The UN, US and Iraq IV

Oh, I dunno, Steve. May I interrupt here with my own startling image. I keep my workboots and hiking shoes on a rack in the garage. From time to time, something (usually a wren) tries to nest in one of them. This time it's a family of toads!

http://pic7.picturetrail.com/VOL203/985067/1830704/33231067.jpg

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Iknow. we Europeans, especially we Germans, should be deeply indebted to the USA.
For instance that it heled us with the Marshall Fund ... and thus helps you to read about Europe and the Muscle-Bound Superpower

[Couldn't find the original, above mentioned poll yet, but this article gives some more information:
Poll: European Support for U.S. Fading]

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That was an interesting article.

The last sentence: "But just as Europe is urging America to balance its enormous arsenal with more clever applications of soft power, Europeans need to recognize that the outside world will only take them seriously as a global superpower when they can back up their prescriptions for peace with the ability to enforce them"--pretty much sums it up.

The Europeans, in large numbers, believe they can be a force comparable to the US, without a military build-up. Unrealistic. You can't debate or intellectualize someone out of your front yard if they don't want to go.

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Walter, It's not so much that the support from Europe for the US is fading; it's the whole world support for the US that's faded. This administration has done a yeoman's job in only three years.

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Sofia wrote:

The Europeans, in large numbers, believe they can be a force comparable to the US, without a military build-up. Unrealistic. You can't debate or intellectualize someone out of your front yard if they don't want to go.

Only about half of Europeans believe war can ever be just - we had had enough wars, not only in our front yard, but actually (and literally!) in houses!

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Walter, War is never 'just,' especially the latest one with Iraq. Humans must learn to negotiate peace, and learn to reconcile differences without the need to kill each other off to make a point.

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Especially modern war where to the victors go the costs!!!!!!!!!

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"Tartarin's got toads in her boots!" Shocked

Got a few words here from General Anthony Zinni (you may recall that he was so against the war that he said that the administration would "rue the day" it chose that path):

Quote:

Many U.S. policymakers "don't have a clue'' about the looming threat, not only in Iraq but in a string of countries stretching from Africa to the Pacific, Zinni said.

"It's not a phased conflict. There isn't a fighting part and then another part,'' he said in an apparent jab at Bush's declaration that major hostilities in Iraq had ended. "At the end of the third inning we declared victory and said the game's over. It ain't over.''

Now, that comes from the Virginian-Pilot, about as conservative a paper as you could imagine in about as pro-military a city (Norfolk-Virginia Beach) as exists on the planet.

The Virginian-Pilot is also conducting a little Internet poll on U.S. policy in Iraq. I know, I know -- easy to freep. But look at the numbers (as of 9:00 PM ET this day):

Quote:

How would you rate the job the U.S. is doing to reconstruct Iraq?

Excellent: 10.65%
Good: 24.06%
Fair: 21.94%
Poor: 43.35%

The freepers apparently are asleep at the switch on this one.

And if Bush is losing Norfolk, Virginia, he's losing the country.

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PDid, I doubt that the people in the military are as dense as the civilian population in our country: GWBush said he would support medical care for our vets, but he took it away instead. I think every man and woman in the military knows about this double-cross. They have families at home, and many are still getting their loved ones killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they're not in a uproar, I"m not sure what's keeping them bottled up.

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http://www.allhatnocattle.net/Postcard%20Rummy.jpg

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http://www.allhatnocattle.net/plates%20ww.jpg

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Maybe one of the explanations for a lot of attitudes we read and hear about concerning Iraq and the rights and wrongs of it.............we have always gone to war. War has not come to us. So we have no idea of the meaning of it, and can sit in judgment from a land that's never been invaded.

We have been so fortunate - one reason why I think this administration's callous attitudes and actions are evil. They go beyond the uninformed - they don't care. And tha is evil.

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I disagree strenuously that war has never come to us. As the 911 anniversary approaches, you will get a chance to renew your thoughts on how war came to us on that day.

I suspect there are some who would wonder how you could forget Pearl, as well.

7 out of ten Americans believe Saddam Hussien had a role in 911. As Timber stated-- it hasn't been proven. Nor has it been disproven.

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Sofia -- I lived in Holland in the aftermath of WWII. Even the aftermath made more of an impression on me than 9/11. We have no idea of the sheer scale and hardship war brings. It's not flashy, contained, and with no long hard years of destruction, fear, destitution... No idea at all. Don't throw back the 3,000 who died. It was horrendous, but it was nothing like the thousands and thousand more in prison camps, tortured, maimed, disappeared. If we did have the slightest idea, we wouldn't be so ready to inflict it on others -- and so self-righteously.

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Agreed, 9-11 was terrorism (again) on our territory but it's a peculiar kind of war and not many will agree that that was a viable reason to invade Iraq -- strictly on the back burner as a reason and liable to remain there with WMD.

Is this the same 7 out of 10 Americans who can't name a Democratic Presidential candidate perhaps?

War did come to us with Pearl Harbor, the American Revolution and within our own factions, the Civil War. World War I did not come to us, but because Churchill conveniently forgot to warn us that there were German submarines where the Lusitania was sailing blindly into those dangerous waters. We would probably been drawn into it eventually but there's always that nagging suspicion that Churchill and Wilson had cooked something up to convince the doubting American legislature.

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I don't understand your statement, Tartarin--"Don't throw back the 3000 who died." They did die. In an attack on the United States. No matter how you slice it.

Regardless of how it falls into one's political opinion, or how much it did, or did not affect them... It cannot and will not be forgotten, or ruthlessly cast aside as if it never happened.

That disgusting, unprovoked act of mass murder of innocent Americans does not have to stand, supported by opinions of whether or not it was a legitimate reason for war in Iraq. It happened. It stands alone, undiluted by other wars, other hardships, and related bullshit. The worth of those lives is not diminished by politics.

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Sofia wrote:

I disagree strenuously that war has never come to us. As the 911 anniversary approaches, you will get a chance to renew your thoughts on how war came to us on that day.

I suspect there are some who would wonder how you could forget Pearl, as well.

7 out of ten Americans believe Saddam Hussien had a role in 911. As Timber stated-- it hasn't been proven. Nor has it been disproven.

This is a specious argument. Who are we at war with?
As for the link between Iraq and 11th September, I thought better of you than this, Sofia.

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Mamajuana said--

Quote:

Maybe one of the explanations for a lot of attitudes we read and hear about concerning Iraq and the rights and wrongs of it.............we have always gone to war. War has not come to us. So we have no idea of the meaning of it, and can sit in judgment from a land that's never been invaded.

The statement was incorrect. War has come to us. I think it's ridiculous to pretend that it hasn't. Mamajuana may have momentarily forgotten, but what's your excuse for seeming indignant that I pointed out the error.

Specious? Factual.

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Sofia -- However godawful 9/11 was, it doesn't even compare with the harm we've inflicted, nor the harm others have suffered in other wars at other hands. And don't forget the closest most Americans came to the destruction of 9/11 was through the radios and TVs.

I don't think 9/11 justified the messes we've created (and the lives sacrificed) in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are family members of those who died on 9/11 who have spoken up, saying precisely that. Terrorism in India, in Bali, in the Philippines -- all comparable (and if we're being told the truth) related to 9/11 -- all of these are serious too but haven't caused the violent response 9/11 has caused.

9/11 was used as a cause for war, but it was not just cause.

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"Justification" and Iraq Redux are not at issue in my post.
Been there, done that enough.

Just clarification that war has indeed come to us.

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The UN, US and Iraq IV

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