Nothing's fair about war.

[agentrosecotton]

"For every one that I kill, I create almost ten more."
--Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, on Iraqi insurgentsThere

Comments

[theldara]

The same could be said of Israel's war of "defense" the last month or so... so many new little terrorists have been made, this fight will never end :(

[elvenriver]

However ill-advised Israel's offensive may be, you still have to admit that they have more of a reason to attack than America did in Iraq. 'Some Saudi extremist set up suicide attacks on buildings in our country! Let's invade a country that has oil we want!' It doesn't even make sense. Then again, very few of Bush's policies look like they were devised by anything with higher intelligence than an angry feces throwing monkey.

[hoppytoad79]

If you look at it from the point of view of a little boy who wants to do something to make Daddy proud, invading Iraq makes sense. If you look at it from the point of view of a man who has too high an opinion of himself and thinks that it's his duty to go in and finish what Daddy started, it makes sense. The man thinks his shit doesn't stink and being wrong is something other people are guilty of being and that he's on some mission from God to bring the Way of the WASP to the entire world.

[elvenriver]

What I don't understand is how the US could re-elect this man. It still baffles me. I've heard the excuse that the Democrats just need to find a better candidate, but that seems to me just to be further admitting the general stupidity of the American public.

[hoppytoad79]

Now that we have the insurgents, now that we've stirred up this hornet's nest, what now? Leave it to burn itself out? Leave the Iraqis to kill and maim until no one is left to kill and maim? We took the lid off the pot and stirred it up, now what do we do with the bubbling, spitting mess? How do we douse the fire?

[nenya_kanadka]

I don't know...is there a way we could, say, support civilian movements? Like try to give aid to everyday Iraqis, or do something to support the process of them trying to get their government running better? Other than providing security forces. I don't know how it works, but there has to be something we can do. (Even if "we" means "non-Americans"--because we/Americans probably don't have much credit left among the people of Iraq, nor have we actually *done* the reconstruction we claimed we were going to.)

[hoppytoad79]

It's a complicated, no-win situation over there right now and there is going to be pain and bloodshed whatever way things go. It's just a matter of looking at the options and trying to pick the one that'll involve the least amount of bloodshed for the shortest amount of time. The sad truth is innocents are still going to die.

You tear down an entire governmental structure essentially overnight and you get anarchy. When the law is gone, people will behave according to their most basic nature because there is nothing there to keep them reigned in. Various forces will vie for power and clash as they struggle to be King of the Hill.

[spotts1701]

Because this war was a first resort, not a last, and because in order to kill the troll you have to stop feeding it. Because the only real way to defeat a terrorist is to say "I'm not afraid of you," and that's something America refuses to do.

Actually, it's not that America refuses to do it. It's that Bush and Co. have to hit the "FEAR! PANIC! HIDE UNDER THE BED!" button as many times as possible because they have nothing else to support their corrupt/incompetent/incoherent Administration.

Other than that quibble, I agree with you.

[agentrosecotton]

Well, yes, that's what I meant. :) But thank you.

And your icon is great.

[ramblin_rosie]

One word: Iran.

[nenya_kanadka]

What?

Iran's got problems, and isn't exactly friendly to the US right now. Don't see how that means the war in Iraq is/was a good idea, though.

[ramblin_rosie]

No, I mean Iran, in keeping with Ahmadinejhad's goal of bringing home the Mahdi, is fueling both Hezbollah and groups like Mookie al-Sadr's militia. So the insurgency's persistence is not necessarily caused by our losing the hearts and minds of the Iraqis; to some extent, we are fighting a proxy war with Iran.
As for it being a good idea... well, better to fight them over there, etc. I'm sure you've heard all the arguments before. And then there's this from GKC: "War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you."
God alone knows how things would be different had we not decided it was time someone actually enforced the fourteen UN resolutions Iraq violated, but I can't see how it would have been better.

[agentrosecotton]

That's exactly my point--whether fighting with Iran or Iraq is not the issue I'm addressing. I refuse to believe that all of the terrorists we've encountered have been evil, Christian-hating, violence-obsessed freaks with enough nukes at the touch of a button to blow up the US. (The US has enough nukes at the touch of a button to blow up most of the rest of the world, but that's not the point--they're only wrong if they're in someone else's hands, right?) Certainly there are evil people at work in Iran, but the majority of the group is fueled by anger, hatred and dissatisfaction over--including but not neccessarily limited to--the American disrespect of innocent life. Why do you think they have so much power and support? How do terrorist groups even get started in the first place? Are they born evil?

I agree that it has been a problem for a long time that needed to be dealt with, and for the sake of this argument I'm not even saying that it could have been done peacefully (although I believe that). I'm just saying that there were

[nenya_kanadka]

"Don't feed the trolls"--whaddaya know, you DO learn something about politics from all these online fandom flamewars! ;) That's really a good, succinct way of putting it, you know.

[agentrosecotton]

:D Yeah, it just occured to me that it's a very similar situation. Maybe our country's leaders need to visit GAFF more often.

[nenya_kanadka]

ROFLOL. Yes, yes they do.