Do you support the war in Iraq?
- Thread starter TX_RGR
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There is a world of difference between what you misquoted me as saying, and paraphrasing those different questions and statements. Not even close, not even in a nearby alternate universe.
So, let me ask you this one question and I will make it as clear and simple as possible.
What number of American Soldier's deaths, or what event(s), or what signal would have to occur before you, Handy, began to second guess our military involvement in Iraq?
That is all that I have been trying to get at, when or how or what would begin to make you wonder if maybe this Iraqi thing is a mistake. Just out of curiosity.
So, let me ask you this one question and I will make it as clear and simple as possible.
What number of American Soldier's deaths, or what event(s), or what signal would have to occur before you, Handy, began to second guess our military involvement in Iraq?
That is all that I have been trying to get at, when or how or what would begin to make you wonder if maybe this Iraqi thing is a mistake. Just out of curiosity.
Casualty estimates are not the same as defining objectives in terms of their worth in human life. I addressed that already.
I also already adressed why casualty estimates are made and what they are used for.
If you don't support the war, you don't support the war. Trying to justify your opinion using the "value of human life" argument plays on emotion rather than the facts. It also reveals a lack of understanding of both human life and war.
The bottom line is this. Nothing in the world is worth the loss of a single human life. Human life is immeasurably precious, and it's morally bankrupt to suggest that anything can be objectively traded for human life on a value for value basis. People instinctively understand this, but have rarely thought through the implications--that is why your argument plays so well..
However, there are times when there is no choice but to put life at risk to achieve necessary goals. That doesn't mean those goals have a worth or value that can be measured in human lives, but it does mean that the COST of achieving them may include the loss of life.
There will always be differing opinions on whether the particular goals in question are necessary or not, but that's another story.
I also already adressed why casualty estimates are made and what they are used for.
If you don't support the war, you don't support the war. Trying to justify your opinion using the "value of human life" argument plays on emotion rather than the facts. It also reveals a lack of understanding of both human life and war.
The bottom line is this. Nothing in the world is worth the loss of a single human life. Human life is immeasurably precious, and it's morally bankrupt to suggest that anything can be objectively traded for human life on a value for value basis. People instinctively understand this, but have rarely thought through the implications--that is why your argument plays so well..
However, there are times when there is no choice but to put life at risk to achieve necessary goals. That doesn't mean those goals have a worth or value that can be measured in human lives, but it does mean that the COST of achieving them may include the loss of life.
There will always be differing opinions on whether the particular goals in question are necessary or not, but that's another story.
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An arbitrary number is one way of quantifying a cost. It may be one that you and a few others don't like. The fact that you and a few other's don't "like" it means nothing in and of itself. So, what's your point?
OK, then you have a formula in mind that takes into account multiple variables - VERY GOOD!
Oh, what is your formula? Don't bother answering - you wouldn't anyway, and you don't actually have an answer. You are an emotive thinker and not a logical thinker.
Look, the point I am trying to make with you, quite unsucessfully I might add, is that if you have an emotional approach to when the war is going well vs going poorly then I don't want you to be the General or President who sends our children into a war. I want leadership that has it's head on straight and isn't so emotionally attached to the outcome that they make stupid decisions that unnecessarily costs the lives of American Soldiers.
No if about it, I do not support this war. But that is not what I am trying to get at. What I am curious about is what would it take for you to stop supporting this war? What, in your mind, would cause you to question the value of this war? I haven't used the value of human life, as a single and the only gauge. The value of our Soldiers lives is though of fundamental importance to the cost of any war, anywhere at any time.
I have suggested that each war has a risk/reward relationship that has to be evaluated. What is it actually worth to us to experiment with social engineering Iraq? If the social engineering fails, the cost we pay will have been a total waste won't it?
If the social engineering succeeds, then will we have paid too much or will we have achieved a bargain?
Soldiers lives lost are one cost. Money spent is another. Disruption of our economy is another. The animosity created between our citizen voters is another. Collateral damage inflicted is another. The damage to the lives of the KIA soldiers families is another. The costs of war are formidable and complex and certainly can not be realistically counted discussed in a limited conversation of this nature.
John, answer me this - can the costs (however you want to count them) of this war reach a point where you will question the continuance of this war, and if so have you attempted to quantify when that point will be reached.
I think all responsible citizens should look into that question. When is enough too much and when do we each, in our own way, reach that point?
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Re read my posts from the top down again Handy. You are yet again mis-quoting me and ducking and dodging, bobbing and weaving.
Rhetoric and posturing. Post the illogic that you claim that I am the first to be guilty of, or go away once and for all.
What you call an insult was a prediction, and an accurate prediction to boot.
Mastrogiacomo
New member
I said yes. We should have been there in the 80's when Hussain killed the Kurdish children and women. Unfortunately, we waited too long but I've no doubt he had weapons, and that he moved them while keeping the UN at bay for months. At this point though I feel we've overstayed our welcome and it's not our job to remain there to help them stabilize their government or create their consistition. Time to pull out so on this point, I feel Bush is lagging but I did and do support him and respect the fact that he doesn't cater to the liberals.
Marko Kloos
Inactive
Oh, but we were. You see, during that time, he was fighting the Ayatollah, whom we really did not like at all, so we were semi-buddies with Saddam.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
There is killing, genocide, tyranny all over the world. Do we mobilize our entire country to police every failed culture and ethnic dispute?
That's a fundamental question for the US. Our political theorists have argued from the times of the Founding Fathers that while we can sympathize with countries, putting our young on the line for pure ideology is not a good idea. Wilsonian humantarianism and interventionism has not served us well.
Unless our interests (in terms of the survival of the US, our safety, fundamental economic structure) are at risk - we must be very careful about interventions. Given our intervention in Iraq is not going swimmingly - can one contemplate 15 interventions simultaneously in various trouble spots defined solely by humantarian goals?
About moving the weapons? Where the hell are they then? That is after the fact crap.
If the weapons still exist and were moved, then we are the biggest incompetents on the planet. We went to war to find them and now we just gave up on an existing stockpile of weapons? Oh, they moved it to Syria or Iran? Then we aren't we going after them? Duh!!!
They didn't exist at the time of the invasion. I supported Bush after 9/11 and the beginnings of the Iraq War. I totally suport our troops and hope they defeat their enemies. I still regard Bush and his cronies' policies in Iraq as incompetent on most levels. Not that I see the other party as any better.
In fact, if both parties disappeared we would be better off.
That's a fundamental question for the US. Our political theorists have argued from the times of the Founding Fathers that while we can sympathize with countries, putting our young on the line for pure ideology is not a good idea. Wilsonian humantarianism and interventionism has not served us well.
Unless our interests (in terms of the survival of the US, our safety, fundamental economic structure) are at risk - we must be very careful about interventions. Given our intervention in Iraq is not going swimmingly - can one contemplate 15 interventions simultaneously in various trouble spots defined solely by humantarian goals?
About moving the weapons? Where the hell are they then? That is after the fact crap.
If the weapons still exist and were moved, then we are the biggest incompetents on the planet. We went to war to find them and now we just gave up on an existing stockpile of weapons? Oh, they moved it to Syria or Iran? Then we aren't we going after them? Duh!!!
They didn't exist at the time of the invasion. I supported Bush after 9/11 and the beginnings of the Iraq War. I totally suport our troops and hope they defeat their enemies. I still regard Bush and his cronies' policies in Iraq as incompetent on most levels. Not that I see the other party as any better.
In fact, if both parties disappeared we would be better off.
Quote from Rojo:
Good questions: First I would like to address the $6.00 per gallon gasoline:
The cost of oil, around $65 right now, makes up approximately 50% of the cost of gasoline at the pump. The 2 million barrels or so a day that Iraq is producing makes up less than 10% of the OPEC output of about 25 million barrels per day. I would guess then that Iraq has no more than a 10% impact on the price of gasoline at the pump, or about 25 cents per gallon. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
I don't propose that we leave them without arming every man, woman and child above the age of 16. Once they are all armed, they can sort out their own destiny, as they should.
Should it bother you that the Iraqi people, who are happily accepting the benefit of the deaths of our soldiers are buying gasoline for 6 cents per gallon, while you are paying nearly $3 per gallon? Should it bother you that they are not selling their crude oil to us with at least a nominal discount?
Good questions: First I would like to address the $6.00 per gallon gasoline:
The cost of oil, around $65 right now, makes up approximately 50% of the cost of gasoline at the pump. The 2 million barrels or so a day that Iraq is producing makes up less than 10% of the OPEC output of about 25 million barrels per day. I would guess then that Iraq has no more than a 10% impact on the price of gasoline at the pump, or about 25 cents per gallon. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
I think that what would happen in your 3 week scenario is what will happen whenever we do actually leave. A blitzkrieg of terror activity, followed by a collapse into a 3 way civil war possibly influenced by Syria and Iran, assuming Iran doesn't send in troops and just take the country over.
I think a better question is: Does it make sense for more brave and honorable American Soldiers to die in a cause that is going to end in failure, in spite of their deaths? There is nothing that can dishonor the Soldiers who have died. If you think they can be dishonored you don't understand true honor - that can not be taken from them by anyone in any way shape form or fashion. Do the 58,000 American Soldiers that we lost in Vietnam have less honor in your mind because we brought our troops home?
About the same amount of time it will take whenever we do leave. I would give it 3 to 6 months, in either scenario.
I don't propose that we leave them without arming every man, woman and child above the age of 16. Once they are all armed, they can sort out their own destiny, as they should.
I am not sure I follow your thoughts on this: Who are these sour apples that hate all things we have done?
Should it bother you that the Iraqi people, who are happily accepting the benefit of the deaths of our soldiers are buying gasoline for 6 cents per gallon, while you are paying nearly $3 per gallon? Should it bother you that they are not selling their crude oil to us with at least a nominal discount?
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NO. That's not how war works, it's an all or nothing proposition. You either support it or you don't. If you THINK you support it, but the rising casualty estimates cause you to change your mind then you never really supported it in the first place, you were just swept away by the emotion of the moment.
It is absolutely and horribly immoral to commit OTHER people to achieving a goal that puts their lives at risk and then to change your mind about it later because it looks like maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all or because you decide that maybe it's going to be harder than you thought originally, etc. "OOPS! Sorry about that guys--it wasn't that important after all, sorry about the ones who died, no hard feelings. Guess we just didn't think this through well enough..." :barf: :barf: :barf: :barf:
You're either in or out, there's no changing in the middle. Committing troops and then withdrawing their support once they're engaged is the worst kind of treachery there is.
The only valid reason for withdrawing would be if it became apparent the military was not going to be able to achieve the goals to which it was committed. I realize that this puts a tremendous amount of pressure up front when determining whether or not to commit to military action, but that's exactly as it should be.
There's a good reason that starting a military action is called "COMMITTING" troops. Anybody remember what commitment means?
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I supported it through most of the rapidly and unceasingly shifting reasons for us being there, but I'm starting to get cynical. I'm also losing patience with how much people lie about 'positive changes' when I have friends there on the ground outside the green zone who desperately believe in what they're doing but only see the situation going down everywhere but inside the wall.
John, it is at least partly how war works. You don't throw regiment after regiment after regiment against an objective until you are out of regiments - that is my definition of an all or nothing proposition.
Yes, war is definitely an all or nothing proposition when you are defending your own land from invasion -absolutely. It is not an all or nothing proposition when you are engaged in an experimental act of creating a government out of whole cloth on the other side of the world in a culture that doesn't comprehend freedom, responsibility or democracy.
I would also proffer the theory that 90% of the public that supports a war at any given time does so out of emotion and nationalism fever, and not out of a committment based on logic and a clear understanding of the goals of the war and the costs that must be paid to attain those goals.
Swept away by the emotion of the moment is an apt description for why the Iraq war had so much support to begin with and is losing that support now. The people who originally supported it but don't now (if you don't count the fact that they were told we were going in after WMDs that our govt knew were there) were not committed to creating a new govt in Iraq at the costs that we are beginning to incur.
That is a lack of committment brought about by an emotional attachment to the idea of the war to begin with. Now, faced with the reality of what we are trying to do, it's potential for not succeeding, and the increasing costs, they are looking at it without so much emotion. Which is good, don't you think? Emotion clouds judgement and getting that emotion out of the way should lead to clearer thinking.
I am not sure if I follow this statement. I have not heard of anyone suggesting that we withdraw support for our troops oncce they are engaged. What do you mean by withdraw their support?
Here we at least agree in part - the realization that the military would not be able to achieve the goals to which it was committed is a solid reason for withdrawal. Yes, this does put a tremendous pressure up front to deliberately and clearly define the mission goals, estimate the mission costs, and then decide if the mission is worth the price that will be paid before committing to the mission. That is absolutely how it should be. That is how the citizens should also approach a war, by knowing the mission goals, understanding the potential costs of that mission, believing that the mission is worth the costs and being committed to seeing it through.
Or conversely, not agreeing that the mission is worth the cost and protesting the start of that war to begin with.
butch50 said:
We agree.JohnKSa said:
The all or nothing part is a consequence of putting lives at risk to achieve the objectives, NOT a consequence of the type of objectives. The determination of objectives and the decision to commit to military action to those objectives is where the decisions are made. Once the commitment is made there is no honorable course of action but to follow through.
Ask a soldier. I didn't get specific on purpose because I believe that a healthy military needs many kinds of support, and sometimes the least concrete types of support are the most important.
A little thought will tell you that the citizenry usually doesn't have a way to effectively make those kinds of assessments because they don't have access to the proper information and generally don't have the expertise to make those kinds of decisions anyway. That's why we have representatives and leaders (with advisors, etc.). Once the leadership and representatives that we have chosen make the commitment then it is the duty of the soldiers and the citizens to support the action through to completion. I'm NOT talking about blindly, humbly, silently following the leaders or simply knuckling under to the "ruling class". I'm talking about about duty to our military and to our country's commitments. Outdated concepts, perhaps, but nonetheless important.
I'm all for being more cautious about making these commitments in the first place, but commitment means something, and it's not something to be taken lightly. It's wrong to ask soldiers to risk their lives for something and then just simply back out after things stop looking rosy. Besides being dishonorable, it cheapens human life.
"You military folks jump in there and kill and die for this cause awhile and if things start to look bad we'll try something different or maybe just quit altogether." :barf:
MeekAndMild
New member
Of course we might bring up the hypocritical way the Demorats seem to ignore Mr. Clinton's entanglements in Africa and the former Yugoslavian republics when they throw stones at Mr. Bush.