Twokinds ARCHIVE Forums

As continued from the discussion in Homosexuals in the Military.

The topic is this, are the two wars we are currently in actually worth it?


Graham, I would never question that what American soldiers do in Iraq now is good, only that these things would have been needed had we not invaded in the first place.

Just to make sure my thoughts are understood clearly; I support Afghanistan, not Iraq(entirely). I don't think we should have gone into Iraq, but I don't think we can just pull out now either.

EDIT: Aha! Here's a great example of that media bias I mentioned earlier, as an afterthought:
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/15/c ... f-the-day/

Also, you might want to link back to the original discussion's start.

With Iraq, I personally feel there's not much to be done there. I'm of the opinion that regardless of when we pull out, there will be a civil war and the same issue that came while we were here will remain.

More than that, the longer we stay the more people end up feeling sympathetic to their "cause", and more people get mad at us.

Afghanistan could have been handled better though due to the extremely low media coverage (What's up with that?), I don't have a full opinion.

Afghanistan is better off it is now, then in the past 50 years (or ever), have you ever seen the the USSR did to them? Plus it's UN backed and about 54% of the forces their are form other nations

could have been done better like have Rangers storm were Bin landen was insted of locals. And we need to fix the Openuim problem... or at least make sure they used it for medicinal purposes.

@Dekel currenty the Taliban is raising up, again for like the 5th time and President Hamid Karzai is tring to work out a peaceful terms (someone like "they're still Afghanis and this is their home, as long as they behave we're cool")

Well live and learn, I guess.
But one thing that bothers me is, is our official stance now that we went in to get Saddam or help them?
It changes so much I don't know anymore.

I'm going to stay out of this one.

Don't be afraid of offending me. It's very hard to do. I am not ignorant enough to believe that my opinion on these wars is possibly right - I am very biased being employed Uncle Sam. More so, I don't think there is any 'correct' opinion on the conflict America has right now. Just different ways of thinking.

Iraq - I think removing Saddam was the right thing to do. He was a ruthless dictator. He tortured his own countrymen with biological and chemical warfare agents. He had thousands of innocent people executed, men women and children, only because their religious views didn't coincide with his. I think removing him was the most humane thing we, or any country, could do for the people of Iraq. I don't think removing him should have been attached to 9/11 as it was. I think we should have done it far sooner than we did.

After he was gone, we should have left. We freed an oppressed nation. We basically saved millions of people from future pointless torture, execution and a poverty stricken, miserable existence.

What we're doing now is positive in it's own right. Helping rebuild a country, helping establish a self-sustaining government, helping aid people in need by terminating people who would use innocent civilians as tools in their own, selfish religious disputes. But I agree we shouldn't be there. It is not our business. Simple as that. We don't need people dying over something like Iraq. Let the Iraqis die over Iraq.

*However*. We started something that we have to finish. Thousands of men and women have given the ultimate sacrifice while trying to complete the mission they were assigned - to help establish a stable government and military in Iraq and aid the Iraqi civilians. The mission is possible. People died while starting it, and now we're going to finish it. Doing anything less than that will mean those thousands of good people have died in vain. And we will not stand for that.

But I and most soldiers agree we shouldn't have bothered past getting rid of Saddam. Definitely.


Afghanistan - All we're doing there is killing terrorists before they get the chance to kill innocent civilians in other countries, America included. Nothing more and nothing less. We're forcing terrorist organizations to fight us there, use their resources there, use their funding there, use their manpower there instead of here in America or other countries.

Decide for yourself whether you'd rather have the American military fight them over there in Afghanistan, or over here in your neighborhood. There is no median.


Aaaaand now it's time for some rum and coke. G'night people.

My question is, if it was to get out Saddam, why not simply assassinate him, it seems like a much more humane way of doing things.

And as to fighting them in our streets, I find it hard to believe that they have the power to do such a things. Let's remember that on 911 we didn't deal with highly trained and well equiped soldiers of another army.

We dealt with crazy people with box cutters who knew how to fly planes well enough to crash one.

All the so called terrorists don't have the funding or capability to get over here en mass, and most were produced by this war effort, not before it.

Because the CIA is very bad at what they do.

...

I'm sory, I just had to. Continue with your discussion

Thread moved to the correct board.

*.......holds his head, screaming*
Thanks Graham, you've convinced me to support Iraq. Congratulations, it's the only republican thing that I support, and it's all thanks to you. I think it's good that we're there. Between you, and the Declaration of Independance, and National Treasure (Y'alled better know which scene I'm talking about), I have no choice but to support Iraq. The people need help, we can help, so we have a responsibility to help. Now, if Bush had said that instead of saying "WMDs! Sadaam has WMDs and he could use them against us! Nuclar!" then there would've been more support for the war in Iraq. But, that's just my opinion.

I'm going to agree with 'Somni on the fact that the Administration really needed to emphasize the other twenty-odd points in the
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. Mentioning one (which happened to be the one we haven't found good evidence to support, regardless of the beliefs of literally the entire world's intelligence community before the war) over and over and over again, while ignoring all the others, really hurt support for military action.

As for why we didn't assassinate Saddam, that's easily answered -- a few years ago (around Carter, I think), the President at the time made an Executive Order which prevents Americans and American assets, in particular the CIA, who was usually responsible for such things, from engaging in or taking part in assassinations. Certainly, another President could easily countermand the order and permit the CIA to engage in assassinations again, but who wants to be remembered as the President who reauthorized assassinations? (And the media would tear the President apart for it during their whole time in office.) Of course, you can't just blow the heck out of a country and walk away, much as we'd like to. Nation building isn't fun, but it's the responsible thing to do. And we're much better at it. It took over a decade before we let Japan govern itself again. And there was a sizeable number of people (pretty much anybody who'd seen Imperial Japan in action) who wouldn't be convinced until it happened that Japan could join the rest of the world as a functioning, contributing democracy. From what I've heard, the Iraqis are doing pretty darn well for themselves.

Of course, I've supported both of these wars from the start and don't intend to stop. *wry grin*

I'm not worried about offending anyone as much as I want to avoid getting angry about something I've been angry about for the past five years.

Edit: Also, how is this a discussion on media? The war is on TV, sure, but the discussion isn't about the news coverage.

My guess: It's politics, which falls under the purview of the Media Board.

-- Incidentally --
The question was raised as to where to look for outside of mainstream media coverage of Iraq before this thread spun off. Here's one: Michael Yon is an independent photo journalist in Iraq. There's another independent journalist that I've read occasionally, but I cannot for the life of me remember his name (though I think it's also Michael...something).

-- Got it --
Michael Totten

I didn't support the war, chiefly because some of us here think that the US was after oil with the excuse that they had to liberate Iraq. [True or not, that's what I thought at the time.]

I feel that staying in Iraq is necessary, if not until they are able to defend themselves, then at least until the very basic infrastructure needed to ensure their survival is implemented. Without help, Iraq could easily slip back into another dictatorship or even become victim to genocide. Liberating Iraq meant it became America's responsibility to take care of it for as long as needed.

However, I don't believe that constant troop surges are key to America's success. I'm not too sure what the manuals on counter-insurgency say, but I don't think troop surges are in them. Some kind of policing is required, but making sure the Iraqis actually pull themselves together so the country doesn't support these insurgents or collapse later should be the main focus.

Apologies if everything I've been saying is irrelevant, insulting, has no basis, has already been done, is not up to date, isn't a viable option or anything of the sort. All I hear from Iraq is from random news magazines and the internet, so I'm pretty cut off.

I do think America is actually doing the rest of the world a favour, just that no one realizes it.