04-21-2003, 12:34 PM | #981 | ||||||
Elf Lord
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But these invasions do have good affect, and even if we haven't found the WMDs yet, we have found huge amounts of evidence supporting their existence in Iraq. Quote:
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04-21-2003, 01:46 PM | #982 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
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I was adressing my remarks to a person who was implying that anyone who wanted to resolve things with diplomacy was ignorant.
I did not say we ARE imperialistic, I said it gives credence to their staement that we are. Bin Laden wanted us to attack. Just because some short-sighted people didn't think attacking would give strength to those fools doesn't mean they are right. I might think my foot isn't on fire, but it could be. As to whether the whole Iraq thing is about oil, just call me very suspicious. There are many regimes who are far more despicable and we could care less about what they do. The Hussein family and the Bush family and Bechtel and many Bush cabinet members go way. back. So maybe it's not the pro-negotiation people who need to LEARN, but the ones who look to Fox News for fact - ha! I think there are valid points all around, but the "you should go learn" nonsense is a stone thrown by a glasshouse dweller.
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cya Last edited by Elfhelm : 04-21-2003 at 02:06 PM. |
04-21-2003, 02:04 PM | #983 | ||
Elf Lord
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First of all, I think the invasion of Afghanistan did a lot more harm to Osama Bin Laden than good. Striking at terrorists whom other people think are freedom fighters or heroes might cause those people to join the terrorists, but you've still struck at a large number of terrorists. If you never strike against terrorists for fear of spurring more terrorists, you're not going to get anywhere. Do you propose our negotiating with organized terrorists until we convince them to no longer be terrorists? I agree that different measures can be sometimes taken, and different approaches are in order for different situations. For example, I think that Israel's invasions on the Palestinians aren't doing any good, and won't bring anything but further death and destruction. However, I think that the U.S.'s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were done against organized bodies of terrorists that we can root out without causing worse terrorism. Those wars, in the long run, I think were very well placed. Israel's, on the other hand, while working with some small success in the short term might have far worse affects in the long run. Quote:
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04-21-2003, 02:11 PM | #984 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
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Well, I respect your opinion and appreciate the civilized way your express yourself without needing to insult other people.
This is what our democracy is about: "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" So don't tell me it's not about living together in peace with people despite our disagreements. Jefferson knew about Degonaweda and modeled the US on the Seneca. You can spout an opinion or you can go read Jefferson's Letters as I have.
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cya Last edited by Elfhelm : 04-21-2003 at 02:24 PM. |
04-21-2003, 02:25 PM | #985 |
Elf Lord
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What I was trying to say was that it never says in there "Peace at all costs." Preemptive attack is an extension of national defense in this case. It is a part of our national defense to be able to strike before being struck. If you wait and take a blow, as happened at 9/11, then your people will suffer. But if you know that someone else is going to attack you, eliminating their ability to cause damage to you is national defense. I know that the precedent it sets can be worrisome and might be misused in the future. That's a risk.
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04-21-2003, 02:45 PM | #986 |
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Yeah, which is why I say I respect your opinion.
I realise Saddam was paying money to the families of suicide attackers. I realise that he had torture prisons, that he practised genocide on the Kurds, etc. But what about Turkey? They practise genocide on the Kurds but they are in NATO so that's OK? What about Israel? They broke peace accords to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and built settlements there. What about England? They were genocidal towards Ireland. Why didn't we invade Chile or China? OK, so it all comes down to if they sponsor terrorism - but not just any terrorism, only the terror directed at us? So let the Russians deal with the Chechnyans? Let England deal with Ireland? Let Japan deal with Korea? Or maybe we should - I know - form a UN to deal with it all together?! Hey what a good idea! Too bad some people insist on breaking ranks.
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04-21-2003, 03:25 PM | #987 | ||
Elf Lord
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In some of those situations though, I agree that we haven't done right. Like with Israel in particular; I don't know enough about the situation with Turkey to say. I think our country is wrong to give blind support to Israel, and I really hope that the Bush Administration will open its eyes a bit more to what's really been happening in Palestine. Quote:
We have to narrow the field from "all terrorism", and focus upon what directly affects us or is most dangerous to world safety, or to our policies and nation. Iraq was one of the targets that field was narrowed to. It had wealth, WMDs, links to terror, and was a dangerous threat to our nation. They could threaten large parts of the Middle East with their chemical and biological weapons, and the threat of their gaining nuclear weapons in the future was also worth thinking seriously about. We stopped them before they could become a fully developed danger. North Korea is dangerous, and I pray every day for some peaceful method to be found to aleviate the tension there. We have to be careful about which targets we pick, and Iraq was a threat. |
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04-21-2003, 03:41 PM | #988 |
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I agree.
But I would also add that we shouldn't be trying to go it alone. We have to work with other countries on this, otherwise they'll just move from the country we attack to the one we don't. And that means having to put up with slow movement in the UN. Why didn't Bush, Sr. finish the job vs. Saddam the first time when we were clearly right for defending an ally? Sanctions only hurt the poor people. Again, the reason these people are terrorists is because they don't believe they have any other recourse. Maybe if we supported the UN and let more people in they wouldn't feel that way. The Israel issue is obvious, isn't it? It goes back to the 10th century, and even earlier. We don't want the sacred places in the hands of infidels. The thing is, whenever they call on God I get suspicious. You know, the other side is calling on God, too. It's just absurd. God doesn't condone war. We are given free will to choose to be good, and if we choose to do wrong and claim it is in His name, then the wrong is doubled. Of course, they have been doing it that was for thousands of years so I shouldn't be shocked. You'd just think that people who actually read the scriptures, on both sides, would point out that it is a lie. But instead they all seem to be lining up to help in the stoning. The way I see it is this. There are half a dozen creepo nations out there we could have attacked. Why only go for the one with oil? And why call on God? I am just too suspicious to let that sit. Oil because we drive cars and God because it doesn't have to be proven.
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cya Last edited by Elfhelm : 04-21-2003 at 03:43 PM. |
04-21-2003, 04:09 PM | #989 | ||||
Elf Lord
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There were a few reasons we didn't take Saddam Hussein out of power then. First of all, I believe we'd made agreements with other countries in order to get the UN's support for that war. Those agreements probably helped to stop us short of conquering. The reason I am sure about though is that President Bush Senior didn't have a plan ready for a new government of Iraq. The purpose of the coalition was to liberate Kuwait, not to liberate Iraq. If we had taken out Saddam then, we would have been in a position we weren't prepared for, and that was running Iraq. Quote:
With Al'Quaeda and Saddam's regime though, the situation was totally different. With Al'Quaeda, they weren't terrorists out of necessity; far from it. With Saddam Hussein, he trained people to be terrorists in camps. There's a difference between organized and trained terrorists and terrorism inspired by despair. The terrorism that is caused by having no alternatives, by desperation, I agree with you completely about. Military will not solve those issues permanently; negotiations and economic support will do that far better. With groups of terrorists like Al'Quaeda, they certainly don't do it out of lack of alternatives. With regimes like Saddam's, they ARE the terrorists. And they aren't forced to be like what they are out of necessity. That is why it is so important to deal with groups like that. Groups that choose purposely the way of murder and destruction when they had other options available to them. Those are the groups that we should be hunting and are hunting most. The others we have to deal with also, and I do think that Israel should be able to protect itself from those terrorists, but I don't think that military aggression into Palestinian refugee camps is a good way to go about that. Quote:
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04-21-2003, 04:18 PM | #990 | |
Elf Lord
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The income from taking Iraq's oil would be almost nothing compared to the costs of the war. Do you honestly think that we'd get over 80 billion dollars out of Iraq? And not only that, but we'd severely blast our relations with the coalition and just about every other country if we did do anything like that- our country has stated numerous times that the oil belongs to the Iraqi people. Breaking our word now would be disastrous for the Bush Administration, and the public of America would also be furious. Not only that, but during the Gulf War we could have taken the oil. The newest war with Iraq has driven our economy further downhill; we've paid a heavy price for Iraq's liberation. The money we could earn is far less than we would be spending, not to mention the bad affects the war has had upon our foreign relations. These affects had to be taken into account as the war was planned. Do you honestly think that the oil is worth that much? Also, we haven't been using God as any sort of a proof that we should go to war with Iraq. Though some Christians have made that argument, and done so pretty well, in my opinion. But we'd had huge amounts of evidence that there are WMDs in Iraq before we launched the invasion. Evidence from other countries, from our own intelligence, from defectors, from satellites, from communication taps, from all sorts of sources. |
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04-21-2003, 05:14 PM | #991 |
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Well, there's also the testing of our advance weaponry in a real world situation. That's why Poland decided to buy jets from us instead of France. And it doesn't have to balance for America, it only has to profit the family of the current president for me to get suspicious.
But for the record, we certainly CAN recoup 80 billion. It would take more than that to switch to fuel cells, so now we can postpone that. But it will have to happen someday. Of course, when the baby boomers realise that we've thrown our social security rescue out the window so the Bush family can stay rich, our budgetary priorities will change.
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04-21-2003, 05:42 PM | #992 | |
Elf Lord
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( Shakes his head) Jeepers, you really are down on the Bushes. What evidence do you have that they're sacrificing all these lives and all these billions of dollars for their own personal benefit? Man, that's really painting them as only slightly better than Saddam.
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04-21-2003, 05:50 PM | #993 | |
FloraAzul
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Atheism: A Non-Prophet Organization Yet many shall be amazed when they see Him-yes even far off foreign nations and thier kings; they shall stand dumb-founded, speechless in his prescence. For they shall see and understand what they had not seen before-Isaiah 52:15a Civil War- 498,332 dead WWI-116,708 dead WWII-407,316 dead Korean War-54,246 dead Vietnam War-58,665 dead Persian Gulf-372 dead War on The Unborn=35,000,000 dead and counting |
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04-21-2003, 05:54 PM | #994 |
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Well, slap a God Bless America bumpersticker on my SUV, I have seen the light.
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cya |
04-21-2003, 06:25 PM | #995 |
Elf Lord
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Is that a joke?
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04-21-2003, 06:26 PM | #996 | |
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And on that note, I am leaving this thread. It is, as I said, more malicious than Entmoot as I know it, and I definately do not want to pull a jerseydevil and become so wrapped up in this debate that I bring it up elsewhere on Entmoot, and even won't discuss anything Tolkien with those that disagree on Iraq. I may pop in occasionally, but I'll try not to. My goodwill to all, Iraqis and warmongers alike!
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04-21-2003, 07:04 PM | #997 | |
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04-21-2003, 07:05 PM | #998 | |
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04-21-2003, 07:19 PM | #999 |
FloraAzul
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oops you're right elf girl. I read it wrong on the website.
But my poin was that it doesn't come from Iraq
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Atheism: A Non-Prophet Organization Yet many shall be amazed when they see Him-yes even far off foreign nations and thier kings; they shall stand dumb-founded, speechless in his prescence. For they shall see and understand what they had not seen before-Isaiah 52:15a Civil War- 498,332 dead WWI-116,708 dead WWII-407,316 dead Korean War-54,246 dead Vietnam War-58,665 dead Persian Gulf-372 dead War on The Unborn=35,000,000 dead and counting |
04-21-2003, 07:22 PM | #1000 |
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If it did, we wouldn't need to invade them to get it. *pops out of thread she has sworn off*
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