I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

Well I admit that most of it was a little over my pay grade. (I am housewife so I guess it don't take much) But interesting all the same.

Were Craven and Tico saying something?

I missed that....<shrug>

I'm bumping this thread up because the topic has suddenly reappeared on another thread.

I want veins in my teeth.

You know, when I think about it, it's really hard to think of a war the United States has been involved in in which a reasonable, much less patriotic American could plausibly root for the other side.

There are only two candidates for such a war which I can think of offhand, i.e. "Indian wars" which is stretching the definition of "war" considerably, and Slick Clinton's New World Order wars i.e. Bosnia and Kosovo.

Nothing else qualifies. In every other case you can ask yourself if anybody who any reasonable person could sympathise with would have been better off had the United States lost and the answer is always "NO". Even in VietNam the people of the place are arguably much worse off than they would have been had the US prevailed.

What about America's wars in south and central America? The answer is that you're invariably talking about preventing communism and you only have to look at North Korea, East Germany, the CCCP, or "Zimbabwe" to comprehend that nobody is ever better off when communists rule.

Certainly Iraq does not qualify. Here you have a country which was being used as terrorism-central whose leaders sent lunatics over here to fly airplanes into the world trade towers and poison the US senate office building with anthrax and instead of doing what Genthis Khan or Hitler would have (justifiably) done and sterilize Iraq altogether, we eliminated the rogue regime and are in the process of liberating the place.


In particular, there is no comparing Kosovo and Iraq.

In Kosovo, you had large numbers of civilian casualties, and major damage to the civilian infrastructure of Serbia. This is because the military understood at the time that they were dealing with another dog-wagging episode, this time to take Chinagate and the Juanita Broaddrick story off the front pages of our newspapers, which they could not possibly ask any of their soldiers or airmen to risk injury or death over.

And so they tried bombing from 25,000 - 30,000' for a few weeks and then, when they realized they could not hurt the Serbian military from Earth orbit, they embarked upon a campaign of what you would normally call war crimes, targetting Serbian civilians and civilian infrastructure hundreds of miles from any legitimate military target. There was immense suffering amongst the civilian population

Europeans refer to Kosovo as the "Cowards' War" because of the way it was conducted, and that's apart from the fact that there was no rational cause for it. In other words, about what one would expect from a gang of psychopaths like Slick Clinton, Madeline Albright, and Wesley Clark.

Iraq by way of contrast appears to be the most righteous use of American military power since WW-II. Civilian casualties appear to have been fewer than the regime which we got rid of would have killed for fun and sport in the same time period, and the people of Iraq are still celebrating.

In general, American military personnel knew they were fighting for a righteous cause, and had no qualms about going into harm's way for it, and this very willingness to face danger on the part of our soldiers spared the civilian population from all but a statistically insignificant amount of harm. In fact once the Iraqis realized that only baathist targets were being hit, large numbers of them began going about their normal business as if nothing unusual were happening while a war war going on around them and, for the most part, they were safe doing that, or at least AS safe as normal life had been under the baathists.

Even in the case of Indian wars you have to pick and choose when looking for one in which to root against the US. Nature abhors vacuums. Even in the worst cases you have to ask yourselves where the American Indian might be had the Europeans not gotten here. Would they be living a happy tribal existence, would some natural disaster or disease of wiped them out, or would some combination of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongols have gotten over here before Europeans did, and how would the Indians have fared had that happened? I mean, it isn't likely that they'd have gone on undiscovered very long starting from 1500 and having a land area this size with no more of a technological infrastructure than existed at the time is basically a vacuum.

But, to root for the leftover baathists and imported jihadiis in Iraq, you've got to be a total idiot and a total asshole.

You left out the Mexican War, Gunga, as well as the Spanish War. Pure acquisitive greed was the basis for both wars, for whatever "good reasons" the rabble-rousers of those respective time periods might have claimed.

In those cases a greed motive isn't enough to change the equation. Nobody in the Phillipines was worse off under American rule than under Spanish and nobody in Texas or Arizona is or ever was worse off under American government than under Mexican.

The best thing which could possibly happen to the average Mexican would be the the US to annex Mexico and place it under American laws and customs. Of course you'd have to start by hanging every politician, every police official and every military official above the rank of corporal, but the average Mexican would be vastly better off.

I intend to ignore your series of statements from authority and not just from the specious character. In 1898, the Puerto Ricans did not think they would be better off, and are not convinced of it today. They overthrew Spanish rule when the war broke out, and then fought the Americans when they landed. Anyone who claims Cuba was better off, and that was the source of our causus belli, knows squat about Cuban history. Your suggestion that people in the Philippines were better off is obscene--i would recommend to you the essays of Samuel Clemens on the American use of high explosives and machine guns to attempt to put down the Philippino insurrection against the Americans from the time that Arthur MacArthur landed in 1898, right up to the time that his son Douglas MacArthur evacuated Corrigedor on orders from FDR. The entire citizenry of the Philippines is not at peace with their government to this day, and it is not simply islamic extremist who are in a state of insurrection.

Given your statement about people in the parts of Mexico we stole from them in 1848 at the conclusion of a war of naked aggression conceived for the expansion of slave-state territory are better off strongly suggests to me that you don't know how Indians and people of Hispanic descent live in those states. Justifying that war post hoc on a contention that everyone there is better off is an exercise in historical idiocy. The people who are well-off in the American southwest are almost entirely Anglos--which is to say, their descendants did not live there at the time of that war. Those whose descendants were living there at the time of that war are not uniformly better off, and those of them who are better off than they putatively might have been under Mexican rule are a distinct minority of that population. On a basis as flimsy as you employ in making your statements from authority, one could allege that those same people would be as well-off today thanks to the corruption in the Mexican system to which you point.

You have made no case with regard to the Mexican and Spanish wars, and demonstrate that you lack the knowledge to make the case.

Fillipinos were REAL happy to see Americans returning in 1944. Nobody could fake the films you see of that. The Phillipines were another example of a vacuum around 1900; they were either going to be under American or under Japanese rule.

The government of Mexico is a known quantity; the ONLY thing which Mexico exports other than oil is Mexicans.

Moreover given Mexico as a prime example of Spanish civilization and government, nobody should be able to picture Cuba being better off under Spanish rule than they were afterwards.

Cuba was mainly used to produce sugar. The history of the slave trade in sugar producing areas is totally different from in the US. The United States is the only place where black slaves werre ever treated well enough to reproduce and be self-sustaining. In the places in south and central America and the Caribbean which absorbed the other 85% of the slaves coming from Africa, those slaves were literally worked to death and then replaced in something like a six or seven year cycle.

Given that, it's just REAL hard to believe that anybody in Cuba was better off in 1890 than they were after the Americans took over the place.

Moreover the Spanish got to the new world a hundred years or so before the English ever did. If they'd ever done anything for the place or with the place, they or their descendants should still be running it, shouldn't they?

Moreover the Anglos took over the southwest with handfulls of settlers and military. If there'd been any sizeable Spanish settlement in the areas in question that would obviously not have been possible. The basic truth is that the southwest was sparsely to zero-ly inhabited at the time, and the Anglos basically just walked in. The first time there were ever any meaningrful numbers of Mexicans in California was after the Anglos had gone in and created any sort of a reason (including jobs) to want to be there.

God, i'm laughing my ass off. You should trot on over to Nuevo Mexico and tell the Hispanic families who have been living there for nearly four hundred years that they represent a sparse population.

If you knew the history of Cuba after the Spanish War, you'd understand that with the constant political struggle, the constant insurrections, the repeated revolutions, the repeated intervention of the United States, that it is a highly suspect statement to contend that the Cubans were better off. Yes indeed, so well off under Batista that even Americans initially applauded Castro's takeover.

What you find you are able to believe has nothing whatever to do with what is to be found in the historical record. The many Indian tribes and the many Hispanic settlements established literally for centuries when the Americans arrived gives the lie to your contention about how many people were living there.

I take it you contend that because the Philippinos were glad to see the last of the Japanese, you are authorized to contend that they were better off under American rule than under Spanish rule. Rather an odd proposition, don't you think? When Douglas MacArthur accepted the position of military adviser to the Philippine armed forces in 1937, he was already very familiar with the islands and their history. His first duty station after graduating the United States Military Academy was to the Philippines, in 1903. He then served in Manila as the engineer officer to the commander of the Pacific Division from 1904 to 1906. He was the commander of the Manila military district in 1922 and 1923. A reporter once asked him about the insurrection of the Hukbalahaps, commonly known simply as Huks, which was general throughout the Philippines from the time of the 1898 landings right up to the Second World War. He responded that if he were a Huk, he'd rebel, too. And to fill in a little your pathetic lack of knowledge about the Phillipines, the Hukbalahaps rebelled again in 1946, after that war, and their leaders were not run to ground until 1954. It was not until the Philippino government actually substantially addressed the greivances of the Huk peasants during the administration of President Quirino that the Huk insurrection, which began against the Spanish before the Americans even arrived, was finally quelled.

Don't know much about history, do ya Gunga?

That originally having some strong motive--what, I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning--to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy he [i.e. the president] plunged into it, and has swept, on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself, he knows not where. How like the half insane mumbling of a fever-dream, is the whole war part of his late message! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever, that we can get, but teritory; at another, showing us how we can support the war, by levying contributions on Mexico. At one time, urging the national honor, the security of the future, the prevention of foreign interference, and even, the good of Mexico herself, as among the objects of the war; at another, telling us, that "to reject indemnity, by refusing to accept a cession of teritory, would be to abandon all our just demands, and to wage the war, bearing all it's expenses, without a purpose or definite object[.]" ... As to the mode of terminating the war, and securing peace, the President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemies country; and, after apparently, talking himself tired, on this point, the President drops down into a half despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes, by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace[.]" Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own leaders, and trusting in our protection, to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace; telling us, that "this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace." But soon he falls into doubt of this too; and then drops back on to the already half abandoned ground of "more vigorous prossecution.["] All this shows that the President is, in no wise, satisfied with his own positions. First he takes up one, and in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another, and goes through the same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature, on a burning surface, finding no position, on which it can settle down, and be at ease.

-- Abraham Lincoln, traitor

(And, as an interesting intellectual excercise, just replace "Mexico" in the above with "Iraq")

In 1898, President McKinley stated that it was necessary for the United States to annex the Philippines so as to "christianize" the inhabitants. One of the reporters to whom he was speaking pointed out to him that the Philippinos were already Roman Catholics. McKinely responded: "Exactly."

The imperialist bug had bitten America, and nobody could have been happier than Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and Henry Cabot Lodge. Before the war, Leonard Wood was McKinley's physician, and was still a serving officer in the United States Army. McKinley would ask Wood from time to time: "Well, Leonard, have you and Theodore declared war on Spain yet?" To which Wood would reply: "No sir, but we're hoping you will soon."

The Philippino insurrection began in February, 1899, when the Huks realized that there would be no land reform and no democracy under American rule. Arthur MacArthur, certified Civil War Hero and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, was given command of the Army there, and the force was expanded to 70,000. Conservative estimates of the number of Philippino men, women and children killed by the American "anti-insurgency" campaign run to a quarter of a million. Samuel Clemens (a.k.a., Mark Twain) commented that the stars and stripes in our flag ought to be replaced with the skull and crossbones.

Writing in the New York herald in 1900, Clemens stated:

"I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone to conquer, not to redeem... And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

Clemens also wrote:

"We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag.

"And so, by these Providences of God--and the phrase is the government's, not mine--we are a World Power."

I cannot recommend too highly to you a book entitled A Pen Warmed Up in Hell, which was published about a decade ago. It is a collection of Mr. Clemen's more acid essays on his life and times. A good deal of it is devoted to sarcastic and condemnatory passages on the slaughter of Philippino peasants by the United States Army.

There was no intimation given that the removal of the 3d and 4th regiments of infantry to the western border of Louisiana was occasioned in any way by the prospective annexation of Texas, but it was generally understood that such was the case. Ostensibly we were intended to prevent filibustering into Texas, but really as a menace to Mexico in case she appeared to contemplate war. Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.

-- Ulysses S. Grant, traitor

Clemen's most famous (or notorious) criticism of the Philippine annexation was entitled To the Person Sitting in Darkness. It is too long to post here, so anyone who wishes can read it here[/url].

This is what i consider to be the most biting remark Clemens makes in that essay:

"The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we perceive that it is going to be bad for the Business. The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: 'There is something curious about this--curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land.' "

How very appropriate to more eras and events than simply the case of the Philippinos.

Amazing quotes, guys, thanks.

Good lookin' out, Joe. I have Grant's memoirs around here somewhere, but had trouble digging it out just now.

Adds another thanks!

While engaged in a very long walk around Manhattan yesterday (with EhBeth and Lola)...your name came up.

We hadn't seen you around for a while...and I mentioned that I missed your posts.

Beth said she thinks you moved back to the mid-West.

Hope all is well.

f.

Frank: In case O'Bill doesn't get a chance to reply, as he has been extremely engaged and unable to post often -- he is a busy new restauranteur.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1242425#1242425

And he did move back to the midwest, so of course all is well.

Joe, set...thanks guys.