Iraq: Ten years later
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, March 23, 2013 00:10
VIEWED: 10954
PAGE 5 of 9
Quote:You're not condemned because you voted. You're condemned because you voted for someone who murders wholesale, AND you're STILL defending that vote!
Originally posted by Niki2:
We voted, so we're condemned.
You could always vote for someone who wasn't for killing innocent people. I'd respect that.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Funny how the "right" thing always consists of civilian casualties. Ha. Ha.
And now that Saddam Hussein is gone, Iran is coming to power, so we can go to war with Iran now! It's okay if civilians die, they're evil anyway, so it has to be done. The ends justify the means!
Or maybe the situation is far more complicated than any of us give it credit for and maybe it never had ANYTHING to do with what was "right." Maybe if we cared a jot about what was "right," we wouldn't have supported Saddam Hussein when it was convenient, and withdrawn that support when it wasn't.
We have much more a reason to go to war with Iran than we ever did with Iraq. That being said, we really don't have the money to do something right now.
You are clearly not getting it, less people have died as a result of the Iraq war than did Sadam's reign. We never should have supported Sadam during the Iran-Iraq war, however at least we had the common sense to intervene when he decided to invade Kuwait. We all know its harder to jam the toothpaste back into the tube after you've spilled it, and the plethora of Administrative blunders certainly didn't help, however I will say that I don't mind Sadam not being in power, and I don't see why we should sulk over the sins of the past when we did go the extra mile to make up for it.
Also, I wonder how many people would have died if the Iranians won the Iran-Iraq war? I wonder how horrid the death toll would have been..... Just a penny for your thoughts.
"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it the most?"- Mark Twain
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Quote:I'm 45. You're not older than me.
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
I think I'm older than CTS,
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:I don't want him to have the power to begin wars. It isn't the power.
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
CTS, I'd like you to address the issue of USA dictatorship. If Obama has the power to begin/end wars etc, how do you think this will go down when other parties (I say parties because who knows what the GOP will become) take power?
It is about standing up for what is RIGHT.
It is the one guy in a room where his buddies are gangraping a girl, and saying, no, I won't be part of this. This is wrong. You stop, or I am going to make you stop.
Someone with Obama's popularity and charisma, if he had tried to stop the wars/Guantanamo/atrocities, and he was blocked at every turn--what do you think would have happened if he had made a public appeal to the American people:
Fellow Americans. I ran my campaign on the platform for change. But I don't have the power to change without you. So I have to appeal to you again. Write your congressmen and senators. Call them now. Tell them to allow me to shut down Guantanamo. Tell them to stop the wars. Tell them to do what is right.
If he had even TRIED to make that speech, I would personally hoist him on my shoulders.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:You're not condemned because you voted. You're condemned because you voted for someone who murders wholesale, AND you're STILL defending that vote!
Originally posted by Niki2:
We voted, so we're condemned.
Interesting, the contrast in arguments from CTS and Penguin1. Completely opposite takes.
Re age: OK, so we're very close. I thought you had young kids. Maybe confused you with someone else. Not that folks our age can't have young kids!
Sad that you're so hopeless about the system. I wonder how you've lived so long and always managed to have a perfect, no complexities, no disagreements candidate to vote for. I don't know much about your life, but it seems getting out could do you good. You do seem to think there are perfect solutions to very complicated problems. I wonder how you'd handle actually trying to solve one.
Again I ask: if you were suddenly Obama, in some Freaky Friday mind swap, do you think you'd be able to stop all the wars and corporate abuses on a dime? With no other innocent victims ever just because you said so?
And how do you answer Penguin regarding lives that were saved?
ETA - cross post! I see you replied. Give me a minute to read and assess...
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Quote:
You are clearly not getting it, less people have died as a result of the Iraq war than did Sadam's reign.
Yet people STILL DIED, and we contributed in a major way to the over-all death toll in the region. We also originally put Saddam in POWER, and so are responsible for what he did.
It's not a question of us being better or worse based on the number of people we killed versus how many people Saddam Hussein killed, it's a question of we did the SAME THING. Which is KILLING PEOPLE.
You think our leaders are better than Saddam Hussein? Lol. Just you wait.
And the only reason we want to go to war with Iran is because Israel wants to go to war with Iran. I guess that's totally righteous and a good reason though.
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Quote:I don't want him to have the power to begin wars. It isn't the power.
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
CTS, I'd like you to address the issue of USA dictatorship. If Obama has the power to begin/end wars etc, how do you think this will go down when other parties (I say parties because who knows what the GOP will become) take power?
It is about standing up for what is RIGHT.
Hard to give some one the power to end wars but not the power to begin them.
Also, what you see as right is not universal. Yes, in some situations, such as a gang rape, it is pretty damned clear. Iraq in 2009 - not so clear. Pulling the troops out the first day he was in office would not have gone well.
Quote:Yeah, he did that. When he ran for office in 2008. And people voted for him, people made phone calls, people protested. But guess what - people also made phone calls and cast votes etc supporting the complete opposite view! See Penguins posts. It is a complicated world, and a complicated problem. A gang rape is damned obvious right/wrong (for most of us anyway!) Running a country is not.
Fellow Americans. I ran my campaign on the platform for change. But I don't have the power to change without you. So I have to appeal to you again. Write your congressmen and senators. Call them now. Tell them to allow me to shut down Guantanamo. Tell them to stop the wars. Tell them to do what is right.
I really do think you should get yourself in a position to address a political issue. Hell, even be captain of a sports team where half the team wants to win and half just wants to play for fun. Try dealing with that stupid, meaningless, unsolvable conflict and maybe you'll develop some empathy for what is involved in trying to fix wars and broken political systems.
BTW, I would really love it if O'd stand up and make such a speech against the corporate-ocracy and class warfare. Oh wait, he's done that too. People did what he asked: voted, made calls, signed petitions, organized rallies. Did that change everything on a dime?
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Quote:
Sad that you're so hopeless about the system. I wonder how you've lived so long and always managed to have a perfect, no complexities, no disagreements candidate to vote for. I don't know much about your life, but it seems getting out could do you good. You do seem to think there are perfect solutions to very complicated problems. I wonder how you'd handle actually trying to solve one.
In a nutshell. And yes, sad; but I must admit in a 45-year-old, somewhat amazing. I was damned naive at 45, but not THAT blind and ignorant, even then.
And yes, he did:Quote:
I would really love it if O'd stand up and make such a speech against the corporate-ocracy and class warfare. Oh wait, he's done that too. People did what he asked: voted, made calls, signed petitions, organized rallies. Did that change everything on a dime?
...and nothing's changed. Nor will it. Takes more than that. Lots more...starting with, for those in power, SOME semblance of "cooperation" and "compromise".
Penguin, in many ways I understand what you're saying. But to me, that can be said of so many dictators, so many horrors in the world, and our involvement has not made things better and often made it worse, so for me, doing what we did was wrong, whether we were fooled into doing it or did it for the "right" reasons.
And given what we've got so far, this thread is not worth one more second's effort.
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Meanwhile...
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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Quote:
In a nutshell. And yes, sad; but I must admit in a 45-year-old, somewhat amazing. I was damned naive at 45, but not THAT blind and ignorant, even then.
...Y'know, my opinions here aren't so different from CTS, I just don't think you guys are evil for voting. Just that the voting system is very flawed and the only candidates who get offered up are the best scramblers out of all the monsters in a popularity contest.
And that each of us does have responsibility for what the person we voted for does. But I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at Obama. Just as I was mad at Bush.
Still... Is it really necessary to call me blind and ignorant? You addressed that at CTS, but if I'm making the same arguments, well, you kinda just called me that too.
Maybe we just kinda disagree, as opposed to either you and Mal4Prez or me and CTS are stupid. Maybe you guys are optimists and we're cynics, and they're legitimate lifestyle choices.
Pfft. Shoulda bowed out of this conversation when I said I was going to. For some reason all these arguments end up with us anarchists getting insulted.
We don't buy into something we think is a lie, so we're naive.
Instead of protesting and voting in a system that's rigged and abuses protestors and free speech, we're shirking our responsibilities by refusing to play that game and trying to find different paths for change.
We don't see a whole lot of difference which party is in power because the efforts of a few are muddled by the whole, and so to us they might as well be the same. But because we don't align ourselves with one party or another, we're BLIND.
Thanks a lot for making the EFFORT to talk to us lazy cowardly rubes.
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