What makes a justified/morally correct war? Now discussing the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

In other words, you just reiterated yourself.

Excellent. I'd like to read a few more for myself. Could you possibly suggest a some titles and authors?

Suggestion: don't use the word 'only.' That denotes that you've explored only a very narrow range of options. Considering as our democracy is far from an ideal form of government, it actually might be better for the US to move away from this ideology we call capitalism. The fall of the Soviet Union doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that the communist government in that superpower diminished the state as a world power. And now the US is on track to follow the same path. Japan is also a democracy and a capitalist economy; it's also following the same pattern as the US.

Maybe another solution might have been that the US should not have allowed itself to become a consumer nation, giving China and India an economic edge in the long run. In the 1940's, the US was virtually a self-sustaining state; but our economic trends since WWII have lead us to become dependent on foreign states increasingly more. Maybe it would have been better if we had not encouraged consumerism and tried following Europe's example.

George W. Bush certainly knew. They did know before Desert Storm of the crimes against humanity that Saddam committed, right? So it's not as though new evidence for WMD and of his brutal dictatorship just happened to show up 12 years later, correct?

That's not hypocrisy.

Maybe you should just skip with the rhetoric, as I don't know what you're getting at. You're saying that Obama is limited in what he has the power to do, and he's appreciative not to be a dictator because it alleviates him of responsibility? So if the oil spill gets worse, he isn't going to be held responsible for any of it, as he isn't in full control of the situation?

You like repeating yourself, don't you? I'd be interested in knowing from where you conjured this very peculiar chain of logic.

 

Attention, everybody.

Instead of the colossal waste of time this thread is turning out to be, why don't we have a discussion about the moral ramifications of warfare and so on? We might actually arrive at some conclusions, instead of pages of people trying to make fairly universal facts like "lying to people is bad" somehow fit their personal opinions.

I need to go to bed right now, but maybe one of the more literately-inclined Australian people could offer some input, given as they're awake and the rest of the the forum probably isn't.

 

Moral ramifications of war? People die. The average human being (in a First World country anyway) lives about 80-100 years old. War cuts off the lives of its participants at around age 20-30. It should be obvious to anyone that every human being is unique, and if you get killed you don't come back, if your friends or family get killed they don't come back.

I could care less if ultranationalists of various countries decided to go down to Antarctica and kill each other there. But the way war works is that madmen drag their entire societies into the conflict to fulfill their own delusional ambitions. This is why the concept of patriotism is so dangerous and so easily twisted into something evil. The Germans and Japanese launched a massive war for the purpose of "defending themselves". Well nobody today thinks that what they did was defense. And all those people who died in the war are still dead.

 

1. George Bush is a 'decent enough guy' just as much as Johnson or Kennedy or any of those who came before him were. Bush had the misfortune of his war taking place in Manhattan rather than in the Gulf of Tonkin, Havana harbour, Greneda etc.

2. Not bad to accuse people of being evil (as Regan did) when they blatanlty are as North Korea's sinking of the South Korean corvette and the Iranian goverment's stealing of the election and brutal repression of it's people clearly prove! Call a spade a spade

3. Bush is pro-America, that's hardly ultrnationalistic, every president should be, even if some Tea Bagger fanatics doubt Obama's devotion (which I personally don't). Bush is also not anti-intellectual, he's actually a pretty smart guy although always tried to come across as a good ole boy, much like Regan who seemed dumb or Clinton who put on his southern hick shtick. Jimmy Carter was an amazingly smart guy, did nuclear engineering in the navy but always came across as weak and vapid. Gerald Ford 'played too much football without a helmet' according to LBJ which is maybe why he was always falling over. I think everyone would agree Nixon was a very clever man but with serious character flaws

4. I make my points again and again as you seem to want to ignore them

5. Hindsight about consumerism but as always no one was complaining at the time? How far does the blame go back? Carter? Regan? Bush Snr? Clinton? Or Ike in the 50s with the consumer revolution?
6. In the question of hindsight no one appreciated the terrorist threat until 9/11 (some blame Bush Snr and Clinton for not doing more but I think if they'd done what was necessary they'd probably have ended up in jail due to a public who couldn't appreciate the reality of the situation). Also Bush Snr/Clinton always hoped someone would overthrow Saddam or that he'd come to his senses and co-operate with the UN etc

7. I think I spelled out my logic pretty well, I think some just don't want to hear it. Oh and Niall Ferguson, Dominic Caracilo, Andrea Thompson, Henry Kissinger, FSL Lyons, Robert Kee, Andrew Jackson, everything ever published in The Times and Economist

 

If you consider 'W' to be a 'decent enough guy,' then what would you call Hitler? Just a troubled and disturbed individual who had the misfortune of not becoming an artist? So he had the misfortune of having to pin the blame on all those Jews and Polish people, as he didn't have the economic might to wage a war.

No. George Bush was nothing like past presidents. I might put Kennedy in the same category to an extent, but Bush was the first one to actively use his political authority for his own petty ends. In the end, who benefited most from the Iraq War? War profiteers stood to gain the most, and that is exactly who won.

And the war was waged on Bush's terms, in Iraq. New York was NOT a war zone, unless you forgot what constitutes a terrorist attack. 9/11 actually was a godsend for Bush and his cronies. Why on Earth would you want a president who relishes when his own 'fellow Americans' perish?

I'm sorry, but I think you're writing of another person. Bush had done more damage to the US than Bin Ladden, which is stating a lot. If you consider THAT patriotic and pro-America, then you obviously have no idea what you're supporting. Get a clue... read a book on the subject. Read a few journal articles, speak to some political science experts, and don't just buy all the garbage you get from Fox news.

Just as you disregarded my request for some SOURCES? Without sources, why should anyone take you seriously.

On that note, I think I'll take my own advice and disregard everything you say unless you should actually include a few sources for a change.

 

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Seriously, you just invalidated any reasonable argument you may have had by doing that. Really, GWB is Hitler or even comparable? Get real. I hate the man, and yeah, he's a real moron, but a Hitler he is not. And who knows, maybe he is a decent guy outside of office. And I disagreed with the Iraq war as well, mainly for the points you mentioned, but again:


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And an invalid comparison is really an invalid comparison.

I'll also state that there is no such thing as a moral war as adding morality to warfare just gives your side or the other justification for the atrocities it commits in the name of morality.

 

Good post there by DB.

 

Nevertheless accusing someone of being evil is the tactic of a demagogue, and it's dangerous because it whips people into a frenzy as well as clouds the judgment of the person utilizing that sort of language. It perverts the mission of national defense into one of national crusade. It's America's job to defeat injustice, not create more of it through disproportionate words and actions.

"Pro-America" isn't much a defense, because you're going to have to dig very deep and look very hard for that small segment of people who are really anti-American. If everyone is more or less pro-American then what does that make the people who try their hardest to externalize their patriotism?

 

'eh-holes.

 

Excuse me, but where did you get any such notion that I would compare Hitler and Bush? I was making fun of someone's description of a traitor and vile tyrant as 'a decent enough guy.' Then how would one describe Hitler? In regards to crimes against humanity, Hitler most definitely was amongst the most evil people in history. In regards to who served their country best, W clearly didn't care what happened to the US, so long as he and his cronies made a profit.

I did not proclaim Bush to be remotely like Hitler, as I don't believe it. Hitler at least showed some degree of competence in his plans. And what Hitler did made Germany stronger. Bush did exactly the opposite.

This I have to agree with. I hate above all else when people commit the first overt act against a sovereign state in the name of defending themselves. That has to stop... just declare to all the world exactly why you're doing it.

 

1. How can anyone compare George W who was twice democratically elected (and even Al Gore doesn't dispute his Florida victory), served his terms, gave up power willingly and then had his party de-elected to Hitler? That just boggles the mind!

2. How exactly did Hitler 'make Germany stronger' or show any competence with his campaigns that led to Germany being a smoking ruin, divided and occupied for half a century?

 

You are so biased! Bush stole the first election, as he didn't win the popular vote. Al Gore may not have disputed it, but the numbers didn't change. Bush took 9/11 and exploited it for his own ends. Tricked the US population into war with Iraq, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths. He is a war criminal and he doesn't deserve your loyalty.

And Hitler had escalated Germany to a powerful nation that challenged the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the United States. The only decision he made that was feeble-minded was declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor. That was his biggest mistake.

 

Seems relevant, considering Bush as a discussion topic as well as DarthBoba's previous post: Military service alone doesn't make you a hero.

 

I know this is a month-old post, but:

What if the lie is, "No, officer, there are no Jews in my attic"?

 

Still a good post.

 

Then you'd better have your Jewish family hidden somewhere less easy to guess.

 

I'M biased?

Bush did not steal the Florida election, afterwards left wing newspapers such as The New York Times went back and after an extensive examination decided Bush would always have won by a narrow margin (Buffy star Danny Strong wrote an excellent drama called Recount on the subject). No objective observer doubts the legitimacy of the Bush presidency just as no one except the most rabid self-deluding tea-baggers can doubt Obama's.
If anyone tricked us it was Saddam, that he still had WMDs. How many lives did the liberation of Iraq save? Is it the act of a war criminal to depose a murderous tyrant and give the people of Iraq freedom and democracy?
Germany defeated France and the low countries but that's about all. And remember she had the help of Italy and Japan in her other conflicts. As for Hitler declaring war on the US as a mistake you have to take it in context. Before Pearl Harbour US ships in the Atlantic had already fired on U-boats and two had been sunk in return. The US was providing massive assistance to the UK and USSR plus neutrality patrols in the Altlantic that favoured Britain. Hitler probably correctly thought that it was only a matter of time before the US entered the war so decided to strike first, gambling that if he could cut the US aid to the USSR he could defeat them before America could gear up for the invasion of Europe. He was right that America wasn't prepared, Op Drumbeat, the German U-boat offensive against the US Eastern seaboard was a mass slaughter of Allied shipping, possibly the greatest naval defeat in history.

Weird that you damn George Bush but appear to have a sneaking admiration for the Nazis?

 

Someone needs to go back to Civics 101. The national popular vote has nothing to do with deciding who wins the election. The electoral vote does that. Bush legitimately won the electoral vote under every recount standard that was proposed in Florida. (Had other standards proposed after the election was decided been used, Gore would have won, but Gore's team was never advocating for those standards, so the courts had no basis to even consider them.)

By your reasoning, both Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison stole the elections of 1876 and 1888 (respectively) because they both lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. Based on that historical precedent, what basis do you have to claim that Bush stole the election? Please cite specific sources.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I'm feeling malicious today, so I'll just post the least-impartial site I can find. It give some good stats.

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=181

Here's one source. It goes into depth about how Bush had friends everywhere who fought desperately to ensure any legal recourse by Gore was thwarted. When tallying up EVERY single vote that was rejected because of machine error, there's no doubt that many more votes for Gore were rejected because of such errors. If all technical and legal limitations were followed... then Bush would have won in any event. Going on the assumption that many African American communities would have voted for Gore, many small communities with high African American statistics met with higher levels of rejected votes (errors in the machines).

Like... none. And let's also not forget all the lives lost because of the invasion.

If that was what happened, then no. Is it not the act of a war profiteer to distort intelligence and deliberately lie in order to wage a war, knowing that only he would gain from it?

Did you know that Bush hadn't the vaguest idea who the Sunni's or the Shiites were before deciding to invade Iraq? Maybe all his attention was drawn to finding connections between Saddam and 9/11.

 

Yes, you are. You sound like one of those pro-war idiots who think they're being all patriotic by 'supporting the troops' and supporting the war... but ultimately make no worthwhile sacrifices to help them. Have you been in war? I know I haven't, which is why I try to show a proper respect for their sacrifices.

I also detest people who use the US military for their own purposes. Considering as they give their sweat and blood to their country, we owe it to them. We owe to them not to demand they place their lives at risk if they don't have to. The US most certainly did not need to invade Iraq, yet George W Bush took all measures to ensure it happened.

Excuse me, but you seem to be forgetting the Soviet Union and Britain. Until the US entrance into the war, Britain had been on the brink of defeat. And if the battle of Stalingrad had not turned so unfavorably for Germany, they could have taken Moscow within the year. And Italy really exerted very little influence on the war in Europe, actually becoming a liability for Germany instead of an ally by the time they signed an armistice with the Allies. The only mutual enemy that Japan shared with Germany was the United States, although it was only because Hitler declared war on the US.

Yeah, that's about all.

So the US supported enemies of Germany. Would you attack a guy with a gun simply because he slapped you across the face? The US populace didn't favor involvement in the war in Europe, which kept them in a state of neutrality. Until Pearl Harbor, their industrial capacity was far from full capacity. It was almost as foolish as the US assuming Saddam had WMD.

Maybe I despise both?

 

1. Electoral colleges and discerpencies etc favour both sides in different ways, both Republicans and Democrats have benefitted from them and ruled with voting minorities in their time. As long as you agree the rules beforehand it's ok. Neither side cheated in Florida but both tried to use the rules to their advantage. Of course if Nixon had challenged JFK on electoral cheating he'd probably have been in the Whitehouse a decade earlier and JFK never would.

2. 100,000s of lives saved in Iraq, no more Saddam launching genocide against the Kurds, Marsh Arabs etc using WMDs, no more sanctions on Iraq plus him stealing the oil wealth leaving the people in poverty and resulting in heightened infant mortality for the sake of WMDs he actually no longer had, no more sponsoring suicide bombers in the Gaza strip, no more sheltering terrorists like Abu Nidal, no more invading his neighbours and no more threat of him giving AQ a suitcase full of anthrax . Find me an Iraqi, Iranian, Kuwaiti, Saudi or Israeli who wishes he was still in power? It reminds me of the anti-Vietnam war protesters who didn't care that the people of Southeast Asia were being slaughtered as they claimed to just as long as they didn't have to see it on TV every night

3. Bush didn't lie, everyone genuinely expected to find WMDs. Ironically Saddam got the better of us with his bluff and got himself hung as a result. Why on earth would Bush be a war profiteer, he's the president, he doesn't need a war to hand out the pork

4. Bush probably didn't appreciate the depth of the Sunni/Shia conflict just as people didn't appreciate the Hutu/Tutsi, Yugoslav and Somalian clan schisms.

5. Yes, been in the wars and going to the Gulf next year

6. The UK wasn't on the brink of defeat before the US entered the war, we'd won the Battle of Britain and the tide in the North African desert was turning, we were ok in the Battle of the Atlantic, it was the US entry into the war and their unpreparedness that caused the big problems in 1942/3, the U-boats could wage unrestricted warfare . The USSR could never have defeated the Germans at Stalingrad etc without the vast military aid the US/UK sent them. Italy caused the UK plenty of problems in the Med not to mention the horrific battles in Italy itself. Japs and Germans were already allies as the Axis. Declaring war on the US was a gamble but probably a justified one, the war for Germany would be one or lost in the Atlantic and the Russian steppes.

7. If I was in a gunfight with a guy and someone kept handing him the ammo without which he couldn't continue, yes, I'd consider shooting them.

 

How about the genocide in Sudan? Or the thousands that were starved to death in North Korea? My point here is that Saddam's crimes were being dredged up by Republicans to support the war in the absence of a real justification. How many politicians called for the removal of Saddam during the 1990's when we knew that he was committing such crimes? How many now are calling for regime change in North Korea and Sudan? Rather, the "Saddam is bad to his people" argument is just something convenient pulled up by people who already wanted to get rid of him. It's also a morally relativistic argument, trying to get people to stare at the black while we're slowly turning gray ourselves.

And also, there was absolutely no intelligence linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda. We know for a fact that Al-Qaeda and the Baathists held diametrically opposed ideologies, and in fact bin Laden was ready to wage a jihad against Saddam in the wake up his invasion of Kuwait.

I consider Bush to have been heavily biased and who ignored facts he didn't like. He lied to himself, which IMO made him unfit to be POTUS.

 

You don't sound as though you have the vaguest idea what you're talking about.

I'll cease with the politics, as it's not going to change. But the war in Iraq is simply crossing the line.

Okay... source?

That was a cause towards Operation Desert Storm. Unless he had been doing that since... Another source would be nice.

Which would have happened without a US invasion, given as there never were any WMD confirmed.

Please, I would love to see the source for this one!

And why exactly would Saddam give weapons to his enemies? More claims, more sources.

Find me one who doesn't wish he or she wasn't a refugee, thanks to the US invasion. The confirmed Iraqi body count is between 95,000 and could be as high as 1.3 million. I'm quite sure that many Iraqi people might have hated Saddam, but it's not like the US had done any better.

And how exactly would he have handed out the pork? Please enlighten me. Tax cuts are negligible compared to some of the war contracts that have been thrown around. The US war effort could top $3 trillion for Iraq. That HURTS the US.

Exactly! You've got it dead on!

Only this is the president and he's the one pushing for measures that shape the fate of these people. It was his responsibility to understand these people before playing God. He didn't, therefore any deaths because of his utter incompetence and ignorance of these people are on HIS head. If he did nothing, as he clearly knew nothing about them... then there would have been no blame on his part.

It doesn't matter whether you or I know anything about these people... we're not the ones influencing their lives.

Do you even read? (This is your cue to give me the title of a book that verifies your point)

 

Personally, in regards to 9/11 I take the conspiracy theory side. But that's just me.

In regards to the Iraq war, well, I don't think any war is justified, or actually should be the first option. I believe in "taking whole," a Sun Tzu principle found in The Art of War. Now for those who don't understand The Art of War let me clarify this: THE ART OF WAR DOES NOT ENDORSE WAR. The first thing Sun Tzu teaches is to avoid war at all possible costs. Then he advises on how to direct war if it is unavoidable. The idea is to end it as quikely as possible, with as little damage to BOTH SIDES.

I believe that this Iraq war was nothing more than war for wars sake. We were lied to about WMD's so we could invade, then the reason for us being their was for to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Now we are still there and I don't even know what the reason is because I stopped listening to the excuses a while ago. the last I heard we are still there to prevent insurgency and civil war. Which wouldn't be an issue if we weren't there to begin with. Yes. Saddam Hussein was a bad person. Yes, he should not have been in power. But there were/are more dangerous things than him. Korea actually had WMD's, Iran was known to have the raw material, and there are people starving and suffering all over that need more attention.

So we are there to prevent civil war, and back when Bush was in power he sent more troops there to prevent the civil disobediance. And it worked, the same way daddy stops hitting mommy when the police are standing at the front door. I have no confidence in the fact that when we finally do leave Iraq that order will remain. And I suspect I'm not alone in that. And the fact that we are in Iraq hampers our ability to help other countries. Take for example the Iran election contreversy. I'm sure the U.S. would have liked to help, except the last Middle Eastern country we got involved with got our boot so far up it's a** that we still haven't pulled it out.

So in my opinion, this war was unnescesary, poorly planned, poorly managed, and like I said and will always believe, a war for the sake of war.

 

Are you old enough to consciously remember 2002-2003? Do you even remember the run up to the invasion? Nobody aside from the people that genuinely wanted the invasion like Bush expected that WMD's were going to be found. We were all quite sure that they wouldn't be there. I remember seeing Colin Powell's speech at the U.N. with the 'evidence' and thinking it all looked rather poor.

Nobody aside from the people that were determined for whatever reason to go into Iraq, genuinely believed the WMD story. You might have been fooled. Most of the world was not.