Iraq War
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1Liner
: Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent
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| As long as people are morally consistent, I'm not trying to change anyone’s conclusions about War, Iraq, or U.S. foreign policy. But I am offering sanity checks on some oft repeated myths, fallacies or mistruths. If you want to be taken seriously, then the foundation of an argument can't be based on a falsehood. |
Falsehoods[edit | edit source]
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- America made Saddam - During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America. That kind of rhetoric tends to come from the uninformed, the trolls, or both. Saddam was never "our boy" like some claim.
- Preemptive War - Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others. All wars start with a series of escalations on both sides. All offer multiple opportunities to escalate or deescalate (back down). A fight doesn't happen because one guy throws the first punch, but because both sides chose to not walk away until eventually a fight is the only natural outcome.
Consequences[edit | edit source]
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
America started with much less than Europe. We had to carve a home out of a wil- derness; we could not afford inefficiency. That is why we are impatient with pomp, rituals and processes that make us less productive. Our independence is in our blood to refuse to accept form over substance, or blindly pay homage to titles, rank or authority. We believe "problems are meant to be fixed", not tolerated, ignored or worshipped. This frustrates cultures like the French, Europeans, Arabs or Asians, who often revel in these things. But that’s their cultural myopia and bigotry's; they have exactly as much responsibility to understand us as we have of them. We are not the fat and lazy cowards they think we are; well except for the fat part.
America is a nation of immigrants; built from restless and ambitious people, those unsatisfied with their station in life. For 200 years we've collected people who wouldn't put up with the bullshit in other countries. People who would risk every- thing to find where security and happiness can be built, if one just works hard. Being the land of opportunity radically affects our culture. Americans have a "can do" spirit, because all our lives, we've done what others said couldn't be done. Tell us that we can't do something and we'll probably do it just to prove to ourselves that we can. Which often infuriates others.
There is no contradiction or hypocrisy between being the warrior nation and also believing in live and let live. Some nihilists don't understand that, or don't like that. Fine, that's their problem. If you leave both us and our interests alone, then we won't bother you. If you won't leave us alone, and declare war on our ideals, then you may pay the consequences. It takes a lot to get our ire up, but so far everyone that has done so, has regretted it.
This whole war, and all the wars we’ve been involved with are about our view of the world. Live and let live. But if something is seriously wrong, we have an obligation to try to fix it. And the world has a lot more to thank us for than curse at us about; though we seldom get the former. When we see a tyrant raping a country, and threatening a region, or a problem like islamic terrorist and rogue nations sponsor- ing it, we’ll work with the world to fix it. But after 10 or 25 years of trying, we may try to fix the problem ourselves. We know we can’t fix everything, we certainly don’t do everything right, and don’t want to be the world’s police force. But every now and then, if something is really wrong with the world, we’ll try to set it right, even if a few European countries resent it because they were making money off of the suffering.
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