The Croatian Situation

[Draco_Argentum]

As far as I know the US forces don't tend to do so well in exercises. They're teched up but I wouldn't call them best trained.

[PhoneLobster]

They're teched up but I wouldn't call them best trained.

As far as I understand it the problem is they are too well trained in a specific narrow field.

They are very well trained at killing people. Nothing else, not building things, rescuing civlians, policing, nothing, just killing people.

They are so good at it its hard to STOP them killing people, including each other, civlians, and even American citizens after they retire and go back home.

Now as to killing the right people, succeeding in exercises or other objectives, maybe not so good. But if you want to go kill, you know, indescriminantly, there is little better tool than the US armed forces.

[Crissa]

Clinton didn't invade Iraq, though.

Maybe you should look up the trifecta comments from the 2000 campaign.

-Crissa

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Why not share them with us instead of insisting we fetch them for you?

[Username17]

Actually, there's nothing in the above quote that literally saids that they want to invade Iraq: The only thing that it calls out is the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.

OK, how about this quote from the same peole at the same time and available on the same site:

-- We should help establish and support (with economic, political, and military means) a provisional, representative, and free government of Iraq in areas of Iraq not under Saddam's control;

-- We should use U.S. and allied military power to provide protection for liberated areas in northern and southern Iraq; and -- We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power

So no, they don't literally use the Invasion word, but if you know how to use Military power to liberate areas in a hostile foreign country and establish a provisional government in it that doesn't involve invading, I'm all ears.

-Username17

[power_word_wedgie]

Ok, the ones that come to mind are:

1) Use air and sea military power to aid and promote counterinsurgency within Iraq. That's what we did in Afghanistan and it proved to be somewhat successful in getting the government that we wanted to have removed without use of invasion.

2) Use air and sea military power to attempt to target areas known to be frequented by Saddam. Yeah, I know, it's technically against the law, but as I noted earlier I'm sure it has been an idea bantered by both sides of the aisle.

3) Use air and sea military power to target officials in the Baath party. Hey, if they know that their life is more in peril supporting Saddam than aiding him, more of a chance for revolt by Senior or Junior officials. This seems to be the option attempted by the Clinton administration.

4) Use air and sea military power to *totally* blocade the country and supply the sides supportive of the overthrow of Saddam.

5) Use air and sea military power to bomb the Iraqi border areas to encourage other neighboring nations to invade.

6) As highlighted in the quote, use the air and sea military force to provide protection for liberated areas in northern and southern Iraq.

7) Use air and sea military power cut down on the amount of smuggling that was occuring at the time.

8) Use air and sea military power to support clandestine activities of an insurgency in Iraq.

9) Any combination of the above.

The quotes in the previous post are all activities which would promote liberating areas in a hostile country that don't involve an invasion. Now, I agree that there were some conservatives that supported use of ground troops. I noted it in my previous post. However, the quotes from the New American Century don't absolutely mean invasion.

[Username17]

I think we just stopped having an intelligent conversation, because all of those things are acts of war.

So you've basically just semanticated yourself out of the discussion. I mean, you've got statements like this from Wolfowitz:

I think the key here is to helping the Iraqi people liberate themselves. After the Gulf War, when President Bush decided to help the Kurds in Northern Iraq, it took, I think--Tom, you'll remember--I think it two American battalions and one British battalion and a miscellaneous collection of four or five others to expel the entire Iraqi from Northern Iraq. The combination of American air power, Kurdish resistance, and a very small American force was enough to take away half, a third of his country from him. Oh, this man is a tyrant. He is a war criminal. He is committed to getting weapons of mass destruction and, believe me, his people would like to be rid of him.

And in it they are already slling their snae oil about how a concerted use of air power and a very tiny invasion of ground forces could somehow conquer the country. But it's not really important, because the "alternatives" you are talking about are already considered "invasion" by the United Nations.

So what the heck is your point? That some people may have been completely delusional and believed that somehow an invasion didn't "count" as long as there weren't any American soldiers in the line of fire? Sure, I'll buy that.

But the fact is that point for point, every single option you mentioned for using military power is an act of war. We aren't even having a conversation, you're jjust making indefensible semantic arguments.

-Username17

[power_word_wedgie]

Ok, now I think I understand.

Invasion has two different connotations.

One is to enter forcibly or agressively or to intrude or violate. In this light, then yes the quotes are aspousing invasion. However, if we take on this connotation, then the Clinton Administation has "technically" invaded Iraq at least twice as well - once with a missile attack in 1996 and once with an airstrike in 1998.

The other is to be invaded as by army/land forces. This is the one that I was saying your previous quotes had not satisfied the burden of invasion. And, yes, the new one by Wolfowitz just recently posted would meet the criteria, but this is the first time it's been quoted in this thread.

I never mentioned that any of the other connotations were more or less ethical than a land invasion - in fact I highlighted that trying to target a sovereign leader may actually be illegal and possibly less ethical. However, my other point is that if we're going to look at quotes for "invasion" and wrongness, then there's a lot more room under the umbrella than the New American Century group; you might as well include Stephanopolis, Donaldson, other significant Congressional leaders, the American public, and the Clinton Administation:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

Such moves, if made unilaterally, would almost certainly draw the ire of most of the United States's U.N. partners and frame the crisis even more starkly as a conflict between Washington and Baghdad. But public opinion polls may indicate support for such a route. A Los Angeles Times poll published on Monday showed that by 68 percent to 24 percent, Americans favor airstrikes provided they are designed to remove Saddam Hussein from power, not just force him to accept the commands of the U.N. Security Council.

Edit: And most of the impetus used later by Bush to help sell the ground force invasion was laws passed by Congress and signed by Clinton to eventually promote his "technical" invasion via a 4-day bombing campaign:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act

Iraq Liberation Act

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) [1] (codified in a note to 22 USCS § 2151) is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq.

Findings and Declaration of Policy

The Act found that Iraq had, between 1980 and 1998 (1) committed various and significant violations of International Law, (2) had failed to comply with the obligations to which it had agreed to following the Gulf War and (3) further had ignored Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. The Act declared that it was the Policy of the United States to support "regime change." The Act was passed in the House [2] and Senate [3] and signed into law by the US President Bill Clinton on October 31, 1998. Its stated purpose was: "to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." Specifically, Congress made findings of past Iraqi military actions in violation of International Law and that Iraq had denied entry of United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) inspectors into its country to inspect for weapons of mass destruction. Congress found: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." On December 16, 1998, President Bill Clinton mandated Operation Desert Fox, a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets.

[Zherog]

1167958255[/unixtime]]So you've basically just semanticated yourself out of the discussion.

Is semanticated even a word? If it's not, it should be. It just rolls off the tongue...

[Sir Neil]

They are very well trained at killing people. Nothing else, not building things, rescuing civlians, policing, nothing, just killing people.

*nods* Yup, that's what they pay us for.

[Crissa]

But we don't need anyone killed.

So step up to the unemployment line or learn how not to kill people.

-Crissa

[User3]

Venezula, as well as a few other countries, disagree with that assessment. So does Human nature. Granted, the Army's half deterrent, but without that detterent, we'd.. need a bigger Army. Catch-22.

[Username17]

1168541808[/unixtime]]Venezula, as well as a few other countries, disagree with that assessment. So does Human nature. Granted, the Army's half deterrent, but without that detterent, we'd.. need a bigger Army. Catch-22.

Granted that we hjave killed a bunch of Venezuelans, but I don't think we needed to do that. In fact, Chavez was in power before we shot a bunch of Venezuelans, Chavez is in power now. The only thing that killing people did was really piss off the government in Caracas. They are the biggest foreign oil supplier for the US, and there is no evidence that Chavez was planning on doing anything bad to the US before we failed to have him killed a couple of times, if anything our forays into that region made us less secure militarily, financially, and diplomatically.

If Iraq has taught us anything it should be that you can't actually rule 20 million people with a hundred and forty thousand people if they don't want you to. Even if we had no army at all, there's no country on the planet that could actually conquer the United States. It's not feasible.

---

Now, trained killers have a use. There are domestic and foreign disturbances for which the proper answer actually is a S.W.A.T. unit. The world has pirates, and warlords, and all kinds of bullshit which don't really respond to anything except the threat or deployment of a small number of people with guns and a bad attitude.

But that's not an every day thing. Most of the time we don't need soldiers at all - we need police. People to do investigations, people to direct traffic, people show a commitment by our government into the continued funcitoning of the region. And the US isn't doing that.

If you deploy killers into areas that you're trying to administer, you make it harder to administer. Soldiers don't really pacify countries under any circumstances. At best they kill off hostile groups.

But if you're picking fights with nations that provide natural resources - that's not even desirable. If you start a battle in Venezuela or Iraq, and you create instability and a large death toll, what exactly is the fvcking point? Iraq was giving us more oil before they invaded Kuwait, and let's face it: the US Ambassador told Hussein just a week before he invaded that country that the US had "no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait," and that "President Bush is an intelligent man, He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq."

In short, we told Iraq that they could invade Kuwait, and then the Bush (Sr.) administration betrayed Saddam and invaded over it. And for what? So that death tolls in Iraq could be higher than ever? So that we could lose thousands of American soldiers? So that we could spend billions of dollars on black-bag projects and mercenary contracts?

What's the point? We've killed hundreds of thousands of people, and we haven't gotten shit. If we had spent all that money on public art projects we'd have more living people, more employed people, and a better diplomatic position around the world.

-Username17

[Sir Neil]

But we don't need anyone killed.

Yet the Army keeps hiring. Perhaps they know something you don't?

[Username17]

1168551506[/unixtime]]

But we don't need anyone killed.

Yet the Army keeps hiring. Perhaps they know something you don't?

Considering that every dire prediction of the war protesters from 2002 - even the "crazy" ones - has come true, I suspect that actually I know some thing that they don't.

The fact that Bush keeps ordering people to kill other people doesn't mean that it needs to be done.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

You need an army, you just don't need to use it. There really are people who have armies and are willing to use them on people they think they can beat.

[Crissa]

1168586248[/unixtime]]There really are people who have armies and are willing to use them on people they think they can beat.

Like Pres. Bush, Cheney, the neo-cons, the crazy UN-is-evil guys... Yeah.

Those people?

-Crissa

[Sir Neil]

Now, trained killers have a use.

That's all I was trying to say.

But that's not an every day thing. Most of the time we don't need soldiers at all - we need police. People to do investigations, people to direct traffic, people show a commitment by our government into the continued funcitoning of the region. And the US isn't doing that.

If you deploy killers into areas that you're trying to administer, you make it harder to administer. Soldiers don't really pacify countries under any circumstances. At best they kill off hostile groups.

I agree. It's a waste of our talent and their lives.

[User3]

Not all neo-cons are warhawks, you know.

As for the Iraq situation.. eh. I've pretty much given up on figuring out his reasoning there. Considering that, though, the President of Iran is a holocaust denier... I'm of two minds whether or not we need to act tough, but.. again, figuring out the current president of the US's actions?

That way leads to madness.

(And considering the fact that Congress.. umm. CAN tell him to send the troops back, he's also... well.)

[PhoneLobster]

The President of Iran is a holocaust denier.

Not sure what you're going for there but...

So what.

Here in Australia our prime minister, ally to Bush in the war on Terra, happens to have appointed a nut bag holocaust denier to our ABC board of directors.

You know, as part of his war on supposedly "left" biased reporting on media not privately owned by right wing moguls.

(The Australian ABC being Australia's public broadcasting organization and major source of news and reporting.)

So anyway, if you want to consider invading Iran because their president is a nut bag holocaust denier then perhaps you should first invade the ABC board of directors.

It would be a cheap way of trailing the whole idea.

[Username17]

Yeah, holding view points that are contrary to fact and being a jerk about it is not grounds for one's country to be invaded. Otherwise Washington DC would be the Carthage of the new milenium.

Iran executes a tremendous amount of its own citizens in a display of barbarity that has no place in the modern world. And that is not grounds for invasion because if it was then Washington would burn to the ground.

Iran's government promotes a backward desert religion at the expense of science and sanity. And this is not grounds for invasion or our nation would have been invaded.

Iran is producing nuclear weapons, and this is not grounds for invasion or the United States (the one nation on Earth that has actually used nuclear weapons in war) would be invaded.

Iran's government issues decrees that harm gays and minorities for cheap political gains. And this is not grounds for invasion because if it were... you get the idea.

Iran's President was elected under suspicious circumstances and thrust into power by the conservative courts. Get it?

Iran is a horrible, fascist country. Its very way of lif is an affront to civilation. But while we can call that kettle black all we want, and we'd be right - there is absolutely nothing we can do about that shit sandwich except eat it so long as our government is guilty of exactly the same crimes to a greater or lesser degree.

-Username17

[Cielingcat]

If the US government wants they can go to war with Iran. The fact that Iran hasn't done anything to deserve invasion doesn't matter. What does matter is that we're bogged down in Iraq, and the administration won't be able to convince the people to go into another war*, even after the Iraq debacle is over.

Attacking everyone who disagrees with you is a really bad thing to do, but that's what happens. After all, Iraq was attacked because it had imaginary weapons of mass destruction, and Iran is trying to get real ones.

*At least, not within a couple years.

[User3]

Oh ,I agree that's not grounds for invasion. That sentence was me correcting a typo (there is no president of Iraq.)

The Iran thing is really just an example of always looking for something else to distract people.

Mod Edit: Original post fixed and now redundant post correcting error that no longer exists deleted. - fbmf

[User3]

Whoa FrankTrollman, you are far-out! I am totally for real!

[RandomCasualty]

1169053774[/unixtime]]
Iran is a horrible, fascist country. Its very way of lif is an affront to civilation. But while we can call that kettle black all we want, and we'd be right - there is absolutely nothing we can do about that shit sandwich except eat it so long as our government is guilty of exactly the same crimes to a greater or lesser degree.

While what you're saying is true. A country can afford to be hypocritical so long as it has more bombs than everyone else.

Pretty much we can invade Iran if we wanted to, because we've got the power. It'd be another unjustified invasion, but we could do it simply because nobody is going to stop us.