For those against the war

[stkelly52]

I asked this question in an earlier thread and it was passed over so I thought that I would start a thread of my own and see if I can get a better understanding of those opposed to war.

At what point should the US get involved in overseas conflicts? Should we have intervined in Kosovo? Ruwanda? For that matter what about the US's involvment in Europe during WWII? The Germans didn't do anything to the US, only the Japanese. For all of those opposed to war, I want to know when, if ever, you feel military force should be used.

[JPhillips]

I'm not going to get involved with this except to correct your history. The Germans in WWII did in fact declare war on us. Now if they hadn't that would have left Roosevelt with some difficult choices as he had always seen the Nazis as the major threat.

[Airhog]

hmm, I just assumed that since the japanese were allied with the germans, that when we declared war on the japanese we also declared war on the axis by default?

[stkelly52]

Ah but if we had just never gone over to europe in the first place the Germans may very well have just left us alone. The US fired the first shots at Germany.

[JPhillips]

No. The Germans declared war on us in December 1941. They also began unlimited submarine warfare at that time. In 1942 they sunk a massive amount of cargo tonnage. While we had some air warfare in the summer of 1942, we didn't really engage the Germans until Operation Torch in November 1942.

Regardless of that, a formal declaration of war is proof that they would not have "just left us alone". Don't mean to get pissy, but check your history before you try to use it to argue your points.

[John Galt]

I believe we should have pursued a peacekeeping mission in Rwanda (it is one of the great modern tragedies that we didn't). I think our missions in the former Yugoslavia were late coming, but generally well-designed (our diplomatic solutions, on the other hand were far from perfect). And yes, WWII was a time for war.

I don't believe Iraq poses a unique threat and I think this intervention will only increase terrorism and violence over the long run.

[AgPete]

I guess I'm on the bubble. I'm not thrilled about the war in Iraq and I'm not convinced a preemptive strike will solve much.

Some of my fears, thoughts, worries--

It's a PC war. The politicans have too much say over the military like they did in Vietnam. Hell, we destroyed entire cities in Germany and Japan, women and children included.

For every terrorist chain we end with Iraq, we probably start a new one with some angry poverty-stricken Middle Eastern kid that watches Al Jazeera footage.

Iraq wasn't exactly a powerhouse to begin with. They've never recovered from the first Persian Gulf War and from everything I've heard, contrary to Dick Cheney's words, Iraq doesn't appear to be nuclear ready during Saddam Hussein's lifetime.

We look like hypocrites to the world. We don't like them bypassing UN inspections but we bypass the UN and invade Iraq. We armed Hussein and even helped him acquire some of those WMD but we're the ones disarming him now saying he's too evil to have them.

Hussein had WMD for decades and never used them on us.

There is no direct proof linking Hussein with Al Quaeda.

Urban warfare is hard as hell. We're already skipping cities smaller than Baghdad on our march north because we don't want to risk casualties.

[tucker342]

Agpete, you hit it dead on. Good post

[Bee]

Good post AgPete.

And I believe JPhillips is correct on WWII.

I also think this is an excellent question
At what point should the US get involved in overseas conflicts?
I would also add a second part to it, at what point should the US start overseas conflicts? The example of WWII was one where there was a conflict ongoing and we "got involved". The Iraq war is one we "started" which is a slightly different question IMO.

These are difficult questions to answer for rational people IMO.

[Swaggs]

Very good post AgPete.

[Dutch]

I believe we should have pursued a peacekeeping mission in Rwanda (it is one of the great modern tragedies that we didn't)

Well, what we did was spend nearly 2 billion USD in 2 weeks there on Humanitarian Aid. But certainly there would have been protests about the "USA Imperialists" had we tried peacekeeping efforts there like we did in Somalia.

It was a mess, but it's really more of a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of thing.

I do however, currently work with a US Army Airborne sargeant who participated in the Rwandan operation. I'm not sure what role he/they played.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by Dutch
Well, what we did was spend nearly 2 billion USD in 2 weeks there on Humanitarian Aid. But certainly there would have been protests about the "USA Imperialists" had we tried peacekeeping efforts there like we did in Somalia.

It was a mess, but it's really more of a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of thing.

I do however, currently work with a US Army Airborne sargeant who participated in the Rwandan operation. I'm not sure what role he/they played.

We did have some forces in place to help move aid along.

[Franklinnoble]

Funny thing is, most people who protest the war in Iraq would have also protested a preemptive attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

Nobody complained about bombing Kabul and removing the Taliban from power after al Quaida knocked down the WTC, and, in hindsight, everyone would agree that it would have been better to remove the Taliban BEFORE they struck on 9/11.

Would Hussein's regime have funded, housed, and supplied terrorists who would attack the US in the future? We'll never know - but we have sufficient reason to believe that he was elated over the 9/11 attacks and would love to have a notch like that in his belt. Personally, I'd rather beat the piss out of the enemy before he brings the fight to our backyard again.

So what if America comes across as a big, fat, arrogant, imperialist asswipe? You know what, fuck the UN, fuck France, and fuck all the protestors who gain the most from our way of life and always seem to do the most to abuse it. I'm tired of living in the most powerful nation on earth and having pissant jerkoffs give us a bloody nose because we're too nice to keep them out of the country or go and blow them up before they do the same to us. It's high-time we started throwing our weight around and stopped letting lesser entities screw with us.

[Bee]

Minority Report was a good movie.

[Bee]

Actually, if we take over the world then we won't have to keep listening to all these people complaining about American Imperialism. What do you guys think?

[John Galt]

Bee is on a roll today - especially the Minority Report dig.

Also, the Taliban didn't orchestrate 9/11. The training camps may have been there and they may have supported the terrorists, but Al Qaeda is distinct from the Taliban. And that means an invasion of Afghanistan before 9/11 wouldn't have changed a thing. I also seem to remember something bad about the previous time we got involved in preemptive regime change in Afghanistan . . . something about aiding some "freedom fighters" - I know it will come to me.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally posted by John Galt
Bee is on a roll today - especially the Minority Report dig.

Also, the Taliban didn't orchestrate 9/11. The training camps may have been there and they may have supported the terrorists, but Al Qaeda is distinct from the Taliban. And that means an invasion of Afghanistan before 9/11 wouldn't have changed a thing. I also seem to remember something bad about the previous time we got involved in preemptive regime change in Afghanistan . . . something about aiding some "freedom fighters" - I know it will come to me.

So you're saying that what we did in Afghanistan did NOTHING to impair the activities of al Quaida?

[John Galt]

Originally posted by Franklinnoble
So you're saying that what we did in Afghanistan did NOTHING to impair the activities of al Quaida?

I didn't say this before, but I'll say it now: what we did in Afghanistan probably helped Al Qaeda more than hurt it. Sure, a few training camps were lost and a few people died, but there are plenty of other camps in Iran, Sudan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. The big problem with the war in Afghanistan is there is more fear and hatred of the US in that region of the world. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations now have a larger recruit pool to draw from over the long run.

[Roberto]

Not strictly on topic, but bear with me.

This thread concentrates on the views of those in America opposed to the war.

Here in the UK, a lot of the opposition to the war seems to be linked to plain old anti-Americanism.

For some of the opposition leaders in their own words, have a look at http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

[Franklinnoble]

Originally posted by John Galt
I didn't say this before, but I'll say it now: what we did in Afghanistan probably helped Al Qaeda more than hurt it. Sure, a few training camps were lost and a few people died, but there are plenty of other camps in Iran, Sudan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. The big problem with the war in Afghanistan is there is more fear and hatred of the US in that region of the world. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations now have a larger recruit pool to draw from over the long run.

Good. Let's identify the camps in Iran, Sudan, Somalia, and especially Saudi Arabia, and take them out, too. While we're at it, let's revoke the visas for anyone in the country who's from any of the above nations (or anywhere else known to harbor terrorists).

We should hunt them down like the dogs that they are. They should no longer be granted the privilege of learning how to become more effective terrorists by studying at our own institutions of higher learning. Why in the hell are there so many people out there that would rather stick their heads in the sand than meet this problem head-on? Screw political correctness, and to hell with playing patty-cake with nations that harbor terrorists.

Just my two cents.

[Laddin]

Originally posted by Franklinnoble
So you're saying that what we did in Afghanistan did NOTHING to impair the activities of al Quaida?

Actually, I think the biggest thing we did to impair the activities of Al Quaida was to freeze their financial accounts.

I'm against the war...I'll admit it. One of my big problems is with President Bush. He's been in office 2 years and already we've attacked our second country and we're losing allies and putting a strain on relationships with our remaining allies.

I also honestly feel that this war has as much if not more to do with the first Gulf war (cleaning up dad's mess) than anything he hopes to accomplish in this Gulf War.

Just my humble opinion.

[Swaggs]

Anyone ever wonder what happend to Osama? Wasn't he the one who actually did attack us?

If we can't find Saddam after a few tough months, will we change modes and attack someone else?