by Meagan Dixon
In reply to Nick’s comments. His thoughts are in itallics.
One can only assume that the author of this statement is attempting to convince the reader that this is a significant fact. Sept 11 proved in a practical fashion why it is not relevant, but it flys in the face of logic as well.
I have to disagree. September 11th proved that it is the people close to you who can cause you the most harm. Although American people have been saddened by multiple terrorist attacks against various U.S. military buildings and ships the attacks that happened close to home brought our country to mourning. The closeness of our enemies is very significant. From 100 yards away, with a rifle, you could easily kill me. From 8,000 miles away, even with a really big bomb, you dont pose that much of a risk to me. It would not be until you began to move that really big bomb to a closer vicinity that I would consider you a threat!
I dont see how this can be delivered as a fact. We have most decidedly not bomb people whos only crime was living under a dictator. We launched attacks against strategic and tactical military targets in order to bring about the downfall of said regime. How would you have us conduct military operations? Unless your case is one that violence is never necessary.
Although the target of a bombing, or any other military action for that matter, may not have been the people who have done no wrong you can read in the paper, on almost a daily basis, about the collateral damage from such actions.
I
do not believe that violence is never necessary I believe that violence is a necessary evil. But it is an evil, and should only be used when there is no other choice. Bringing about the downfall of a regime that we just dont happen to like at the moment, dose NOT in any way constitute no other choice in my opinion! And, when you get down to it, that is what the war in Iraq is about, bringing down a regime that we dont like not that we feel threatened by or that may cause us harm just someone we dont like.
What exactly constitutes serious mental health problems? Are they temporarily or permanent? Do we really expect people to go to war and experience no changes in attitude or behavior what so ever? Did not every single person who has gone to Iraq so far, volunteer to serve in the military? Did they not realize that being part of the military means the possibility of going to war? Is war being traumatic, not an obvious and established fact, understood by those who volunteer? Are we to never fight wars because of this fact?
You question my facts throughout your response, which is not a bad thing. I just wonder on this one, what would constitute a legitimate fact to you? I obtained these statistics from the Department of Military Defense. These are the statistics the United States Government is releasing to the public in regards to their own military personnel. So if you would like to know what constitutes a serious mental illness, you would have to ask them. My personal guess is the people presenting these statistics more than likely thinks like you do having come from the same background and would not be reporting P.T.S.D. or mild temperament change as a serious mental illness. But I can not speak with much authority on that.
And I wonder why it is brought to the forefront so often that these troops volunteered to serve in the military? Because they signed up for it are their lives somehow worth less? Would my argument be more valid if they had been drafted? This is a silly point. These men and women have volunteered their lives to serve their country. They should be held in the utmost respect, not placed in harms way unnecessarily. As an American who is not serving in the military, I feel it is important for us to question the legitimacy of our governments reasoning to send troops to fight and die. Not sit back idly and hope for the best.
My point by sharing these statistics was not to show that war is bad, or that we should never go to war, my point is that this war has had a drastic negative impact on our military. And because I seriously question our need to be there, this information just gives me another reason to ask, why?
My experience suggests to me that this poll was taken in the hopes of generating the desired response of the person taking it, rather than the actual sentiments of the average Iraqi.
I always wonder when I debate on this site what will constitute a legitimate fact, it constantly changes. My line of reasoning is this:
The study was done by the British Ministry of Defense, who considers us their ally. I seriously doubt they wanted to prove the Iraqis dont want us there, especially since they are part of the coalition that is mentioned. Do you seriously think they wanted to prove they were doing a bad job?
I dont know how, or when, or even why the British Ministry of Defense decided to take this poll. I simply found them to be the most reliable source from which to pull data.
Furthermore, the suggestion that a phased withdrawal and the handing over of responsibility to the Iraqis is a new idea, is ridiculous. This has been our focus from the very beginning. The devil, as they say, is in the details. Announcing a withdrawal time was NOT a suggestion of the ISG, and makes no sense from a military perspective.
This is a little misrepresenting. The ISG urged the Bush administration to change course, in particular to begin the phased withdrawal of coalition troops and draw Iraqs neighbors, including Iran and Syria, into international consensus on the way forward. It also recommended that U.S. troops evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, and to withdraw U.S. troops not involved with Iraq security by 2008. Although this may not be an announcement of a withdraw time, it is a suggestion, and it dose make sense military or otherwise. I will concede, as dose the ISG that a full withdraw would be detrimental to the Iraqi government, and may cause us to have to return in the future, but as I said (and the ISG agrees) we need to begin supporting, not aggressing. Its clear the Iraqi government will need U.S. assistance for some time to come, especially in carrying out new security responsibilities. Yet, the United States must not make open-ended commitments to keep large numbers of troops deployed in Iraq. This is a report that was created by 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats who unanimously approved every word of its Report, which strongly recommends that most U.S. troops leave Iraq by 2006.
Once again, the fact presented here is the OPINION of two men. We are not told their methods of how they came to this cause and effect conclusion.
And once again I wonder, what is good enough for you? These two men, whose OPINIONS seem so unreasonable to you are highly qualified and intelligent people. Peter Bergen is a journalist who appears as a terrorism analyst on CNN, he is also the man who conducted the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997. He is not just some shmuck that I chose to take at face value. This guy knows his stuff and may arguably have more real world experience than you do. Paul Cruiskshank is a research fellow at the Center on Law and Security in the NYU School of Law. Again, pardon me if I feel he knows what hes talking about.
They say:
Indeed, though what we call The Iraq Effect is a crucial matter for the U.S. national security, we have found no statistical documentation of its existence and gravity, at least in the public domain. In this report, we have undertaken what we believe to be the fist such study, using information from the worlds premier database on global terrorism. The results are being published for the first time by Mother Jones, the news and investigative magazine, as part of a broader Iraq 101 package.
This is not an attempt to sensationalize data and make the war look bad. This is a journalist saying, look, there is some fallout from our attacks in Iraq, and this has some implications for American security in the future. Maybe we should take a look at it.
Otherwise this whole argument is simply a dressed up form of the violence only begets more violence argument, which I think is absurd.
Basically what your saying to me here is, I dont agree, therefore it is not factual. I hope in the future you can look past the fact that you dont agree, and see the points I am presenting to you. These are not made up, or exaggerated, I made sure of that these are the facts, choose to believe them or not, but there they are.
-Since the war in Iraq has started there have been no successful terrorist attacks on our soil. Therefore we should continue the war indefinitely to ensure this trend continues.
Ahhh, interesting logic!?! But it begs the questions: How many successful terrorist attack were there on our soil before the war in Iraq? What years did they take place? Were the Iraqi people responsible for any of these attacks? And most importantly, do we think this war is going to stop, or prompt, future attacks?
-The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to the killing or capturing of over 15,000 enemy combatants. Before these wars the United States had only been able to kill or capture terrorists and their supporters in small numbers.
Alright. But dont you think the number of people the United States considered enemy combatants may have increased since we decided to occupy another country in a hostile manner? Could the increase in those labeled enemy combatants explain the increase in the United States ability to capture or kill them. And while we are on the subject, what is an enemy combatant? Is it the same as a terrorist? And I like the way killing is listed first, and capturing is second as if the first mission when dealing with enemy combatants is to kill them, but if you cant do that, just capture them instead.
-The Normandy invasion was a complete success due to the fact that it provided a foot hold in an area which was needed to bring about the eventual collapse of a despotic and fascist regime.
And why is the eventual collapse of a despotic and fascist regime our goal? Our duty? Any of our business?
The facts I presented you, represented by the events, numbers and data, are accurate. The conclusion I came too changed. Therefore to present opinions as fact, because they are supported by data, is simply not enough. You must impartially look at the data presented and determine if the conclusion is a fair one.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to impartially look at anything. They talk about this phenom in all research and statistic classes. A person comes to the table with thoughts, feelings, opinions, and dispositions that are going to affect the way they view something. It is our duty to try our hardest to be impartial and use our experience to determine if the conclusion is a fair one something I dont feel you did. You assumed that because I am a liberal, and speaking facts that you dont want to hear, that I was being biased and jumping to conclusions. I dont mind if you question my facts, but I told you where I got them from, they were reliable sources, and if you still doubted them you should have gone and checked them out, not acted as if I was being unreasonable!
Or”Terrorism is premeditated; perpetrated by a sub national or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target.”
I would love to know where you got your definition. It is very good. Mine was just a plain old Webster Dictionary dumb speak, yours sounds more grown up. The point is still the same though what the United States has done, and is doing, flirts dangerously close with the definition of terrorism.
The United States attack on Iraq was premeditated:
o Prior to January of 2001 Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld each demonstrated a predisposition to employ U.S. military force to invade the Middle East, including, specifically, to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein
o Since 1992, Cheney has endorsed a bold foreign policy that includes using military force to punish or threaten to punish possible aggressors in order to protect the United States access to Persian Gulf oil and to halt proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
o In January of 1998 Rumsfeld and seven other future Bush-Cheney administration appointees signed a letter sent by a conservative policy institute named Project for a New American Century (PNAC) to then President Clinton, which called for U.S. military action to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power.
o Around September 2000, 12 future Bush-Cheney administration appointees, including Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Stephen Cambone (long-term aide to Rumsfeld), participated in drafting Rebuilding Americas Defenses a PNAC policy statement which asserted that the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. PNAC acknowledged that its goals would take a long time to achieve absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.
o On February 11, 2001, Bush ordered the fist air strikes since 1998 to be conducted outside of the United Nations agreed upon No-Fly zone, to get Saddam Husseins attention.
o Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, United States intelligence agencies determined that 9/11 was the work of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, spearheaded by Osama Bin Laden. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from Yemen, and two from Lebanon. This information, along with the conclusion that no evidence linked the attacks to Saddam Hussein, or al Qaeda was immediately communicated to Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, and others
o Bush-Cheney administration members began discussing an invasion of Iraq immediately after 9/11. Bush, Rumsfeld and others also assigned various subordinates, including former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, CIA Director George Tenet, and General Richard Meyers to look for intelligence that could justify attacking Saddam Husseins regime
o On September 17, 2001, Bush secretly ordered the formulation of preliminary plans for an invasion of Iraq, while admitting to his aides that no evidence existed to justify an attack.
The attack was clandestine since parts of the truth were kept from the American people, and arguably sub national, since it was not with a knowing consent that Congress declared war
Our motives in war with Iraq are definitely politically motivated and violent
And even though it may not be our
intention, there have been 106,069 journalists killed (37 by acts of war and 14 by US Forces), 7,010 Iraqi Police and Solders have been killed, and a UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian causalities have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. [These statistics were taken from the British Ministry of Defense poll preformed in August of 2005] – Which seems to me a whole lot like perpetration against a noncombatant target.
I must tell you Meagan that you are confusing the act of instilling terror with our common understanding of terrorism. Every army form the dawn of time has sought to instill terror in the opposing army. This is not the same as an enemy targeting non-combatants in order to bring about a result they cannot hope to achieve by engaging the opposing force. To try and compare the two, I think is disingenuous, and forgive me, but a bit insulting.
Thats my point Nick, we are not instilling terror in the opposing army in fact their activity is increasing. The only people feeling the terror we are trying to instill are the Iraqi people who lived under the horror of Saddam Hussein and are now living under the horror of a war torn country. And although I dont feel the United States is targeting non-combatants, they are being affected, and it is in an attempt to bring about a result we cannot hope to achieve by engaging the opposing force. I am sorry that you feel this is a bit calculation and insulting. I feel the way Americans are viewed by most of the world because of the actions of our own regime in charge.
You cannot honestly believe that there is no difference between the terror a combatant feels in the course of battle, and the act of terrorism which is directed against non combatants in order to get ones way.
I do not, just like I dont feel killing innocent people just because they live in the vicinity of strategic and tactical military objects is a effective way to instill fear in a combatant.
I am sure the terrorists of 9/11 felt that the twin towers and the Pentagon were strategic and tactical military objects, and I am sure we could all agree their objective was to instill fear in our military, our nation. What they succeeded in doing was really pissing off the United States, prompting us to fight back with a frightful vengeance.
I am just worried that we may be inciting that same vengeance.
Make no mistake Meagan, the only people really confused about the morals and culture of our military reside solely in America and those countries to which we do not fight. Our enemies in Iraq recognize our benign nature towards non-combatants and exploit it every chance they get. They do so with the full complicity of western media which is more than willing to ignore statements from the military at the same time that they report the statements of terrorist organization.
Here is something I can speak with some personal knowledge about. Having traveled a far bit in other countries, I can tell you there are many people throughout the world who are confused about the morals and culture of our military.
There are many people, both inside and out of the United States, asking the same questions that I am. And there are many people in Iraq who are morning the deaths of their loved ones from one bombing or another that dont feel our military forces are benign in their nature towards non-combatants. I do not mean to demonize the military, even though it may not sound like that what I am saying is there are people out there who have experience very different from yours.
One can argue that some of our pretenses were mistaken, but how can one accurately claim they were false? What was false about our intent to remove Saddam from power? What was false about our desire to prevent Iraq from continuing to be a state sponsor of terrorism? What was false about our desire to bring about the end of his human rights violations? What was false about our desire to see that he had in fact destroyed any illegal weapons stocks he had? None of these were false pretenses.
Saddam Husseins desire to become involved in greater support for terrorist organizations was absolutely unacceptable. We could not allow it. Therefore I think it is very easy to justify our actions. Especially when one considers the enormous amount of pain we go to in an attempt to ensure minimal civilian casualties and collateral damage.
Yes Nick, there are some pretty compelling and sound arguments that the pretenses were false. Bush is a member of the Executive Branch of our government whose employees hold their position as a public trust are expected to fulfill trust in accordance with certain ethical standards and principals. These include abiding by the Constitution and laws of the United States, as well as not using their offices to further private goals and interests. They are also subject to Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. The knowing concealment or omission of information that a reasonable person would consider important in deciding an issue is a form of fraud.
In September of 2002, Bush staged a photo opportunity with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, after which he announced that Iraq posed a serious threat to the safety of the United States and the world, while concealing from Congress and the American people the material facts that he has no reasonable basis for this accusation, he had never extensively reviewed existing intelligence regarding any possible threat from Iraq, he had not requested an update intelligence assessment on Iraq and the United States intelligence assessment then in effect stated that Iraq had neither nuclear weapons nor a nuclear weapons program, and the IC had consistently reported that Iraq had no involvement in 9/11 and no relationship with al Qaeda.
On September 4, 2002 Bush also claimed he was beginning an open dialogue with the American public, with Congress, and with United States allies to decide how to respond to Iraq, while concealing the material facts that he had requested a formal plan to invade Iraq nearly a year before, had been conducting significant military and nonmilitary planning and attacks against Iraq for a year, had directed significant military deployment to areas around Iraq, and was planning a massive air assault against Iraqs air defense facility for the next day.
the legal question is not whether the President lied. The question is not wheter the President subjectively believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The legal question that must be answered is far more comprehensive: Did the President and his team defraud the country? After swearing to uphold the law of the land, did our highest government officials employ the universal techniques of fraudsters deliberate concealment, misrepresentations, false pretenses, half-truths to deceive Congress and the American people? ~ de la Vega
We attempted to impeach a president for a blow job. How embarassing is it to let a president get away with blatently lying to their coutnry.
Now, before you go questioning and breaking down my opinions listed above, please do a little research. This is all documented by the United States government, I am not reading the facts the way I want to, this is documented actions of members of our government.
To move on and answer some of your other questions:
It has never been our duty to decide that a leader of another country is harming its people so we should throw them out of power. That was the duty of the United Nations, and when they did not agree with our faulty logic, we decided to ignore them and move on to war without the support of most of the world. We are not the world police. And even if we were, there are nations out there who are doing a lot more harm the Iraq could have ever hoped of doing. There are countries still practicing genocide, infanticide, and ritualistic rape. Do not be fooled, we did not go to Iraq to put and end to his human rights violations. We went to Iraq because they were standing in the way of something we wanted.
There is not any proof that Saddam Hussein was involved in support of terrorists who wanted to attack America. His terrorists preyed mostly on his own people, who are living in worse conditions since Saddam was overthrown.
I am going to post a speech by Barack Obama witch very adequately conveys my feelings, even though it is from a couple of years ago. It is a little long, which is why I decided to post it over there, but please feel free to stop by and check it out www.norcalblogs.com/iconoclastic.