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Rich Rice
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 April 2008
Posts: 195
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | 1
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Lots of luck Marcio getting them to see the error in their ways. We haven't come to grip with the failed vision and logic behind the Vietnam War, let alone grasped the magnitude of our present moral failure in Iraq.
The Military Right, overseer of our Christian Army, is of the mind we 'lost' that war because they weren't allowed to slap heads around and scorch earth. -Never mind that no domino fell after South Vietnam. And here we sit, fifty years later with normal trade agreements with a communist country. And no one bats an eye about it. -When I hear people say "Our soldier's should never die in vain." I think about those young men who died in patriotic pain, thousands of miles from home so that 40 years later, American shoppers I can buy cheap wicker baskets at Wal-Mart. Just the thing to give your life for, eh?
The premise driving it all was false. And, history repeating itself, it will be false again.
To wear a uniform precludes one being a terrorist.
What a fascinating human construct.
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Rich Rice
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 April 2008
Posts: 195
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | 2
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On Hearing a New Escalation
From time one I've been reading slaughter,
seeing the same bewildered face of a child
staring at nothing beside his dead mother
in Egypt, the pyramid blueprints approved,
the phrases of national purpose streaming
from the mouth of some automated sphynx.
Day on day, the same photographed suffering,
the bitterness, the opportune hate handed down
Xerxes to Nixon, a line strong
as transatlantic cable and stale ideals.
Killing's still in though glory is out of style.
And what does it come to, this blood cold
in the streets and a history book printed
and bound with such cost-saving American
methods, the names and dates are soon bones?
Beware certain words: Enemy. Liberty. Freedom.
Believe those sounds and you're aiming a bomb.
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Joel Tesch
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 2835
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 3
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Since Iraq did not ask us to invade them, and there were no weapons of mass destruction, no 9/11 link. I believe those that made the orders to attack Iraq should be tried as war criminals.
Even the senators that voted for it?
And remember, Iraq (or Saddam) was not a completely innocent victim in all this. The US (for right or wrong) was in the position to do this in the first place bc Iraq was violating the UN terms from the first Gulf War (when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was poised to do the same to Saudi Arabia). Saddam and Iraq had a history of aggression and was willfully violating UN sanctions. That was factored in to the (as we now know FAULTY) intelligence about a WMD program.
I'm not saying it was the right decision...ultimately it wasn't (there were no WMDs). But it's not as simplistic as insinuating we invaded a country out of left field and thus are guilty as war criminals.
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Rich Rice
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 April 2008
Posts: 195
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | 4
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I wonder over that split second moment when a human being faces that agony filled milli-second alive at the hands of another human being, what quality of experience this must be? What quality it is to have death occur at the hands of a hooded fanatic with a sharp blade against the soft tissue of one's neck? And how that experience shapes up against death from above, some unseen massive cluster bomb, coming to shred one's head as if it were a pumpkin under the force of a million, million hammers.
If there is a soul and these two meet in some after life to compare notes, who's death was more gentile? More just? And what exactly was the contrasting qualities of that final moment that gives us certainty to sleep like lambs in one case? Or stir restlessly over the other?
Will it ever be the case where we would look another human being eye to eye, and always see a fetus staring back?
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Bruce Buchanan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 June 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4797
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 5
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You are completely right, Joel. Let's not forget that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the war. He frequently and flagrantly violated the U.N.-imposed terms that ended the Gulf War. Those terms included inspection of Iraq's weapons sites - inspections that the Hussein regime regularly tried to thwart.
Everyone - from the Clinton Administration to the UN to western Europe - was convinced that Iraq had WMDs because Hussein allowed the world to think that, knowing he was risking war. His mistake was in thinking the Allies wouldn't have the will to enforce those terms. He's like the mean kid who repeatedly poked a big dog with a sharp stick - he had no one to blame but himself when the dog eventually bit him.
So if you want to say going to war was a bad decision, that's certainly your right. But it wasn't a unilateral decision by the U.S. Iraq's repeated provocations over more than a decade's time played a huge role in leading to war.
Edited by Bruce Buchanan on 27 October 2008 at 1:35pm
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Marcio Ferreira
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Joined: 20 September 2008
Location: Brazil
Posts: 2514
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | 6
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And remember, Iraq (or Saddam) was not a completely innocent victim in
all this. The US (for right or wrong) was in the position to do this in
the first place bc Iraq was violating the UN terms from the first Gulf
War (when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was poised to do the same to Saudi
Arabia). Saddam and Iraq had a history of aggression and was willfully
violating UN sanctions.
+++
Saddam was not innocent, but that does not give the right to invade another country and kill innocent civilians, the humanitary disaster in Iraq is far worse than media shows on TV.
What about having a criminal group making a robery at a bank, is it ok to bomb the bank just to kill the criminals? No matter how many innocent people there is inside the bank?
Iraq and Vietnam are just examples of how US government engages in wars under false pretenses just to keep the high profits of the "WAR industry" .
It is sad because I am sure most US citizens are ashamed of the behavior of their government.
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Jodi Moisan
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Joined: 19 February 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 6808
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | 7
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Even the senators that voted for it?
given the lies set before them and the raw wound after 9/11 yes I understand why they did. and no they should not be charged.
Bruce are you saying the UN voted to invade Iraq?
Edited by Jodi Moisan on 27 October 2008 at 1:44pm
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Christopher Alan Miller
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Joined: 26 October 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2787
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 8
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Since when does the UN have Senators?
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Jodi Moisan
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | 9
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They don't Bruce brought up the UN
He frequently and flagrantly violated the U.N.-imposed terms that ended the Gulf War.
Edited by Jodi Moisan on 27 October 2008 at 1:46pm
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Marcio Ferreira
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | 10
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But it wasn't a unilateral decision by the U.S. Iraq's
repeated provocations over more than a decade's time played a huge role
in leading to war.
+++
That is simply not true. Europe was against the war. I clearly remember the "freedom fries" after "french fries" because France did not supported the war against Iraq.
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Marcio Ferreira
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 11
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Jodi Moisan
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| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 12
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There is no way, shape or form you can say we Americans were right to invade Iraq. You can justify it in your mind, but that doesn't make it right.
Edited by Jodi Moisan on 27 October 2008 at 1:50pm
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