Iraq actions makes terrorism risks worse ?

[MOBIUS]

Didn't Karzai say recently that if the money spent of Iraq (so far!) had been spent on Afghanistan, it would 'be a paradise'...!!?

[SlowwHand]

[Dis]

It's good some posters are happy that lots of people are dying. As long as they can say they told us so.

[Dis]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Just BTW, pretty soon more US citizens will have died in Iraq as the victims of terrorist attacks than in 9/11.

Not to mention the 20,000+ wounded - bet they feel real safe...

Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11. invalid comparison

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Just BTW, pretty soon more US citizens will have died in Iraq as the victims of terrorist attacks than in 9/11.

Not to mention the 20,000+ wounded - bet they feel real safe...

Pretty soon?
Wasn´t this point already reached some weeks ago?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Straybow

No, the comparison is based on the enemy recruiting more people because we are attacking them. You seem more intelligent than the average around here and I'm disappointed that you didn't catch on to the obvious and let your anti-Bush bias influence you thinking so much.

Except that the comparison is utterly inane because Nazi Germany was a state actor, and as such, can compel individuals to fight for it. AQ is a private non-state actor, and thus can only get people to fight for it voluntarily.

I'm mocking the stupidity of thinking that terrorists are going to leave us alone if we cut and run. That they wouldn't spin it as "defeating the Great Satan in Iraq" and would not likewise use the US as a foil to recruit more terrorists.

Of course they would spin it! Maybe you are just too slow, but you seem to miss the point that the Criticism is on INVADING IN THE FIRST PLACE. After all, we can only "cut and run from Iraq" because we invaded Iraq. Can you understand that?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Patroklos
to Strawboy, Gepap and his cadre did.

He brought up a perfectly good point, which is obviously when you engage your enemy full tilt you can expect not only him to do the same to you, but motivate a good portion those who had before only passing support for him to fall off the fence, onto his side.

So yes when we declared war on Germany we made ourselves more vulnerable to German attack, obviously. The details are very different here but the concept is the same. The fact that anyone would even think to dispute this is retarded. Not that anyone really did, they just shouted insults or in other words engaged in a;

circle jerk

Lets see the basic problems with this post:

1. GERMANY DECLARED WAR ON THE US FIRST.

Ok, so that one was easy.

2. Germany was a mayor industrial power, a state entity, an aggressive revisionist power seeking to change the global balance of power. Al Qaeda is a net of small, private groups of individuals joined solely by a common idelogy with some sort of common leadership but more like a corporation with franschises, each franschise capable of acting independently. Comparing a war with Germany to taking actions to curb AQ is fundamentally wrong because the comparison fails on its face.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Wezil
Another convincing argument.

What is wrong with people here?

They want to argue but are generally unwilling to debate in a calm, deliberative manner.

I am certainly guilty of that as well.

[Elok]

Originally posted by GePap
Except that the comparison is utterly inane because Nazi Germany was a state actor, and as such, can compel individuals to fight for it. AQ is a private non-state actor, and thus can only get people to fight for it voluntarily.

This isn't, strictly speaking, true. They're quite capable of extortion of various types. Now, I don't know if they actually do employ extortion, nor do I think there's any comparison between Nazi Germany and Iraq/al-Qaeda; I just felt neurotically compelled to point this out.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Elok


This isn't, strictly speaking, true. They're quite capable of extortion of various types. Now, I don't know if they actually do employ extortion, nor do I think there's any comparison between Nazi Germany and Iraq/al-Qaeda; I just felt neurotically compelled to point this out.

Extortion is not the same as compulsion. The difference is simple - if AQ wanted to force someone to fight for them, they would have to commit a crime as they have no legal right anywhere to compel anyone, so the very act, by extortion, blackmail, kidnapping, whatever, would be yet another crime. A state actor can force legally anyone living under their atuhority, depending what the specific local law is, to fight for them, and what is a crime is refusal to comply.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Bosh

Again, since when did al-Qaida = Iraq?

Since 9/11, when Bush found a good propaganda tool enable the settlement of old scores with Saddam.

Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11. invalid comparison

Indeed. The Iraq war is akin to having declared war on those evil commies in the USSR after Pearl Harbor. Clearly regime change would have been the only way to show the world that ruthless dictatorship would not be tolerated

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Straybow
Ah, yes. If today's critics were around in 1944 they'd be saying, "We shouldn't invade Europe, it might help Hitler's recruiting efforts. Intelligence says German mobilization may be as low as 25%, so he has huge resources to tap. It will become a quagmire like WW1."

I'd like an honest answer to this question: why are parroting talking points instead of discussing the issue?

Iraq had no terrorists in 2003, it's filled with terrorists in 2006. Germany most certainly had nazis in 1941 and had considerably less of them in 1944.

What the **** does that parallel even mean? Saddam, of course, is Hitler and Bush Roosevelt as the talking point we all so well know goes (either Roosevelt or Lincoln, that's what Bush must be as a War President), but who are terrorists then? If terrorists are nazis like I think you mean with your parallel, then how can Saddam, a man who kept them away and was a mortal enemy of OBL, be Hitler?

oh, and yes, Iraq is so COMPLETELY like WW2 so parallels are smart: same terrain, same sort of objectives, same strategic positions...

[Victor Galis]

I still maintain that my attacking the USSR after Pearl Harbor is the most apt WWII analogy

[RGBVideo]

This isn't a left vs right thing. Its a debate over what many percieve to be a failed approach and policy.

If you don't approve whatever Bush does, you're a leftist pinko hippie commie traitor who must be personally attacked. Witness Winston calling everyone who doesn't approve government-sanctioned torture camps and government spying it's citizens "left-wing loonies" in the name of Reagan, witness DanS saying how he considers Oerdin a "traitor" when he dares to question Bush's strategy in central Iraq. I think the Problem is that people are again treating politics mainly as a sports contest with two teams from which they must pick one which's fans they are, like the people did in democratic countries in the 19th century.

[GePap]

The wisdom of the ideologies responsible for the decision to invade Iraq are debetable, and would make a nice debate actually.

What I can;t understand for a second is why people here are willing to cut the admin slack for obviously totally mishandling the entire enterprise. The biggest problem is not that we invaded Iraq, but that even before day 1, this administration had ****ed everything related to the invasion up.