F_alk, nobody is forcing western culture on Iraq. Democracy and basic human rights are not unique to the west.
F_alk, you state that starting a war is always wrong. All I have to do is show an example that is contrary to that point to show your premise is flawed.
Attacking Germany in 1938 would have been better for the world rather than waiting for Germany to attack on Sept 1, 1939.
Of course the question is WHEN is it just to invade and yes, subjective decisions are the hardest of all.
I think the risk of making a mistake is lower then the risk of doing nothing and waiting to be attacked.
The old adage ‘the best defence is a good offence’ is true.
Your argument might make sense if it was the US forcing the French to save Iraqi lives. What gives France the right to prevent Americans from risking their lives to save Iraqis from Saddam? I am not saying the US has the right to trade 10 French for 100 Iraqis.
I don’t think Germans are genetically evil or any different from anybody else for that matter. Yet Germans by the millions willingly died to defend Hitler. The allies had to practically destroy Germany to get at Hitler yet nobody said it was wrong to kill german soldiers to accomplish this. (Dresden and carpet bombing of civilian targets on both sides excluded).
What gives people the right to do this? Often it’s the ability to do something and the willingness to do it.
You argue subtle semantics like that is the real issue. A lesser evil is not good compared to a greater evil. What kind of sophistory is this? A lesser evil is always better then a greater evil.
Let’s use Occams razor. You have a choice, less dead or more dead. Saddam = more dead.
What gave the allies the right to fight the Nazis?
BB
F_alk, nobody is forcing western culture on Iraq. Democracy and basic human rights are not unique to the west.
We agree on the basic human rights. But i don’t necessairly agree on the democracy part. I do not know of a genuine non-western style of democracy. Do you know one?
F_alk, you state that starting a war is always wrong. All I have to do is show an example that is contrary to that point to show your premise is flawed.
Attacking Germany in 1938 would have been better for the world rather than waiting for Germany to attack on Sept 1, 1939.
Germany starting the war was doing wrong. Wether the attack in1938 would have been better is unprovable. I could just state that it would have been worse, and there is no way to prove me wrong, because we don’T have any idea what then would have happened.
I think the risk of making a mistake is lower then the risk of doing nothing and waiting to be attacked.
I guess we can cut it down to say that we disagree here.
Your argument might make sense if it was the US forcing the French to save Iraqi lives. What gives France the right to prevent Americans from risking their lives to save Iraqis from Saddam? I am not saying the US has the right to trade 10 French for 100 Iraqis.
Well, the US are kind of “forcing” their allies. They threatened some countries to cut the US help. Even if that is not physical force, it still is force. For the French etc: Its the same right that any other of the veto-powers has and that each of them has used already.
What gives people the right to do this? Often it’s the ability to do something and the willingness to do it.
Here i couldn’t disagree more: If i have a gun, and hate my neighbor and am willing to kill him, does that give me the righ to murder him?
The ability and willingness has absolutely nothing to do with the right to do something.
A lesser evil is always better then a greater evil.
But it still is an evil, which i do not have to applaud to at all.
What gave the allies the right to fight the Nazis?
The Nazis, by attacking Poland.
F_alk, you state: “Wether the attack in1938 would have been better is unprovable. I could just state that it would have been worse, and there is no way to prove me wrong, because we don’T have any idea what then would have happened.”
You know, I just have to shake my head and ask myself why I bother. I’m not going to bother reading you posts anymore, I’m sure I will miss some good stuff but when I read that kind of ‘stuff’ it just removes my desire to read the rest of what you write.
BB
F_alk, you state: “Wether the attack in1938 would have been better is unprovable. I could just state that it would have been worse, and there is no way to prove me wrong, because we don’T have any idea what then would have happened.”
You know, I just have to shake my head and ask myself why I bother. I’m not going to bother reading you posts anymore, I’m sure I will miss some good stuff but when I read that kind of ‘stuff’ it just removes my desire to read the rest of what you write.
BB
F_alk is not just trying to be obtuse here, BigBlocky, he’s making a legitimate point. What I think he’s saying is it is useless to argue about possibilities like this because no one can really know–it doesn’t prove anything. You or I may believe it would’ve been better to slap down Hitler in '38 using hindsight, but what if that had meant the Soviets would’ve dominated all of Europe? What if it had led to WWII–except USSR vs. UK & USA instead of the way it actually went down. A lot of Europeans would have escaped the death camps, certainly, but all of Europe & most of Asia might yet be living under Soviet domination–the whole world possibly! And an ultra-right Japan would still be tooling around Asia.
There’s just no way to know, so F_alk is just pointing out this is not a useful line of argument to pursue. Keep reading his posts.
Ozone27
What ifs always result in maybes and I don’t knows. 20-20 hindsight is a benefit we have that the leaders of the past did have.
Ok, should we of attacked Germany in 1938? Sure, we might of won the war. On the other hand, we might of lost it. No one really knew what Germany’s military was like back in the day, and that probably includes most German commanders. I think it would be hard to imagine, given the information known at the time, how a war with Germany would turn out.
Comparing Hitler to Saddam is doomed to fail. Saddam is small scale, a mouse compared to Hitler. Hitler’s army and air force was the strongest and most technologically advanced in the world. Saddam has old Migs and t-55s (not sure on the T-55s). Hitler was attacking a WWI style army, and had the mobility and firepower to keep moving. Saddam doesn’t even have power over his own generals.
Regardless, I believe it is unfair to critique the leaders of the past based on the information we know. Doing the same thing, I would condemn the leaders of England, France, and Italy for the Treaty of Versailles, which allowed Hitler to rise to power.
Saddam has old Migs and t-55s (not sure on the T-55s). Saddam doesn’t even have power over his own generals.
Not all of those MiGs are old. A few are quite advanced. Also, Saddam has many T-72s as well as the older (though upgraded) T-55s. While a “medium tank” at best by Western standards, the T-72 is capable of destroying an M1A2. “Even” a T-55 is a big threat to PCs & armored cars–which make up the vast majority of Coalitian armored vehicles. But point taken–with the exception of some of the planes, and (if rumor is true) a few infantry anti-tank weaps, all of Saddam’s technology is 70’s-era at best, they are few indeed in number to the Coalition’s arsenal, and Hussein has no way to build or purchase any more before the war ends. Plus he’s not in Europe.
Saddam seems so far to have pretty good control of his key generals. When the war starts to go badly, that might change…
Ozone27
The line of argument is akin to saying perhaps if you slaughter a million people something good might happen. If you save a million something bad might happen. "Oh but if you stopped hitler early how do you know it would have been better. "? What, you think MORE people would have died had Hitler been dealt with earlier? If you can argue things would be better with MORE hitler or worse with LESS hitler then you might as well argue that perhaps if you randomly kill a million people perhaps you might kill the next hitler. I can’t waste my time having to deal with crap like that.
As for reading his posts…. why do something that is not enjoyable anymore? I’m sure life will go on just fine without my input on some threads.
BB
Regardless of T-55 and T-72, the allies have depleated uranium ammo, I think only those 2 countries use it.
There is an old adage, forget history and you are doomed to repeat the same errors. I think it is good to draw lessons from history, obviously not blindly.
Sure, Saddam isn’t like what Hitler was in 1942, perhaps more like about 1935 or 1936. Do you want to wait until 1939 and let him get the first punch? This might not be related but I love the saying “The idea isn’t to die for your country, the idea is to make the enemy die for your country”.
The point I was making is that there might be a situation where pre-emptive action is the right choice. I don’t accept some ‘higher law’ that just says pre-emptive action is wrong. Of course there ought to be concerns that a China might attack Taiwan and claim right of pre-emption. Perhaps this case of Iraq is not strong enough for pre-emption, I can agree that there exists valid arguments on both sides. But a blanket statement like a commandment from god “Thoult shalt not lash out in pre-emptive defense” is not defendable. Pointing out problems and suggestions is better than arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I’d rather not have to argue that white really is white but it’s really a blend of a variety of wavelenghts of electromagnetic blah blah blah…. that just ain’t fun for me.
BB
What, you think MORE people would have died had Hitler been dealt with earlier?
I think the Cold War would of been a hell of a lot worse.
Sure, Saddam isn’t like what Hitler was in 1942, perhaps more like about 1935 or 1936. Do you want to wait until 1939 and let him get the first punch? This might not be related but I love the saying “The idea isn’t to die for your country, the idea is to make the enemy die for your country”.
Based on 1935 Information, is Hitler a threat? Is he building a weapon which could defeat either the mighty French or Russian armies? Is suicidal enough to think that he can beat the two strongest armies in the world at once?
Thats what people were saying in 1935. No one knew Hitler was and would get so advanced. But Saddam akin to Hitler in 1935? Maybe if you only consider the Mid-East, but Saddam’s armies probably aren’t even strong enough to defeat Iran.
The cold war being worse? I’m not so sure about this, but it is worth a debate. I’m going to start a new thread on that, it ought to be fun! :-)
Hitler was not a threat in 1935, he was however a growing threat. I will agree with you 100% Yanny, that the leaders who imposed the treaty of Versailles (ToV for short?) were extremely guilty of poor judgement and they set the stage for what happened later. How could they expect a bankrupt country being taken advantage of to turn out to be a good world citizen?
That being said, the intitial design and construction of the bismark and tirpitz violated the ToV, they couldn’t build warships over 10, 000 tonnes, hence the ‘pocket battleship design’ that was supposed to weigh 10, 000 tonnes. I think it was about 20% over but am not sure to be honest. There was a whole host of violations, a pattern shall we say. It got to the point that in 1938 he was a threat. The ‘Powers’ allowed Hitler to take a part of Czeckoslovokia (as if they had that right!) to appease Hitler. By then it was too late to easily launch an attack. Indeed, even after war was declared in 1939 the phoney war ‘erupted’. By the time the first blow came it was all over but the crying for France.
Sonmebody understood the gathering threat, Churchill did.
Germany was allied with Russia, in fact they both attacked Poland roughly at the same time.
The point is nobody thought he was a HUGE threat, just a minor threat. They thought they could contain him. He was suicidal enough to think he could beat ALL the armies at once. He was building nuclear weapons and missles and germ warfare.
Now, I will admit that Iraq has little industrial infrastructure or technical accumen as the Germans have possesed since the late 1800s. Of course the threat is different, I doubt Saddam thinks he can rule the world as Hitler did. Yes there are limits to comparisons and we are getting off on a tangent to a degree.
My biggest beef with those against what is going on is I don’t understand their end-game. I think we all have our ideas of where the US and Iraq will be in say 3 years.
Optimists like me think maybe in 3 years the start of a social system could be started. The faster we pour money into Iraq to kick start the judiciary, law enforcement and civil defence and get them to take care of their problems the better. I’ll assume after 3 years Saddam is not in power, maybe even dead or on trial for war crimes. There will be strife here and there, it won’t be perfect but if we all pull together for Iraq, get some muslim UN peace keepers in. I hear Canada already has pledged 100 Million, not a bad start for a country of 30 million. I hope we send more and lots of peace keepers (Canada can be the good cop to the US bad cop routine). We have alot to make up for and there will be a new leader of Canada next year one way or the other.
Pessimists. Well, I’ll leave it up to the gloom and doomers and plain old Yank haters to paint a truly ugly picture, but Saddam will still be out of power, maybe dead, maybe hiding, maybe on trial for war crimes. The UN and lots of people will still be trying to rebuild Iraq, the Iraqis can’t hate everyone and eventually the country will rebuild. I still think Iraq is better off in 3 years from now then it would be under Saddam. Of course there will be tens of thousands of dead allies, the world will hate Britain, the US and anybody else guilty of starting this mess. Bush and the republicans will be history (not so bad really……).
I kinda think that no matter what, Iraq is better off in 3 years.
Now, under the French idea. Sooner of later Saddam tricks the UN into thinking he is a good boy. The French get their wish, Saddam is totally free to do whatever he wants. Everybody will look the other way, Iraq might be better of in some ways. Lots of money will flow in as oil sales soar. Ummmm and Saddam will do what with lots of money, lots of time and a free hand to do as he pleases?
He will end up getting nukes sooner or later, do you really think he will change? My guess is that when he gets close, Israel will attack his nuclear weapons plant AGAIN! Sooner or later Israel will be forced to use some of their 100-200 nukes. Israel will be surrounded by hostile and I do mean hostile counties that are all in a nuclear arms race.
So, on the one hand you say that if Germany was attacked before the threat fully started that it would probably be bad. Yet Isreal would be forced to do just that. Heck, that is a good thread start too!
BB
And to think, I accuse others of writing too much!
BB
My point is that you try to make the US look better than the French. A point i strongly disagree. Notice that this does not mean that i want to make the French look better than the US: both have an extensive list of “wrongdoing”.
The US is better than France. :wink:
I would challenge you that the US has done a lot more good in the world than France has.
Regardless of T-55 and T-72, the allies have depleated uranium ammo, I think only those 2 countries use it.
This might not be related but I love the saying “The idea isn’t to die for your country, the idea is to make the enemy die for your country”.
DU rounds are highly effective against heavy armor in a lot of ways, but foreign countries’ sabot rounds are pretty effective as well. Any commonly used a/p penetrator round is enough to knock out a T-72 (or an M1A2 for that matter, provided you don’t hit the frontal turret armor). The real advantage of the M1 over the T-72 is speed, accuracy & especially range. An M1 can simply hit a T-72 sooner than the T-72 can return fire. T-72s also have an autoloader, which takes a certain amount of time to reload the main gun–another opportunity for the M1 to score a hit. Do not interpret this to mean the T-72 is no threat however. They can kill M1s & they have to be taken seriously. The T-55 is just as much of a threat to lighter vehicles.
The quote is Patton’s. It actually reads “…make the other guy die for HIS country…” which changes your meaning somewhat.
Hope all this was interesting enough for you :wink: …
Ozone27
DS, I’d agree that if you tallied up the good and bad and did a compare/contrast with the French and US that the US would indeed come out ahead over say the last 100 years. Lets forget all the nasty stuff done to the Spanish and Indians in the 1800s cause that was some bad dodo.
You can point out lots of little bad things the US did around the world in the last 100 years but…… You can blame the entire WWI and WWII (except maybe the Japanese side of the conflict) completely on Europe. Japan was a bad actor but when the US cut of their fuel supplies in 1941 what did the US think they Japanese would do?
Europe started the two biggest messes in the history of humanity. Without the US of A in WWII, Nazi Germany would still be ruling the world today. It’s debatable if France and England could have defeated the Kaiser in WWI, after all, Russia had sued for peace in 1917, one down two to go. The addition of 100, 000 fresh US troops/month starting towards the end of 1917 and continuing for as long as the Germans wanted to fight really was the final nail in the Kaisers coffin.
The French were never sufficiently gratefull in my opinion…
BB
The point is nobody thought he was a HUGE threat, just a minor threat. They thought they could contain him. He was suicidal enough to think he could beat ALL the armies at once. He was building nuclear weapons and missles and germ warfare.
The nuclear research was for a power plant, according to the researchers.
And research on germ warfare is new to me too.
Second, he did not believe he could beat all armies at once. A war with England was thought of “finis germania”, he underestimated the support for Poland though, and was forced to have enemies and allies he didn’t want.
My biggest beef with those against what is going on is I don’t understand their end-game. I think we all have our ideas of where the US and Iraq will be in say 3 years.
Optimists …
Pessimists. … the Iraqis can’t hate everyone and eventually the country will rebuild.
A pessimist could assume that everyone can be hated.
Now, under the French idea. Sooner of later Saddam tricks the UN into thinking he is a good boy. The French get their wish, Saddam is totally free to do whatever he wants. Everybody will look the other way, Iraq might be better of in some ways. Lots of money will flow in as oil sales soar. Ummmm and Saddam will do what with lots of money, lots of time and a free hand to do as he pleases?
The Frenchs wish is not what you claim they wish. You are promoting simplistic propaganda. You treat the French and their plans worse than i treat the US IMO, or at least use extremely different measure for the two nations. Why do the French have no right to follow and promote their interests (regardless of Iraq, you sound they have no right at all to do so).
… sooner or later…Sooner or later
Honestly, do you speak of him or his sons? There isn’t too much “later” for a 65 year old dictator.
… did a compare/contrast with the French and US that the US would indeed come out ahead over say the last 100 years. Lets forget all the nasty stuff done to the Spanish and Indians in the 1800s cause that was some bad dodo.
Uhm, if you did a compare with the Germans and US over the last 50 years…. if you did a compare with the Iraqis before Saddam with whatever…
Let’s take out our most negative points and claim we are the best…
@Deviant:Scripter:
My point is that you try to make the US look better than the French. A point i strongly disagree. Notice that this does not mean that i want to make the French look better than the US: both have an extensive list of “wrongdoing”.
The US is better than France. :wink:
I would challenge you that the US has done a lot more good in the world than France has.
When? How do you fine “has done”, or “more good”?
This question could be answered completely differently by a French person then an American given that they both might use entirely different criteria and the criteria they use in common might be assigned comletely different values to. For example if we were to rate gifts of culture given the world, one could well ascribe France a +10 and the U.S. a -10. In terms of globel comfort, the same might also be said. Adding what good the U.S. has done in its existance minus the bad on the globel peace scale would be tough as obviously Palastine and Russia might ascribe it a different value than Canada or Australia. All four countries would also disagree about France, but i have a feeling they would have a higher “average”.
Should the US lose points for Vietnam, for racial segregation UNTIL THE 1960’s!!, for MacDonald’s? Should France get points for the good that the French foreign legion does, its committments to environmentalist causes and peace (minus, of course, its own brands of imperialism, constant rioting, and French people . . . )?
DS, I’d agree that if you tallied up the good and bad and did a compare/contrast with the French and US that the US would indeed come out ahead over say the last 100 years. Lets forget all the nasty stuff done to the Spanish and Indians in the 1800s cause that was some bad dodo.
This is pretty easy. Let’s too forget about the work of the CIA, the environmental disaster that is the US, the slavery and racial problems sponsored until late this last century, and if we ignore the good that the French have done, then its a slam dunk!!
You can point out lots of little bad things the US did around the world in the last 100 years but…… You can blame the entire WWI and WWII (except maybe the Japanese side of the conflict) completely on Europe. Japan was a bad actor but when the US cut of their fuel supplies in 1941 what did the US think they Japanese would do?
Europe started the two biggest messes in the history of humanity. Without the US of A in WWII, Nazi Germany would still be ruling the world today. It’s debatable if France and England could have defeated the Kaiser in WWI, after all, Russia had sued for peace in 1917, one down two to go. The addition of 100, 000 fresh US troops/month starting towards the end of 1917 and continuing for as long as the Germans wanted to fight really was the final nail in the Kaisers coffin.
The French were never sufficiently gratefull in my opinion…
BB
ahhh Europe. How about Germany? I guess you could narrow the field of blame to Serbia and Austria in WWI and Germany/Italy in WWII, but what would be the point when you can invoke a whole continent? Considering that Canada was involved too in both wars, then you can pretty much blame North America as well.
That is a fair point about Japan. Still, i’m missing the point of this. Also i don’t think of Europe as a block/country yet. There is a mass of very different communities, as different as Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and China, with the sense to simplify their lives somewhat.
Also i disagree that without the US we would be under the thumb of the German superman. Possibly a pissed off Russia, but i think that with the Anglo threat in the west tempering any German reinforcements to the eastern front, as well as an increasingly active French resistance, the Germans had overextended themselves and were starting to get slaughtered in Russia. Without the US the war would have lasted several years more, more soldiers would have been killed, and the US would have become less of an entity in the world - in Europe, anyway.
As for French gratitude, i’m curious as to what increasing this would have meant? Are Britain and Canada and Holland etc. not grateful enough? American’s have to wake up to the fact that they did not “save the world’s asses” as they claim, but they and their allies saved their own.
CC, no doubt relative good and bad vis-a-vis the French and Americans and their relative weights. There both biased, so an outsider like me ought to be judge. I judge the French guilty, OFF with their tasty loves of bread! I’m sure if you took a world vote I’d be out-numbered. Hardly fair running against peace/harmony/love and all that is good, as if the status quo is all that, but I digress.
Segregation……oh yeah. Well that’s a black spot on her record. Mind you, some of the xenophobia coming out of some european countries is kinda scarey. European men gotta start knocking up their chicks cause the native birthrate is low. If you hate newcomers then you have a real problem. Luckily in north america everybody is banging everybody and all the chicks are getting knocked up! Well not exactly, we just import more folks. Sucks to be a Quebec seperatist, only the old stock wants to split but they are getting swamped with ‘new-stock’ that kinda like Canada.
American military supplies kinda played a part in Russia not being overrun. Let’s not forget the US lend-lease program. (that violated internation law, those bad Americans flouting international law to stop nazis, shame on them!) Where would the Brits be without those 50 albietly old destroyers the US gave them during the dark days. Lots of volunteers helped out the Brits. Germany’s military production peaked in 1943 during all the US bombing, imagine if those bombers had not been there and the Brits only flew half the sorties. As for French resistance… Did you know the French actually fired on allied units during the desert campaign? The French REFUSED to move their fleet when they were being overrun because they were too proud. The brits actually had to sink the French fleet rather than let the Germans capture them. Yeah, LOTS of help. Like bringing a bag-pipe on a hunting trip.
How can you blame anybody in the Americas for either war just because we joined in AFTER Germany, France and England had all declared war. Heck Canada had only been a country for 53 years by 1914. We waz all sturdy farmers and fishermen, how the heck was it our fault. Nope, not gonna take it!
Holland is extremely gratefull to Canada and Canadians for our part in their liberation. How did France repay Canada? Their great war time leader encouraged Quebec to seperate from Canada. Charles de Gaulle’s speech “Vive le Quebec Libre” in July, 1967 basically sparked the seperatist movement in French Quebec. 2 months later René Lévesque created the "Mouvement Souveraineté-Association ". 12 months later Founding of the Parti Québécois from Lévesque’s Mouvement Souveraineté Association and Gilles Grégoire’s Ralliement National. On October 26, the Rassemblement pour l’indépendance nationale is dissolved; members are encouraged to join the PQ. A few years later the Quebec based terrorist organisation the FLQ killed a minister of labour and kidnapped James Cross (British High Commissioner in Montreal). The FLQ’s rally cry was the same “Vive le Quebec Libre” .
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle
Say what you will, the US of A does not encourage Canada to breakup. France has and to this day in a low level way still has too much influence in our affairs.
BB
@cystic:
I guess you could narrow the field of blame to Serbia and Austria in WWI …
I guess not :)…. For WWI, it was all major powers who felt they were at the brink of a war, for some it was kind of a relief when it actually started.
I would like to blame all major powers for WWI: Germany gave Austria the assurance to stand by it whatever comes, the Russians (with the French backing) heavily supported and were allied with the Serbs etc etc.
WWII as a single event is caused by Germany, in the historic context on the other hand it’s often called “WWI part 2”.
European men gotta start knocking up their chicks cause the native birthrate is low.
Well, if it was so, it didn’t help the birth-rates over here.
Let’s not forget the US lend-lease program. (that violated internation law, those bad Americans flouting international law to stop nazis, shame on them!)
sigh you do not want to understand my position, do you? WWII was started by Germany and on its way when the lend-lease got on its way. Why btw would that have been violating international law? dumping prices??
Did you know the French actually fired on allied units during the desert campaign? The French REFUSED to move their fleet when they were being overrun because they were too proud. The brits actually had to sink the French fleet rather than let the Germans capture them. Yeah, LOTS of help.
Which desert campaign (the US landing on Vichy France territory)? For the French Navy: Yes, not handing over the ships to British was a strange move. The Brits sinking those ships was understable and the only thing they could do. … Did you notice that just one sentence before that you said the French shot at allies (without giving any idea of why they did or how it happened), but the Allies ‘shooting’ at the French is absolutely ok for you (well, you give the reason, but use nicer words instead of ‘shooting’)?
One thing that should not be forgotten about the Germans conquering France: It was the best lesson on “German Tank Tactics and Strategy” that the allies could get, better than anything Allied intelligence could have taught.
Japan was a bad actor but when the US cut of their fuel supplies in 1941 what did the US think they Japanese would do?
Well, I can tell you they weren’t thinking that Japan would launch a viscous assault on Pearl, without a formal declaration of war, all the while leading up to that, conducting peace talks.
Japan was no angel leading up to 1941. That had violently invaded Korea and China from, at least, 1937 and it might have been earlier…I don’t the exact dates. The sanctions were there to ebb Japanese aggression and they were not just American sanctions.
America is not to blame for everything that is wrong in the world…now or then. When do “other” nations become responsible for their own actions?
K, that last bit is a rant… :D
