Attack Iraq?

[C5]

Originally posted by Joe Dizzy
Under this reasoning you want to "stop the criminal" before he "commits a crime", thus before he actually becomes a "criminal".
You cannot "punish" somebody for what he wants to do or what he might do.

Sadly, this is a lose-lose scenario.
It's the problem you encounter when you claim you're civilised and face some obviously uncivilised people who seem to mean to harm you.
If you harm them preemptively, then you harm people who had done nothing to you so far, so it's clear you're as uncivilised as them.
If you let them harm you then you remained civilised but you're dead.

Same problem when an obviously anti-democratic party threatens to win an election : forbid the party, and then you impaired freedom of thought, let it win the election, and if it was really anti-democratic, then you've lost freedom. In both cases, democracy loses.

No easy answer here

[calguard66]

Of course it does. Ask the Cartheginians if violence solves anything.

The reason violence hasn't solved the Israel/ Palestinian conflict is that it has been restrained, not used effectively.

Let me be frank as well: If I kill you, all my problems with you are solved. I may now have OTHER problems, but if I can live with those problems then violence has solved something.

The problem with the world today is that everyone is so afraid of employing force, that it is used inefficiently. Conflicts are continued far longer than they need be, because everybody is afraid to act decisively.

Originally posted by Joe Dizzy

Allow me to be frank:

Violence doesn't solve shit.
Wars don't end shit. (Except for the very last one.)

Doesn't anyone learn anything from the palestinian/jewish conflict?

[C5]

Originally posted by calguard66
Of course it does. Ask the Cartheginians if violence solves anything.

Yup.
So we're using the same methods as 2000 years ago, while the technology has greatly improved.
Apart from that, we're civilised people alright...

[calguard66]

I figured out how to say what I wanted to say here...

The individual posting the "information" on this site has no proof of anything. He is making claims, but provides only his own "insight", and conflicting newspaper reports, as proof.

This happens often, we have a similar problem here in CA with a former TAG, where the accuser makes unfounded claims, and then the establishmenthas to scramble to "prove" them wrong... which is impossible, because he has provided no facts to counter.

Let him trot out a pilot who was told not to take off, let him find an official who was told to delay... he is making the claims, he has to prove them.

Originally posted by Anomaly


Prove him wrong and get the thousand bucks he is offering, then.

I also think it's funny that just because I don't prescribe to your party line, nor since I do not accept what the media has told me, I must be insane and therefor I should wear a foil hat. Instead of coming up with rebuttals to his arguments, you've indicated that we're insane. Drivel. Uninformed. Instead of discrediting the facts presented you attempt to discredit the source. How typical. Learn to think for yourself for goodness sake. Weigh in objectively.

[calguard66]

I don't understand your point.

Diplomacy has been in use as long as force, they are two sides of the same coin. Should we abandon both because they are old?

You're still breathing... a method of oxegen exchange which has been used for a few million years.

We still build with brick, that's been around a few thousand at least.

Originally posted by C5


Yup.
So we're using the same methods as 2000 years ago, while the technology has greatly improved.
Apart from that, we're civilised people alright...

[C5]

Originally posted by calguard66
I don't understand your point.

Diplomacy has been in use as long as force, they are two sides of the same coin. Should we abandon both because they are old?

The point here is mass destruction. We now have the mean to wipe an entire country off the map, and probably the planet as well. We have weapons that can kill or disable people in many inventive ways, and with a power our ancestors could not have dreamed (or dreaded ?) of.
OTOH, to my knowledge, diplomacy has not undergone the same evolution - we may have international treaties and similar things, but I don't think we have the diplomatic equivalent of the A-bomb.

My point about being civilised people was this : if a guy fights with his brother over a toy as a child, and then many years later claims to be a grown-up, while still fighting with his brother over toys, but this time with guns, then I'd say he's not a grown-up but still a child, and a very dangerous one as well.

It's not a question of abandoning diplomacy and violence because they're old; on the contrary, I think we should make diplomacy evolve or at least find a way to use our technology more cleverly when resorting to violence.

[qerlin]

Originally posted by C5


OTOH, to my knowledge, diplomacy has not undergone the same evolution - we may have international treaties and similar things, but I don't think we have the diplomatic equivalent of the A-bomb.


It's not a question of abandoning diplomacy and violence because they're old; on the contrary, I think we should make diplomacy evolve or at least find a way to use our technology more cleverly when resorting to violence.

We do have the diplomatic equivalent of the A-bomb....the A bomb. Threat of violence alone forsalled a major war for 60 years. Diplomacy, like all laws, is coercive because of the threat of violence.

Diplomacy looses its effectiveness -- as seen in Somali, in Zimbabwe, in Israel, in Afghanistan -- when you aren't willing to back it up with force. A group of soldiers constrained from engaging the bad guys while handing out MRE's is not force. It's not effective. It emboldens the enemy, just like N. Chamberlain in 1936-39. Diplomacy only works BECAUSE of the threat and reality of war.

As to using our technology more cleverly...we're doing that. The amount of collateral damage done in wartime now is tremendously reduced from say, Vietnam. Or WWII. The problem is the people of teh planet now are used to relative peace and prosperity -- so when they see combat, they are shocked -- SHOCKED -- that violence kills people.

No matter how smart you make the bombs, they're still explosive devices and are indiscriminate. Other people die. You can only minimise the sidereal casualties. That's the reality. Bullets will occasionally go through the target and kill someone downrange, or ricchochet with the same effect. That's the reality.

[qerlin]

"I have neither seen the psychology profiles of Saddam Hussein, the economical profile of the area, nor do I have enough experience with islamic culture or have the correct information regarding Iraq's attack capabilites.

And frankly, I think neither do any of the people on this board."

Not just wrong, fucking wrong. I was a Mid-East intelligence expert. I have lived in the ME. I do have experience with the culture. I have passed for Muslim. I do know the attack capabilities, as I was on one of the Iraq teams a few years ago.

I know at least two other people on this board are intel, as well; I'm willing to bet they've got a good grounding in these subject.

Maybe that's why you have people that disagree with you. We DO know what we're talking about.

[C5]

Originally posted by qerlin
No matter how smart you make the bombs, they're still explosive devices and are indiscriminate. Other people die. You can only minimise the sidereal casualties. That's the reality. Bullets will occasionally go through the target and kill someone downrange, or ricchochet with the same effect. That's the reality.

And yet the Gulf War led to a lot of Iraqi people dying (including civilians) while Hussein stayed in place. Collateral damage might be acceptable when the primary target is stricken (I don't agree with that either, but I can understand it), but when it's is missed, it becomes undistinguishable from the slaughter of innocents (especially if the cause of the miss is something as silly as the use of an outdated map).
And that sort of thing breed violence among the survivors who will want to retaliate with bombings and planes, starting an endless cycle of violence and destruction in both sides... until either the strongest side utterly destroys the other, or somebody comes with a better solution (and no, I don't have it - that doesn't prevent me for wanting it).

[Joe Dizzy]

Originally posted by qerlin

Maybe that's why you have people that disagree with you. We DO know what we're talking about.

I was unaware that you are both infallible and beyond reproach or criticism.

Or is your position so weak that you fear someone questioning it or your authority in the matter?

If I'm wrong, then please prove it to me. I am willing to read every calmly and rationally worded explanation. Just calling me dumb & uneducated is hardly convincing me of your opinion or of the rational thought invested in it.

And do re-read my posts in this thread. mactavish has already jumped to wrong conclusions about what it is I'm saying, maybe so did you.

[Dan Stack]

Regarding arm-chair experts...

It's part of democracy. People make decisions about what to do about Iraq, taxes, foreign debt, social welfare, etc. by the leaders they elect. And they aren't experts on all those issues, even if they are on one.

Democracy presumes that people have something valid to contribute to their government. Even if they are not experts, people are still able to think reasonably.

[Joe Dizzy]

Originally posted by Dan Stack
And they aren't experts on all those issues, even if they are on one.

I agree, Dan.
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I don't have to be an expert to have the right to question the use of lethal force.
But I damn well better be the best read and educated bastich on the subject before advocating mass murder.

If somebody considers himself to be such an educated person, then I am all ears on the rationale behind this decision. It does interest me quite a bit.

But if any part of this rationale is based on half-truths, prejudices, fear or a helpful ommision of certain facts than this person has no right to call for the deaths of human beings.

It is too grave a matter to allow rash, gullible or otherwise easily influenced people a voice in it.

[qerlin]

"It is too grave a matter to allow rash, gullible or otherwise easily influenced people a voice in it."

Oooh, an ad hominem argument. Strengths your point so well.

[Dan Stack]

Originally posted by Joe Dizzy


I agree, Dan.
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I just felt a tremor. Did the Earth shake?

[Joe Dizzy]

Originally posted by qerlin
Oooh, an ad hominem argument. Strengths your point so well.

I have to assume that you did not understand my original "point" at all.

As this comment makes no sense, if you actually understood what I'm going on about.