How many are Pro-War?

[ratwell71]

I just wanted to stick something out here to get an idea of how many truckers out here are still for the war in Iraq?

Then for those that are for it answer with reasons to support your answer and then the same for those that are against it.

How do you think this is affecting you personally?

Please respect other's responses. No attacking. This is for learning purposes only.

 

[ratwell71]

Who will be the first to post? Tempers do not need to fly when talking politics people. Just speak what is on your mind. Write the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word war.

How is this affecting you?

 

[dcalien]

Freedom is purchased by the blood of patriots.

Thanks to everyone who has made the sacrifice.

 

[buckeyewildman]

Freedom is purchased by the blood of patriots.

Thanks to everyone who has made the sacrifice.

my thoughts exactly so all i can say is AMEN

 

[Crazynuff]

Freedom is purchased by the blood of patriots.

Thanks to everyone who has made the sacrifice.

Yes , those serving deserve thanks or respect . The problem is our freedom has already been bought and the price paid for it . There should be more Iraqi patriots shedding the blood for their freedom . It is not a war in Iraq . It is a civil conflict amongst Iraqis and will continue for years . No one would have approved being involved to the extent we have been if it was foreseen all though it should have been foreseeable . Definite goals and time lines should have been set . Get in , do the job , and get out .
I am willing to listen to someone explain what we can accomplish by being there another 4 or 5 years at the cost of a few thousand more lives and billions of dollars . The lost lives aren't just statistics . Many are fathers leaving families facing years of hardship and grief . The soldiers and Marines volunteered willing to make the sacrifice . Nobody bothers asking the children if they are willing to sacrifice their fathers . Did any of you lose a family member in Viet Nam ? Was it worth that sacrifice ?

 

[pelicn]

Do I think we can leave the country without it affecting the US? No
We didn't go over there to "defeat". We haven't defeated anyone in war since WW2 and that's the problem. You can't have a war without a clear winner/loser. My son served over there when it first began, the US needed a military presence over there and now we have it. We will never leave Iraq.

 

[Turtle]

The question itself is a little disingenuous. Who is pro-war? Only a fool is pro-war.


As for our freedom already having been bought and paid for, well, that's short-sighted at the very least. Freedom isn't bought and paid for in a one-time transaction, it's something that must be fought for every day. I'm not sure I can agree that more Iraqis should be shedding blood for their freedom, as ideally no one should have to shed any blood. But the fact is that far more Iraqis have shed blood in this conflict than have Americans.

Timelines look good on paper, but they rarely work with people. Get in, do the job, get out, I'm all for that, but what if it takes longer to get the job done than what is chiseled in the timeline stone? Now what do you do? We shouldn't have gone in there in the first place, no question, but now that we are in there we have to stay until the job is finished. Pulling out now may save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but history has shown, without a doubt, that pulling out too soon usually costs many more lives, and many more dollars. We pulled out of Viet Nam and in doing so probably saved thousands of American lives, but at the expense of more than one million Vietnamese lives. Fair trade? I'm not so sure.

 

[Crazynuff]

Do I think we can leave the country without it affecting the US? No
We didn't go over there to "defeat". We haven't defeated anyone in war since WW2 and that's the problem. You can't have a war without a clear winner/loser. My son served over there when it first began, the US needed a military presence over there and now we have it. We will never leave Iraq.

Why did the U.S. need a military presence there ? Desert Storm was justified and done right . Being in Afghanistan has been justified . The reasons for going into Iraq are debatable .
And Turtle , anyone that was in Viet Nam saw what was going on and knew all we were doing was buying time . Can you provide verification of the statement millions of Vietnamese lives were lost because we pulled out ? The longer we kept the war going the more North Viet Nam benefited from aid from the USSR and China .
The "more Iraqis " that have shed blood have mostly been victims of terrorist attacks , killed by other Iraqis , not an invading army . Iraq needs to be able to have an effective force to put the insurgents down but I don't think they will ever be able to do it . We will never " get the job done ' . Is that a reason to stay there for ever ? Continued presence shows a lack of capability . Not being able to win after years of involvement is the same as defeat .

 

[Tennesseahawk]

It took 30 some years of occupying Japan before they started being self-sufficient. Now they are one of our greatest allies. Could you imagine a country like that in the Middle East? Actually, we had it in Iran, until the Shah was overthrown while we watched. But that's another story...

 

[dcalien]

There are many in the world that have declared war on freedom loving people years ago. Their stated purpose is to exterminate all who oppose their ideas.

We finally had that war brought to our shores on 9 11.

As much as I feel for the Iraqi people, I believe if we pull out, they will once again bring the war to our hometowns. And yes, freedom is purchased in increments. It must be maintained, once it is obtained.

For all our (freedom loving people) many faults, it is not our objective to exterminate those that don't agree with us.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Pro Aphganistan and Anti-Iraq....

Many common Americans I talk to on the docks say we should have just invaded and stuck a U.S. flag on the desert and told all the others there's a new dog in the pound ...you'll have to deal with us now!!

 

[greg334]

Well First thing is that most of what is going on is the fault of not closing down the borders and allowing factions of fundamentalist to go into Iraq form Syria and Iran. Most of the fighting being done is not insurgents, they are terrorist, Iraqi fundamentalist and some remaining republican guard people who want to return to the olfd government. Aal-Sadr has said that unless Iraqi forces stop targeting his group, there will be reprisals, so we ask for action, here is action people - it is a complicated situation that crosses two forms of religion.

The presents in Iraq is to shore up the presence we have in other parts of the Middle East. We tend to forget that we have Jordan and Syria that supports terrorism and wants to see Israel fall and we have problems with Egypt and an unstable government. My God no one realizes that stupid old despicable former president Carter just gave Hamas legitimacy by meeting with them in Syria after we have been fighting them over Lebanon? How can we even protect ourselves, let alone win any war with people like him still trying to tell us we are wrong and the terrorist are good people at heart? How many of you know about the kidnappings in Israel of children?

It seems to be easy to say we should pull our troops out, I would say great if we didn't depend on the oil they supply us with and if China wasn't in the process of positioning itself to take over areas when governments fall, sure we can pull our troops out.

We are asked to be there by the Iraqis, many of them are not stupid but it is like Vietnam in the sense that if the Americans leave, there will a blood letting that the world hasn't seen since the soviet purges or Pol Pot. Saddam did control the situation but see to me the UN is the real villain in all of this, they knew what was going on and accepted it, like they know what was happening in Darfu but they do nothing. We are blamed for trying to correct the problems with both a bad government and a corrupt UN. We are blamed for invading a country that has been killing it's own people for years, but we would be blamed for doing nothing too.

I am glad Clooney and the hollywood crowd learn the solution is not the UN, maybe they will see what it is all about.

Am I pro-war?

Well knowing vets who came back without limbs and some without much of anything left, I am not for that form of warfare but someone has to do it and to me, I would step up tot he plate if I could to protect the country and expect everyone else to do the same. I thank my friend for her sacrifice every time I talk to her and she would return if she could because she knows the job is not done yet.

 

[Tennesseahawk]

As much as I feel for the Iraqi people, I believe if we pull out, they will once again bring the war to our hometowns. And yes, freedom is purchased in increments. It must be maintained, once it is obtained.

For all our (freedom loving people) many faults, it is not our objective to exterminate those that don't agree with us.

Exactly! Once you plant a garden, you don't walk away and expect fruit. You have to nurture it, guard it, give it what it needs, and soon, it'll feed you.

In Iraq, we have to be a constant alternative to what the ppl knew under Saddam. We have to let the masses decide if they like freedom over tyranny. And we have to let a generation grow up knowing nothing but freedom, so there's no return to tyranny.

 

[ratwell71]

Crazynuff,

I am with you. I lost my dad almost 6 years ago here in the U.S. due to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, but his soul was taken from him in Vietnam. He had a silver and bronze star that was never given to him. To tell you the truth, I don't believe he would have accepted them anyway.

We have no way of knowing who is or who is not a terrorist. We have had American terrorist right here in this nation and noone knew they were going to blow up the Federal Trade Center or how about the Unibomber? I can go on but I won't.

Thanks for respecting each other's views. It all boils down to learning.

 

[ratwell71]

Greg,

I have always agreed with most things that you have posted but we are not the World's Police, and when those countries decide to come here I will defend my country. Being spread out all over the world just leaves us wide open for an attack. Spending billions of tax payer's dollar and expending the lives of others in the name of revenge is not what I am all about. This will leave this country broke and when we cannot defend her here we will lose on all accounts.

I am an Army veteran just like my dad, and I have served my country. I love my country, but I am not Pro-War. That is I am NOT for the Iraq war or for ANY war.

 

[pelicn]

It took 30 some years of occupying Japan before they started being self-sufficient. Now they are one of our greatest allies. Could you imagine a country like that in the Middle East? Actually, we had it in Iran, until the Shah was overthrown while we watched. But that's another story...

Hawk, although I agree with your statement, we DEFEATED Japan first. We aren't in Iraq to defeat, and that's the difference.
The Iraqi people are dieing in large numbers, they are trying to make a difference in their own country. We have to stay until they are capable of doing so completely. But, we will always have a military presence there. It's in our own interest to have one.

Oh...and don't get me started on Jimmy Carter!

 

[Turtle]

And Turtle , ... Can you provide verification of the statement millions of Vietnamese lives were lost because we pulled out?

Uhm, yeah. When we pulled out Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and instituted a twisted version of agrarian civilization where city dwellers were forced to relocate to work in farm camps and other forced labor projects with the goal of restarting civilization in the Year Zero.

The "Killing Fields" (they made a movie about it, nominated for 7 Oscars, won 3 of them) is where people were forced to work in farm camps on a diet of one tin of rice (180 grams) per person every two days.

Those who refused to relocate were summarily executed. Many were executed anyway under Pol Pot's ethnic cleansing campaign. Between 1975-1978 the combined executions, slave labor, malnutrition and poor and deliberately withheld health care yielded death on a mind-numbing scale.

While there have been others, and with higher numbers, the genocide of Pol Pot is probably the second most publicized incidence of genocide of the 20th century (the Holocaust being #1). Estimates vary greatly, between 750,000 and 3.3 million, with the most commonly used authoritative figure being 1.6 million people. Plus another 2 million fled the country, with nearly 1 million of those "boat people" dying at sea. Those that include the deaths of the boat people generally put Pol Pot's genocide at 2.5 million people.

It is undisputed that if we had not pulled out he never would have taken power.

For more information, Google "Pol Pot" and "genocide". For that matter, I'll bet you could Google "20th Century genocide" and take a look at the various lists, and Pol Pot will be right up there near the top of every one of them. If you haven't seen it, "The Killings Fields" is a really good movie, told about half the time from the Cambodian point of view, and doesn't shy away from anything. It's brutal, and one of the most emotional movies you are likely to see.

As a side note to the movie, Dr. Haing S. Ngor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Sam Waterston lost his Best Actor bid to F Murray Abraham that year for Amadeus). Nigor was not an actor, he was a real doctor, served as a doctor in the Cambodian army, and was captured and tortured by the Khmer Rouge. He escaped execution by convincing them that he was not a doctor and had no education. He fled and came to the US, where he later acted in the film. Born in 1940, in 1996 he was found shot to death in the garage of his Los Angeles apartment building. There is strong evidence that supports the assertion that he was killed because of his opposition to the Khmer Rouge. Add one more to Pol Pot's numbers.

 

[ratwell71]

Turtle,

"The question itself is a little disingenuous. Who is pro-war? Only a fool is pro-war."

You are either for it or against it. I did not write an equation here so it was not meant for a genius to figure out on how to answer it. It can be a simple yes or no answer.

And as far as your statement "only a fool is pro-war", I can only say to this that we have a lot of fools in politics. Blame the one who declared it.

If I had voted for it I would be a fool too.

Thanks...

 

[Turtle]

You can be very much anti-war and still support going to war. So I stand corrected when I said only a fool is pro-war, for it is also the fool who is anti-war even when war is necessitated. The term "Pro-War" by itself is very specific, in that it is not specific to any particular war.

You posted a separate comment about the Iraqi war, and you apparently wanted to get a take on how many are Pro-War and then apply that to the Iraq War. Or was the question actually, "Are you Pro Iraq War?" because that's a specific war, the necessity of which is highly debatable.

 

[Crazynuff]

Turtle , the Cambodians are not Vietnamese and we supposedly never supposed to cross into the Cambodian border . We did though in one of the few sensible things we did in Viet Nam .
One more thing about Iraq . How can we ever expect them to defend themselves after the cowardly performance of their army in Desert Storm and lack of resistance when we attacked Iraq ? The people have no will to fight . They are a hopeless case .