Maybe if there was a clear, concise plan about what would happen when Saddam was removed, there wouldn’t be such negativity about it. A lot of people may have disagreed with the so-called moral justification for the war, but perhaps more people would have believed that the ends did justify the means if Iraq was now a peaceful, self-governing nation.
Everybody excepts that Saddam was a bad person, and he did abuse human rights, but he did keep order within his country. Watching interviews with civilians on the news, the general consensus seems to be that there was a safer atmosphere prior to the war. Oppressive, yes, but they weren’t living in fear of terrorism. The casualties just keep mounting up after the war. Over 100 people have died in the last week alone from terrorist attacks.
I read an article in the newspaper that suggested that more Iraqis were actually living in poverty since Saddam’s regime ended. Unemployment has risen sharply, with the result that there is becoming more of a distinction between the rich (who are involved with activities like construction), and the poor who lost their jobs after the war. If this continues, then poverty could well become a big-issue in post-war Iraq.
Originally posted by Tomiko I’m only commenting on the general effects and weighing the cost who lives and dies vs who else lives and dies.
No, you’re also making a statement about which to “pick.” But if you’re the one deciding which to “pick,” that amounts to the exact same thing. When you decide that those dead people would make an “acceptable” sacrifice for the benefit of some other people, and then support making that “sacrifice,” you’re assuming that you have some kind of authority to make that decision. The Iraqis killed in our war, and in the occupation, did not want to be a “sacrifice” for this vague suffering-free future that was never the objective of the war and will never happen. By brushing away their deaths, you’re essentially saying that only you know what’s right for them - i.e. that you, and not they, have the knowledge and authority to decide that they should die (for any reason) despite not knowing them, despite being completely removed from their lives, despite being completely isolated from the possible consequences of your decision, and despite anything they might say or do. As a consequence, because you have presumed that you have such authority over their lives, you don’t consider yourself to be accountable for <i>anything</i> that might happen, before those very same people in whose name you’re doing this. That’s what really follows from all this.
Originally posted by Tomiko If I did in some subtle way, I’m saying now that I don’t
Noted.
Originally posted by Green Mage The truely sad thing is that N. Korea was a threatless country before Bush started his ingenious “War on Terror.” Bush’s stance forced N. Korea into a position where they needed to use nuclear weapons as a diplomatic power chip to keep the US from invading their country and fucking things up like we have in the past. Our war has given N. Korea something to rally behind and has made a pretty messy picture out of the landscape of Korea.
That isn’t entirely accurate. Tensions have been high with North Korea since the armistice. We are technically still at war with them. In fact, we have little skirmishes with them all the time, you just never hear about them. In fact, we station troops outside their border to keep an eye in case North Korea decides to invade South Korea. North Korea has their own security things to make sure that we and South Korea don’t do things to them. Going back to fighting with North Korea would be abd though, that would be a real war. Not like Iraq which we took down fast. Korea would eb a rough war with many casualties (hence the reason we didn’t beat them completely before. You also ahve to realize that a lto of what is happening in Iraq isn’t always televised, heck I’ve seen some shit that shows Iraq wasn’t as defenseless as you may think, however, it isn’t in the news (such as jets and other weapons just barried in the desert). North Korea wouldn’t be started withotu the UN though. We don’t have the man-power to fight in 3 places simultaneously and still keep defense at home good. We would have to get the UN to back us with North Korea, that or we finally end Afganistan and Iraq suddenly.
Ok. But regardles of who thinks they can decide who lives and dies, less deaths are better than more. I don’t need to know the character of the people to know that.
Edit: Of course, we don’t know if there’s less. Didn’t mean to imply that there is, but it’s my hope that eventually there is.
Originally posted by Tomiko I don’t need to know the character of the people to know that.
To “know” that as an abstract fact, maybe not. But the second one starts to advocate war, one inevitably makes a decision that some are to live and some are to die, and the whole point is that no one has the right to assume that kind of authority and make that kind of decision for people who didn’t ask one to make it and whom one knows nothing about. This is especially true when, as you just admitted, one doesn’t even know which option will lead to which outcome.
The sanctions may not have hurt Hussein’s ability to stay in power, but they did prevent him from getting weapons of mass destruction, which was their purpose. Iraqi scientists interviewed after the invasion of Iraq claim that Iraq didn’t have nearly enough money and resources to start a viable WMD program, and that they had to lie to Saddam about the state of Iraq’s WMD program just so they could stay employed. In other words, containment was working in limiting Iraq’s danger as a threat, even though the Iraqi people were suffering under it.
Originally posted by Nulani They can’t handle the masses of Iraq, how on earth do they intend to handle the masses of Korea?
Free copies of StarCraft.
Anyway, do I think that Hussein needed to be taken out of power? Yes. Do I think that it should have been done at the cost of billions and billions of dollars, thousands and thousands of lives, and basically pissing off half the world? No.
I’m not saying that Iraq was defenceless, it certainly wasn’t. The point is that it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as we were told it was. One of the main poits for the war in England was the ‘45 minute claim.’ Tony Blair said that Iraq could launch WMDs against Western powers within 45 minutes. They’ve had to retract these claims now that they’ve found no WMDs. MI6 is saying that they made it perfectly clear to the government that the ‘45 minute claim’ referred to short range missiles that couldn’t even be launched out of the country-a little different to a WMD, as most countries have this capability. Tony Blair now denies knowing this, and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon claims that he had no idea that there was such a big deal about this magic 45 minutes, despite the fact that it was the main news headline and it was plastered all over the front of the papers.
This just goes to show that a lot of what we were told before the war was just propaganda. Whether or not you believe that the ends justify the means, there was no real justification for this so called ‘moral’ war, and there are many people who are starting to realise that so Bush would really be pushing his luck by trying to start another war. The UN were suspicious of his claims last time, so it’s doubtful that they would back him in N. Korea. Like Infonick said, there isn’t the manpower for the American army to fight in three places at once.
Originally posted by Nero
[b]Free copies of StarCraft.
Anyway, do I think that Hussein needed to be taken out of power? Yes. Do I think that it should have been done at the cost of billions and billions of dollars, thousands and thousands of lives, and basically pissing off half the world? No. [/b]
I hope you’re not insinuating that how much money you spend or whether you piss people off should decide whether you war a country or not… They’re really insignificant factors compared to lives and justice.
If someone killed someone dear to me, I wouldn’t be all “I’d hunt him down, but nah. A taxi costs too much. And I might hurt his family by killing him. I think I’ll go play my X-Box.”
Originally posted by Tomiko They’re really insignificant factors compared to lives and justice. If someone killed someone dear to me, I wouldn’t be all “I’d hunt him down, but nah. A taxi costs too much. And I might hurt his family by killing him. I think I’ll go play my X-Box.”
If, in the process of “hunting him down,” you were to blow up the building he worked in, or gun down a whole crowd of people on the street because he was in it, that would be murder, not justice.
Originally posted by AngelOfTheLion I’m not saying that Iraq was defenceless, it certainly wasn’t.
Against our military, it practically was.