War

[GRUNHERZ]

"3. GB is going to translate his revulsion to the ordinary Iraqi citizen and that's a major error."

Why is it major error? If you make that stement you must then assume to know the characteristics of Iraqi people and their values. How could you make that stement without presuming knowledge of the values and preferences of "ordinary iraqis"

Here is an example:  

Think about it, to say that certain behavior is a "error" it is impliued that you know what the proper behavior actally is:

In a American workplaces today it is considered a major error to be racist towards your coworkers.

As opposed to - which has no clue of of american values:
 
In america today it is very good idea to adress your black coworker by the n-word.

Understand?

So if you say that you have no idea of what is important to iraqi people, how can you then say that US policy towards them is wrong?

[Animal]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
So after addmiting to having read the linked articles (full of direct  Bush and Iraq references) you excpect me to belive the above statement?

Perhaps you may think I'm stupid but damn Animal please dont insult me so much...

Perhaps you are, because it seems you truly believe that anyone denouncing Bush's policies is automatically a Bush hater. Guess what? I can feel something is wrong without needing to put all of my attention on who is doing it.

As for war.

Be clear now, do you universally hate all wars or just those you subjectivly disagree with for whatever reason.

Yes, I universally hate all wars.

For example would you have thought it a good post two years ago if somebody contemplated how much money was "wasted" in the Afghan war after 911.
 Or more bluntly 60 years ago as for ww2, which really cost a lot of money and would have put millions of kids through college for example.

LOL you dont get it, do you? Do you honestly think this current war is a good war? do you think WWII was a good war? Because if you do, you believe terrorists smashing planes against buildings and NAZI's storming Europe was a good thing.
I may hate war, but I know when its necessary to wage open war. It was in WWII, it is not now.

So if you you are going to bring out the noble "I hate war" stuff you better be be against them all no exceptions.

Yes, I honestly hate all wars. Dont you? Do you honestly believe that the unnecessary destruction caused during WWII was good? So you are saying you think it was a good thing that WWII happened?

Otherwise it's more like - I disagree with the current adminstrations policies - which is far far different fropm "I hate war"

I disagree with current administration policies because they are based on waging open war liberally. One thing is fighting terrorism, which I am totally for, another is the conquest of land in the name of the fight for terror. Which actually breeds more hate, and more terrorism. Someone bombs a bus, we strafe his village, they blow up our WTC, we destroy a big portion of their country, so on. How can you not hate this?

But none of this means I hate Bush, and that I will disagree automatically with everything he says or does.

 Now you allready used the qualifier "unnecessary" so maybe I should have some preconceved notions about your answer.....

Oh, please. You have preconceived notions about anyone who disagrees with you. You prove that over and over. Anyone who disagrees with you on something, you automatically treat him like an enemy.

Are you unable to view every new conversation with a fresh mind? learn to, it really is refreshing, pun intended

I hope you are truly right when you say this is just an online persona, because if you are this way in real life, then you seriously have issues.

Hey, have you noticed how I dont actually participate on many of the political threads here, and even suggested a separate political forum? Its because of the way things are here.  This is the only place where I have been called both a comunist AND a fascist in the span of one day, just for saying my views, or for agreeing with someone or something that a certain clique despises.

I'll end it with this:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

Would you call him a leftist anti war pansy, not knowing he was the great general of the allies?

Ike is one of my most respected historical figures. I agree with him entirely on this statement. And I also agree with the reasons the free world had to, sadly, wage war against the fascist war machine during WWII.

So dont come here to tell me I'm wrong for hating war.

[AKcurly]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ

Why did I write my intial response?  I percived your post and the others I was sure were to come (and of course they did, like always in these threads) as just self congratulatory pagentry where you all just reinforce your preconcived distate for the war and how terribly wasteful it is, like all the other "anti war" news or link threads.

Grunherz, you know me.   I have no axes to grind, including generalized statements about war.

I think (perhaps I'm wrong) that most of us don't object to war and all of its expense and misery so long as the outcome is clearly identified.  Certainly I don't object to war in the right situation.

If we comitted to wiping out Iraqi culture and imposing Western European/North American culture, yes, maybe the current situation would make sense.  But, if we try to do that, we're going to facing a passel of angry arabs, afghans and persians.

I object to the Iraqi war because the outcome is poorly-defined.  And as such, we're not going to change a thing - we'll stir the pot, let some Iraqi court whack off Saddam's head and then they'll replace him with someone who is equally bad from our point of view.  Of course from the Iraq POV, the new bad guy will be wonderful.

And that's the whole point -- FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW.  We do not understand the Iraqi point of view.  We do not understand the Arab point of view.  For the love of pete, we don't understand virtually anything about the entire region.  But that isn't preventing us from trying settle the issue using our POV.

Failure to understand a pov didn't prevent LBJ from stepping on his dork and evidently, GB has the same shortcoming.

curly

[AKcurly]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
"3. GB is going to translate his revulsion to the ordinary Iraqi citizen and that's a major error."

Why is it major error? If you make that stement you must then assume to know the characteristics of Iraqi people and their values. How could you make that stement without presuming knowledge of the values and preferences of "ordinary iraqis"

No, as I have said again and again, the deep down, ingrained cultural values of the Iraqi arab are a mystery to the entire Western world, including GB.  Over the duration of this event, there will be literally hundreds of decision points that we will reach.  To assume that any American politician will make the correct decision from an Iraqi point of view is ridiculous.  

Even more damning, suppose GB somehows sniffs out a good decision for the Iraqis.  Suppose the decision is a political liability.  Will it get implemented?

We should be in Iraq if and only if we have a clearly defined goal.   Do this, this and this, accomplish that and leave.  And we don't!  We've grabbed the tarbaby and we're desperately trying to suck the rest of the non-moslem world in.

Here is an example of a clear strategy.

1. Invade Iraq.
2. Kill Saddam Hussein and his get.
3. Salt the earth where Saddam lived.
4. Exit Iraq.

I would have supported the above.

curly

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Without any of Bush's advisors living in Iraq, its safe to say they don't know what the average Iraqi values.

Thats the point I believe Curly is getting at, he doesn't have to know what the ordinary Iraqis value because its a safe bet the administration doesn't know either.

Hell, US policy got the Iraqis Saddam in the first place.
-SW

[GRUNHERZ]

"This is the only place where I have been called both a comunist AND a fascist in the span of one day, just for saying my views, or for agreeing with someone or something that a certain clique despises."

Me too, Miko has called me a communist a few times and I'm always called a fascist warmonger.

I also agree about the cliques thing, in fact thats why I posted in this thread.  


About war. People who were afraid to militarily confront Hitler in the 1930s caused a much more terrible war to take place in the 1940s. Whether its good or bad is kinda pointless, the only thing that matters is if you are confronted with war.

In 1967 Israeli intelligence got wind that the Arabs were preparing a massive pan-arab army to invade israel from all sides. Knowing thay were horribly outnumbered the Iraelis struck first, disrupting the arab war plans and winning a major victory saving their nation from annihilation one more time.

Was their action good or bad? Would it have been more good for them to wait until the arabs attacked?

So what is my view on war? Personally, the civil war in yugoslavia was not kind to my family and me, close relatives were murdered in their hospital beds in the seige of Vukovar (imagine a small stalingrad in 1990s europe), others were taken captive by serb troops and never seen again,  a mortar round nearly decapitaded my mother while blowing up part of the home I grew up in and made my family over there refugees  and I was seperated from half my family for the better part of the 1990s.  So naturally, I really love war - of course not. I think it sucks because real people and real life stories are destryoyed and desrupted by it.

However what difference does it make what I think of war, whether its good or bad.  The serbs would have sent those mortar shells flying anyway whether I thought war was bad or not.

With this personal pain of war how could I possibly support wars or the military in general? I have written enough allready but if you care I can explain why.

[GRUNHERZ]

One word answer to all these "we westerners cant possibly understand Iraq, so its best to do nothing after the war" comments:

Japan

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Hell, US policy got the Iraqis Saddam in the first place.
-SW

Proving that, at least some westerners have no clue about Iraq.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Yes, because we didn't have our hands in the making of Saddam.

Had it not been for us, we would not have the "Saddam used WMDs on his own poeple" retort.
-SW

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Yes, because we didn't have our hands in the making of Saddam.

Had it not been for us, we would not have the "Saddam used WMDs on his own poeple" retort.
-SW

That is true of course but the USA did not install him as you said before. But so what, why do you people think the constant repetition of varitaions on the line:  

"In the past the USA was allies with and helped  Saddam/Bin Laden"

has any relevance whatsover to the current situation, more precisly what do you think it adds to your anti-war arguments?  It would be like saying that it was wrong for the USA to fight the communists in Korea because during WW2 we were allies with Russia and supported russia and helped finance the Russian war effort against a common foe. What should have we done, let the germans win? Or somehow that the cold was was the fault of the US because ,what, we helped the russians when we both faced a common enemy and that somehow helping them stave off german annihilation would cause a 50year cold war? Ridiculous. And the same works with this tired Saddam/BinLaden schtick too. It was not our fault these guys betrayed us and became our enemies just as it was not our fault Stalin betrayed us and became our enemy after WW2.

[Thrawn]

Grun, you are a hypocrit.  You are one of the first to post in back slapping conservative threads.

[Saurdaukar]

Great troll.

[lazs2]

I doubt that anyone is for war over peace.   I doubt that ol Dwight was ever for backing down from war when it was inevitable or the only solution or even the best solution.

LBJ would probly be for giving the vote to women....  just about everything he thought was wrong... a true socialist.

lazs

[yowser]

Grunherz Translated:

mmmph.....slurp..........gulp....ahhh, thank you Mr. Bush....may I have some more?


yowser

[Sparks]

Good Post Curly - we are seeing smaller but equally significant figures in the UK.

But I ask "why are we spending the money" and "where are we spending the money".  I think these are important questions.

As to the why - (puts flame suit on) well I'm still a firm believer in the thinking that the War on Terror and WMD arguements were a front.  The campaign in Iraq is a stategic and economic investment. The US and the UK have no real interest in Western democracy in Iraq.  They do however have a very strong interest in a friendly regime. If democracy was the driver then the relationship with the Saudis would not exist and the involvement in Yugoslavia would have been much stonger earlier.  The evidence for this level of investment to achieve purely political doctrinal aims is simply not there.

So why?? It is never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket and so the US and UK presence in Saudi Arabia is a shaky foothold.  This was proved when the Saudis disallowed operations from their territory in the Iraq war. The US and the UK need another platform from which they can exert pressure in the Middle East.

A presence in Iraq gives us a strategic positon to exert pressure on the Syrians and the Iranians directly during negotiations.  Particularly it gives the US a postion to back up Israel should the Syrians turn nasty.

The second why is the economic investment. The significance of the oil reserves under Iraq cannot be ignored and even if the US do not eventually control the production (by the fields being operated by US companies), then by having a friendly and dependant regime in power gives the US and the UK another ally in OPEC.

So now to the where.

I think we can safely assume that the money being talked about here is not for welfare payments to Iraqis but more for contracts for rebuilding and infrastructure.  We have also seen that GWB has stated that only involved coalition partners will benefit and I think it is safe to assume it will be on a pro-rata basis.  Therefore most of the money will go to US companies for capital projects or support of US operations. So given that most of the work will involve US technical personnel then it is safe to say that a proportion - say 30% - of that money will go straight back to the government in taxes of some sort or another.  Then consider the support contracts. Lets take for example fuel and power - Iraqi oil pumped by US equipment (bought in th US and shipped over) under the supervision of US contract labour refined by US supplied equipment moved around by new US built trucks. Again most of the money will be internally spent and a large proportion recovered in taxes.  About the only spending completely in Iraq will be local wages, which will at a very low rate, and local materials.

All in all what I see is the building of the next Saudi Arabia or an extension of Kuwait.  The ruling council will be replaced by a "Freely Elected" body of approved powerful tribal and religious leaders - the basis for pre-approval has already been laid down by the US.  The ruling Government will be dependant on US and UK help to maintain security and infrastructure replacement for 10 - 20 years.  "Allowances" be will made to "tailor democracy to the unique differences in Arab culture" and life will settle into a Kuwait / US / UK style arrangement.

At least 50% of that 87 billion will go straight back to the treasury inside 2 years.

The REAL loss has been the weapons used - cruise missile = 1.4mil tax payers dollars gone boom  - no return no clawback - pure loss.

Just my take on it

Sparks