Samira wrote:
Quote:
baaaaa baaaaaa baaaaaa
We're three little lambs
who've lost our way.....
It leaps from bough to bough.
It lays its eggs in Rhubarb Trees
and Whistles like a cow
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- iraq report is in, let the spinn begin
iraq report is in, let the spinn beginFollow
We're three little lambs
who've lost our way.....
It leaps from bough to bough.
It lays its eggs in Rhubarb Trees
and Whistles like a cow
"I started out with nothin' and I still got most of it left" - Seasick Steve
Quote:
You're doing something that is great at compelling people to your "side", but pretty horrible at actual analysis of the issue at hand. You dismiss the positives out of hand and proceed to list only the negatives.
If you do nothing but list negatives you will rapidly conclude that *nothing* is worth doing. By your logic, the US should not have gotten involved in Europe during WW2. After all, we lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, spent the equivalent of trillions of dollars, killed hundreds of thousands of people who didn't do anything to us at all, and totally thrashed the place requiring a couple decades of yet more spending to fix.
I'm reasonably sure you'd agree that the positives for us all outweighed the negatives. Perhaps if you dig deep to figure out what the positives were, you might just begin to understand the same sorts of positives exist in this conflict. It's not about what is least costly. It's about what is the right thing to do. It's shocking to me when Europeans adopt this sort of position given that if it wasn't for the US doing the "right thing" rather then the "least costly thing", you'd all be goose stepping in a thousand year long Aryan "utopia" right now.
----------------------------
Good argument! Outstanding.
/clap.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders". Carlin.
gbaji wrote:
TiredWWIIanalogiesGogogo!!!!!
Jingoism ahoy!
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
/shrug
I know you guys love to mock comparisons like this, but the point I'm making is valid. You cannot judge the "value" of the decision to invade Iraq by purely listing off the costs and other negatives involved.
The WW2 example is just the easiest and most obvious example where using that method clearly gives us a wrong answer. And in order to prove that the method is wrong, I only need to show that it's wrong once
I suppose I could pick some obscure conflict with complex interactions and results that no one's ever heard of before and use it as my example case. But since we've presumably all heard of WW2 and are reasonably versed in terms of what happened, it seems like a reasonably good one to pick in order to make my point.
So yeah. I'm going to go with WW2. Do you have a problem with that other then "it's a tired example"?
Oh. And let's be honest. That last sentence in my WW2 comparison was pure literary gold. Gold I say! ;)
Edited, Sep 20th 2007 6:52pm by gbaji
I know you guys love to mock comparisons like this, but the point I'm making is valid. You cannot judge the "value" of the decision to invade Iraq by purely listing off the costs and other negatives involved.
The WW2 example is just the easiest and most obvious example where using that method clearly gives us a wrong answer. And in order to prove that the method is wrong, I only need to show that it's wrong once
I suppose I could pick some obscure conflict with complex interactions and results that no one's ever heard of before and use it as my example case. But since we've presumably all heard of WW2 and are reasonably versed in terms of what happened, it seems like a reasonably good one to pick in order to make my point.
So yeah. I'm going to go with WW2. Do you have a problem with that other then "it's a tired example"?
Oh. And let's be honest. That last sentence in my WW2 comparison was pure literary gold. Gold I say! ;)
Edited, Sep 20th 2007 6:52pm by gbaji
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
gbaji wrote:
I know you guys love to mock comparisons like this, but the point I'm making is valid.
Oh, that's right: "If you disagree with Iraq, you'd have loved HITLER!!!!!". Nevermind.
Edited, Sep 20th 2007 9:19pm by Jophiel
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
gbaji wrote:
If you do nothing but list negatives you will rapidly conclude that *nothing* is worth doing. By your logic, the US should not have gotten involved in Europe during WW2. After all, we lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, spent the equivalent of trillions of dollars, killed hundreds of thousands of people who didn't do anything to us at all, and totally thrashed the place requiring a couple decades of yet more spending to fix.
I'm reasonably sure you'd agree that the positives for us all outweighed the negatives. Perhaps if you dig deep to figure out what the positives were, you might just begin to understand the same sorts of positives exist in this conflict.
I'm reasonably sure you'd agree that the positives for us all outweighed the negatives. Perhaps if you dig deep to figure out what the positives were, you might just begin to understand the same sorts of positives exist in this conflict.
OK, fine, I'll bite.
The positives of WWII (among many others) were to prevent the systematic genocide of a race of people, to protect our borders from co-ordinated and clear assault by identifiable threats, to assist allies who had been or were imminently threatened to be overcome by force.
Your turn.
Celcio wrote:
The positives of WWII (among many others) were to prevent the systematic genocide of a race of people, to protect our borders from co-ordinated and clear assault by identifiable threats, to assist allies who had been or were imminently threatened to be overcome by force.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Jophiel wrote:
Iraq, in contrast, has never been a major supplier of atom-secret-unlocking Hebrews.
Yeah, pretty sure there's just a general shortage of Hebrews there. It's those damn sanctions preventing useful imports.
There used to be a lot of jews in Iraq until fairly recently....And christians too.
Iran has a lot of jews as well. They is even represented in the upper layers of parliament (or whatever they call it there).
Gbaji why dont you use Vietnam as an example...? Bushy boy is, so it makes it ok now.
Iran has a lot of jews as well. They is even represented in the upper layers of parliament (or whatever they call it there).
Gbaji why dont you use Vietnam as an example...? Bushy boy is, so it makes it ok now.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders". Carlin.
paulsol the Righteous wrote:
They is even
Coo-coo-coo-Cooter
paulsol the Righteous wrote:
There used to be a lot of jews in Iraq until fairly recently....And christians too.
Quote:
The remainder of Iraq's Jews left over the next few decades, and had mostly gone by 1970. Today, fewer than 100 Jews remain in the country, and, as of 2004, debate over the Iraqi constitution has included whether Jews should be considered a minority group, or left out of the constitution altogether.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
It depends on what you mean by "fairly recently", yes there were decent-sized minority populations of both Jews and Christians (largely referred to as Chaldeans) until, as Joph referred to, some serious not just anti-semitic, but anti-nonmuslim sentiments of the ruling class/party. 70's sound about right but the immigrations continued well into the 90's when possible.
But we're agreed that, by 2002/2003, all of the rocketry-and-nuclear-fission Jews had left Iraq for greener pastures.
After all, had they been in Iraq, we might have actually found some WMDs.
After all, had they been in Iraq, we might have actually found some WMDs.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Jophiel wrote:
But we're agreed that, by 2002/2003, all of the rocketry-and-nuclear-fission Jews had left Iraq for greener pastures.
After all, had they been in Iraq, we might have actually found some WMDs.
After all, had they been in Iraq, we might have actually found some WMDs.
But how can you identify the rocketry-and-nuclear-fission Jews? Do their peyos glow an eerie green? Maybe they're just in some sort of resistence underground and are busily putting boots on cattle (only the front part, the back bit isn't kosher) to sneak their way into Top Secret facilities.
Celcio wrote:
But how can you identify the rocketry-and-nuclear-fission Jews?
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Yeah..by fairly recently I meant 30 years or so. An ex-girl-friends family were Iraqi jews originally from Baghdad. They left in the mid 70's...
They used to talk about what a lovely city it was to live in.
They used to talk about what a lovely city it was to live in.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders". Carlin.
Quote:
killed hundreds of thousands of people who didn't do anything to us at all
Um, what? The Axis Powers did plenty to us before we *actively* got involved in the war.
Tell me, what Iraqi soldier attacked any American after the first Iraqi war and this one?
I don't recall any merchant ships getting sunk by Iraq. I don't think Iraq attacked the United States directly, but hey, I could be wrong!
**** poor comparison. This war is nothing like WWII, or any other American War for that matter.
Quote:
It's shocking to me when Europeans adopt this sort of position given that if it wasn't for the US doing the "right thing" rather then the "least costly thing", you'd all be goose stepping in a thousand year long Aryan "utopia" right now.
You never know, we might very well be sharing away in a thousand year long Communist "utopia" right now.
Just like the US would be drinking tea in a thousand year long British "utopia" right now, if it wasn't for the French and Lafayette.
So now that we've established the fact that we can both make stupid and irrelevant comparaisons, care to come up with some real arguments?
Only joking, keep up the good work, soldier!
Celcio wrote:
OK, fine, I'll bite.
The positives of WWII (among many others) were to prevent the systematic genocide of a race of people,
The positives of WWII (among many others) were to prevent the systematic genocide of a race of people,
Which we didn't actually know about at the time (supposedly). Also, it would be interesting to compare the number of Kurds who'd been killed by Saddam during the 15 years or so prior to our invasion.
Seems pretty similar then.
Quote:
to protect our borders from co-ordinated and clear assault by identifiable threats,
Excuse me? Germany was conducting co-ordinated and clear "assaults" on the borders of the US? Seriously...?
Remember. I'm specifically talking about why we got involved in the European conflict during WW2 rather then just telling Britain and France to deal with their problems themselves.
Quote:
to assist allies who had been or were imminently threatened to be overcome by force.
Ok. But what's in it for us? Iraq did invade Kuwait, right? Iraq failed to comply with the terms of the cease fire it agreed to after that invasion. Sure. It didn't actively invade anyone else, but I think you're missing the point here. Had someone acted to stop Germany prior to it taking over 3/4ths of Europe, maybe WW2 would not have been such a big deal either. We can't say what would have happened. Also, there's a difference here in terms of conventional versus unconventional warfare.
Quote:
Your turn.
I was going to address some other flaws (such as the fact that you've listed only actions made by the "other side" rather then actual benefits like "world peace", "a stable europe", "increased US presence in the region", etc...), but I came across this very interesting excerpt from a book written in 1953 called Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
It's interesting because the author attacks FDR's actions and decisions leading up to WW2 in a manner *very* similar to the attacks against Bush leading up to the Iraq war. Of particular interest is this bit. It's really long, but it's startling in it's similarity to the "There were no WMDs" arguments being used by the anti-war crowd today.
Quote:
The justification of Mr. Roosevelt’s admittedly unneutral policy toward Germany which was originally offered for public consumption was to claim the necessity of self-defense against an almost immediately anticipated attack. But when the immediately anticipated attack did not eventuate, a more satisfactory and more indefinite hypothesis became requisite. Some sincere but uninformed people have faith in the revised justification to this very day.
The revised hypothesis was amplified into a claim of the necessity of an anticipatory self-defense, and it had variant versions as propounded at different times. In one form the story ran that Hitlerite Germany was planning to attack the United States in a military way at some unspecified future date. In another variant the military attack was to be made by a conspiratorial combination of Fascist nations(2) after they had first conquered the rest of the world. In yet another variant the attack was not to be military at all, but rather a kind of economic strangulation of America by embargo or boycott.
The variants of this second justification were more useful, propagandawise, than was the first hypothesis. The new hypotheses were more indefinite ; they ranged more widely in futurity, and they aroused more emotional response in those who believed in them on faith.
Looking as they did to a far more distant future these revised hypotheses were quite incapable of contemporaneous disproof. Consequently it was impossible for skeptics to contest them at the time of utterance, and therefore Mr. Roosevelt’s intended course of action could not be prevented or hindered by any rational argument based upon known facts. Moreover there was always the happy chance, from Mr. Roosevelt’s point of view, that even though such hypothetical justifications were not true when made, they might come true at some later date in consequence of his repeated unneutral and hostile activities.
With the passage of the years the texture of these widely propagandized fears is seen to be a shabby fustian. Tons and tons—quite literally—of the German archives, and of their top-secret plans, memoranda, and correspondence fell into the hands of the victors at the end of the war. These documents were winnowed and studied with care for months and months by dozens of investigators in a meticulous search for every shred of evidence which could be presented at the Nuremberg trials. After a lengthy and minute ransacking it transpired that nowhere in these papers was there to be found any evidence of any German plans to attack the United States. Quite to the contrary, the embarrassing fact developed from the secret papers that for many months prior to Pearl Harbor Chancellor Hitler was doing all that he could to avoid conflict with the United States !
The revised hypothesis was amplified into a claim of the necessity of an anticipatory self-defense, and it had variant versions as propounded at different times. In one form the story ran that Hitlerite Germany was planning to attack the United States in a military way at some unspecified future date. In another variant the military attack was to be made by a conspiratorial combination of Fascist nations(2) after they had first conquered the rest of the world. In yet another variant the attack was not to be military at all, but rather a kind of economic strangulation of America by embargo or boycott.
The variants of this second justification were more useful, propagandawise, than was the first hypothesis. The new hypotheses were more indefinite ; they ranged more widely in futurity, and they aroused more emotional response in those who believed in them on faith.
Looking as they did to a far more distant future these revised hypotheses were quite incapable of contemporaneous disproof. Consequently it was impossible for skeptics to contest them at the time of utterance, and therefore Mr. Roosevelt’s intended course of action could not be prevented or hindered by any rational argument based upon known facts. Moreover there was always the happy chance, from Mr. Roosevelt’s point of view, that even though such hypothetical justifications were not true when made, they might come true at some later date in consequence of his repeated unneutral and hostile activities.
With the passage of the years the texture of these widely propagandized fears is seen to be a shabby fustian. Tons and tons—quite literally—of the German archives, and of their top-secret plans, memoranda, and correspondence fell into the hands of the victors at the end of the war. These documents were winnowed and studied with care for months and months by dozens of investigators in a meticulous search for every shred of evidence which could be presented at the Nuremberg trials. After a lengthy and minute ransacking it transpired that nowhere in these papers was there to be found any evidence of any German plans to attack the United States. Quite to the contrary, the embarrassing fact developed from the secret papers that for many months prior to Pearl Harbor Chancellor Hitler was doing all that he could to avoid conflict with the United States !
Again. I'm not saying that this similarity in any way equals a justification for war with Iraq. I'm only saying that the similar counterarguments being used by the anti-war folks do not prove a lack of justification, much less that the war "wasn't/isn't worth it". Because those same arguments were used to criticize another war that I think we all agree *was* worth it.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
gbaji wrote:
Ok. But what's in it for us? Iraq did invade Kuwait, right? Iraq failed to comply with the terms of the cease fire it agreed to after that invasion. Sure. It didn't actively invade anyone else, but I think you're missing the point here. Had someone acted to stop Germany prior to it taking over 3/4ths of Europe, maybe WW2 would not have been such a big deal either. We can't say what would have happened. Also, there's a difference here in terms of conventional versus unconventional warfare.
So in what year would you have invaded Germany? 1933?
Any arguement that Iraq was in any way a threat to Europe or mainland USA is utterly laughable.
gbaji wrote:
Quote:
to protect our borders from co-ordinated and clear assault by identifiable threats,
Excuse me? Germany was conducting co-ordinated and clear "assaults" on the borders of the US? Seriously...?
Remember. I'm specifically talking about why we got involved in the European conflict during WW2 rather then just telling Britain and France to deal with their problems themselves.
Kudos, you fail at such a basic and fundamental level that it boggles the mind.
Do a quick google search, **** Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, not vice versa. Thanks for showing up gbaji.
Bode - 100 Holy Paladin - Lightbringer
Archfiend bodhisattva wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Quote:
to protect our borders from co-ordinated and clear assault by identifiable threats,
Excuse me? Germany was conducting co-ordinated and clear "assaults" on the borders of the US? Seriously...?
Remember. I'm specifically talking about why we got involved in the European conflict during WW2 rather then just telling Britain and France to deal with their problems themselves.
Kudos, you fail at such a basic and fundamental level that it boggles the mind.
Do a quick google search, **** Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, not vice versa. Thanks for showing up gbaji.
You stole my punchline
Of course his disturbingly glaring ignorance on even the most fundamental points of WWII is probably why he is quoting it as a comparison for Iraq.
He just doesn't know any better.
He just doesn't know any better.
Bode - 100 Holy Paladin - Lightbringer
the posts in this thread underscore my statement that the masses can not comprehend the big picture of why we invaded iraq.
little minds with little arguments. he said, she said, picture? what picture? i dont like what you said, so lets argure semantics.
and this is the mindless dribble people who make decisions in a democracy have to wade through to do what they believe needs to be done. thats why they hire PR men. politicians. and thats just what george bush is. a PR man.
if its any consulation, he probably doesnt fully understand the big picture either. let me paint you a picture that might help a little.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
suppose we find an alternate fuel supply. say, elecric or hydrogen. its not cheap, but its plentifull. or say it is cheap, make that 2 pictures.
1. its cheap.
electric and hydrogen are easy to make. ANYONE can do it. so lets do it. the oil industry gets rocked....hard. so what? tens of thousands of oil workers out of a job. gas stations closing my the hundreds of thousands. truckers and tanker crews out of a job. ship yard builders loosing billions of dollars in orders. air line tickeds skyrocketing, sending half or 2 thirds of the airline companies into bankrupcy. the auto industry as we know it today, totally gone as fly by night conversion companies pop up every where. gasoline engine companies bellie up, including farming equipment, generators, boat engine builders the works. parts companies of all types.
not just tens of thousands of jobs, but tens of millions of jobs....gone.
a recession of the likes the WORLD has never seen lasting for decades untill the infrastructure slowly shifts its products and manufacturing over to the new energy. whole states in destitution and poverty.
2. its not cheap.
manufactruing companies flocking to countris where energy IS cheap to be competitive in the market. auto companies GONE as a flood of foreign imports flood the market from third world countries who still have CHEAP energy to manufacture with. american made products dissappearing from the world market all together. a nation turning from a trade deficit to an island economy where EVERYTHING is imported and NOTHING is exported. a user economy where the most wealthy thrive and EVERYONE ELSE is in sire poverty. no money, no housing. no home builders. no housing industry jobs. the entire country transformed into a hati where a hand full of the people live in extravagance and the other 95 percent of the population is starving to death and living on the streets.
all because it costs MORE to make stuff here than anywhere else in the world. thats what happens if we walk away from cheap energy if we could. and we can. unless the WORLD is on an even footing with energy costs WITH us, they will pass us by like the world passed Hati and other third world hell holes by. no industry means no economy.
and there is LESS than 100 years of cheap energy left in the PLANET.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
the world needs to move away from oil. but it must be done equitably through out the world. the only way to do that is to make sure WE HAVE ACCESS to the cheap energy untill the very last drop is pumped out of the ground so our manufacturing industry can compete globally.
the last one with the lights on WILL BE a economic super power when the wells run dry and every one is forced to move to new energy all at the same time.
this is GOING to happen. it is just a matter of time. not much time either.
how do we get in? how do you convinced a nation of mostly christians that it is necessary to butcher innocent human beings to position ourselved on top of the economic dung heap of this planet, and then exume a sence of urgency so it can be done NOW with much less blood shead than when it becomes critical and possibly generates a new world war....we MIGHT NOT WIN.
9-11. a policy makers dream come true. a nation stirred into a murderous frenzy that only has to be pointed in the right direction. thats why we have already hanged Hussin, but Bin Laudin is still a free man.
here is a prediction. even after the repubs are kicked out of office for doing the dirty work, ie, lieing to you to get you to support butchering innocent people for black gold and world domination, the dems WILL NOT LEAVE the middle east.
here is an openion. tmost of them wont even understand why. the powers that be will ask them to spinn it to the mindless masses, you, and thats what they will do.
here is a fact. you will NEVER be told why. and most of you will still be fighting simantics and pissing on each other about the lies you have been told.
little minds with little arguments. he said, she said, picture? what picture? i dont like what you said, so lets argure semantics.
and this is the mindless dribble people who make decisions in a democracy have to wade through to do what they believe needs to be done. thats why they hire PR men. politicians. and thats just what george bush is. a PR man.
if its any consulation, he probably doesnt fully understand the big picture either. let me paint you a picture that might help a little.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
suppose we find an alternate fuel supply. say, elecric or hydrogen. its not cheap, but its plentifull. or say it is cheap, make that 2 pictures.
1. its cheap.
electric and hydrogen are easy to make. ANYONE can do it. so lets do it. the oil industry gets rocked....hard. so what? tens of thousands of oil workers out of a job. gas stations closing my the hundreds of thousands. truckers and tanker crews out of a job. ship yard builders loosing billions of dollars in orders. air line tickeds skyrocketing, sending half or 2 thirds of the airline companies into bankrupcy. the auto industry as we know it today, totally gone as fly by night conversion companies pop up every where. gasoline engine companies bellie up, including farming equipment, generators, boat engine builders the works. parts companies of all types.
not just tens of thousands of jobs, but tens of millions of jobs....gone.
a recession of the likes the WORLD has never seen lasting for decades untill the infrastructure slowly shifts its products and manufacturing over to the new energy. whole states in destitution and poverty.
2. its not cheap.
manufactruing companies flocking to countris where energy IS cheap to be competitive in the market. auto companies GONE as a flood of foreign imports flood the market from third world countries who still have CHEAP energy to manufacture with. american made products dissappearing from the world market all together. a nation turning from a trade deficit to an island economy where EVERYTHING is imported and NOTHING is exported. a user economy where the most wealthy thrive and EVERYONE ELSE is in sire poverty. no money, no housing. no home builders. no housing industry jobs. the entire country transformed into a hati where a hand full of the people live in extravagance and the other 95 percent of the population is starving to death and living on the streets.
all because it costs MORE to make stuff here than anywhere else in the world. thats what happens if we walk away from cheap energy if we could. and we can. unless the WORLD is on an even footing with energy costs WITH us, they will pass us by like the world passed Hati and other third world hell holes by. no industry means no economy.
and there is LESS than 100 years of cheap energy left in the PLANET.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
the world needs to move away from oil. but it must be done equitably through out the world. the only way to do that is to make sure WE HAVE ACCESS to the cheap energy untill the very last drop is pumped out of the ground so our manufacturing industry can compete globally.
the last one with the lights on WILL BE a economic super power when the wells run dry and every one is forced to move to new energy all at the same time.
this is GOING to happen. it is just a matter of time. not much time either.
how do we get in? how do you convinced a nation of mostly christians that it is necessary to butcher innocent human beings to position ourselved on top of the economic dung heap of this planet, and then exume a sence of urgency so it can be done NOW with much less blood shead than when it becomes critical and possibly generates a new world war....we MIGHT NOT WIN.
9-11. a policy makers dream come true. a nation stirred into a murderous frenzy that only has to be pointed in the right direction. thats why we have already hanged Hussin, but Bin Laudin is still a free man.
here is a prediction. even after the repubs are kicked out of office for doing the dirty work, ie, lieing to you to get you to support butchering innocent people for black gold and world domination, the dems WILL NOT LEAVE the middle east.
here is an openion. tmost of them wont even understand why. the powers that be will ask them to spinn it to the mindless masses, you, and thats what they will do.
here is a fact. you will NEVER be told why. and most of you will still be fighting simantics and pissing on each other about the lies you have been told.
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