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| Should the US invade Iraq? |
| Yes |
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68% |
[ 13 ] |
| No |
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31% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 19 |
mDrop
High Emperor
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 479
Location: Under the desk |
@txiabxyooj, I agree, my statement was a bit bad, or should I say my examples were flawed. There is a large difference with "normal" military actions and the slaughtering that terrorists do. My point was that the justification you gave is flawed in the way that it gives the same right to a lot of countries you have attacked, I was trying to come up with better examples and quickly Iraq-Kuwait, Vietnam and Korean wars, Israel-Palestinian conflict (not so good because of the terrorism) and Balkan (not so good because of the ethnic nature). And for the killing of civilians, given the destructive power of modern weapons, population density and the infrastucture, civilian casualties are bound to happen. All smart bombs don't always hit their targets and most of the full assaults against pure civilian targets have been either a result of panicking and human error (the wedding bombing) or bad strategic planning and false information, or a combination of these two. No army can function perfectly..
Finally, calling me an utopist is like saying the earth is round. No, wait...  Seriously, I'm more of a realistic idealist. I have a highly utopistic view of what world could be, but I know it's not going to happen. Maybe in a 10k years humankind could evolve beyond this, if we survive. Although the modern darwinism suggests that stupidity and hate are constant in this world. But every small step we take in the general direction of this utopia can make a huge difference in the long run. I know that it's impossible to live without war in present day or even in future and military strength has to be kept. Even so, there is a lot of things we can do to make sure that many of the upcoming (in 20-30 years) conflicts can be avoided. One of these things is helping those less fortunate than us, I already talked about this topic on a previous post so I'll leave it for now. And although they will cost money and resources, in the long run the good will and humanitarian actions we take now will pay themselves back many times.
I maybe mad, but I still have some faith in humans, we may still have a tiny chance of surviving. But to think that the western countries could somehow distance themselves and watch to rest of the world collapse, that's the biggest utopia I know (I'm not referring to any of you who are discussing in this thread, people like us can make the difference)
Now what will I do over the weekend if I have no-one to debate with, damn
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Fri Jul 19, 2002 5:24 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by txiabxyooj
histroy has shown that the only way to prevent war is to be prepared to go to war. the best deturent to war has always been war.
I don't see France and Germany amassing armies to keep peace between themselves. I don't see Canada pointing rockets at US to keep peace between them. But I do see Pakistan and India pointing guns at each other, and I keep hearing every day of bunch of morons that got shot by the other side. Every day in the news we hear how Israel keeps pointing tanks and rockets at Palestine, and it seems to be a VERY bad deterrent.
Personally, I don't see why US needs an army. (I don't even wanna bring up the issue of Canada, since it seems to be a farce.) If US is afraid of external enemies, all they need to do is show that they are willing to press the little red button. And some place on the other side of the world goes boom. Yeah, so there will be large colateral damage. And there will be some stink about fallout and such... but so what? It will be clear that if you mess with US on their soil, the price to pay is ultimate. And since US has no army, they can't possibly start any crap unless it's brought to their soil.
Unfortuantely, this will never happen. Why? Because US government likes messing with other countries. They like their rangers and commandoes and delta forces. They can be great political tools when the price of oil is too high. No matter what your gun association in US tells you, everybody owning guns is not a solution for peace. Period.
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Fri Jul 19, 2002 7:59 pm |
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Roach
SBR Belfry Bat
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 3233
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quote:
Originally posted by MoonDragon
Personally, I don't see why US needs an army. (I don't even wanna bring up the issue of Canada, since it seems to be a farce.) If US is afraid of external enemies, all they need to do is show that they are willing to press the little red button. And some place on the other side of the world goes boom. Yeah, so there will be large colateral damage. And there will be some stink about fallout and such... but so what? It will be clear that if you mess with US on their soil, the price to pay is ultimate. And since US has no army, they can't possibly start any crap unless it's brought to their soil.
First, who do you suggest we nuke? Second, how do we keep other countries from firing back, besides Star Wars which may or may not work?
Third, if we were attacked how would we stop the soldiers on our own soil, nuke ourselves?
@mDrop I agree we could and should do more when it comes to humanitarian aid, and the same goes for every country. But we are often accused of various things even when we are trying to do something that could make a difference in the grand scale of human events. Take Star Wars, since I just mentioned it; the point of SW is not to just protect us, but all of our allies. If we can do this, then that can make missiles with nuclear warheads obsolete. But some accused us of planning to take over the world, as well as many other less hyperbolized things, because we had to pull out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty to test it. |
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Fri Jul 19, 2002 10:44 pm |
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mDrop
High Emperor
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 479
Location: Under the desk |
@Suicidal cockroach, I think the point about opposing the SW program was that it would have increased the arms race just when Russia and USA are closing the deals of a bigger reduction in nuclear warheads. Now that the treaty is signed, there are other, domestic US political reasons against it. The reliability of such system hasn't been proven, so the enormous amounts of money that should be spent building a system without a guarantee of ever working are hard to justify. Additionally, most of the nuclear threat comes from "dirty bombs", like the suitcase bombs that are missing. Against those the SW program would be useless, even if it would work.
And about the humanitarian aid, my comment was directed to every single country, not just US. Europe isn't a perfect example when it comes to helping third world countries. Sometimes we seem to forget that we are all in this together. There is no escaping from this planet, our destiny is written in the same book.
_________________
"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."
- George Bernard Shaw
- Member of The Nonflamers' Guild -
- Member of The Alliance of Middle-Earth -
- Worshiper of Written Word -
- Proud supporter of E.H.U.A.O - |
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Fri Jul 19, 2002 11:05 pm |
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Mattias Kreku
Magister of the Light
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 387
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Gotta love the fact that one of the world's strongest military forces are under the control of a guy who wanted to set a record in death penalties among the states of the US during his time as a governor. How's that for respect of human life?
I don't trust the Bush administration more than I trust the Pakistani government. Noone should have nukes.
Also gotta love americans and their "bring more guns to the party for peace"-attitudes.. Where do you feel safest? In a room full of people where some have guns, in a room full of people where everyone has guns or in a room full of people where noone has guns? |
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Sat Jul 20, 2002 12:11 am |
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Bilbo
High Emperor
Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 1620
Location: New York |
quote:
Originally posted by mDrop
@Suicidal cockroach, I think the point about opposing the SW program was that it would have increased the arms race just when Russia and USA are closing the deals of a bigger reduction in nuclear warheads. Now that the treaty is signed, there are other, domestic US political reasons against it. The reliability of such system hasn't been proven, so the enormous amounts of money that should be spent building a system without a guarantee of ever working are hard to justify. Additionally, most of the nuclear threat comes from "dirty bombs", like the suitcase bombs that are missing. Against those the SW program would be useless, even if it would work.
And about the humanitarian aid, my comment was directed to every single country, not just US. Europe isn't a perfect example when it comes to helping third world countries. Sometimes we seem to forget that we are all in this together. There is no escaping from this planet, our destiny is written in the same book.
Humanitarian aid does work to re-build countries. The Marshall Plan after WWII to rebuild Europe was the first attempt at this, and is the best example I can think of. There is one big caveat with it. Givers of humanitarian aid often expect the recipients to be grateful (not eternally, but at least for a while) and reciprocate in some manner. Often, this does not occur, and it turns into the proverbial dog biting the hand that feeds it. I definitely support the idea of humanitarian aid to help people in need; but I don't hold high expectations of it having long term impact.
"Star Wars", properly known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), will probably never work. Originally, it was projected to cost 10 billion dollars (1 billion dollars/year from around 1985-1994) to develop. Cost overruns quickly shelved the project after about 2 years. But the concept was never completely abandoned. I was in college at the time, and I had a t-shirt that said I strongly supported SDI. People who knew my political views were shocked, and asked me how I could support such a conservative and militaristic concept. I replied that I figured it would never work, but that the trickle down effect that would result from the military research in this area into public life would be so great that it justified spending 10+ billion dollars for R&D for something that would never work.
Also, let's put the original concept of SDI into historical perspective. It's the height of the cold war, and the USSR is the biggest threat to US & European existence by virtue of the fact that they possessed nuclear missiles. When this is your biggest threat it makes sense to try to develop a defense against it. Dirty bombs and nuclear devices in suitcases are much more recent "developments". US companies are now trying to create detection devices to detect these threats before they cross the border into the US which are projected to be working with 2 years. (This ignores that such a device may be created in the US, and then detonated here, but you can't have everything.)
But follow the logic a step further in a hypothetical. At some time in the unspecified future, a "rogue" country develops nuclear capability (traditional or dirty) somehow. They must first get the nuclear material and detonator into the US to set it off. Even without additional devices to detect nuclear material passing over the border, there are a lot ways the operation can go wrong. Less risky to do it via a dirty missile or a traditional nuclear. So we'd then be back to trying to justify SDI.
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The world itself shifts and changes and fades to mist like the strings of a minstrel's harp, and mayhap the dreams we forge are more enduring than the works of kings and gods.-Robert E. Howard
=Member of the RPGDot Shadows, The Nonflamers' Guild, and The Alliance of Middle Earth= |
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Sat Jul 20, 2002 12:20 am |
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txiabxyooj
Fox Spirit
Joined: 06 Dec 2001
Posts: 971
Location: here, there & everywhere |
quote:
Originally posted by Mattias Kreku
Where do you feel safest? In a room full of people where some have guns, in a room full of people where everyone has guns or in a room full of people where noone has guns?
the problem exists when only a few people in the room have guns. we are talking about the balance of power. either situation where everyone does or doesn't have guns are equal and therefore the same. either way people can be hurt (just look at the chinese governing party...they don't need any guns because every time they meet someone gets beat up with a shoe  ). imagine a room where only two people had guns...who would be at the advantage & able to do whatever they pleased? the two. now if everyone had a gun those two would be less likely to abuse everyone else in the room. or, if no one had guns then once again the balance is restored and people would be less likely to abuse their power. the problem isn't the guns it is the people & their perceived power status. (this is scary coming from me. i am a huge advocate for removing guns from people, communities, churchs, schools, etc. i just think that in this analogy the attack on guns is misleading).
_________________
"The origin of things, if things have an origin, cannot be revealed to me, if revealed at all, until I have travelled very far from it, and many revolutions of the sun must precede my first dawn. The light as it appears hides the candle." --Santayana
=member of the worshippers of the written word=
=member of the Non-flamers' guild= |
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Mon Jul 22, 2002 4:42 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by txiabxyooj
either situation where everyone does or doesn't have guns are equal and therefore the same.
Wrong. You live in a society where some very smart people come up with some very smart reasons why the above should be true. They are also backed by a really large and powerful political lobby, implying that they will be heard (and get their way more often than not). But that doesn't make it right.
There are places in the world, where people don't believe the above. Those places also happen to have lot less deaths per capita from personally owned handguns. Therefore, I am inclined to believe no guns is a lot more preferable than a lot of guns. Besides, I was in a room full of people where every single person had a gun. In one month, 3 of them got carried out by ambulance for having various parts of their anatomy shot off.
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Mon Jul 22, 2002 9:12 pm |
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Roach
SBR Belfry Bat
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 3233
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I believe that we should maintain the right to own guns but I would give that right up without a second thought if it meant no one had any guns. But as txiabxyooj was saying, if only one or two people in a room have weapons, than that gives them the power, and short of nuking everyone who hates us, we can't get the guns out of our enemies hands. Preferably I would like to be in a room with no guns, but that is not an option, so I would rather be in a room where everyone had guns than one where only someone I don't know or don't trust has one.
And about the earlier comment someone made about Bush wanting to set a record for the most executions. That is in no way true the Governor doesn't even have the power to order an execution, only a jury can sentence a man to death in the US. A Governor can commute a death sentence to life in prison, but remember he was Governor in a southern US state. Here in the South the Christian conservatives have a lot of influence so here the term 'eye for an eye' holds a great deal of weight (more so than in the rest of the US, but much less than in many countries), so if he did make a habit of commuting sentences he would loose a large portion of his constituency.
Last edited by Roach on Mon Jul 22, 2002 11:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Jul 22, 2002 11:24 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
But in order to have a room with no guns, someone has to be the first to give away their own gun. And then someone needs to be the second. And so on.
If everyone was of the mind that they won't be caught dead giving their gun away first, this world would still be in the stone age.
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Mon Jul 22, 2002 11:36 pm |
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txiabxyooj
Fox Spirit
Joined: 06 Dec 2001
Posts: 971
Location: here, there & everywhere |
i agree that a room empty of guns would be ideal. just like a world without weapons would be ideal. but, let's be realistic. this disarmament has to be realized through a graduale decline in the number of weapons. a program that demanded that every country disarm right now is just not going to happen--nor should it. also, it tends to be the countries that ought to disarm the most that are most unwilling to do so. just look at iraq. the world community has asked that they just stop developing chemical and biological weapons--not that they totally disarm--and iraq has been wholly unwilling to comply with this, the most basic of requests. as long as countries such as iraq exist it will be foolish for other countries to totally disarm themselves. it is also interesting that countries like china continue to expand and enlarge their weapons stock & nobody seems to notice. whereas when russia and the US began to disarm they were accused of not doing enough. why is this?
_________________
"The origin of things, if things have an origin, cannot be revealed to me, if revealed at all, until I have travelled very far from it, and many revolutions of the sun must precede my first dawn. The light as it appears hides the candle." --Santayana
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=member of the Non-flamers' guild= |
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Tue Jul 23, 2002 4:19 pm |
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Roach
SBR Belfry Bat
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 3233
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quote:
Originally posted by txiabxyooj
why is this?
Because many countries want to pretend China doesn't exist, their human rights are atrocious but no one is willing to take them on politically. Even we tend to avoid them when possible. On the subject of China, I heard we are withholding $45 million in dues from the UN to support a project that would include forced sterilizations in China. Another problem is that while China keeps spending more and more money on weapons their people keep getting poorer and poorer. Maybe if, instead of spending so much on weapons, they spend large amounts of money on the mechanization of farmland, families wouldn't have to have seven kids just to have the people needed to work the fields. If they did then maybe they could keep population down in humane ways, and increase food supply at the same time. |
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Tue Jul 23, 2002 4:54 pm |
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Bilbo
High Emperor
Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 1620
Location: New York |
quote:
Originally posted by Suicidal Cockroach
And about the earlier comment someone made about Bush wanting to set a record for the most executions. That is in no way true the Governor doesn't even have the power to order an execution, only a jury can sentence a man to death in the US. A Governor can commute a death sentence to life in prison, but remember he was Governor in a southern US state.
Wandering a little of topic, but I want to correct a small inaccuracy. It depends on your state. Here in NY, the judge, not the jury, does the sentencing. IIRC, there is currently an appeal currently before the US Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of having a death sentence done by a judge, and not a jury.
Regarding the question as to where you feel safer: where everyone has guns or no one has guns. This is a little too hypothetical for my tastes, with not enough details. Are the people there my friends or enemies? How big am I in relation to every one else? How well can I use a gun in relationship to the other people? No guns is the easy answer, but not necessarily right.
_________________
The world itself shifts and changes and fades to mist like the strings of a minstrel's harp, and mayhap the dreams we forge are more enduring than the works of kings and gods.-Robert E. Howard
=Member of the RPGDot Shadows, The Nonflamers' Guild, and The Alliance of Middle Earth= |
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Wed Jul 24, 2002 12:31 am |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
Interesting article from BBC.
BTW, you know what was the most common form of demoralization in the second world war? Playing your own "radio" to the enemy that sounded just like something your own side would make, but it would tell you how you'll have a much better life if you stop fighting and how your government is lying to you and how the enemy isn't a monster that wants to kill you.
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Tue Jul 30, 2002 11:48 pm |
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Krycek
Leader of the Senate
Joined: 07 Mar 2002
Posts: 314
Location: Primary Observation Complex |
quote:
Originally posted by mDrop
World bank has probably caused more damage than it has helped repair. It has been economically proven that the collapse of south-asian economy, after a staggering rise, was partly caused by the unbelieveable actions of World Bank. Also refusing to forgive the debts of third-world countries, debts that were basically forced, is unbelieveable. How can a institution try to convince people that they are trying to help poor countries and balance economy and at the same time work together with WTO and snuff out the only possible chance these countries have to get out of their misery.
Agreed with you,World Bank is a bunch of thiefs,for example in my country we take loans from them,every time when they come in Romania they decide to fire a lot of people,to close a lot of factoryies and the final result is that a lot of people don't have a job,the last time they've come they decide that another 20.000 should be fired.Of course for the big countryies with a large population and a big economy this numbers are nothing but for small countryies like Yugoslavia etc. this is a disaster.
But let me tell you something else,when the World Bank decide that the Romanian government should fire those people,our politicians wanted to create conditions and help a bit those fired people but the World Bank said no,if we will do that then we can say "goodbye loans".
For me the World Bank is much worse even than Saddam.I don't know how the World Bank is helping other countryies but if they make it like they do it here then they better keep their dirty money.
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Guns don't kill people,people kill people!
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Wed Jul 31, 2002 12:21 am |
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