Freedonia's Going to War

I honestly don't know. He was in the Rangers is all he says. He doesn't like to talk about it all that much, and I don't blame him. We got to swapping army stories over many beers and he told me.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Well you mentioned...

...so I'll tell you what I think.

Bush's administration wants Hussein out, and so do I. That man has spit in the face of the U.N. for too long now. Do I want to go to war, no. A person would have to be an idiot to want to go to war. Yet, if they send in inspectors again, and he gives them the same old *****, then the only choice this country has, is to remove him from power.

Bush said on Monday that a war over Iraq, which Egypt has said would plunge the region into chaos, was not imminent or unavoidable and pledged to build an international coalition against Iraq if it defied U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions, its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.

Haven't you seen the footage of Iranians dead from Iraqis chemicle weapons? He has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States.

You say Hussein isn't Hitler, you're right. Hitler's dead. Look at what had to happen to the people of the world before Hitler finally died. You want to see the "smoking gun" before you act? What if that gun is pointed at the city you're from, or the military base and its soldiers where your war veteran friend came from?
Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work.

The al Qaeda terrorist network and Hussein have one enemy in common, America. Who's to say they won't become bedfellows.

I'll tell you this MB, I saw what that madman did to HIS OWN people first hand. If I could put a bullet in his brain personally, I would Gladly do it!

Anyhoo...have you heard the one about the new Porno Disney flik coming out? It's called Weenie in the pooh.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Wow, this guy's really lost it! What happened here?

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"Look out all you mothers, I'm happy to the core, Happy like a coupon for a 20 dollar whore..." - Olly's Happy Song

I'm sure that really didn't help man...

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www.esotericrabbit.com

Um, the U.S. has a history of pre-emptive strikes. As do other countries of the past. The Dominican Republic and Grenada come to mind, for example. Despite what people would have you believe, this is not a new idea...this is not a new thing for the U.S. or history in general. Not by a long shot!

Anyway, relax; don't oppose the war simply because Bush is backing it. Even if you hate him he can't always be wrong. Judge the war based on its own merits, apart from Bush. I think there's adequate reason to take out Saddam if he continues to deceive us about the weapons he holds.

Damn, Monkey...

Take it easy. Slaytan wasn't taking a swipe at you personally, he was only laying out his view of things.

I understand the sentiment of not wanting to go to war. If you really stop and think about it just feels fukked up way down deep to kill people, unless you're a wacko.

I don't see the entire world turning against the US. In fact, GWB has been very careful to get approval from as many nations as possible. Hussein is a real threat. He has nuclear power and he has strong ties with moslem extremists. That he should seek to arm them against us and those who support us is a natural sequence of events.

Stopping Hussein, to me , is a necessity for self preservation as well as the preservation of all free people.

In a situation far too close to me, a man knew he was ill. He felt bad yet he ignored the signs hoping they would go away. When he finally acted it, was too late. I wish he'd taken the first punch.

Same situation here... sometimes taking the first punch is the best option. Especially if your enemy has been growing unseen for years and years and you really have no idea how big it really is.

By the way: no one here hates you. Seriously.

Word to your mutha.

->well, first i'll respond to the topic of the thread: the cartoon yoda posted. no sir, i dont like it. i find no compelling argument in the image of the eagle as to why we should go to war (which is perhaps why i'm a little annoyed at where this thread has gone), and as has been mentioned a couple times, dieing for your country is only a pleasant thought if you're a glory-minded nutjob. war is a last resort, and sometimes even a valid preemptive measure, but it is no doubt hideous and brutal (sorry fella's i dont find brutality and ugliness inspireing).
->so what exactly is the image of the pissy eagle supposed to inspire me towards? patriotism? i doubt it, and even if so, that's a kind of patriotism i have no interest in subscribing to. it definately doesnt make me want to die gloriously and violently for america. and it doesnt make a case as to why we should invade iraq, so it's not inspiring in that regard either.
->at best, it is a comment on the mentality in america right now, that war with iraq is ugly but inevitable, which, even if it may be true (though i dont think so), it's not even close to inspiring in any respect other than showing a general consensus. if that's an argument for war it's pretty damned stupid.

hmmm, i was gonna respond to a couple other posts, but i dont have much else to say on this topic as it stands.

by the way monkey punch, i think i'll add my voice to those that have said you're overreacting if you want to leave based on the faulty reasoning that 'slayton has been to war and you havent, so you have no right to have an opinion on the topic and are pathetic. the only thing that's true in that last sentence is that "slayton has been to war and you havent", the rest is utter nonsense.

Uh, what? No one's saying we should go to war because of that drawing. The drawing symbolizes our going to war. You've got it backwards.


Neither do I, but then again, war isn't just about brutality and ugliness. It's also about courage and honor...and that IS inspiring.


It's supposed to convey that sometimes you simply have to get down to business. The eagle isn't smiling, for crying out loud. He's focused. The idea is that, as awful as war is, and as beautiful as the eagle may be just sitting there, sometimes it's necessary to sharpen the claws and do what needs to be done. It's not hard to decipher.


You need no look further than some of the posts on the second page of this thread for an argument for war. The cartoon is not an argument for it; where you got that idea is beyond me, man.

my point was that the drawing makes no argument for going to war, or at least, not a compelling one. i said so not with reference to you, but to the direction the posts have gone, the fact that for some reason people stopped referring to the topic of the thread, that is, the cartoon. do you want me to name names? i think it's irrelevant.

okay, point taken, war is courage and honor AND brutality and ugliness. i still dont find the cartoon a great indicator of the latter. i could just be reading too far into this, but i dont see much indication of the latter in the cartoon, rather, what i see is a stoic resolution to go to war. i think it's saying something like: 'war is a tough chore, but something the us has to do'. i dont find that inspiring, because->i find the simplicity and inevitability therein both misleading and disrespectful to the severity of the situation.


er, didnt i agree with both of those things in my original post?
again, i tried to say that starting a heated argument about why we should/should not go to war was irrelevant to the topic of the thread: the cartoon. i did so by saying: the cartoon makes no case for why we should go to war. i also argued, perhaps not clearly enough, that the cartoon was not inspiring. (i've tried to amend that with this post.)


i'm surprised that i didnt pick up specifically on the contradiction of all this that i made at the end though, which i just now noticed, but which i'll still stand by as a valid point to take into consideration: that perhaps the cartoon was making an implicit case about why we should go to war: because it's inevitable and we (americans) are resolved to do so. i dont think this is too far fetched, as it seems to have been a large tenet of nationalism going into recent past wars, and one that i feel is very stupid.

I think the problem here lies in your mistaken assumption that this thread was created FOR the cartoon. It was created to discuss the war. The cartoon is just there because it's interesting and rather clever. This is not a cartoon thread; this is a war thread. The cartoon is just a part of it.

I said "the picture says it all" -- not "let's talk about the picture."

No one's even remotely claiming that a drawing of an eagle should spark us to war. No one even implied it. Not for a moment...no one here is that stupid.


I most definitely find it inspiring, because it's just another way of saying "war is awful, but it needs to be done. And we're the ones willing to do it." That statement goes hand in hand with bravery, valor, and all sorts of other good things.


Very stupid? Which one?

I think you're reading too much into the cartoon. It was published after September 11th. It's really quite simple, I think.

yoda sais:
-->I think the problem here lies in your mistaken assumption that this thread was created FOR the cartoon. It was created to discuss the war. The cartoon is just there because it's interesting and rather clever. This is not a cartoon thread; this is a war thread. The cartoon is just a part of it.
I said "the picture says it all" -- not "let's talk about the picture."

okay, and i said: talking about the war outside of the context of the cartoon is off topic. apparently i misinterpreted the purpose of the thread, but that's due as much to ambiguity on your part as it is to my inability to read between the lines.

-->No one's even remotely claiming that a drawing of an eagle should spark us to war. No one even implied it. Not for a moment...no one here is that stupid.

...including me. that's not a point i tried to make either, the points i made were directly to 2 things: 1. the meaning of the cartoon (ie-what it was saying, how valid it's points were), which i still stand by. and: 2. what i misinterpreted as off topicness on the parts of several posters.

-->I most definitely find it inspiring, because it's just another way of saying "war is awful, but it needs to be done. And we're the ones willing to do it." That statement goes hand in hand with bravery, valor, and all sorts of other good things.

you're entitled to that, but again, i read the cartoon a different way: again, as a general statement about war, i think it's looking at it in the wrong light, dont know how many different ways i can reword my interpretation of the cartoon.

-->Very stupid? Which one?

the one i mentioned in my interpretation of the cartoon.

I think you're reading too much into the cartoon. It was published after September 11th. It's really quite simple, I think. [/b][/quote]

so what? i'm not contesting when it was published. i'm not arguing that it's explicitly complicated either, but that perhaps there is more to it than there seems, which i already went into. again i acknowledge that i could be reading too far into it, but i dont think i'm reading so far that the ideas i've put forth are unreasonable.

No, they're not ridiculous. But seeing as how it was published at that time, I think it's highly unlikely that it's conveying any message even remotely anti-war. Anti-war messages were barely tolerated at that time, as you surely remember.

Anyway, my points still stand: I think you simply misinterpreted the meaning of this thread because the first post happened to contain a drawing. There is adequate reason to go to war here, I think, and no one implied for even half a moment that we should drop a bomb based on a sketch.

I don't think the thread was all that ambiguous. The title says we're going to war. The picture says we're going to war. So, the thread is about going to war. Seems simple enough to me.

I'm still not following you. Are you saying the potential war against Iraq is "very stupid"?

please, this is an honest request: could you point out to me where i said that people were arguing that on the basis of the cartoon itself that we should bomb iraq? cause i dont think i ever made that claim.

arguing that people think we should (edit: change attack iraq to go to war) based on some cartoon, and arguing that the cartoon does indeed make an implicit statement that we should go to war (plus why i disagree with that statement (of the cartoon itself, and not the people reading it)) are two different things, and i was trying to argue the latter, not the former.

i also dont see why the fact that it was published at a time when people were angry makes the cartoon's message (as i see it, i've already sufficiently said what i think the message was, and why i dissagree with it, i think...) any more or less valid.

and here's my friendly critique of the thread itself, cause i misinterpreted it: i think that confining the argument to the context of the cartoon would make both a more interesting conversation (like the one we've been having ) and go a long way to keeping the arguments cohesive, as oposed to just posting a cartoon and saying: here's a cartoon, now lets talk about war.

ah, sorry. no, i meant that i thought the cartoon was implying the old 'hop on the bandwagon, c'mon! it may be tough, but it's gonna happen anyway' arguement.
like i said, far fetched.
like you said, perhaps reading too far.
like i replied: yeah, but not so far that it's unreasonable, given that such an argument does exist, and seem to go pretty far at times when reactionary sentiments are riding high (like they were after 9/11).
i was saying that i saw shades of that argument in the cartoon, and that i think it's an absolutely stupid, incorrect, attrocious statement to make.

Linespalsy:

Yes or no please, should we go to war?

One word definitive answer, regardless of the cartoon.

here's my answer with a few extra words thrown in, for posterity ...
there are a couple very compelling arguments i could make about why we should. but ultimately, and though i think in the long run it will be extremely difficult and dangerous, no, i do not think we should use our ample military strength in iraq. in fact, i think we should do everything we can to avoid going all out to war with iraq, and at the same time, everything in our (nonmilitary) power to get rid of saddam. even if it may mean giving the un broader powers (could be very harmful), making the us accountable in a legitimate international criminal court (again, could be very harmful, and not just for the us), or (gasp!) halting our policy of unconditional support for israel (which i think we should do anyway). obviously, all of these avenues have great potential to go disastrously wrong....maybe i should just end it there for now, lest i stop making sense.

what do you think, toose?

Eh? What's wrong with supporting a country in defending itself?

I like the way a person on another board I frequest put it: if the Palestinians put down their weapons tomorrow, there would be peace. If the Isrealians put down their weapons tomorrow, there would be no more Isreal.