Is anyone Pro-War?

abandonconflict · Apr 22, 2012

MellowFarmer said:
It starts with the evil puppet masters who sell it to those, usually just out of HS with not a damn clue how the world is run but wanting to do good and who are not in the position to come back and yell BULLSHIT because they built in the perfect excuse; the war made them crazy. Then they get tossed to the streets more often than not where the rest of the population turns their backs so as not to discusss why the majority of the homeless population consists of former troops they say they support. That kid who gunned down all those civilians I believe was on his 4th tour AFTER a PTSD diagnosis and a no combat order.

WTF? Take all the money we spend on Defense each year and spend it feeding, clothing, housing and educating every single person on earth, not one person left behind, which it could do many times over, and we won't need a freakin Defense Budget! Or the Libertarian Technology idea but stop justifying premeditated murder against folks who only had rocks as weapons till Bush Sr generously shared with them. I can't name one justified war. WWII is the immediate go to and much respect to the WWII Vets, they are as always the innocent pawns, but AMERICANS started it! Only a few but they still started it. I firmly believe Slavery would have ended with the same peaceful resistance it took to really get all citizens full citizenship with MLK Jr so don't throw that one either. Anyone? Name one good war?

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/military_veterans_suicide_042210w/

OK this isn't funny anymore. **edit** just an update, no good war named.

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

MellowFarmer said:
It starts with the evil puppet masters who sell it to those, usually just out of HS with not a damn clue how the world is run but wanting to do good and who are not in the position to come back and yell BULLSHIT because they built in the perfect excuse; the war made them crazy. Then they get tossed to the streets more often than not where the rest of the population turns their backs so as not to discusss why the majority of the homeless population consists of former troops they say they support. That kid who gunned down all those civilians I believe was on his 4th tour AFTER a PTSD diagnosis and a no combat order.

WTF? Take all the money we spend on Defense each year and spend it feeding, clothing, housing and educating every single person on earth, not one person left behind, which it could do many times over, and we won't need a freakin Defense Budget! Or the Libertarian Technology idea but stop justifying premeditated murder against folks who only had rocks as weapons till Bush Sr generously shared with them. I can't name one justified war. WWII is the immediate go to and much respect to the WWII Vets, they are as always the innocent pawns, but AMERICANS started it! Only a few but they still started it. I firmly believe Slavery would have ended with the same peaceful resistance it took to really get all citizens full citizenship with MLK Jr so don't throw that one either. Anyone? Name one good war?

Americans did not start WWII in either theater. Nor did we start Viet Nam (although we chose to continue) or Iraq/Kuwait '91. cn

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

And with a true free press, that wouldn't be considered "News" so much as a continuing epidemic. They need to change PTSD back to Shell Shock. It's said you cannot possibly imagine something you have not experienced yet when I imagine myself in the trenches I feel total overwhelming FEAR; what could they feel???

When the Power of Love overcomes the Love of Power the world will then know Peace
Hendrix

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
Americans did not start WWII in either theater. Nor did we start Viet Nam (although we chose to continue) or Iraq/Kuwait '91. cn

Ok, so we tried to bail France outa Nam but please do explain... I am sitting down and I am strapped in.

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

Are you unaware that Saddam had Bush Sr's blessing to invade Kuwait with the weapons we supplied? We set him up... look it up.

ThatGuy113 · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
Americans did not start WWII in either theater. Nor did we start Viet Nam (although we chose to continue) or Iraq/Kuwait '91. cn

We helped initiate Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh went to Truman with nothing but admiration for the United States. He saw us as the first people to throw colonialism from power and wanted our hand to end the French colonialism in the country. We said no because we didnt want to piss off France due to the issue we needed France to be with us against Stalin.

The issue we face today stems from how we have conducted foreign relations since the beginning of the United States to the start of globalization. The western hemisphere being cut off from foreign influence by the Monroe Doctrine allowed the Untied States to be the only nation to take grasp of major power in the hemisphere. This allowed for the festering of manifest destiny. The idea that all our actions as a nation are acts of god, in loose terms. Pushing the idea that we will never fail in our actions leading to American Exceptionalism. For the majority of our history foreign politics only had a few players to contend with. There were other "lesser" players in politics to deal with but only the few at the top ran the show. America, Britain, Russia and France were the main players and now we have shrunk the world down and created more civilized governments and collective security. We now are in the midst of a shift from the leader of the world to the first among equals mindset. Were not even 25 years out of the cold war (War that lasted about double that) but we assume that the negative effects of the several actions we had taken in that conflict no longer majorly affect us today (just like the decision Truman had to make as said above. The French were more important to the struggle against the Soviet Union then the benefits of helping the Vietnamese rid their country of French power). So now we have to wrestle with the move to soft power. The past 100 years pretty much has reduced the amount of "free land" to a number of 0 (WWI got rid of the monarchies and then WWII got rid of traditional colonialism). So now international power has been cut back against the bigger powers in the world for the first time. Since the beginning of time to this point there was always more land to find and exploit, we are now at a place in time where we no longer can just go in and export resources with little respect for the native people. The world map doesn't have much more changing to do. The question is how do we operate in a world that has been set up to prevent the kinds of actions countries took in the first place to unfairly gain power and land? Its a whole new set of rules and limitations we have to work with now.

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

MellowFarmer said:
Ok, so we tried to bail France outa Nam but please do explain... I am sitting down and I am strapped in.

Not much to explain. In WWII, the western shenanigans were kicked off by ... oh how do i say it without Godwinning the thread??
To our west, Pearl Harbor was a pretty clear case of "the other guy started it!" as well.
In Iraq '90, Iraq under Hussein was the aggressor, and before we went in we first built a commonality of purpose with other nations in the UN. And Bush, bless him for that, stopped after the international objective had been achieved and didn't go on to conquer Baghdad and oust Hussein ... but I digress.

I am restricting myself to commenting on whether or not we started those wars. Imo we didn't start Korea either ... that began with a move south by the NKs.
The campaigns we've mounted in the Middle East during this century have been entirely discretionary (= a damn waste) imo.

Your other question, "name a good war", is intrinsically tougher imo. I agree that war in general is an awful thing. But would we really have been better off as a world if the USA had stayed out of WWII? These are questions that are impossible to answer definitively, but intuitively I arrive at an answer of No. cn

abandonconflict · Apr 22, 2012

ThatGuy113 said:
We helped initiate Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh went to Truman with nothing but admiration for the United States. He saw us as the first people to throw colonialism from power and wanted our hand to end the French colonialism in the country. We said no because we didnt want to piss off France due to the issue we needed France to be with us against Stalin.

The issue we face today stems from how we have conducted foreign relations since the beginning of the United States to the start of globalization. The western hemisphere being cut off from foreign influence by the Monroe Doctrine allowed the Untied States to be the only nation to take grasp of major power in the hemisphere. This allowed for the festering of manifest destiny. The idea that all our actions as a nation are acts of god, in loose terms. Pushing the idea that we will never fail in our actions leading to American Exceptionalism. For the majority of our history foreign politics only had a few players to contend with. There were other "lesser" players in politics to deal with but only the few at the top ran the show. America, Britain, Russia and France were the main players and now we have shrunk the world down and created more civilized governments and collective security. We now are in the midst of a shift from the leader of the world to the first among equals mindset. Were not even 25 years out of the cold war (War that lasted about double that) but we assume that the negative effects of the several actions we had taken in that conflict no longer majorly affect us today (just like the decision Truman had to make as said above. The French were more important to the struggle against the Soviet Union then the benefits of helping the Vietnamese rid their country of French power). So now we have to wrestle with the move to soft power. The past 100 years pretty much has reduced the amount of "free land" to a number of 0 (WWI got rid of the monarchies and then WWII got rid of traditional colonialism). So now international power has been cut back against the bigger powers in the world for the first time. Since the beginning of time to this point there was always more land to find and exploit, we are now at a place in time where we no longer can just go in and export resources with little respect for the native people. The world map doesn't have much more changing to do. The question is how do we operate in a world that has been set up to prevent the kinds of actions countries took in the first place to unfairly gain power and land? Its a whole new set of rules and limitations we have to work with now.

+rep for truth about foreign policy

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

ThatGuy113 said:
We helped initiate Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh went to Truman with nothing but admiration for the United States. He saw us as the first people to throw colonialism from power and wanted our hand to end the French colonialism in the country. We said no because we didnt want to piss off France due to the issue we needed France to be with us against Stalin.

The issue we face today stems from how we have conducted foreign relations since the beginning of the United States to the start of globalization. The western hemisphere being cut off from foreign influence by the Monroe Doctrine allowed the Untied States to be the only nation to take grasp of major power in the hemisphere. This allowed for the festering of manifest destiny. The idea that all our actions as a nation are acts of god, in loose terms. Pushing the idea that we will never fail in our actions leading to American Exceptionalism. For the majority of our history foreign politics only had a few players to contend with. There were other "lesser" players in politics to deal with but only the few at the top ran the show. America, Britain, Russia and France were the main players and now we have shrunk the world down and created more civilized governments and collective security. We now are in the midst of a shift from the leader of the world to the first among equals mindset. Were not even 25 years out of the cold war (War that lasted about double that) but we assume that the negative effects of the several actions we had taken in that conflict no longer majorly affect us today (just like the decision Truman had to make as said above. The French were more important to the struggle against the Soviet Union then the benefits of helping the Vietnamese rid their country of French power). So now we have to wrestle with the move to soft power. The past 100 years pretty much has reduced the amount of "free land" to a number of 0 (WWI got rid of the monarchies and then WWII got rid of traditional colonialism). So now international power has been cut back against the bigger powers in the world for the first time. Since the beginning of time to this point there was always more land to find and exploit, we are now at a place in time where we no longer can just go in and export resources with little respect for the native people. The world map doesn't have much more changing to do. The question is how do we operate in a world that has been set up to prevent the kinds of actions countries took in the first place to unfairly gain power and land? Its a whole new set of rules and limitations we have to work with now.

I agree that our foreign policy decisions in the 60s and into the 70s were danged poor.
I also disagree with anyone who would suggest "moral leadership" as a feature of US foreign policy. If we were, we would have given a proper damn about what happened in Rwanda and Burundi. We didn't, and that proved to me that the only durable principle driving modern US foreign policy has to do with money and protecting its sources. The spice must flow!! cn

ThatGuy113 · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
I agree that our foreign policy decisions in the 60s and into the 70s were danged poor.
I also disagree with anyone who would suggest "moral leadership" as a feature of US foreign policy. If we were, we would have given a proper damn about what happened in Rwanda and Burundi. We didn't, and that proved to me that the only durable principle driving modern US foreign policy has to do with money and protecting its sources. The spice must flow!! cn

I mean by today's standards yes they were poor, but back then with the uncertain political climate of the era Supporting France just made more sense for us because of the fear of a Soviet takeover. Hindsight is 20/20, we just have to try to apply the lesson we learned there and many other places to the next events that face us down the road.

abandonconflict · Apr 22, 2012

Awesome Documentary, roll a few doobies before you watch.

[video=youtube;RgcdRCWEt4Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RgcdRCWEt4Q[/video]

ThatGuy113 · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
I am restricting myself to commenting on whether or not we started those wars. Imo we didn't start Korea either ... that began with a move south by the NKs.
The campaigns we've mounted in the Middle East during this century have been entirely discretionary (= a damn waste) imo.

Korea had been begging Stalin to allow them to take the south for a long time and then Secretary of State Dean Acheson conducted a speech regarding the areas that in South East Asia that would be under the protection of the U.S. and its allies. He left out South Korea by accident. Stalin went over the transcript over and over until he finally gave the go ahead to Kim il sung to take the south.

The U.N. then voted for a mission to restore the 38th parallel. Which we did but then General MacArthur was like we can take the north and the Chinese wont attack us. We all know he was wrong now.

So no we did not start it.

Also going to give that video a shot.

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

ThatGuy113 said:
I mean by today's standards yes they were poor, but back then with the uncertain political climate of the era Supporting France just made more sense for us because of the fear of a Soviet takeover. Hindsight is 20/20, we just have to try to apply the lesson we learned there and many other places to the next events that face us down the road.

The thing that had me set on "danged poor" was Johnson's and especially MacNamara's unreal prosecution of the US phase of the Viet Nam war. We didn't engage (the stated reason being to not push the Soviet Union into a larger, hotter conflict), and we didn't disengage either. They got overly cute with their concept of using the minimum of force necessary to browbeat the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, and routinely got shown what the North would endure in place of that sort of priggish blackmail. A fully-modern war machine is a lousy tool for limited war.
I fear the lesson is being lost in pursuit of this new war on Terror. If you oppose terror, war is the wrong tool imo. War is suitable only for all-out conflict with another nation. Terrorists are not nations, and trying to link terrorists to national "sponsors" hasn't worked, to the severe and lasting international harm of our nation's reputation. Ironically, what kept us from losing outright in Viet Nam was state-sponsored terror of our own. B-52 raids, like firebomb raids in the late stages of WWII were effective because they struck terror into the hearts of not just NVA and Viet Cong, but anyone unlucky enough to be under or near a carpet-bombing. cn

ThatGuy113 · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
The thing that had me set on "danged poor" was Johnson's and especially MacNamara's unreal prosecution of the US phase of the Viet Nam war. We didn't engage (the stated reason being to not push the Soviet Union into a larger, hotter conflict), and we didn't disengage either. They got overly cute with their concept of using the minimum of force necessary to browbeat the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, and routinely got shown what the North would endure in place of that sort of priggish blackmail. A fully-modern war machine is a lousy tool for limited war.
I fear the lesson is being lost in pursuit of this new war on Terror. If you oppose terror, war is the wrong tool imo. War is suitable only for all-out conflict with another nation. Terrorists are not nations, and trying to link terrorists to national "sponsors" hasn't worked, to the severe and lasting international harm of our nation's reputation. Ironically, what kept us from losing outright in Viet Nam was state-sponsored terror of our own. B-52 raids, like firebomb raids in the late stages of WWII were effective because they struck terror into the hearts of not just NVA and Viet Cong, but anyone unlucky enough to be under or near a carpet-bombing. cn

Yes on the actual fighting tactics of Vietnam were not the best. Would have loved to see how Kennedy would of handled it considering he was thinking about pulling out troops right before his assassination. Johnson just wanted to go in with that American Exceptionalism of guns and money but we got the opposite result of what we wanted.

I often think about how the fact conventional warfare is becoming more obsolete. We no longer fight established governments that are based in one capitol, with a uniformed army. We are fighting ideology once again. Though this time the Ideology is not held by a world super power but rather a blend of populations that are plain clothed people a majority of the time. The mistake we always made in the past was rushing into countries that we had little knowledge of ( History, culture... etc...) and expected to throw bullets and money at it and it would go away. On top of all that there is no one center point of power for the ideologies we fight against.

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

ThatGuy113 said:
Korea had been begging Stalin to allow them to take the south for a long time and then Secretary of State Dean Acheson conducted a speech regarding the areas that in South East Asia that would be under the protection of the U.S. and its allies. He left out South Korea by accident. Stalin went over the transcript over and over until he finally gave the go ahead to Kim il sung to take the south.

The U.N. then voted for a mission to restore the 38th parallel. Which we did but then General MacArthur was like we can take the north and the Chinese wont attack us. We all know he was wrong now.

So no we did not start it.

Also going to give that video a shot.

Oh dear yes. MacArthur and LeMay had real plans to use nukes in Korea ... first as a "blocking move" and then as a way of insisting on an outcome. cn
A frightening read: http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html

ThatGuy113 · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
Oh dear yes. MacArthur and LeMay had real plans to use nukes in Korea ... first as a "blocking move" and then as a way of insisting on an outcome. cn
A frightening read: http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html

Yea when MacArthur demanded the Chinese leaders concede defeat to him personally, Truman finally knew it was time to get rid of him. On top of the strong desire of the General to Nuke the hell out China. Glad that got taken care of. Should have just left it at the point where we completed the mission when we won back the 38th. We thought that Mao and Stalin were tight, so we thought it would lead to nuclear war between the Soviets and us. Little did we know Mao and Stalin had some issues between them. Then again we could have set ourselves up back in the day when we supported the nationalists in China instead of Mao. Then we left them to defend themselves at the last moment.

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

[video] http://www.truththeory.org/american-holocaust-when-it’s-all-over-i’ll-still-be-indian/[/video]American Holocaust: When It’s All Over I’ll Still Indian -on how Hitler modeled his after ours...

Um, not sure if I did this right. Mean to get to both documentaries soon. Peace.

[video]http://www.truththeory.org/american-holocaust-when-it’s-all-over-i’ll-still-be-indian/[/video]

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
Not much to explain. In WWII, the western shenanigans were kicked off by ... oh how do i say it without Godwinning the thread??
To our west, Pearl Harbor was a pretty clear case of "the other guy started it!" as well.
In Iraq '90, Iraq under Hussein was the aggressor, and before we went in we first built a commonality of purpose with other nations in the UN. And Bush, bless him for that, stopped after the international objective had been achieved and didn't go on to conquer Baghdad and oust Hussein ... but I digress.

I am restricting myself to commenting on whether or not we started those wars. Imo we didn't start Korea either ... that began with a move south by the NKs.
The campaigns we've mounted in the Middle East during this century have been entirely discretionary (= a damn waste) imo.

Your other question, "name a good war", is intrinsically tougher imo. I agree that war in general is an awful thing. But would we really have been better off as a world if the USA had stayed out of WWII? These are questions that are impossible to answer definitively, but intuitively I arrive at an answer of No. cn

Wow, I am glad I was strapped in for that! Go back to bed America, you're government is in control.

MellowFarmer · Apr 22, 2012

cannabineer said:
The thing that had me set on "danged poor" was Johnson's and especially MacNamara's unreal prosecution of the US phase of the Viet Nam war. We didn't engage (the stated reason being to not push the Soviet Union into a larger, hotter conflict), and we didn't disengage either. They got overly cute with their concept of using the minimum of force necessary to browbeat the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, and routinely got shown what the North would endure in place of that sort of priggish blackmail. A fully-modern war machine is a lousy tool for limited war.
I fear the lesson is being lost in pursuit of this new war on Terror. If you oppose terror, war is the wrong tool imo. War is suitable only for all-out conflict with another nation. Terrorists are not nations, and trying to link terrorists to national "sponsors" hasn't worked, to the severe and lasting international harm of our nation's reputation. Ironically, what kept us from losing outright in Viet Nam was state-sponsored terror of our own. B-52 raids, like firebomb raids in the late stages of WWII were effective because they struck terror into the hearts of not just NVA and Viet Cong, but anyone unlucky enough to be under or near a carpet-bombing.

You believe the magic bullet theory too don't you? sigh...

I do agree that war is terror. Maybe you should switch off Fixed News now and then? Peace.

cannabineer · Apr 22, 2012

MellowFarmer said:
You believe the magic bullet theory too don't you? sigh...

I do agree that war is terror. Maybe you should switch off Fixed News now and then? Peace.

Uh hello; which "magic bullet" theory? cn

Is anyone Pro-War?

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