OMFG, it was his job, no ones fault

[Subjugation]

At least I know that the UK media is rivalling the US media with stupidest stories ever written (see Jennifer Wilbanks's story).

True. I like how everyone assumed the husband killed her, then they spent another 3 days backtracking. $

[Jeansi]

"I didn't know guns kill people when I enlisted".

Good job.

[Pandagirl!]

We learned about ways to cope with your emotions in health class today, and while we were talking about displacement (projecting your feelings onto someone else, basically) I brought this up. Crazy stuff.

[Sarien]

Just to play the devil's advocate, I'd like to hear what you consider a "justified" war and what doesn't constitute one.

A justified war is a war that is initiated with sufficient legal reason. Not only this, but same said reason is demonstrated to the public of the country that is going to be initiating it. A couple quick recent examples of justified:

WWII: Nazis were killing jews hand over fist (genocide) and invading countries left and right. A good portion of europe was forced into that war out of self preservation and defense. The US sat on its ass for much too long in my opinion, but did finally do the right thing.

Gulf War I: Iraq invaded Kuwait. They precipitated that war. They started it. The US entered that war to liberate Kuwait. That was the stated goal at the beginning of the war.

Now, to the current Iraq War?
We'll absolve the US administration of having "bad intelligence".
They had bad intelligence and said "stop making your illegal weapons and allow inspectors unrestricted access or we will invade."
The inspectors were given unrestricted access and they didn't find anything. These aren't some random guys that were just pulled off the street to go look for the things. These inspections is what their JOBS are. They're saying "There are no weapons, but to be absolutely sure we need more time."

Bush said "No." Do you begin to see where it's unravelling now? Bush laid down his demands, and even though he had bad intelligence to begin with, the people on the scene were giving him a different story. But rather than try to do everything possible before invading that country, he had set a deadline, and he stuck to it.
Now it's proven the intelligence was bad, the reasons Bush used to get public support for this war were false, (There's precedent for that, check out the Gulf of Tonkin incident) his own demands to that country, one of which was impossible to comply with (because the weapons didn't exist), and the other was indeed complied with. The opening shot of this war, fired by the Americans, was even fired early, because there was a chance they could "get" Saddam.
Into the war the reason for the invasion apparently no longer exists, so in a massive and great bout of PR, they change it to "Saddam was a bad man and needed to be removed". I completely agree that Saddam was a bad man. But changing horses in midstream like that shows you how screwed up this is. A good portion of the American public that I know didn't question it, because to question it wouldn't be "supporting the troops", and if you weren't "supporting the troops", then it was the next best thing to being considered a traitor.

Were this a smaller country initiating it, I somehow doubt the other world powers would have so easily agreed. Their citizenry certainly did not. America went from the highest amount of world sympathy it's ever had in 2001, to being near despised in most every corner.

[scumbag]

"I didn't know guns kill people when I enlisted".

Good job.

ROFL :grin:

[pv=nrt]

America went from the highest amount of world sympathy it's ever had in 2001, to being near despised in most every corner.

Good to hear things are back to how they were pre 2001

[GoldenPlums]

Good to see at least sarien makes sense.

Was it justified or not? The main point is that most people (in the US and in the UK) don't really know why we went to war. You really need to know why we did it before you can judge whether it was justified or not.

Good to hear things are back to how they were pre 2001

No, they're not. The opinion of the US now is not the same as pre-2001.

Creager, stay off the red meat or shut up.

[genocidal]

A justified war is a war that is initiated with sufficient legal reason. Not only this, but same said reason is demonstrated to the public of the country that is going to be initiating it. A couple quick recent examples of justified:

I don't think public knowledge is or ever has been a requisite for a justified war. Unless you're going to argue that the better half of US wars/conflics/military actions are unjustified.

WWII: Nazis were killing jews hand over fist (genocide) and invading countries left and right. A good portion of europe was forced into that war out of self preservation and defense. The US sat on its ass for much too long in my opinion, but did finally do the right thing.

1) When the United States entered World War II, we did not what was going on in these concentration camps. It was only until after the war when we went into the country and saw how fucked up the shit was. I mean, of course we knew he wasn't pro-Jewish, but nobody in America cited Hitler's anti-semitism as a reason for war. I think this is pretty interesting because it's a common argument used by anti-Bushites to say that the Iraqi War is unjustified. However, since we didn't know what was going on in World War II until after we conquered the Germans it could be said that knowledge of a corrupt and oppressive dictator (ie Hitler and Hussein) actually justifies a war on the mere threat of some sort of genocide occuring. I'm not saying that's a really good justification for the entire war, but it certainly proves that many liberals are making the wrong historical arguments against this war.
2) The real reason we joined World War II (not counting Pearl Harbor and Japan since the US declared war on Japan and Germany at two different times) was because the US felt threatened by Hitler. He was taking over much of Europe and the US knew the next step could be the United States. For this reason, the comparison of the Iraqi War to WWII is fairly useless because the situations are entirely different.

Gulf War I: Iraq invaded Kuwait. They precipitated that war. They started it. The US entered that war to liberate Kuwait. That was the stated goal at the beginning of the war.

Well you're right, but not entirely. Wars happen all the time in all parts of the world. The only reason the US felt compelled to expel Hussein was, pretty much, because Kuwait was our close ally because of their oil production. You can use many of the same arguments against the Gulf War as you can against the Iraqi War because they both are wars of intervention where we have mainly economic and humanitarian interests. The fact that the Gulf War occured as a response to an international dispute means fuckall since the US rarely cares about other wars in the world.

Now, to the current Iraq War?
We'll absolve the US administration of having "bad intelligence".
They had bad intelligence and said "stop making your illegal weapons and allow inspectors unrestricted access or we will invade."
The inspectors were given unrestricted access and they didn't find anything. These aren't some random guys that were just pulled off the street to go look for the things. These inspections is what their JOBS are. They're saying "There are no weapons, but to be absolutely sure we need more time."

You put an interesting light on it. Hussein has been toying with the UN since the Gulf War in hopes of preventing a war like what happened. That's the only reason I can come up with because he was bluffing the whole time yet he kept fucking around the the inspectors by kicking them out and not letting them go certain places. It's not like he was totally innocent and going out of his way to prove it.

Into the war the reason for the invasion apparently no longer exists, so in a massive and great bout of PR, they change it to "Saddam was a bad man and needed to be removed". I completely agree that Saddam was a bad man. But changing horses in midstream like that shows you how screwed up this is. A good portion of the American public that I know didn't question it, because to question it wouldn't be "supporting the troops", and if you weren't "supporting the troops", then it was the next best thing to being considered a traitor.

1) You may think it's changing horses midstream, but I never heard the administration saying, "The sole reason we're invading Iraq is for their weapons of mass destruction." That was simply one of the reasons we invaded them. I agree it was a big reason for many people, and it turning out to be a lie is pretty fucked up, but it shouldn't change your opinion entirely on the war.
2) For me, suppporting the troops is not so much agreeing with the war but agreeing on the fact that we're already in Iraq, we can't leave now without serious reprecussion for that country, and dwindling public support at home empirically hurts military morale - which is crucial to military successes.

Were this a smaller country initiating it, I somehow doubt the other world powers would have so easily agreed. Their citizenry certainly did not. America went from the highest amount of world sympathy it's ever had in 2001, to being near despised in most every corner.

I think that this is the most sound argument against the invasion. I mean, other than suffering the casualties, I think that bringing democracy to a region like the Middle East is good. I have studied about democracy in developing countries and I know that some countries end up with worse democracies than dictatorships but on the whole democracy tends to generate better lifestyles for the most number of people and the sooner we get democracy into the Middle East the sooner we will see countries develop and wars somewhat cease.

By the way, it may seem otherwise from my post but I was totally against the war before it started and I still don't think we should have done it probably but I can see how it can have its good points.

[Squeezer]

Fuck all of you.

[Weaver]

What do you expect to happen when you join the armed forces? The military is there for fighting. If you aren't ready to die, don't join the damn military. Forget about Bush and the war in Iraq. The military serves one purpose, and that purpose is to fight, or to die depending on the circumstances.


I'll never join the military, even if we ever have a draft again. Jail is better than killing someone, or having someone kill you. Killing just cant be justified IMHO.

[Riesen]

At least it's not as bad as Pat Tillman's death. He was killed by friendly fire, and the people who fired on him didn't bother to check their target, they just opened fire, ignored his smoke grenade and arm waving, and killed him. Then the Government destroyed the proof of that and just said it was an accident.

[K2Grey]

And if the people who killed him won't talk, and the government destroyed the proof (although what would constitute that, I don't know), then you know this how?...

[Hairygroin]

well said, genocidal...


And Sarien, yes I can see some moral implications in war (as there always are, since a war is *always* dirty in some way), but to call a war "illegal"? War and legal status really aren't even in the same sentence.

War is a show of force and strength. Legalities really are relative because a country owes nothing to any other nation but itself. Does your law stop another country from attacking you? Does it f*cking care what laws you have?

The only thing that can be called breaking a law is if a treaty is broken, and even that has its limits in a time of war. No country wants its freedoms to pursue interests tied behind its back and like a bully in a playground, the stronger country can get away with breaking treaties and rules. The only thing preventing that is a threat from another country or a country's own goodwill.

[Riesen]

And if the people who killed him won't talk, and the government destroyed the proof (although what would constitute that, I don't know), then you know this how?...

They (The Army) recently came out and admitted to what they did. This is 2 years after his death, though. His family, friends and squadron members didn't know until now. Also, it was on the news.

[K2Grey]

OK, that's an acceptable answer. I just hate it when people declare huge conspiracies and then offer no explanation for how they happen to be the only ones in the universe to be in on it.