no longer part of Palestinian society,” he told The Washington Post . “They are only spaces – now open to all of the influences running through the Muslim world.” > > •The second is that Iraq, where we were supposed to be “containing terrorism,” is now clearly exporting insurgents to other regions – to Lebanon, to Syria, to Gaza, to Bangladesh, to Kurdistan. > > And so, on the one hand, you have weakened societies vulnerable to the “new answers” of “new insurgencies,” and on the other hand, you have Iraq set up as a school for terrorists with American troops and policy providing the constant inspiration for their fight. > > \ > > Friends of [Bush’s] from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920.md?page=5)