FreeDuck wrote:lt_stapley wrote:How can we possibly understand what is really going on in Iraq when all we here is the bad things trumpeted by the Liberal press. Over 200 insurgents have been captured in Fallujah, and there are among them Egyptian, Syrians, Saudi Arabians, Pakastanis, a few Afghans, oh and couple of Iraqis here and there. We're not fighting Iraqis in Fallujah, we're fighting terrorists who came to Iraq to fight Americans, they don't give a darn about Iraq.
Waka waka waka. If I had a nickle for every time someone said this.
There's just no way to paint a pretty picture of the situation. It's a nasty bloody war, like all wars, and it's being fought for reasons that most people don't understand or do understand but can't stomach.
I vote that it was the stupidest idea of the 21st century.
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'Operation Iraqi freedom' has my vote for the stupidest idea of the 21st century too.
What has NOT been 'trumpeted in the liberal press'
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/
lt_stapley wrote: We're not fighting Iraqis in Fallujah, we're fighting terrorists who came to Iraq to fight Americans, they don't give a darn about Iraq.
Um, I agree that the americans might not have really given a darn about iraq, as a place, a country, with a lot of communities, except as part of a construct for takeover.
I am american and don't feel represented by this amazing bludgeoning war upon a guy.
War is an ugly business, It is justifiable only when the alternative to it is worse.
Posters here have suggested this is a modern colonial war - we are fighting for continued control of Iraq and the oil in that region. Others have termed it the most foolish war of the century or even of all time.
This is not a colonial war in the manner of those fought for centuries by our European friends. We seek influence in the developing governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, and want to see them adopt modern standards of freedom and justice, but we have not sought to rule them or steal their natural resources as did our Spanish, French, British and (though they got into the game rather late) Germans predecessors.
Certainly the prize for the most foolish war of the modern era must go to WWI. It unleashed destruction, death, and continuing political instability across Europe that continued until the fall of the Soviet Empire. It also created the unrest in the debris of the Ottoman Empire with which we are still dealing today. The principal actors in this evil folly were Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. In particular Britain and France knowingly created an Arab uprising to support their colonial ambitions against the Ottomans, and then went on to betray them, impose colonial rule and fight a series of colonial wars over the ensuing three decades that extended from Syria to Yemen and Egypt. They also knowingly excited the hopes of Zionists, and later betrayed them as well. Later, the Nazis, aided by the passive indifference of the occupied European nations - including France, through the Holocaust led a million European Jews to flee to Palestine to create a permanent source of friction and unrest there. As an added measure the French threw in parallel colonial struggles in Algeria and Tunisia, and to a lesser extent in Morocco. Now, except for Britain and perhaps Russia, these countries have slipped into a comfortable forgetfulness and assumed a mantle of serene, unmerited moral superiority, while we attempt to deal with the whirlwind they created.
It is easy to pass thoughtless, moralistic judgements. It is a good deal harder to learn, think, and understand the origins of the challenges before us and deal directly with them.
georgeob1 wrote:War is an ugly business, It is justifiable only when the alternative to it is worse.
And what was worse about the alternative to war in Iraq?
Quote:Posters here have suggested this is a modern colonial war - we are fighting for continued control of Iraq and the oil in that region. Others have termed it the most foolish war of the century or even of all time.
This is not a colonial war in the manner of those fought for centuries by our European friends. We seek influence in the developing governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, and want to see them adopt modern standards of freedom and justice, but we have not sought to rule them or steal their natural resources as did our Spanish, French, British and (though they got into the game rather late) Germans predecessors.
Tiresias cannot be right! Move along folks, there's nothing to see here.
blatham wrote:
Tiresias cannot be right! Move along folks, there's nothing to see here.
No Blatham, you are incorrect - Tiresias couldn't see, but he was always right.
Quote:
We seek influence in the developing governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, and want to see them adopt modern standards of freedom and justice
Can you please explain your use of the phrase "modern standards of freedom and justice"?
Given current events, any use of this phrase in any way connected to US foreign policy is quite difficult to swallow.
ebrown_p wrote:
Can you please explain your use of the phrase "modern standards of freedom and justice"?
Given current events, any use of this phrase in any way connected to US foreign policy is quite difficult to swallow.
Yes, those that prevail in the developed world, as compared to what exists throughout most of the former Ottoman Empire, in Africa, and in parts of Asia.
What "current events" do you have in mind? Do you think the ciurrent situation in Afghanistan is materially worse than it was under the Taliban? Do you think we will leavee iraq worse off than it was under Saddam? Do you think the folks in Kuwait are glads to have their independence again?
georgeob1 wrote:blatham wrote:
Tiresias cannot be right! Move along folks, there's nothing to see here.
No Blatham, you are incorrect - Tiresias couldn't see, but he was always right.
Quite so. But you weren't reading for his part, george. You were reading (see your post above) for the part of the other fellow who is not blind yet can't see the truth of himself.
blatham wrote:Quite so. But you weren't reading for his part, george. You were reading (see your post above) for the part of the other fellow who is not blind yet can't see the truth of himself.
I see, but I don't agree. I read my post again and am even more impressed: insight, sagacity, good phrasing.....
FreeDuck wrote:georgeob1 wrote:War is an ugly business, It is justifiable only when the alternative to it is worse.
And what was worse about the alternative to war in Iraq?
John Stuart Mill said it was the degraded patriotic and moral spirit that makes a man think nothing is more valuable than his own personal safety--when there is nothing he cares enough about to fight for it-- He ended that quote by saying that kind of man is a miserable creature, that will only be made and kept free by better men than himself.
