Edited Sgt. Booms answer...

[ElvenKind]

... in the \"Would you defend your country\" discussion.

If they want to discuss Iraq or the US politics, they can start a new thread.

Here is his post in case he wants it back (through PM or whatever) :

[Sgt. Boomer walks into a quite room, leaves a little post and walks out. Comes back later, finds blood carnage and mayhem. He blushes a little with embarrassment, but then thinks “what the heck, it is a war-game sight.”]

isoFlux Wrote:Iraq isn\'t about "freeing the Iraqi people". its an imperialist venture to help secure the most needed natural resource. period. Iraq didn\'t threaten the U.S. More people have died during the US/Coalition invasion and occupation than in Saddam\'s rule. If you think this war is about all that ideological nonsense about "freeing all those poor Iraqi slaves", then open a history book. the US has had a very specific and focused interest in the Middle East since the end of WWII. excluding our support of Zionism, none of our policies, actions, and whatnot have ever supported "freedom in the Middle East". the Middle East is the breadbasket for industrialized countries. it\'s no coincidence that rencent the political amd military actions in Iraq were set forth by oil jockies tightly involved in the Middle East have decided to sacrifice thousands of lives to obtain political, social, and economic control over a cache of resources.

Nazi Germany invaded 9 countries in 1939 (including North Africa). they formed and implemented the most gruesome form of mass genocide known to man, and kept a tight and unwanted grip on all of it\'s territories.

our military actions since WW2 have not been defending and liberating millions of people from a corrupt, destructive, and unjust form of totalitarianism. all they have done is disrupt, polarize, and destory cultures and people for petty political reasons. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. i dont think all the lives lost for those wars were worth their outcomes. Korea so far is the only pseudo-success story, and even then there are some catches.

And Nazi Germany didn’t directly threaten Britain when it attacked Poland in 1939, nor did it ever invade or directly threaten the US. The US fought the Germans in Europe because they learned from Britain’s example: if you don’t fight them over there, you’ll fight them over here.

It’s easy to look back at WWII and say that it was clearly a case of good and evil. But it wasn’t so black and white at the time. They didn’t have the film footage of Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and many people during the war (including US soldiers) thought the camps were all Allied propaganda. Many socialists at the time (including a future Canadian Prime Minister) denounced “Churchill’s War” as a “racist imperialistic war”. Many Britons, and Americans, felt that fighting the Nazi’s wasn’t worth what it would cost in suffering and wealth, especially in light of WWI.

Britain could have accepted Hitler’s peace offer in 1940, saved its empire, its cities, ? million of its people, and left Europe, Russia, and Europe’s Jews to suffer enslavement and death under the Nazi’s without help or hope of deliverance. And like the millions of dead under communism, we’d never have had film evidence of the mountains of corpses to make the horror of the regime inescapably real.

Does that mean that it was the Allies “job” to save all those people and free Europe from Nazism? No, I don’t believe in entitlement. I don’t believe anyone is entitled to anything, particularly at someone else’s expense. However I do believe in honour; I do believe that some things are morally better than others, and occasionally so much so that they are worth fighting and possibly dying for. Time and the ability to see the whole truth of Nazism proved that WWII was one of those times.

As for Iraq, I think more people died under the UN’s oil for kickbacks sanction scheme that ended with the war. And before that, more people died during Saddam’s war with Iran.

I used to believe in Utopian politics, but unfortunately life is frequently a question of \"which is the lesser of several evils?\". The whole “no blood for oil” schtick was started by the people and governments that were making billions under the UN sanctions.

“May 2003 chart from the American Petroleum Institute web site. The top five crude oil imports from foreign countries to the U.S. breaks down as follows:
17.8% from Saudi Arabia
16.5% from Canada
12.8% from Venezuela
12.0% from Mexico
7.5% from Nigeria”

Yellowbelly Wrote:BS. Iraq was not about a much needed natural resource. If we were that desperate, we would have drilled in Alaska.

Or invaded Canada. I wish you’d invaded Canada, ‘cause we REALY need a regime change up here!!!!!

Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I would be willing to fight for Canada if we elected a decent center or center-right regime instead of the bunch of corrupt, Marxist, scumbags that are currently ruining the country. Failing that, in a WWIII type of situation I’d enlist in the US army. I do agree that fighting for an ideal you believe in is better than blind patriotism. I just think it’s na?ve to expect any current event is going to appear as black and white as WWII does 60 years on.

Yes, fighting communism was disruptive, but it was just as evil and dangerous as Nazism. And yes, the way it was fought was often the worst possible strategy - the “dirty little wars” from the 50’s through the 80’s. But what’s a government supposed to do with a expansionist communist enemy that threatens US freedom (including economic freedom), a population that demands jobs and prosperity, and the generation that should fighting for freedom chanting “hell no, we won’t go”?

It was a terrible policy, but infinitely better than letting communism win and the U.S. (& Europe) wither into 3rd world countries and eventually be overrun.
What really kills me about the left is that for years they’ve been whining about US support of dictators, but now that a government is attempting to reverse that policy, they’re even more upset!!!! And while Korea is far from perfect, compared to North Korea it’s a bloody paradise.

I don’t agree that the US’s reasons were about oil. The opposition from the UN, France, Canada, Russia, several politicians and journalists who were getting kickbacks bribes and contracts from the Saddam regime – THAT was about oil. Whether it was the right thing is another question. But it was probably better than doing nothing and waiting for their next attack. You know – the best defense is a good offence.

Put it another way: CAMPING DOESN’T WORK! AND THE US AINT CAMPERS.

=D.C.L.I=TuRb0jUg3nD Wrote:"During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. …

I would imagine they had their facts straight! But anyhoo, I was flaunting the unprecendented economical statistics of 8 years of largely minding own bidniss.

Yup, Clinton and Chamberlain, two masters at giving the world peace in their time. And while Clinton does get full marks for not screwing up the economic boom, the boom itself was caused by free trade and the personal computer, not Clinton.

=D.C.L.I=TuRb0jUg3nD Wrote:It is the motives behind and the arrogant refusal to cooperate with the rest of the world in ousting him (you know: with minimal bloodshed – yeah, we wussie euros are strangely weird that way), that bugs us.

Well, my guess is the main motives for snubbing the UN were:
1. they wanted to keep the “oil for fraud” scheme going forever and would have stalled the US forever.
2. to drive a steak through the heart of the global governance movement (the new face of Marxist Utopian politics).

=D.C.L.I=TuRb0jUg3nD Wrote:Oh, and the UN were founded to ensure that we never would see a war like WW2 again, through diplomacy, communication and understanding.

Exactly like founding the League of Nations after WWI to prevent … er, never mind. I think the bomb did a better job of keeping the peace than the UN.8)

P.S. good debate guys, and sorry for the long post. Cheers, Boomer.

[[JR]]

Seems fair enough to me.

[ElvenKind]

I put it into a new thread to split that discussion off from the original thread.