[mike777]

I give my neighbor(A) a bunch of bombs and tanks and guns knowing he is going to use them against his other neighbor (.
Neighbor B claims Neighbor A deserves to be attacked for reason (ABC). Neighbor A says Neighbor B is in the wrong.

In any event I send neighbor A some money and tanks to help him out.

On top of that assume I got my house by sailing over from Ireland and taking it from the Indians.
Canada stole their house from someone yes?


Is that the story here?

[mike777]

Or Iran sends money and bombs to Lebanon.......or gaza or wherever

Numerous people in Gaza and Lebanon use the money and bombs to launch rockets onto Israel. They claim Israel has no right to exist..they stole the land from them.


USA sends money or weapons to Israel.
Israel attacks...Lebanon, or Iran........


Is Usa committing a war crime? or who is?

[jtfanclub]

mikeh, on Sep 4 2007, 05:06 PM, said:

jtfanclub, on Sep 4 2007, 03:41 PM, said:

If we had a moral responsibility to help fight against Nazi Germany's attempt to slaughter and subjugate an entire continent, did we not also have that responsibility to fight against a similar slaughter in the Middle East? 

Nice argument

It supposes a premise that seems to have no factual underpinning: that the US entered WWII for moral reasons, based on an opposition to .Nazi Germany's attempt to slaughter and subjugate an entire continent'.

Arrrgh.

No, you're missing my point, because you're too smart. The point I'm trying to make is so damn obvious that you're looking for some deeper meaning that isn't there.

We provoked the hell out of the Germans and Japanese, as you correctly point out (and in many ways you don't bother to point out). We did not enter WWII for moral reasons; if anything, it was for fewer moral reasons and more Military-Industrial-Complex reasons than the Iraq war was.

But now, looking at it half a century later, we can say it was a just war because of slaughter and subjugation etc. etc.

Wars are complicated. The war of 2003 was not about 'aggression', and whether it's a 'lawful' or 'unlawful' war is for history to decide. I'm not trying to say that WWII and the Iraq War were directly parallel, I am saying that both tend to get simplified down to bedtime story level, and the truth is far, far more cloudy than the self-righteous here tend to want to admit.

[mike777]

Jfan I do not mean to put words into your mouth(posts) but you seem to infer that if the USA sends millions of bucks to the Brits or Ruskies so they can buy bullets to kill Germans and bomb German civilian cities that is somehow provoking to some Germans?

[jtfanclub]

We Americans have done an awful lot of bad things, and we've done an awful lot of good things for bad reasons. The invasion of Iraq was poorly planned and badly rushed for no good reason that I can find.

But of the three choices of going home and ending the no-fly zones, occupying Saudi Arabia for decades against their will, and invading, none of them were any good. Poor execution did not made it the wrong decision, and over the course of almost a decade, I have come to the conclusion that it was the right decision, and if we did rush into it in 2003, that is somewhat canceled out by the fact that we should have attacked in October of 1998.

The only truly wrong decision was sitting on the sidelines complaining instead of doing something about it, before we invaded or afterwards. And for those countries who did help, particularly England, I do appreciate it.

[jtfanclub]

mike777, on Sep 4 2007, 05:34 PM, said:

Jfan I do not mean to put words into your mouth(posts) but you seem to infer that if the USA sends millions of bucks to the Brits or Ruskies so they can buy bullets to kill Germans and bomb German civilian cities that is somehow provoking to some Germans?

Yeah, I know. Go figure.

Actually, we sent them the bullets and bombs. Didn't send them much cash. We wanted to make sure the money was all spent on American munitions. Gotta make a living, and all that.

[mikeh]

mike777, on Sep 4 2007, 05:14 PM, said:

I give my neighbor(A) a bunch of bombs and tanks and guns knowing he is going to use them against his other neighbor (.
Neighbor B claims Neighbor A deserves to be attacked for reason (ABC). Neighbor A says Neighbor B is in the wrong.

In any event I send neighbor A some money and tanks to help him out.

On top of that assume I got my house by sailing over from Ireland and taking it from the Indians.
Canada stole their house from someone yes?


Is that the story here?

I don't know what your point is, Mike.

I am with jtfan in that most of what happens in the world happens for reasons quite different from, and far more complex than, the ones usually cited by the defenders of the actors (or their critics).

I live where I live because Europeans viewed non-europe as empty land, awaiting conquest and annexation. So do you.

I read Davies' Europe, a massive history of the European continent. One of the points he made is that, with few exceptions, none of the peoples who now live in various parts of the continent lived there several thousand years ago. Greeks don't speak ancient Greek because, in part, the ethnic people who lived there in Homer's time were eradicated, expelled, or absorbed by other peoples who moved into and through the area over the centuries. I am English by birth, and my heritage (not mine personally, at least not known by me) includes Picts, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Norsemen, Frenchmen, and probably some Romans and maybe some Phoeniceans, from their tin-trading days (altho the Normans were actually Norsemen who had colonized/conquered a stretch of what is now France)

Back then, the leaders didn't need PR types to spin their stories.

I think the concern many of us have is that those who support the war in Iraq or the War on Terror, or the War on Drugs, buy in, uncritically, to the justifications used by the political leaders.. which, even if there is ANY semblance to truth, are always overly-simplistic. Now, from what I have read about Bush, it may be that he is a true believer, but does anyone really think he was the 'mind' behind the war?

Silly stories about neighbours, including Israel, merely confirm the tendency to simplicity that bedevils democracies. With the average news story lasting for no more than the time span of a commercial, and 'editorials' taking 30 seconds or less, no wonder few voters have any idea of what is really going on. When News is presented as entertainment. it gets even worse.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is enormously complex. Obviously it has its roots in biblical times, but even relatively recently, both sides can point, with subjective legitmacy, to the Paris negotiations of 1919-21, following WWI, as giving them some rights... let alone worrying about the guilty reaction of western democracies after WWII, nor the later issues. Simplifying issues may allow us to feel good about our situation, and may allow us to avoid actually thinking... I find it sad (so much of the human condition appears sad) that there seems to be a correlation between those who think simplistically about right and wrong and those who believe in God: by no means do all religious people think simplistically... it is clear that many think deeply... but it seems to me, from my somewhat limited reading, that almost all atheists reject simplistic explanations. Maybe this is because, in our society, one can hardly become atheist without doing a lot of thinking: most of are taught the default position that there is a god (I was brought up Catholic). So that, if we tend not to want to think, we tend to be religious, whereas if we tend to think critically, some of us will become atheists.

[pbleighton]

Quote

Arguing that it would be OK if we'd invaded in 1991, but not when they broke the 1991 accords, is intellectual dishonesty.

I argued no such thing. I merely pointed out that you were apparently unable to distinguish between keeping the status quo and invading a country. You should learn to read carefully, and not just spew your guts.

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I see. Reality isn't what makes it an unlawful war. It's what the Bush administration said that made it an unlawful war. Got it.

The reasons a country goes to war have nothing to do with its justification? Got it.

Quote

Rrrrright. The Flying Tigers, Lend-Lease, all of that was because we looked into our crystal balls and saw that we were going to be attacked.

Come on. Try some of that vaunted intellectual honesty. The only reason that Russia hadn't already fallen was because we kept them going. We were sending troops to fight the Japanese, under disguise as mercenaries, before Pearl Harbor. We had been at war with the Axis since '39. That we didn't have any troops actually present is completely off-point, it was our guns that were killing them. We left Germany and Japan no choice but to attack us.

I just stated historical facts. Yes, we were prepared. No, we would not have fought unless attacked. At that point we were an isolationist nation (at least outside of the third world, where we were imperialist).

Quote

How well did that work for us in Cuba, anyways? I mean, seriously, that was your solution?

I tolerate the existence of dictators, thinking that unless they attack us war is the greater evil, so yes. And you'll have to remind me, how many times has Cuba attacked us?

Quote

Saudi Arabia didn't want us to stick around. 9/11 did not happen in a vaccuum.

ROFL.
1. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
2. 9/11 was the immediate repponsibility of the perpetrators, but the West in general and the U.S. in particular had policies which led to radical political Islam. The invasion of Iraq is the greatest recruiting tool Bin Laden ever had. I'm sure he was overjoyed when we invaded.
3. You really do like to lump all bad Musims together, don't you.

Quote

If the Ugly American is the one that points out that those who bitch on the sidelines have more responsibility than those who take the field and try to influence the outcome, then I'm proud to be one.

Stay proud. Stay strong. Get hard.

Get real.

Peter

[Al_U_Card]

Power, control, money; repeat as required until you understand.

[mike777]

http://www.crimesofw...de-act-war.html

Talk about complicated.

emabargo is an act of war or a war crime except when it is not an act of war or a war crime.

I just hope we got a good lawyer when we are hauled up to court.


For those who are thinking of an embargo on Iran, get a good lawyer and please please follow the rules. Better yet forget about it.

I am still trying to figure out if we send bombs to Israel and Israel bombs/attacks Iran, is the usa committing a war crime?

[Al_U_Card]

We only wish we could but just when you think you got out....they keep pulling you back in!

[jtfanclub]

Quote

I argued no such thing.  I merely pointed out that you were apparently unable to distinguish between keeping the status quo and invading a country.

Go look up Operation Desert Fox. The status quo WAS invading their country.

Quote

The reasons a country goes to war have nothing to do with its justification?  Got it.

My God, did something get through? Did you just realize that the Revolutionary War had little to do with the Stamp Act? That the Civil War wasn't about slavery? That the reasons that Bush said he went to war has nothing to do with whether the war was justified? Or was that just sarcasm.

Quote

I just stated historical facts.  Yes, we were prepared. No, we would not have fought unless attacked.  At that point we were an isolationist nation (at least outside of the third world, where we were imperialist).

Right. The 99 fighters (and pilots) we had sent to China months before Pearl Harbor were just there sightseeing.

We're not talking about being 'prepared'. We're talking about the only reason that Russia was capable of fighting the Germans in '40 and '41 was because of American bullets, bombs, trucks, and many many many many more supplies.

Quote

ROFL.
1. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.

Good Lord. Do you actually read anything I write? Or do you just take the first word of each sentence and configure your favorite strawman?

9/11 was about Saudi Arabia. It was specifically a group of prominent Saudis which may or may not have included members of the ruling family who did not appreciate us occupying their territory. In order to get us out, they funded a rerorrist organization, which blew up the Cole and took out the World Trade Center.

Why were we in Saudi Arabia? In order to enforce the no-fly zones.

Do you get where that relates to the invade/stay the course/pull out question?

Quote

Stay proud.  Stay strong. Get hard.

Get real.

Ah, a sentence you actually read part of. Congratulations.

Desert Fox. Flying Tigers. Reality comes in small packages. Try opening one.

[mikeh]

mike777, on Sep 4 2007, 06:23 PM, said:

I am still trying to figure out if we send bombs to Israel and Israel bombs/attacks Iran, is the usa committing a war crime?

It depends on who writes the history books.

The Allied Governments (those in the know) had good reasons to bomb Hiroshima, but not necessarily good reasons to bomb Nagasaki so soon thereafter.... they had some 'scientific' reasons, as I understand the Nagasaki bomb was a different design, and they wanted to see if it worked as well as the Hiroshima one.

And it is not so clear that dropping the first bomb in an unpopulated or sparsely populated are of the Japanese territory would not have been persuasive. The Japanese fleet and air force were immoblized due to lack of fuel: the bombs were dropped by bombers that flew in broad daylight (to allow a film to be made of the attack) with NO risk of enemy fighter action. The US could have dropped the bomb anywhere... of course, if the demonstration had not worked, they might have had to wait a month or two to build more bombs....and in that time-frame, a lot of people would have died from other military action.

But it is an easy bet that, had the Axis prevailed by some unimaginable twist of fate, those responsible for the bombing of these two cities, as well as the fire-bombing of Dresden, would have been up on war crimes.

And I think that it is generally accepted that the conduct of many of the Russian troops attacking Germany was less than perfect... not to mention the treatment afforded POWs and the returnees the Western Allies so shamefully deported to the USSR after the war.

What Hitler and his supporters did was a blot on humanity, but only a naif would imagine that the victors' justice is impartial.

[pbleighton]

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Go look up Operation Desert Fox. The status quo WAS invading their country.

You need a lesson in the tense of verbs. In 2003, we HAD invaded, 12 years in the past. The status quo was containment. I did not, in fact, support the first Gulf War. However, the continuation of the status quo would have been greatly preferable to the present catastrophe.

Quote

My God, did something get through? Did you just realize that the Revolutionary War had little to do with the Stamp Act? That the Civil War wasn't about slavery? That the reasons that Bush said he went to war has nothing to do with whether the war was justified? Or was that just sarcasm.

I idealize neither war.

Quote

Right. The 99 fighters (and pilots) we had sent to China months before Pearl Harbor were just there sightseeing.

We're not talking about being 'prepared'. We're talking about the only reason that Russia was capable of fighting the Germans in '40 and '41 was because of American bullets, bombs, trucks, and many many many many more supplies.

Supporting a country which is being invaded is NOT the same as invading the invader. This is pretty basic stuff.

Quote

Good Lord. Do you actually read anything I write? Or do you just take the first word of each sentence and configure your favorite strawman?

9/11 was about Saudi Arabia. It was specifically a group of prominent Saudis which may or may not have included members of the ruling family who did not appreciate us occupying their territory. In order to get us out, they funded a rerorrist organization, which blew up the Cole and took out the World Trade Center.

Why were we in Saudi Arabia? In order to enforce the no-fly zones.

Do you get where that relates to the invade/stay the course/pull out question?

The motivations for 9/11 started a century before the event. Again, read some history. It was about Palestine, about the succession of dictators we installed in Moslem countries to secure their oil (including the Baathists in Iraq). 9/11 didn't happen because of some troops in Saudi Arabia, though it was an irritant. Even among short term factors, there was a CIA report a couple of years after 9/11 which said that Bin Laden had originally vetoed the 9/11 plan as too extreme, and that it was te Bush adminstration's support of Israeli policies which was the thing which changed his mind.

This claim of yours is as lacking in historical knowledge as your repeated analogies to WW II and Hitler.

A well known indicator for the weakness of political arguments, applicable to people on both sides of the political spectrum, is repeated allusions to Hitler. It's pounding the table.

Peter

[Winstonm]

The truth about the Iraq invasion is most likely more simple than most wars.

The PNAC drew up plans for an American Empire.
Miraculously, many of this same group were granted positions of power and influence inside the Bush administration.
9-11 gave them an excuse to implement thier plan.

[pbleighton]

Quote

The truth about the Iraq invasion is most likely more simple than most wars.

The PNAC drew up plans for an American Empire.
Miraculously, many of this same group were granted positions of power and influence inside the Bush administration.
9-11 gave them an excuse to implement thier plan.

Nothing is ever quite so simple, there's a lot of history behind this, but I mostly agree with you.

It's impossible to prove, but I don't think that any of the Presidents I remember (starting with Kennedy, barely remembered) except Bush II would have done this.

Peter

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Sep 4 2007, 07:22 PM, said:

The truth about the Iraq invasion is most likely more simple than most wars.

The PNAC drew up plans for an American Empire.
Miraculously, many of this same group were granted positions of power and influence inside the Bush administration.
9-11 gave them an excuse to implement thier plan.

dang an empire....?

that is thinking big.

So the Republicans build it and now the Democrats get to run it?

[Winstonm]

And then there is this:

Quote

The New Yorker magazine reports that Rubin had a conversation with a member of a top neoconservative institution in Washington, who told him that "instructions" had been passed on from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day.

"It will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects, writes Rubin, "It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

Mike, your time sequence is off.

Quote

dang an empire....?

that is thinking big.

So the Republicans build it and now the Democrats get to run it?

When this transpired, the Republicans still held Congress and Bush approval ratings were around 90%.

[jtfanclub]

pbleighton, on Sep 4 2007, 07:12 PM, said:

You need a lesson in the tense of verbs.  In 2003, we HAD invaded, 12 years in the past.  The status quo was containment.

No. Seriously. Look up Operation Desert Fox.

It's apparently not what you think it is.

Edited:

You know, I finally get it.

All that matters to you is whether you have to see it on your TV set, and what fits into your tiny little mindset. You won't even spend 30 seconds on Google checking up on Desert Fox or Flying Tigers to see if maybe, just maybe, your perception of reality hasn't taken a turn while the facts went flying by.

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However, the continuation of the status quo would have been greatly preferable to the present catastrophe.

Are you even remotely aware that even by conservative estimates HALF A MILLION CHILDREN DIED FROM THE SANCTIONS?!

That's more people than have died from our military actions from 2003 to the present. Adults, kids, Americans, Terrorists, Civilians, all put together.

WE
KILLED
HALF
A
MILLION
CHILDREN

And that's a low estimate...the U.N. estimate is 800,000.

But hell, an expert ike you doesn't have to worry about that. What's a few hundred thousand kids? I mean, *****, if you don't have to watch them die on TV, what does it really matter? And these kids weren't killed by bullets or bombs...nothing quick. Mostly starvation and childhood disease. Long, slow lingering painful death. But what do you care? They weren't on TV.

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However, the continuation of the status quo would have been greatly preferable to the present catastrophe.

You know, it really really REALLY helps to read up on something before you make blanket statements about it. For God's sake, you don't need to become a military historian to know this stuff. Just, you know, read a reputable paper for something other than anonymous titilations on occassion.

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However, the continuation of the status quo would have been greatly preferable to the present catastrophe.

Seriously, I don't think that the situation could ever become so dire in Iraq that I'd just toss off "killing off a half million kids would have been greatly preferable". That's just not the sort of value judgement I'd be willing to make, any time, any where. Kind of horrifying, actually. That's why we have a President to make that sort of decision, and that's why I'm glad I don't have that job. I can't tell you what decision I'd have made, but I guarantee it wouldn't have been a flippant "greatly preferable" no matter what.


Is it finally, FINALLY, starting to sink in that this is an actual, complex matter that isn't just a bunch of simple sound bytes? That the issue of whether to invade was one of the most horrifying questions that any President has ever had to make? Do you finally get that refusing to actually look at something doesn't make it simple?

Do you?

I don't care if you do or not. If you actually want to know about this stuff, it's all out there. If you don't, then I can't imagine why I'd want to read your opinion on it.

[Al_U_Card]

Winstonm, on Sep 4 2007, 07:22 PM, said:

The truth about the Iraq invasion is most likely more simple than most wars.

The PNAC drew up plans for an American Empire.
Miraculously, many of this same group were granted positions of power and influence inside the Bush administration.
9-11 gave them an excuse to implement thier plan.

You mean that 9-11 gave method to their madness.....especially after the dry run in '93 showed that they needed something more.....