More War Inevitable?

[runtheball]

The bottom line on Iraq:

This is war on terrorism.  Saddam funded, gave shelter to, and encouraged terrorists.  Therefore, he's a target.

[bsmooth]

The bottom line on Iraq:

This is war on terrorism.  Saddam funded, gave shelter to, and encouraged terrorists.  Therefore, he's a target.

Your best evidence for this claim is from 1993? We still haven't pacified fully the Taliban in Afghanistan. Doubt me, then bring u this week's Army Times where our own field commanders are screaming for us not to cut back troops there especially SF troops, because the Taliban is lying low hoping to lull us into a false sense of security and get us to leave before the new Afghan Government is ready to go.
You are so blindly partisian for the right it isn't even funny. Only a fucking puppet would state that someone hates this country just for disagreing with you. I never said this country was evil, but we have made some bad/questionable decisions in the past that are affectig us today. But I suppose you couldn't be bothered to study history.
If you are so worried about my hatred of this country, I wil give you the contact inforation for the commander of the unit I am currently deploying to Afghnistan with and express your concern. I am willing to put my ass on the line for this country and my beliefs. Are you puppet boy?

[run_to_win]

Geez bsmooth!  One paragraph of cogent arguments and then two paragraphs of childish name calling and ranting and raving like a lunatic. 

Seriously - the first paragraph was great.  Why not just stop there?   

[Phishfan]

You don't think that the first Gulf War had anything to do with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait?

We aren't talking about phantom WMDs and imagined threats.  The first Gulf War was a real, actual military invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.  I don't think you can classify that war as just an oil grab (at least, from our standpoint).

Why do you think Iraq invaded Kuwait? It was a dispute over oil. Hence the cause of the war...oil.

[Phishfan]

The thing is, I am sick and tired of seeing the U.S. attempt to settle conflicts in areas of the world they have no business in.  Let's look back at all the recent wars:

World War II-  The last "real war" we were involved in as the Japs had the guts to bomb Pearl Harbor

Korea-  We had no business there.  The conflict was between North and South Korea

Vietnam-  Again, the conflict was between North and South Vietnam.  We should not have stuck our noses there.  Look what happened as a result.

Iraq-  Again, we had no business going to Iraq in the '90s.  Let them settle the conflict with Kuwait.  Also invading Iraq in 2003 proved futile as no "weapons of mass destruction" were found.


Why is the U.S. constantly trying to police the world??  Let's take care of our own!!!  If they really want to free a country, make it Cuba. 

This may be the message I have agreed with tommy the most on (within any forum). We need to quit being everyones watchdog.

[Phishfan]

How can people say we're fighting to get cheap oil when in fact oil prices have been going through the roof? That doesn't fit the idea of an oil-thirsty aggressive country.

Unless you account for the fact that ExxonMobil just claimed the largest quartely profit ever (by any company).

[JVides]

My thought is that the greatest threat to our future and heritage in this world is war itself. And so my question is, do you think we can avoid the expansion of war? Avoid additional battlefronts and the polarization of the international community during a time rife with the threats I listed in my first post. Or do you think that conflict will only spread and get worse?

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf

I started with the link so you'd see where I'm coming from.  I've lived abroad, as I've mentioned before.  I've seen real poverty; not the American "I can still afford a car and rent" version, but the "My family and I live in an an eight-by-ten-foot corrugated steel shack with no indoor plumbing" version (the favellas of Sao Paulo, Brazil).  The people there are desperate and uneducated.  They have no prospects from the moment they're born.  LITERALLY.  There IS no American sense of "you can rise above it" in places like these.  5 year olds are sent to panhandle in rush hour traffic instead of to school, because they're cute and more easily pull on heartstrings.  I've SEEN this, people.  I've seen one panhandler beat and rob another because she was lucky enough to score the equivalent of (I'm guessing here) $5, probably less.

So, what does a panhandler in Brazil have to do with this post?  Quite simply, our enemies in the Middle East have convinced the populace that the United States is more to blame for its collective lot in life than they are (I believe the Ayatollahs in Iran live quite well, don't you?)  The desperate, uneducated masses are led to believe that the Middle East would get on just fine if only the United States and its allies could be expelled from the region.  (If that ever happened, the story would refocus on "once Israel is rightfully back in the hands of the Palestinians", and so on from there)

We in the "Western World" are seen as greedy, exploitative whiners because we live such opulent lives. (But I WANT a BMW for my 16th birthday, not a FORD!!)  We complain that our lucrative jobs go to other countries, but know not the despair of having nothing, because here, even when you lose "everything" you still have most of your worldly possessions.  We use more oil than any other country (and not by a little, either), yet pay the least.  (Look it up, people)  Our foreign policies (both right wing "war-like" and left wing "the third wolrd's modernization will worsen the greenhouse effect, we need to do something to stop them" are seen as hamfisted and heavy handed, because we are so quick to protect our interests.

By contrast, the average Iranian lives on $2,300 (actually $2,300 but worth $7,550 based on buying power.)  The country continues to be ruled by the Ayatollahs simply because the United States has not seen fit to remove them from power YET.  In other words, Iran's people are poor, and powerless.  The same could be said for any other nation deemed problematic, and even our regional allies, Pakistan ($600/$2160) and Egypt ($1310/$4120).

It's not difficult to make the equation work.  Americans are rich, well fed people who see fit to interfere in the lives of poor, hungry, oppressed people.  A war against the "fat, imperialist" West is not a difficult cause for which to recruit.  The conditions under which the poor live make recruitment even easier.  Promise them shelter, three squares a day and family protection and watch 'em sign up.

Scar Man, the short of it (too late) is that war will endure until the West's wealth is shared with the rest of the world.  We will continue to RIGHTFULLY protect our interests (who here wants to send half of his/her paycheck to poor nations?  Anyone?), while poor nations will continue to fight for what they perceive we steal from them.  Eventually (Not in my lifetime, bud) the inequities will lessen as those poorest of countries make incremental improvements to their ways of life (Our own society has changed so much in just 100 years, it's unreasonable to expect that the entire world could modernize as we have).  In the meantime, war will continue, as it always has, for the same reasons it always has.  We pretend that we're above it, that war is some sort of uncivilized activity that's beneath us, but in reality it's not.  We'll defend what's ours as others try to make it theirs, just as it's always been.

[run_to_win]

Wow - GREAT post ... until the last paragraph. 

How do we steal from them?  Our support of the Shah Reza Shah Pahlevi (25 years ago) or King Fahd (now Crown Prince Abdullah)?

The USA was a major contributor to the development of the Middle East oil industry.  They pay $.05 a "gallon", according to soldiers recently stationed there, and we pay 40-50 times as much.

Terrorist #1 Yassar Arafat died with an estimated $300,000,000 in the bank.  The monthly allowance he sent to his wife in Paris was more than most Palestinians combined earned.  Saddam is estimated to be worth BILLIONS.   





Unless you're Royalty or part of a dictatorship, wealth comes sucking up to a dictator, illegal activity or from the free market.  We give them the third option and are accused of stealing?

[JVides]

How do we steal from them?

No, no...I said we are perceived as stealing from them.  As a matter of fact, that cartoon is the exact scenario I was referring to! 

[JVides]

And, by the way, if we're just going to toss out names of places where horrific things are happening: Georgia state of the former USSR, Southern America (namely in the rain forest),  the Congo

I used South America as an example, because I've lived there and seen the poverty there. 

Look - have any of you ventured into the jungle in South Central?  The bowels of Houston or Detroit?  East Oakland?

No, yes, no and no.  Valid point, but the conditions in the worst part of Oakland are simply not even remotely the same as the conditions in other parts of the world.  No running water.  No plumbing.  Human waste in the drinking water.  Beyond squalid conditions.  No "slaughter" because of comparatively silly American issues like gangs.  Wholesale starvation, cholera epidemics, people dying from things we cured decades ago.  REAL problems.  Again, you need to see it to understand.  You need to smell it, walk by it.  My wife (who has also lived abroad) and I always marvel at how we, as Americans, can think we have it so bad when even our poorest have access to better care and facilities than (guessing here) a good 25% of the world's population.

[JVides]

As have I.  And it's not any worse than poverty that I have seen here.

I have never, ever seen the poverty I've seen abroad on such a scale here in the U.S.  Proportionally speaking, there's no comparison.  I know of no place in the U.S. as large, as densely populated, and as poor as the Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro favellas. 

But...I guess those people don't count

Yeah, because THAT's what I said.  I can play "twist the words" too.  So, poor Americans are more important than the poor abroad?  Like having been born here is worth something extra?  Like they're of a higher class and importance?

Ignorance to plight at home kills me.  I guess because we aren't showing some poor old woman in Northern Maine frozen to death on TV it doesn't exist.  Right in your back yard there are third world conditions - and people that don't have access to jack shit

Maine, I told you before, your point was valid.  There are issues at home that need to be taken care of.  But do not for a second try to compare 400 people frozen so far in Maine this year to the deaths in in just one favella in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  The matter I speak of is of proportions.

regardless of the fairly tale you'd like to tell yourself

Worse than the fairy tale of "the great America" is the chicken little theory that the sky is falling.  You want to say our people need help here first?  Fine, that's OK with me; let's take care of our own.  But do not try to tell me that even five percent of this country's population is as poor as the people in South America and Bosnia and Panama City that you've seen.

This statement is flat out wrong and scathing with ignorant thought.  Let's talk about conditions in norethern Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire...where over 400 people have either frozen, starved or died because of lack of these "better services" that you speak of - SO FAR this winter.

I'm talking about a worlwide poverty epidemic and you're coming at me with 400 people?  Do you want to play "let's compare news headlines" with me?  Granted, you'll have to read in Spanish and Portuguese, but I'm certain I can come up with some pretty large death tolls, if you'd like.  Realize:  I understand your point.  I realize that parts of this country have thrid world-like conditions.  The scope, though, is the difference, and my point remains.  If you want to stop war, third world nations will need to be brought up to the point where their people are more than subsisting.

[JVides]

I guess that is a terrible thing.

For the love of Moses, Maine, I've told you four times in two posts that I either agree with or respect your opinion.  It's not a terrible thing to want to aid our countrymen before others.  I agree with you on this, to a point.  I sense that you'd want all povery eradicated, all problems solved here before venturing out to help outside our borders.  That utopian sociaty will never exist.  Poverty will always be a part of American life.  It's sad, but it's true.  Our might may better be served here, but its impact can be felt more away, where countries have farther to go.

[JVides]

Actually - I don't think it has to be one or the other (within versus outside our borders).  I do think, however, that there is a mismanagement of services and funds - along with a lack of education to the plight of those here. 

If you subscribe to the butterfly effect theory, as do I, then you'll know that those 400 people in northern New England, while small in number to those slaughtered this week in the Congo alone, carry a direct line on to how we help the world.

The extreme poverty that you and I speak of, rampant in so much of the world, does exist here.  On the same scale?  Of course not.  One life lost in Mexico due to lack of medical attention carries a lot of weight with me as well.  It's the money and resources spent that drives me to drink.

And on that note, can I say we've struck an accord?  We both recognize the issues.  Your experience makes you sensitive to the needs at home, mine makes me sensitive to the needs away.  Same problem, different focus.

[JVides]

I guess my launch point is the whole "Americans don't matter as much as the world needs" thing

That view pisses me off, too.

The saddest / worst part?  It's only going to get worse.  The "have's" and "have not's" will only grow.  

I fear you're right.

[JVides]

<<extends hand to Jvides>>

It wasn't personal, bro - just spirited debate.  No hard feelings?

<<Shakes hand vigorously>>

None at all, I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually.