Off Topic Rants and Raves

[Renegade]

The "stronger military" that failed in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq?

Sor-ry...couldn't resist

As for Dawson's Creek...*points at sig*

[Captious]

The "stronger military" that failed in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq?

I suppose that depends on how you define failure. I don't see how you can say the US failed at Afghanistan or Iraq. In both cases they took out the former government. If that isn't success what is?

Regardless of that though to really look at the strength of a military for one large country vs. lots of little countries you can look at the US as if it was Europe. Since your whatever the heck the bar on the left w/ picture etc is called says Germany I'll use that as an example. Germany is about the same size as the US state Montana. Montana has no people so we'll pretend that it has a more normal population.

Now I'm not saying people should go to war for sport but if one was so inclined they'd probably -not- want to attack countries that they couldn't defend against.

As someone in the US with the US military I would not be scared (if I was crazy and wanted to start random wars) to attack Germany. If Montana was its own country I would not be afraid to attack Montana. However if I was a German or Montanan (I made that word up) citizen I would not want to attack the US. The resources my country of Montana would be able to come up with to fight would simply not be able to match the resources the then 49 states could. In the same way if the EU created one military that replaced the militaries of all the member countries that military would be stronger than the individual militaries.

[Renegade]

I suppose that depends on how you define failure. I don't see how you can say the US failed at Afghanistan or Iraq. In both cases they took out the former government. If that isn't success what is?

You mean other than actually winning the war?
In both countries, the U.S. are still seen as an invading force and fought with everything the guys have.
Think about it this way: The government was the head of the people opposing the U.S. in Iraq, for example. "Removing" it was definitely a strategically valuable success. But if the U.S. left Iraq right now, the supporters of that government would simply make a new one.
As such, if the U.S. left right now, the only thing it would've accomplished would be to illegally invade a country based on lies, kill hundreds of thousands of people, and capture Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq as a country would still be just as fucked up. I mean, you can try to re-define success as much as you want (do you work for the Bush administration?) - you described in the rest of your post how the sheer size of the U.S.'s army would make it so strong that no American would be afraid to attack a smaller country - yet all four of the countries I mentioned are significantly smaller and, arms-wise, entirely underdeveloped compared to the U.S. - and the U.S. Army still failed to actually win the wars. They got in all four of them with massive troops and high-tech weaponry, and what happened? They had to send more and more, because the opposition just wouldn't die.

If you didn't defeat the enemy in a war, you didn't win. It's as simple as that. And in neither of the mentioned countries the U.S. did that. Afghanistan, for example, was invaded in 2001 - yet just last month, the Taliban, the people they supposedly "took out", issued statements they would “pursue holy war until the occupying countries leave.”.

You have a massive army, armed vehicles, helicopters, airstrikes, satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, and fucking actual medical care for wounded soldiers - yet in neither of the mentioned countries you managed to defeat a few guerrillas with AK-47s.
That is not success. That's fucking embarrassing and a waste of lifes.

Regardless of that though to really look at the strength of a military for one large country vs. lots of little countries you can look at the US as if it was Europe. Since your whatever the heck the bar on the left w/ picture etc is called says Germany I'll use that as an example. Germany is about the same size as the US state Montana. Montana has no people so we'll pretend that it has a more normal population.

Now I'm not saying people should go to war for sport but if one was so inclined they'd probably -not- want to attack countries that they couldn't defend against.

I see what you are trying to say, but as I just pointed out, the United States Army has failed to defeat smaller countries before. If you don't manage to kill a bunch of guys with jeeps and cheap weapons, why do you imagine you'd need anything short of nuclear weapons to defeat a country that has trained soldiers with modern assault rifles, a navy, airforce, armored and armed vehicles, and, most importantly, an actual infrastructure.
Resistance in Germany wouldn't be five guys with an RPG on a roof - it'd be a coordinated strike of thousands of men with comparable (if not superior - G36 > M-16) weaponry. I'm not saying we'd definitely win in the sense that we'd push you back into the ocean. But I'm quite sure you'd lose a hundred times the men you lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, and just as they are unfazed by the fact that the U.S. claims they won, we would keep fighting until you're gone - especially given that we know the U.S. aren't particularly famous for winning against guerrillas in occupied countries.

As someone in the US with the US military I would not be scared (if I was crazy and wanted to start random wars) to attack Germany. If Montana was its own country I would not be afraid to attack Montana.

And that might very well be the problem of modern America. Because, as I mentioned before, as unafraid as you guys are to invade random small countries, it always ends with thousands of Americans dead, and no victory in sight.

I wonder if the soldiers in your army are as unscared of attacking other countries as you are.
'cause, you know, they do the actual dying, instead of just seeing a 30-second clip of an anchorman on CNN saying there was "an assault on Baghdad".

However if I was a German or Montanan (I made that word up) citizen I would not want to attack the US. The resources my country of Montana would be able to come up with to fight would simply not be able to match the resources the then 49 states could.

The last guy coming from Hamburg trying to attack the U.S. did so with what? A student visa and some flight lessons?
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not supporting Al Qaeda, "the terrorists" or anything, and I'm not identifying with Mohammed Atta or anyone - I'm just trying to make a point: The worst and scariest attack on the United States in the past fifty years was apparently coordinated from the very country you consider "unscary", and involved nothing more than a few guys and hijacked commercial airplanes. Germany would probably not win a direct army-army confrontation. But that wouldn't be necessary. It'd be enough to do damage in any way possible.

I'm not saying we'd win at all, I'm just saying that there seems to be an inherent arrogance in the U.S. thinking that just because their Army-penis is bigger, they've got nothing to fear.
One guy with a gun was enough to kill your President (Kennedy); a few guys with a few unarmed planes were enough to scare your entire country to death and invade another one. A few hundred "insurgents" are enough to keep the U.S. from winning in Iraq.
And you are convinced a country like Germany couldn't harm the U.S. with hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers?
We may not be able to occupy the U.S. afterwards - but I think we'd manage to show there is a reason to be scared of 250,000 people with guns.

In the same way if the EU created one military that replaced the militaries of all the member countries that military would be stronger than the individual militaries.

And have it led by the U.S.'s puppy dog Britain, or one of the "Coalition of Willing" states? Yeah, we'd love that.

[Captious]

You mean other than actually winning the war?

What are you defining as "winning"? Since the US doesn't seem to have any really clearly defined goals (at least not ones that can be met through the military actions taken) in Iraq or Afghanistan I think you have to default to the traditional goals of war- to increase the power and spending of the state, and to be able to take the land, resources, general wealth, or power over the people in the invaded country. The US was able to increase the powers of the state and spending in both these "wars" and while it would be wrong and there may be international reprecussions the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan would not really be able to stop the US from taking land or resources from them or instituting a government there.

In both countries, the U.S. are still seen as an invading force and fought with everything the guys have.

I object to "everything the guys have". Most people are not physically fighting. Most people are trying to go about their daily lives as best they can while avoiding being caught between the violent exchanges between the minority of people and the US military forces there. This is not unique to Iraq and Afghanistan this is true all over the world. Most people have no interest in engaging in violence unless they are being attacked or feel they have no other choice.

Think about it this way: The government was the head of the people opposing the U.S. in Iraq, for example. "Removing" it was definitely a strategically valuable success. But if the U.S. left Iraq right now, the supporters of that government would simply make a new one.

This is simply not true. The Hussein government was much more secular and "western" than what the people that are attacking the troops there now would support. Even if Hussein supporters were the majority of the people in Iraq what would happen if the troops left is that they would then end up being attacked by the people currently attacking the troops who want a much more religion based style of government until the Hussein types were able to assemble enough of a military and law enforcement force to try and keep the extremists in line. It's possible that the extremists being much more at ease with indiscriminate violence would simply step in to power and kill off any Hussein type supporters who tried to challenge them. Realistically the majority of the people in Iraq are neither Hussein supporters nor religious extremists and would probably prefer something closer to Hussein's governance than the extremists would want but still markedly different from the old way of things. In example I think they'd like to try an election that had more than one option on the ballot.

As such, if the U.S. left right now, the only thing it would've accomplished would be to illegally invade a country based on lies, kill hundreds of thousands of people, and capture Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq as a country would still be just as fucked up. I mean, you can try to re-define success as much as you want (do you work for the Bush administration?) - you described in the rest of your post how the sheer size of the U.S.'s army would make it so strong that no American would be afraid to attack a smaller country - yet all four of the countries I mentioned are significantly smaller and, arms-wise, entirely underdeveloped compared to the U.S. - and the U.S. Army still failed to actually win the wars. They got in all four of them with massive troops and high-tech weaponry, and what happened? They had to send more and more, because the opposition just wouldn't die.

I won't speak to Korea as I really doin't know much about the Korean war. However based on the lack of general grief given it by the American populace I don't think it should be lumped in with the other three.

In the later two this again goes to how you define success. The Republican Guard is not waging war against the US troops there nor is the military of Afghanistan. The formal militaries of these countries lost and that is what I was talking about in invading smaller countries. That there is still violence more resembling guerilla warfare has nothing to do with army v. army.

Vietnam was different. There is no way to "win" someone else's civil war. If anything all US presence there did was exacerbate the situation and leave the South Vietnamese (sp) worse off. There was also not a massive amount of troops sent to Vietnam initially and Americans never had much support for the "war" in Vietnam whereas the majority of Americans (incorrectly in my opinion) supported the "war" in Afghanistan and initially supported the "war" in Iraq.

The opposition not being just our opposition, they could not die in Vietnam and the opposition being the formal militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan did die. While the general populace in Iraq and Afghanistan may be opposed to US presence they are not engaing in combat with the troops and thus are not the "opposition". The last case of the "opposition just not dying" would have been in WWII when after the people kept fighting despite major destruction of their country through firebombings the US used the atomic bombs.

You have a massive army, armed vehicles, helicopters, airstrikes, satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, and fucking actual medical care for wounded soldiers - yet in neither of the mentioned countries you managed to defeat a few guerrillas with AK-47s.
That is not success. That's fucking embarrassing and a waste of lifes.

Defeating guerillas is not something any military can really be good at. It is different from "normal" warfare. It is especially difficult in a country outside your own where you cannot have the same grasp on suspicious behavior and thus your choices are to be too conservative in taking action and thus put yourself at greater risk to guerilla attack or too liberal in taking action and thus make many mistakes and cause many more civilian casualties. If the guerillas were operating inside the US capture of them would be more effective but still nowhere near adequate. "Proper" militaries have spent years in South American and African countries trying to fight guerillas without real success. But again it is not the gurillas I am talking about.

I see what you are trying to say, but as I just pointed out, the United States Army has failed to defeat smaller countries before. If you don't manage to kill a bunch of guys with jeeps and cheap weapons, why do you imagine you'd need anything short of nuclear weapons to defeat a country that has trained soldiers with modern assault rifles, a navy, airforce, armored and armed vehicles, and, most importantly, an actual infrastructure.
Resistance in Germany wouldn't be five guys with an RPG on a roof - it'd be a coordinated strike of thousands of men with comparable (if not superior - G36 > M-16) weaponry. I'm not saying we'd definitely win in the sense that we'd push you back into the ocean. But I'm quite sure you'd lose a hundred times the men you lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, and just as they are unfazed by the fact that the U.S. claims they won, we would keep fighting until you're gone - especially given that we know the U.S. aren't particularly famous for winning against guerrillas in occupied countries.

It is precisely because the resistance isn't 5 guys on a roof that it would not be as challenging. While the actual military battles would be more challenging (the German military would certainly be a fiercer opposition than the Republican Guard) that is still a "proper" warfare and given the option between attempting to fight guerillas vs. fighting an actual army I think the soldiers are going to pick actual army every time. To put it frankly it's just less bullshit. In a "proper" war against an actual army you can make plans and have some sense of what you're doing. The people attacking you have uniforms and/or are grouped together and actually care about the citizens in their country not in those uniforms.

You must keep in mind the place my argument started and that is having each US state as its own country with its own military as opposed to one military for the whole country. When the US was founded the idea of having a federal military was put in place with the assumption that "proper" wars were possible. The founders did anticipate that in the event of an invasion of the US the newer smaller US military may fall but that as one military it would take longer to to do so. In anticipation of that potential failure the 2nd ammendment to the US constitution declared to right to bear arms not just to individual citizens for normal puposes (hunting, self-defense) but to militias (effectively guerillas) so that the populace would be able to continue fighting in the advent of this happening.

If for some reason the US invaded Germany (or Montana) the job of the normal military would be to take out the formal military of the country. That is when the war is typically "won". Doubtless many citizens would then go guerilla and try to fight the invading forces off on their own but unless they were large enough in number and trained enough to protect whatever it is that the US invaded the country for they would not be able to stop it from happening. Now I'm not one of the people who insists that the US went to Iraq simply to get oil. But if that was the case do you think the current guerilla fighting could stop the US from taking the oil right now?

And that might very well be the problem of modern America. Because, as I mentioned before, as unafraid as you guys are to invade random small countries, it always ends with thousands of Americans dead, and no victory in sight.

I wonder if the soldiers in your army are as unscared of attacking other countries as you are.
'cause, you know, they do the actual dying, instead of just seeing a 30-second clip of an anchorman on CNN saying there was "an assault on Baghdad".

I've already established that by the only terms one can reasonably use to define victory the US did win. If your definition of victory means that no one is going to attack the occupying force, and that EVERY person just rolls over and is complacent after their military is neutralized than you are being unrealistic. That type of victory is not possible without killing all citizens of the invaded country. Does the US have the weaponry required to kill the entire population of Iraq? Yes. But I'm sure as hell glad that DC doesn't seem to agree with that definition of victory.

Loss of American lives is to be expected in a war and it doesn't matter whether the soldiers are afraid of engaging in a war or not. Soldiers are not the ones making the decisions about whether they will go to war. "Afraid" for the politician making the crazy decision to invade Montana simply means are we going to lose SO many o our soldiers that we are then unable to defend the US from Montana and be unable to neutralize the Montanan army. If the answer is no than the politician isn't afraid to invade Montana. If you ask a soldier if they were a crazy politician and wanted to invade Montana whether they'd be afraid to do so they'd not be afraid in that sense either and getting booted from office does take some time. The biggest thing the crazy politician has to fear is being assassinated by a very angry citizen and/or eventually losing his job.

The last guy coming from Hamburg trying to attack the U.S. did so with what? A student visa and some flight lessons?
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not supporting Al Qaeda, "the terrorists" or anything, and I'm not identifying with Mohammed Atta or anyone - I'm just trying to make a point: The worst and scariest attack on the United States in the past fifty years was apparently coordinated from the very country you consider "unscary", and involved nothing more than a few guys and hijacked commercial airplanes. Germany would probably not win a direct army-army confrontation. But that wouldn't be necessary. It'd be enough to do damage in any way possible.

I'm not saying we'd win at all, I'm just saying that there seems to be an inherent arrogance in the U.S. thinking that just because their Army-penis is bigger, they've got nothing to fear.
One guy with a gun was enough to kill your President (Kennedy); a few guys with a few unarmed planes were enough to scare your entire country to death and invade another one. A few hundred "insurgents" are enough to keep the U.S. from winning in Iraq.
And you are convinced a country like Germany couldn't harm the U.S. with hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers?
We may not be able to occupy the U.S. afterwards - but I think we'd manage to show there is a reason to be scared of 250,000 people with guns.

That the US can be harmed is in no way an argument against having one country with a military as opposed to many counties with many militaries. If New York was its own country it probably would have been hurt even greater by 9/11. 9/11 was also not an invasion by a foreign army and cannot be compared to a war by the US military againt the invading Montanans. Is being able to be hurt scary? Of course. But New York has far less to fear from a potential Montanan invasion when it is the US vs. Montana than when it is New York vs. Montana. The not being afraid infers not being afraid of losing everything to the Montanans. The Montanans may be able to harm the US but could not take over or destroy the entire US. In fact the Montanas would probably find that the US instead destroyed Montana.

And have it led by the U.S.'s puppy dog Britain, or one of the "Coalition of Willing" states? Yeah, we'd love that. Rolling Eyes

Saying that the EU combined would have a stronger military that the individual countries makes no presumption of who it's going to be led by. In fact it's part of the point that it isn't led by one of the member countries. No US state leads the US military. All woul be protected by it were they to be attacked but no one state can command it to do its bidding.

Finally I'd like to address some presumptions you seem to have made about me.

1) That I am not -in- the military. This happens to be correct. However it is incorrect to assume that I have no connection to the military and just see CNN clips on TV. I have several friends in Iraq and one that died in Iraq. My liitle brother is infantry in the US Marines. (This position in this branch of the military basically translates to "cannon fodder".)

2.) That I support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am a minarchist. (Can be put near libertarian or American constitutionalist.) I support a federal government that is so limited that it wouldn't really have the power to -not- be isolationist with the military. I think the war in Afghanistan was one of the most ridiculous things ever as assuming the billionaire you're after is really just going to hang out for weeks after you started talking about attacking and wait to be bombed is silly. I am less against the war in Iraq given that Hussein did kill his own citizens in a not civil war or enforcing laws (however ridiculous they may be) kind of way but a simple now you die kind of way. This doesn't mean I support it. I just feel better aout it. I think it could possibly be proper to offer assistance against governments led by people who willingly kill their own citizens (Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot etc.) and my own prefered method of "help" (assassinating those men and those closest to them in government) is not likely to be accepted by people in general.
3) That I arrogant and "convinced a country like Germany couldn't harm the U.S. ". What I said is I was a German I would not want to randomly attack the US even if I was the same crazy person who as an American might want to attack Germany. This in no way implies that I don't think Germany could cause any damage to the US.

[Aponi]

Oh. My. God.
That might just be the longest post i've ever seen.

[garnet]

I can't believe it, but I'm actually going to jump in the fray here and simultaneously attempt to steer this conversation back toward LG.

I think the war in Afghanistan was one of the most ridiculous things ever as assuming the billionaire you're after is really just going to hang out for weeks after you started talking about attacking and wait to be bombed is silly. I am less against the war in Iraq given that Hussein did kill his own citizens

The war in Afghanistan may have been poorly executed, but ridiculous? Really? Going after the guy who proudly took credit for killing 1000s of American citizens? I think doing nothing would have been ridiculous.

As to Hussein's killing of his own citizens. . .

Genocide is an abominable practice, which, unfortunately is all too common in this day and age. Any country where genocide thrives must have some deep-rooted problems in its history and ideology. Without addressing these causes, mere force will not abolish genocide from the earth.

Toppling figure-heads may help (assassinating them outright is against international law), but it is only through the conversations between leaders, and the continued interest of outside parties that true healing begins.

*okay, here comes the big leap*

We've actually seen a similar conflict play out in LG15. Clearly, the Order is bad. They do not have Bree's best interests at heart. Yet rescuing her has not been easy. She must have the will to leave the HoO if the efforts are going to pay off. Sheer force alone will not persuade her. Talking to her seemed to help, but it will take time, determination, and repeated attempts at reasoning before she will really respond to the TAAG's attempts to help her.

By the same token, patience and diplomacy are necessary (in large quantities) in battling the evils of tyrrany. If military force is to be of any use, the hearts and minds of the people must first be open to change. This can be a long and trying process. Unfortunately, this is an issue which my country's leaders failed to give proper consideration before risking the lives of our friends in uniform.

[Renegade]

@Captious:

1. When Senator McCain recently tried to prove one could walk around freely and without danger in Baghdad, he needed 100 bodyguards, three Blackhawks and two Apaches for security. I don't know how exactly you'd like to redefine "victory", but if you can't even go out on the street without being shot (unless you are heavily guarded), the war simply isn't won. It's not even over yet, no matter what the Bush Administration says.
   So, let's see -- "to be able to take the land, resources, general wealth, or power over the people in the invaded country"
   • Land: The US can't even leave the Green Zone in the capital without heavy armor - I don't consider that the ability to just take their land. Sure, they might claim Baghdad is under their control, but what good is claiming you have control if you can't actually enforce it?
   • Resources: Oil. Check. They've got it. Although I kinda doubt that "We control Iraq's oil." is equal to "We won the Iraq war.".
   • Wealth: There is none I know of in Iraq.
   • Power over the people: Riiiight. Would that be the people who die because they support the US, or the people who fight the US with everything they've got?

2. 9/11 was also not an invasion by a foreign army and cannot be compared to a war by the US military againt the invading Montanans.

   An invasion, no - but a direct attack from another country.
   At least that's what the Bush Administration told the world in order to justify the attack on Afghanistan. Organized strike under support from the Taliban and stuff.
3. I don't quite get how you, on one hand, can admit that it's possible that, if the US pulled out now, some extremist group would immediately take power, but on the other hand still insist the US won the war. How exactly is it winning if you lose thousands of people in order to remove one hostile dictator, only to have another dozen ready to replace him as soon as you leave?

4. If for some reason the US invaded Germany (or Montana) the job of the normal military would be to take out the formal military of the country. That is when the war is typically "won".

   ...no.
   A war is one if the enemy is defeated. Just because his army was officially taken out, that doesn't automatically mean that he was defeated. Once again, look at McCain's visit: The American military cannot even walk around freely in Iraq's capital city. To say they won the war just because they happen to have killed a few guys calling themselves "The Iraqi Army" or "Republican Guard" is fucking ridiculous.
   You cannot seriously consider a war won, if the enemy is still fighting you whenever and wherever you go.

As for the presumptions you assume I make: I don't. I really don't care. Whether you're in the military or not is immaterial to the fact that I think it's fucking delusional to consider a war "won" in which more people died after "the end of the war" than before it, where soldiers still get killed every day, where there is no apparent control of the enemy or its territory, and where everybody but the men in charge is talking about leaving the country asap.
If the Iraq war was won, why do the soldiers there have to serve longer and longer terms?
Why are more and more troops needed?
Why was the famous "troop surge" needed in 2007, if the war was "won" in 2003?
Why would the Iraqis devise a plan to secure Baghdad in 2007 (Operation Law and Order), if the war was "won" in 2003?

If the war was won, if the Americans had any control, any power in Iraq at all - they would at least have the capital secured. But they didn't even manage to do that.
Yet, according to you, they already won the war.

The facts...reality simply doesn't match the U.S. government's propaganda. You can redefine "victory" all you want until you find a definition that lets the US look good. The rest of the world sees that, once again, the US army is sitting in a foreign country getting shot, with no hope to succeed at anything but retreat.



My answer to your Germany/US related claims is basically the same - you seem to make the main difference here:

If for some reason the US invaded Germany (or Montana) the job of the normal military would be to take out the formal military of the country. That is when the war is typically "won". Doubtless many citizens would then go guerilla and try to fight the invading forces off on their own but unless they were large enough in number and trained enough to protect whatever it is that the US invaded the country for they would not be able to stop it from happening.

Let me inform you that Germany has a conscription based army - after school, many healthy men have to serve a mandatory nine months (longer in the past) in the army.
Of course, many of them leave after their term, but the point is: We are trained, and we are large enough in number.
A large part of the male population went through the same basic training the active soldiers went through - so while we wouldn't be any competition to our actual army, we'd still be way better trained than the 15-year-old kids with AKs running around in Iraq.

Just because an army is defeated doesn't mean a country is defeated. It's the US learn that.

Edit:

The war in Afghanistan may have been poorly executed, but ridiculous? Really? Going after the guy who proudly took credit for killing 1000s of American citizens? I think doing nothing would have been ridiculous.

I'd like you to explain how the government of Afghanistan, the religious crazymen of the Taliban and the general Afghan population are equal to Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist organization.

As for how important it was to follow him, let's see what the American President has to say about that:

I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.

That was on 13.03.2002. Six months are 9/11. So Dubya lost interest in OBL a mere half year after the attacks, but the Afghan people have to pay for decades for his short period of "attention".
And what did it achieve? As far as I know, Osama is still out there...

[Aithne]

In most cases these days the size of the country is a minor factor when deciding a countries strentgh. Sorry but in todays world of the United Nations, and Unions such as the European Union, size almost does not matter. It's about alignments. And as a U.S. citizen, I am a bit worried that we currently have just one "friend" out there (England), and England is governed (for lack of a better word), by the European Union (because most of the members are angry with us for valid reasons).

I would like to add that if Germany really had a huge issue with the U.S, military power would be taken into consideration. However, that does not mean that they would not do anything against the U.S. Europe has it's own union (to which Germany is a member), Germany would go to the European Union and propose war (or whatever they thought needed to be done). The thing is, smaller countries have a lot more power at unions then most people give them credit for. Why? because they ban together (each country gets one vote). Germany would lobby for what they would do. And all the little friends of Germany would join the cause (because the smaller countries recognize that they need each other to survive). Germany can usually count on support (in both votes at the European Union and in action) from countries such as Holland, Luxemburg, Denmark etc.


If your interested in this at all here are links to the United Nations and the European Union. I'll warn you that if your at interested in this kind of thing, these sites become addicting.

[garnet]

Renegade, you are correct that Bin Laden was/is not a head of state. I was simply saying that I thought the US was justified invading Afghanistan in order to seek and capture him. The Taliban did claim involvement in a massive attack against the US and, if I'm not mistaken, members of that organization actually had political control in Afghanistan at that time. Granted, the job was bungled (as confirmed by the embarrassing quote from GWB which you cite above).

I agree with you that the entire war in Iraq (start to interminable finish) is a mess which was poorly handled by the US government. At this point, most American citizens would agree with you about that. (In fact, there are a number of polls to that effect.)

My goals in responding to this conversation were to:
A. present a different viewpoint from a US citizen and
B. return to a discussion of Lonelygirl.


While we've strayed pretty far, I think the use of force and the need for philosophical readiness actually provide a unifying theme here.

I wonder, do you oppose the use of force in all cases? I think it should be generally avoided, but can be justified under certain circumstances.

[Renegade]

@Aithne: The European Union is not a military alliance - you cannot go to "it" and "propose war". Germany is, however, part of NATO, and has (I think) several independent mutual defense pacts.

@garnet: I do not oppose the use of force - I oppose the use of force when it's unjustified and/or unnecessary.
The country Afghanistan and its leaders, no matter how crazy and dangerous they were, were independent from the terrorist that (supposedly) is responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks - as such, the attack on Afghanistan was unjustified.

Iraq is an example on its own - it is a proven fact that the Bush Administration lied in order to convince people a war was necessary. The attack on Iraq was not only unjustified, it was simply illegal - an unprovoked war of aggression. The only reasons Bush hasn't been trialed as a war criminal is that the US, conveniently, don't recognize the International Criminal Court, and that the US, other than Iraq, actually do have WMDs.

Iran is playing out the same - it is an independent country, and has the right to its own nuclear program. And as much as I don't like the idea of these people having nuclear weaponry - as long as the US have nukes themselves, they have no right to try to forbid others to have them.
Yet, they are obviously preparing another strike to prevent Iran from reaching a dangerous state. (That this is just another stupid excuse for simply waging war is obvious through the fact that, while GWB has been alleging Iran is preparing to research nuclear weapons, he didn't give a f**k when North Korea actually tested nuclear weapons on October 9, 2006.)

A Christian dictator with WMDs is just as dangerous as a Muslim or Atheist one. And Bush is just that. Whoever's in doubt of that just has to check what kind of rights he's given himself over the past seven years - the only thing missing to make his conversion complete is declaring martial law and suspending elections next year. And just as I don't like the idea of Ahmadinejad running around with nukes, I don't like the idea of just having to wait until Bush decides he's had enough of us "liberal" Europeans and wipes us out.

No, I do not oppose the use of force. It's just that everybody outside the US, not under constant propaganda and bullying by their government, has an entirely different view of their politics and actions in the past seven years. And phrases like "redefining victory" are a witness to that. Coincidently, I found a Daily Show vid earlier where Jon Stewart is taking on the topic - it shows quite well what I said: The more an actual victory seems unlikely, the more US government just redefines "success" and their goals, so the US is looking good again.

They have no right to be in that country. They have no right to slaughter innocent people. And they are utterly and completely failing to actually achieve anything by doing that.
Yet, you have people like Captious apparently buying into that crap, believing the US is actually making progress in Iraq and helping people, thus making sure that, due to the support by non-protest, the war will keep going and going and going (no matter if the gov't says it was over four years ago).

No, I do not oppose force. I oppose this illegitimate war and most other actions by the US government in the past seven years. And I fear that the general American public is too misled to realize what's going on. (There was a documentary comparing the news coverage of the war from several countries, showing how ridiculous the American one was, unfortunately I can't find it right now...I'll link to it if I do.)

[garnet]

Renegade, we are at a stalemate on the Afghanistan issue. I think it was justified because the Taliban can be tied directly to the attacks on the World Trade Center, while you believe the ties are not strong enough to justify violence.

On all other points, we are in agreement -- nuclear power included. Please understand that not all Americans are so easily fooled. A country may fall victim to dangerous propaganda, but that doesn't make all of its inhabitants stupid, right? I hope we have learned something from the last century, and that the next few years will demonstrate a change for the US politically. There is an election coming up. . .

[trainer101]

Split off from video discussion (of all places). I'll leave it here as long as everyone remains respectful.

[Renegade]

Thou shalt not split thy Renegade!
Do you know how far I had to scroll to come down here??

Renegade, we are at a stalemate on the Afghanistan issue. I think it was justified because the Taliban can be tied directly to the attacks on the World Trade Center, while you believe the ties are not strong enough to justify violence.

Well, I have yet to see evidence of such "direct ties" to the 9/11 attacks - any Wikipedia page on the topic always states that the Taliban "had provided support and safe harbor to Al-Qaeda", nothing more. And while it certainly isn't nice to protect a terrorist group, the fact of the matter is that it's not illegal to not arrest people on command of the US. If they didn't see (or didn't want to see) any crimes comitted by Al Qaeda (and the Taliban did, in fact, offer to hand over Bin Laden if they were presented with evidence that he was linked to 9/11), they were perfectly right to not arrest and surrender him - while the US had no right to invade the country just because Afghanistan's laws and decisions didn't meet their preferences.

Al Qaeda was not under criminal investigation in Afghanistan, and the Bush Administration provided no proof they had comitted any crimes. Afghanistan behaved perfectly right by not surrendering them. Even though Bin Laden apparently admitted to have been responsible for 9/11 in 2004, that was three years later - by the time of their commands to surrender him, the US had no proof at all.

Think of it this way: Would you like to be surrendered to Taliban Afghanistan because you're not wearing a burqa, even though that isn't even a crime in the US? Would you consider it justified if Taliban Afghanistan then attacked the US to get ahold of you and all the other un-veiled women, just because the US wouldn't surrender you for not comitting a crime?

On all other points, we are in agreement -- nuclear power included. Please understand that not all Americans are so easily fooled. A country may fall victim to dangerous propaganda, but that doesn't make all of its inhabitants stupid, right? I hope we have learned something from the last century, and that the next few years will demonstrate a change for the US politically. There is an election coming up. . .

I do realize that not every single American is stupid - but if you're one of the smart ones, you'll understand that after seeing for seven years how the American public falls for every cheap propaganda trick and either just accepts, or even supports stuff like obvious election fraud, obvious lies to steer the country into war, obvious violations of the constitution and continuous and violent cutting of personal rights and freedom, the rest of the world simply doesn't have much faith left into American intelligence.

I mean, look at how you present yourselves to the world: Every European knows there have never been any WMDs found in Iraq, and the so-called proof from before the war was exposed as fake - yet a large majority of the American public not only still thinks there were WMDs found, but actually thinks Iraq was connected to 9/11 as well.
And then there's hypocrisy of spreading hate towards fundamental muslim governments and societies, when in your very own country school after school drops evolution from schedule and teaches creationism and intelligent design instead. Where the president is talking of "crusades" and thinks God told him to attack those countries. Where Atheists are practically persecuted, and it causes major controvery when a member of a different religion actually wants to be sworn in on his own holy book, not the bible.

No, not every American is stupid because the large majority is falling for cheap propaganda - but unfortunately, that stupid majority is who's basically deciding the fate of the world.

[Aerrow]

WELL YA KNOW WHAT!!

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard..

[Renegade]

I see your milkshake and raise you ice cream:

Let me give you what you'd like.
I can make your mouth run dry.
Drink me like a liquor
C'mon and dip your dipper
Show me what you're here for, guy.