US Aid

[Volourn]

"We need a united coalition of many nations,"

 

There is one.

[kumquatq3]

"We need a functional united coalition of many nations,"

 

 

FIXED!

[Dark_Raven]

"We need a functional united coalition of many nations,"

 

 

FIXED!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The UN.

[Colrom]

We have no rightful authority to be there nor do polls indicate the Iraqis want us there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You might want to provide some proof, rather than just spouting opinion.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Here is an AP story on that topic.

 

"Poll: Iraqis back attacks on U.S. troops By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

Thu Sep 28, 2:05 PM ET

 

WASHINGTON - About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, according to a poll in that country.

 

The Iraqis also have negative views of Osama bin Laden, according to the early September poll of 1,150.

 

The poll, done for University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, found:

 

_Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents.

 

_About 61 percent approved of the attacks

[thepixiesrock]

A good thing to do is link to the source.

[Darque]

Ok, I'm going to try something different.

 

I'm going to reopen this...

 

But I want to remind everyone to remain civil and calm in their discussions.

 

It's very easy to lose yourself in political debates, but in the end there's no reason for things to spiral into hostility of any level.

 

If things start to take a downward spiral again, it will be closed and not reopened.

[Colrom]

WTF?

 

What is the point in posting the ENTIRE timeline of WW2? Here's an idea: Have a point! (It makes it sooooooo much more interesting for the reader.)

 

And I mentioned WW1, too.

 

You are trying to avoid talking about / defending the regressive Isolationist policy that even your hero Hades has abandoned.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Sorry for the long timeline. It really is just up to the US being forced into the war.

 

I can't find what I want - which is just a timeline of initial attacks, declarations of war and surrenders.

 

The point of it is that the the was a war going on for a long time, that the US was not eager to participate, and that the US was forced into the war (albeit with some manipulations on our part that made that eventuality more certain). Much current retoric presents us as having entered the war voluntarily with a mission to free the world and especially the Jews. That is nonsense.

 

I thought you might be leveraging that view and wanted to present counter evidence.

 

Regarding WWI we entered that late as well and largely at the urging of JP Morgan who spent quite a bit of money sending speakers around the US talking up the idea of US involvement. He had significant business dealings at stake.

 

I will discuss my thoughts about agression, defense, and engagement and isolationism, imperialism and engagement a bit later. I have to talk to my wife and eat and stuff now.

 

PS - In the matter of the poll the 150 is an oversample size for the ethnic Sunnis in the poll. The total poll size is certainly much larger. It is not unusual to oversample minority populations in polls to provide better statistics on their views as a subgroup.

Edited October 10, 2006 by Colrom

[Skynet]

We need a united coalition of many nations, from the US to the Russia, from China to Great Britain, to partake in this so that Iraq can be strong.  Such a united front cannot happen with Bush in charge because how he has alienated so many nations.

Your idea about a coalition of nations is a very good one, but there is nothing new about it. Many people have tried to make this a reality in the Iraq War, including George Bush (even before he earned the universal hate of all the nations in the world), but none have been successful. Although there is some blame to be carried by America, it wasn't our actions that destroyed the chances of some sort of coalition being formed.

 

Frankly, I believe that, except in the case of a third world war, most European nations will not do anything more than just set up 'discussions' with nations like Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. They don't participate because they have an isolationist mindset, not because of an particular action of Bush. And before somebody tries to disprove that, just remember that this concept of a world coalition has existed since 1918, and has only seen some success when the whole world was in threat of domination by extremist such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

[Skynet]

The point of it is that the the was a war going on for a long time, that the US was not eager to participate, and that the US was forced into the war (albeit with some manipulations on our part that made that eventuality more certain). Much current retoric presents us as having entered the war voluntarily with a mission to free the world and especially the Jews. That is nonsense.

Since some of the posts in this thread were deleted, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to prove by mentioning this, but I think it's worthy of mention that although it took us a while to enter WW2, we still took in active role in helping out the nations fighting off Germany and Japan. China was sent funds for several years to help against Japan and Great Britain was sent lots of old battleships and other supplies.

 

Just sayin'.

[alanschu]

The Lend-Lease allowed the Soviet Union to take men that would otherwise be used for logistics, and allow them to take part in actual combat. Same goes for the UK.

 

The US also provided destroyer escorts for convoys crossing the Atlantic, and as Skynet commented, provided mountains of aid for Nationalist China against Japanese aggressors.

[metadigital]

Sorry for the long timeline. It really is just up to the US being forced into the war.

 

I can't find what I want - which is just a timeline of initial attacks, declarations of war and surrenders.

 

The point of it is that the the was a war going on for a long time, that the US was not eager to participate, and that the US was forced into the war (albeit with some manipulations on our part that made that eventuality more certain). Much current retoric presents us as having entered the war voluntarily with a mission to free the world and especially the Jews. That is nonsense.

 

I thought you might be leveraging that view and wanted to present counter evidence.

 

Regarding WWI we entered that late as well and largely at the urging of JP Morgan who spent quite a bit of money sending speakers around the US talking up the idea of US involvement. He had significant business dealings at stake.

 

I will discuss my thoughts about  agression, defense, and engagement and isolationism, imperialism and engagement a bit later.  I have to talk to my wife and eat and stuff now.

 

PS - In the matter of the poll the 150 is an oversample size for the ethnic Sunnis in the poll. The total poll size is certainly much larger. It is not unusual to oversample minority populations in polls to provide better statistics on their views as a subgroup.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right: something to talk about!

 

No, I was suggesting that the Isolationist policy of the US didn't work and won't work. Even George Bush realised this in his first term; you will recall he was elected on a isolationist policy, but 9/11 changed his thoughts about the (long-term) efficacy of it.

 

To be clear, I made the Isolationist comparison because you are advocating a unilateral withdrawal of all coalition troops IMMEDIATELY from Iraq, presumeably because you conclude that they are doing more harm than good.

 

This is in direct contrast with THE WISHES OF THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF IRAQ, who have asked for the coalition troops to remain and are quite capable and prepared and aware of their right to ask the coalition troops to leave.

 

So, either you are ignoring the wishes of the democratically elected government, or you are indifferent to them. Or you think you can interpret the wishes of the Iraqi people better than their own government.

 

Any of these alternatives is completely unacceptable to me.

[Judge Hades]

Isolationism does and will not work, but keep in mind self sufficiency does not equal isolation.

[kirottu]

"We need a functional united coalition of many nations,"

 

 

FIXED!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The UN.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No. It couldn

[Judge Hades]

Oh yes, the UN was so effective in stopping N.K. from testing its nuclear bomb.

[kirottu]

Um, what?

[Judge Hades]

North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb in an underground test. The U.N. failed to stop them. China is pissed off at North Korea for this.

Edited October 10, 2006 by Judge Hades

[kirottu]

Really? It couldn

[Colrom]

To be clear, I made the Isolationist comparison because you are advocating a unilateral withdrawal of all coalition troops IMMEDIATELY from Iraq, presumeably because you conclude that they are doing more harm than good.

 

This is in direct contrast with THE WISHES OF THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF IRAQ, who have asked for the coalition troops to remain and are quite capable and prepared and aware of their right to ask the coalition troops to leave.

 

So, either you are ignoring the wishes of the democratically elected government, or you are indifferent to them. Or you think you can interpret the wishes of the Iraqi people better than their own government.

 

Any of these alternatives is completely unacceptable to me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

"Immediately" is a bizzare word in this context. I don't remember using that word. How about "real soon". That's more my style.

 

After all we have enough control so that we have time to pack our bags.

 

My focus is not so much on getting out as on getting to the business of helping these people. We can't do that when we are constantly striving to be in control. We need to give up control so that we can get down to doing good.

 

You know what I am about.

 

When the issue is whether the US should stay to babysit I don't accept that it is relevant that the Iraqi government we funneled into winning the election and largely control wants us to stay. Of course they do. They may be out of power soon after we leave.

 

The people are saying they want us to leave. Many Americans are saying they want us to leave. We should leave.

 

Then we will be more free to help folks do good.

Edited October 10, 2006 by Colrom

[metadigital]

"Immediately" is a bizzare word in this context. I don't remember using that word. How about "real soon". That's more my style.

 

After all we have enough control so that we have time to pack our bags.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are tap-dancing around semantics.

 

The Coalition has an exit strategy; they will leave when Iraq can police herself (despite her neighbours trying to destabilise her).

 

You can't actually believe that the US wants to keep spending US$trillions to have their soldiers shot at and despised by some people on the left. I think (it is pretty obvious) that they are trying to get out as fast as they can.

My focus is not so much on getting out as on getting to the business of helping these people. We can't do that when we are constantly striving to be in control. We need to give up control so that we can get down to doing good.

 

You know what I am about.

 

When the issue is whether the US should stay to babysit I don't accept that it is relevant that the Iraqi government we funneled into winning the election and largely control wants us to stay. Of course they do. They may be out of power soon after we leave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Again, the US isn't trying to maintain a hegemony, they are assisting the democratically-elected Iraqi government whilst it rebuilds the infrastructure (including police, volunteers for which service are the ones targeted by the local insurgents, SUR-prise!).

 

Why do you suppose (and, it seems, even hope for) the demise of this DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Iraqi government?

 

You couldn't possibly think that the US "coerced" the entire Iraqi population into voting for them? Why wouldn't they just "coerce" the population into peace, then? Your conspiracy theory is showing!

The people are saying they want us to leave. Many Americans are saying they want us to leave. We should leave.

 

Then we will be more free to help folks do good. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You keep saying the Iraqi people want the Coalition troops to leave.

 

I put it to you that you are guilty of the WORST intellectual arrogance, thinking that you can speak for the Iraqi people BETTER THAN their own DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government.

 

Is this making sense yet?

[Colrom]

Metadigital,

 

Please stop rephrasing my opinions to suit your rhetorical needs.

 

Please misrepresent the opinions of someone else for a while.

[Dark Moth]

Metadigital,

 

Please stop rephrasing my opinions to suit your rhetorical needs.

 

Please misrepresent the opinions of someone else for a while.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Misintepreting"? I don't see much of that going around. I think this has more to do with the fact that Meta has repeatedly shot down your arguments and you have yet to answer to him effectively.

 

Perhaps your arguments would be more credible if you actually backed up your statements with pertinent facts, and sources. But your problem is you've repeatedly shown here and in past threads that you don't so much as shape your opinions on facts but on a left-wing political dogma. You come up with the vaguest things to support your POV no matter the credibility, and when someone proves you wrong on any topic, you either don't admit it or you ignore it completely.

 

And just as you're doing now, you automatically assume the worst when it comes to the US motives, its leaders, or *gasp* right-wingers, such as myself, in general. You make claims that the gov. in Iraq is just a puppet of the U.S. that has no clue of the needs of its people. Like so many of your statements, you can't back it up. And when called on it, you can't answer. You need to realize that this government was something democratically elected by the Iraqis themselves. Us being there in Iraq is a matter of security. With the billions of dollars the war is costing the U.S. already, you can't say we're merely there for financial gain. You say we're too occupied with being in control, but I think you fail to realize that we're trying to be in control in Iraq because we want to help these people. We don't want control of the people mind you, we want to be in control of the security down their so people don't have to worry about a car bomb blowing up in their neighborhood every time they leave their homes. You say we should leave, but you don't bother to consider the fact that Iraq's security forces are still in their fledgling stages, or the potential power vacuum that could result if we just packed up and left. If you have something to say to this, by all means say it. But don't beat around the bush or spout out more conspiracy theories.

[Pop]

Yes, we all know the Iraqi experiment is working splendidy.

 

Despite what you people say, the US (or at least this administration) has a clearly vested interest in Iraq. We'll leave once we're assured that the Iraqi people won't democratically elect a regime that doesn't support us. After Hamas got democratically elected in Palestine, we realized that we can't afford to leave until the place has been westernized and "made safe for democracy". That was the aim of the war from the very beginning. We care about the well-being of these people only as far as they can run their country in a way we can live with, and with Iran right there, looking to set up its own client kingdom, that's a long goal. What if we leave a "trained security force" and the country still splits into sects? Are we going to "help the people over there" then? This entire war will have been a waste. So we're there until that assuredly won't happen. And I've yet to hear a ****ing word about how we're going to make sure things are going to be stable when we leave. Except if we remove Iran's influence, and hmm, I wonder how we're going to pull that off.

 

And don't blow so much smoke about security. Paul Bremer ****ing disbanded the Iraqi army when he came to power in Iraq with the fear that the Baathists spread amongst them would cause unrest. Bungle #1 with a bullet in the mismanagement of the post-war state. When unrest hit without the army baathists, there was no army to keep the peace. Thus we had to train a new army, and it's not clear if that's even going to be adequate.

 

This is our mess, and we're going to clean it up, because that's how the hubris of assuming people halfway across the world are our responsibility pans out.

[Colrom]

Metadigital,

 

Please stop rephrasing my opinions to suit your rhetorical needs.

 

Please misrepresent the opinions of someone else for a while.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Misintepreting"? I don't see much of that going around. I think this has more to do with the fact that Meta has repeatedly shot down your arguments and you have yet to answer to him effectively.

 

Perhaps your arguments would be more credible if you actually backed up your statements with pertinent facts, and sources. But your problem is you've repeatedly shown here and in past threads that you don't so much as shape your opinions on facts but on a left-wing political dogma. You come up with the vaguest things to support your POV no matter the credibility, and when someone proves you wrong on any topic, you either don't admit it or you ignore it completely.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I presented a poll and it was mischaracterized and rejected. (By the way the error in a poll result with perfect sampling is approximately the square root of the counted result - so if you oversample to get 150 Sunnis and half say the US should leave and if you accept that they are a good sample of Sunnis and were not bent by the sampling conditions (such as the guy with the gun writing down their name) then the full result will be 50% +- 6% not +- 100% as metadigital claimed.)

 

I presented a timeline about US involvement in WWII establishing that the US was not a proactive participant (Many contries were conquered while we stood by) and not a volunteer (we were always second in every declaration of war) and it was mischaracterized and rejected.

 

It takes you guys seconds to say something that is nonsense and it takes me and others a long time to correct that nonsense.

 

I don't have the time or the interest in you and your opinions to do that.

 

You can bully all you want. I'm not impressed.

 

The truth is out there - get it for yourself.

[thepixiesrock]

Hahahahahahahahahaha wow.

[Dark Moth]

I presented a poll and it was mischaracterized and rejected. (By the way the error in a poll result with perfect sampling is approximately the square root of the counted result - so if you oversample to get 150 Sunnis and half say the US should leave and if you accept that they are a good sample of Sunnis and were not bent by the sampling conditions (such as the guy with the gun writing down their name) then the full result will be 50% +- 6% not +- 100% as metadigital claimed.)

 

I presented a timeline about US involvement in WWII establishing that the US was not a proactive participant (Many contries were conquered while we stood by) and not a volunteer (we were always second in every declaration of war) and it was mischaracterized and rejected.

 

It takes you guys seconds to say something that is nonsense and it takes me and others a long time to correct that nonsense.

 

I don't have the time or the interest in you and your opinions to do that.

 

You can bully all you want. I'm not impressed.

 

The truth is out there - get it for yourself. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think meta ever claimed that. Besides, you have to be very careful when posting polls. Polls can be easily manipulated and distorted, and it's always a good idea to know where the poll comes from. Your timeline also does little to support your argument as well. You post merely the events, not the 'how' or 'why'. What exactly is your objective for doing so? Okay, you say you did that to show how we weren't 'proactive'. Well what do you mean to accomplish by proving that? As of right now, what you posted has little bearing on the issue at hand. Also, you say we stood by, but it's not as if we were doing nothing. We still supported europe against the nazis indirectly. Bottom line is however, it wasn't our war at first. And at the time, as in World War 1, America was very much against going to war. When Japan made it personal for us, then it became our war, too. You criticize the US for not getting involved in a war on another continent, which we did eventually. That's good and fine, but then you chastise us for getting into a war that does concern us. What do you want?

 

But as usual, you can't back up what you spout. Before brushing off other people's posts as nonsense, you'd do well to actually try and present a valid point instead of spouting off more theories based souly on your political idealology. You haven't corrected anything. You've merely trivalized and brushed aside arguments without actually proving anybody wrong, as you've so often done in the past.

 

If you have no interest, fine. But don't expect to be taken seriously if you can't support yourself. And I don't know where you come from trying to claim that I was bullying you. I wasn't bullying, merely trying to expose the fallacies in your arguments. You'd like for me to be bullying you so you can play the victim in this and garner sympathy for yourself. And yeah, the truth is out there. Blah blah blah. But perhaps you should try finding it yourself before telling me too.

Edited October 10, 2006 by Dark Moth