How Dare We Call It a War!

dys here what exactly is the question?

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Looking for informed opinions upon Gulf War Syndrome and it's possible causes, I think.

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cobalt wrote:

If there is a way to drop the current dispute between a few posters who I do appreciate (by the way) then perhaps this thread won't get locked again. Since I strongly believe that the topica of "what we call this whatever" between the US and Iraq is extremely important now and certainly in history to come, am hoping that we can continue.

Any comments on the issue about the Gulf War after-effects regarding the benefits military participants received or did not receive? Certainly the whole "Gulf War Syndrome" brought out many of the fine details the public would not have realized as to the term of War as was or was not applied.

Thanks for showing up Dys! Does this help?

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well first of all i was in Vietnam in the very early days pre agent orange. the only information i would have is that on the occassions when i have gone to the V.A. hospital there are quite a few service people there for agent orange as well as gulf war syndrome. it seems that the V.A. takes it seriously.

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"The administration grossly miscalculated the response and the result was a humanitarian disaster. If the administration calls this 'winning,' then what we're winning is that we get to occupy -- at the cost of billions of dollars and we get to be in -- for no telling how long."

Some sour-grapes Democrat whining about Iraq, right?

Guess again. That quote is from Don Nickles (R-Okla.), in an assessment widely heard in GOP circles at the time of Bill Clinton's achievement of a ceasefire in Kosovo.

Now - what were all you Repubs saying about criticism of a president in wartime?

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This link has some good information:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15300

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PDiddie wrote:

"The administration grossly miscalculated the response and the result was a humanitarian disaster. If the administration calls this 'winning,' then what we're winning is that we get to occupy -- at the cost of billions of dollars and we get to be in -- for no telling how long."

Some sour-grapes Democrat whining about Iraq, right?

Guess again. That quote is from Don Nickles (R-Okla.), in an assessment widely heard in GOP circles at the time of Bill Clinton's achievement of a ceasefire in Kosovo.

Now - what were all you Repubs saying about criticism of a president in wartime?

You neglected to mention 2 major points here however. 1st, Nickels was also widely critisized by fellow Republicans for making that statement - something that hasn't happened with Democrats in the current situation.

Second, Nickels made his statement a full month AFTER a UN Sponsored Peace Proposal had been put in place. The conflict had ended already while your "sour-grapes Democrats" have been whining all the way through this current conflict.

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aaaaaack! I repeat - aaaaaaack! If it is at all possible I would greatly appreciate it if this thread were not subject to being locked again! PDiddie and fishin - I respect both of you for so very many pithy comments in abuzz and I've seen less of you here in a2k, but still - I am hoping that the main thrust of this thread remain as stated. As such, it is not a Repub/Dem issue in any way - there is the internal to the US question of what to call "this" debacle and then there is the global thinking as to what this "debacle" is all about.

Yeah, I know that I tipped my viewpoint by using the term "debacle", but I continue to view this horrendous episode in American history as an attack by cowboys on indians. This is not to disparage Native Americans, but to summon up the good guys vs. bad guys fight that so characterizes the US......

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Relax, Cobalt ... fiesty is cool, and fishin' is fiesty. fishin's also pretty cool ... I doubt seriously this thread's in much danger of getting locked again in the near future ... if anything, with fishin' and me here at the same time, this is likely the most "Moderate" thread on the board right now. Laughing

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Agree with Cobalt: "...it is not a Repub/Dem issue in any way - there is the internal to the US question of what to call "this" debacle and then there is the global thinking as to what this "debacle" is all about... "

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This "war" was an unseemly use of our vastly superior force in what may have proved to be an unnecessary way. In any case, if ultimately the war proved unavoidable, we fought it at an inappropriate time.

We rail against the United Nations as being a debating society rather than an institution of action -- and institution with guts and the ability to get the tough things done.

But by our actions here-- we undercut the UN and made it less able to break from its debating society mode -- we made it less able to be an institution of action.

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fishin

Good to see you once more. Even with the caveats you add, PDiddie's point is a good reminder that short memories serve disengenous politicians far better than they serve citizens and truth. Partisan expressions of outrage ought to, just by themselves, set off some loud bullshit detectors in each of us.

Frank

It seems clear, at least to me, that the US (even preceding this administration, but particularly so now) has preferred a weakened and defanged UN. And that is not an insignificant observation.

One can consider - had this amount (invested in the Iraq war) of money, personnel and diplomatic activity been directed towards achieving a viable and workable United Nations, on the model of the US constitution, what might have been achieved?

So the question arises, why not have gone that way? What forces, interests and dynamics determined the present course? The answer to that question, I consider, suggests everything that is wrong and out of control with the US as a world actor.

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Blatham -- If you were within reach of "loco radio" you'd hear a coalition of righties who believe the UN wants to take over the US, subvert the Constitution, make the US part of a sinister global system. Within that group are 1) those who voted for Bush but think Bush is a globalist and collaborator with the UN and hate him now and want him out of office, and 2) those who voted for Bush and think Bush is a victim of the UN and globalists and he's doing the right thing in distancing himself from them. He needs both groups to be elected, as well as needing the chickenhawk intellectuals who believe American dominance is better served by bashing the UN to death and going it alone -- and those millions who support this view.

If you sample these media outlets and combine them with Limbaugh et al, you see a vast number of Americans who are being persuaded that the UN is the tool of communists and socialists who are deliberately standing in the way of US "superiority." The other 49% of us (and the rest of the world) are scared stiff at this I-don't-wanna-know thinking which drives the administration (see also the rift between State and Defense...)

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Blatham & Tartarin

Excellent posts.

Thanx.

f.

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Here, here;

I'm with FrankA; excellent comments!

I do, however feel that the actual makeup of the U.N. is partially responsible for their terminal inability to act decisively; Yugoslavia, Ruwanda, Gulf, etc.

I love Blatham's suggestion re: U.S. Constitution model for the U.N., but in spite of its seeming aptness, it doesn't even seem to work for the U.S., does it!

Where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him?

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Tartarin

It is a great blessing, for my emotional equanimity, that those radio stations are not available to me (well, I suppose they might be, but I'd rather look for mouse feces in a stadium full of rice).

But I am aware of these voices and the black helicopters. And I am aware of Carl Rove's pandering to them. (great piece by Elizabeth Drew on Rove from NY Review http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16215 )

I think, aside from these pathologically paranoid notions, there are deep institutional factors also working against an effective UN; most particularly the military and the industrial community associated, not to mention the folks like Kissinger and Perle who might well be considered very bad guys indeed from an internationalist perspective.

I have turned a corner now. Bad enough this action with the deceptions in stating cause. Bad enough the ubiquitous bemoaning of 100 heroic soldiers and almost bugger all on the thousands of blown up innocents and Iraqis. But now, with what was allowed to happen to the National Museum contents, I consider these people and institutions have become the world's greatest present danger.

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BoGoWo

Ideals, like the US constitution, are never really attainable in full. They are what we strive towards. It's the assumption that we've arrived and have it all in hand and now manifest the ideal which is the dangerous delusion.

Quote:

Melville's great novel is prophetic even if the resemblance of the Pequod to George Bush's White House is imperfect. Though Ahab's missing leg and the destroyed Twin Towers are symbolically comparable losses, as is Dick Cheney's lost opportunity to kill Saddam Hussein in 1991, Iraq will not crush and sink the United States as the whale crushed and sank the Pequod. Nor is George W. Bush a grizzled monomaniac whose mere glance strikes terror, but the callow instrument of neoconservative ideologues, obsessed since the end of the cold war with missionary zeal to Americanize the world, as previous empires had once hoped with no less zeal to Romanize, Christianize, Islamicize, Anglicize, Napoleonize, Germanize, and communize it...

Victor Klemperer, the great diarist of the Holocaust, saved from the gas chamber twenty-eight years later only by his marriage to an "Aryan," went further: "We, we Germans are better than other nations. Freer in thought, purer in feeling, juster in action. We, we Germans, are a truly chosen people."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16214

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"I think, aside from these pathologically paranoid notions, there are deep institutional factors also working against an effective UN; most **particularly the military and the industrial community**..."

Precisely. But don't dismiss the paranoiacs' fears as mouse droppings unless you're willing to admit that the droppings are increasing and the rice disappearing. And don't overlook the fact that the administration positively DEPENDS on paranoia for its political fuel, and (this may be harder for many) the paranoiacs aren't wrong about everything!

The danger of Bush & Co. has been apparent since the Reagan years -- not L'il W precisely, but the anti-intellectual, anti-secular, anti-UN, anti-democracy, anti-freedom forces have been there both as an overt movement, and a covert re-organizing of the Right.

If this were an internal struggle in the US, it wouldn't be dangerous except to those of us who engendered it (all Americans, like it or not). But we're endangering the whole world, its social systems, its histories and, god help us, its natural environment. Our mouse-droppings -- everywhere. Wunnerful. And in the name of God.

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Blatham -- Some of us have been comparing what we expected from a hypothetical Bush administration (back in late '99, say) with what's actually occurred. Speaking of paranoid, I don't think one of us would deny that our very worst "paranoid" expectations have been not just met but exceeded. So I'm now as wary of the term "paranoid" as I am of "patriotism"! Like, uh, ya never know.

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Gotta remember even paranoids can have real enemies Twisted Evil

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How Dare We Call It a War!

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