posted
Are recent news stories changing your level of comfort with the war or the President?
The things coming out about wider prisoner abuse in the Middle East seem to indicate upper-level orders, not just random bad eggs. The stuff about the German guy that our side says is innocent, but we've still kept him locked up in Guantanamo seems to indicate that our Justice and Defense Departments have systematically hidden evidence and may have even fabricated some things deliberately.
I just wondered if there is an erosion of support as new data are assimilated.
If yes, what was it that convinced you to ratchet down your support?
If no, what opinions do you have on the events that are being reported? Is it all biased reporting? Are you focussing on the bigger picture issues and assuming that most of it would've happened no matter who was in the White House or how we ran the armed services?
I'm not trying to be insulting or goad you. I'm just curious as to how these events are playing to people who really like Bush and/or think the war was a really good idea.
I hope this thread doesn't turn into a flame war. I'm asking in all sincerity.
For those who wish to flame, please refrain. I'm trying to gain knowledge out of this discussion. We've had enough invective to last a lifetime.
quote: Are recent news stories changing your level of comfort with the war or the President?
Yes.
quote: If yes, what was it that convinced you to ratchet down your support?
What is changing me is the fact that it's taking so long to get out and the Big Heads aren't giving a set timeline. Bottom Line: it's too secret.
I also, personally, don't want the places that we are taking over. If Saddam ruled Jamaica, I'd be all for the war. I guess I'm proof of the idea that the longer it takes the less support you have.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Actually, why doesn't the USA annex the Caribbean islands? It would plainly be good for the inhabitants.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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They are sovereign nations, many of which won their independence after long and bitter struggles with the remnants of colonial powers.
They are struggling economically for lots of reasons, but annexation by a powerful neighbor would not sit very well given their histories.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: Are you focussing on the bigger picture issues and assuming that most of it would've happened no matter who was in the White House or how we ran the armed services?
That is pretty much my view. Here are some of the bigger picture issues I'm focusing on:
quote: In just the past two months, free elections were held in Palestine and Iraq; a rigged election was overturned and an honest one re-held in Ukraine; the Egyptian president pledged to hold competitive elections soon, too; and a popular uprising against Syria's occupation of Lebanon forced Beirut's puppet government to resign—all this, amid President Bush's proclamation that the main aim of American foreign policy is to advance the cause of global freedom.
It's a huge stretch to view these uprisings as a seamless wave of democracy; but it would go too far in the other direction to see them as strictly discrete events, each unrelated to the other. The evidence suggests that we're seeing at least a stream of wavelets; that the participants in one country have been inspired to take action, at least in part, by the example of participants in other countries. And therefore, the inference can be drawn, still others, elsewhere, might be inspired to take similar actions, or make similar demands, in the weeks and months ahead
Prisoner abuse is something that concerns me. However I am more concerned about real change in the middle east. It appears (at least for now) that meaningful change is happening.
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posted
Its worth pointing out that Ukraine and Egypt are both traceable to significant European activity in democracy building, which they've been channeling large amounts of funds into in areas near them for over a decade.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I am under the presumption that anything I hear about gitmo or abu garib is simply propaganda and has little or no resemblance to the truth.
I don't think the 'torture' in AG was torture. I wonder why the non-native detainees in gitmo were in iraq or afganistan to get picked up in the first place.
I realize that in these situations mistakes happen and innocent people get hurt along with the guilty and that's just the way it is.
I think that winging on about it will weaken us and strengthen our enemies and the time to inspect our navel is after we've won.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Bob, I’ll answer the questions and give my opinions, but will probably stay out of this thread after this since I figure I’ll be slammed big time after this. No. There are two sides to every story of course. I’m sure there are some people we have kept longer then necessary, but this is war. I’m not trying to condone torture by this next statement, but I hope we do whatever it takes to prevent any terrorist attacks and to keep these people off the streets of the world. Sure, I’m sure there is a lot of biased reporting. For some reason the likes of Robert Byrd and such have a deep hatred and loathing of George Bush. I’m not focusing on these kinds of issues. I’m thrilled about freedom spreading throughout the Middle East and see this as the eventual defeat of terrorists and their way of life. Ok, there it is. Hope this helps in your survey.
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I'm sort of stunned by your answer. I vowed I wasn't going to challenge anyones answers here, but I'm really just stunned.
I mean, you do know how many people from other countries are in America at any given moment, don't you? I mean, not in actual numbers, but really, a place as dysfunctional as Iraq was before the war still had lots of things that would bring people there besides a desire to wait for American soldiers to shoot at them.
The German guy was, it appears, working on some sort of missionary thing. Of course the details are somewhat sketchy given the classified documents, but the US and Germany (his homeland) agree that he was there in Iraq for other-than-terrorist purposes.
Pix...does it worry you that our government violates the Geneva convention by doing this stuff? Many have said that in doing so we legitimize the actions of those who capture our citizens and soldiers when THEY also violate the Geneva convention. It's like an invitation to have our people abused in turn.
Also, what of the moral high ground? I know that sounds somewhat nebulous, but if one is going to claim to be on the RIGHT side of any conflict, it would seem to be pertinent to be able to show evidence of having kept to a high standard of behavior.
You've stated that second guessing weakens us and strengthens our enemies, and the time for navel gazing is after we've won. I guess I have three things to say:
1) Bush declared victory, so I guess it's time to gaze and reflect while we mop up.
2) The idea that our troops and leaders immoral acts somehow weakens our enemies and strenghtens us really bothers me. I think that if anything so vague as what you talked about helps our enemies it IS bad behavior by our troops and leaders, not people back home trying to enforce our own laws.
3) The victors have an obligation. If we don't uphold the rules, who will? It's tough, sure, but we ARE the most powerful nation in the history of the planet. Can't we afford to hold ourselves to our own stated beliefs?
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quote:but I hope we do whatever it takes to prevent any terrorist attacks and to keep these people off the streets of the world.
Jay, thanks for your answer. I hope you don't mind if I ask express a follow-up concern. If you'd rather not get into it, that's okay. I really didn't want to turn this into a point-counterpoint thread.
I guess my concern is that the "whatever it takes" can encompass a multitude of things that are immoral, illegal, and ultimately bad for our country.
And, I suppose more pertinent to the present conditions, since nobody knows WHAT will ultimately work, it's hard to justify much of what we're doing with any other statement but "we're fighting terror."
quote: Bush was held responsible for the ordinary messiness of war -- as if he should have personally been inspecting weapons deposits and standing guard over them. Stories were slanted, invented, or timed in order to have maximum impact on the election.
Which I took as a veiled apologia for Abu Ghraib. yeah, it's "normal" in war. Abu Ghraib-type events are inevitable in war. Support war, support that class of actions - they go hand in hand.
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posted
The geneva convention applies to uniformed soldiers. Not terrorists and their allies.
Once we were attacked we were morally obligated to go after the terrorists and their support structures. If I have a problem with Bush (and I do) it's that he hasn't gone after more of the countries that support terror, instead waiting for the revolutions that may or may not come.
1) Bush declared "mission accomplished" on the removal of Saddam. Certain people have taken this to mean "WE WON THE WAR ON TERROR YAY!" They would be wrong.
2) Immoral things happen in war. By calling attention to them while the war is still going on the enemies moral is bolstered while our moral is weakened. Further it leads to a "Let's wait this out and take back over when America leaves" type of attitude.
3) We must win with as few American casualties as possible, short of using WMDs.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I guess my concern is that the "whatever it takes" can encompass a multitude of things that are immoral, illegal, and ultimately bad for our country.
Bob, here's what I think the several competing possibilities that have to be navigated:
1.) If someone is captured and we let them go for lack of evidence very quickly, and then that person later is the pilot of a plane that crashes into a skyscraper, the people who let them go will bear some responsibility for that.
2.) If someone is captured and mistreated, then finally let go, not only have we done evil, but we also have made the person more likely to want to slam a plane into a skyscraper.
3.) We cannot become evil and hope to do good.
I'm very uncomfortable with many of the specific reports of things done to detainees and outraged by some of them. I'm a little less uncomfortable detaining someone who has borne arms against us and is not representing a nation (with whom we could make peace and to whom we could repatriate the combatant), at least while we are engaged in hostilities in Afghanistan or Iraq, and as long as it is done as humanely as possible.
quote:Once we were attacked we were morally obligated to go after the terrorists and their support structures. If I have a problem with Bush (and I do) it's that he hasn't gone after more of the countries that support terror, instead waiting for the revolutions that may or may not come.
Please, "the war on terror" is a mish-mash of artificial and ill-defined concepts.
"The war on terror" is just as unwinnable as the war on drugs in a practical sense. And it's even more insane than the war on drugs because the war on terror is also unwinnable in any theoretical sense.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I’m not suggesting we fill every one of them up with truth serum until we know everything they know. But if we know that this certain guy knows something that will save lives if we find it out. No problem. Pump him up. I’m sure we have better ways to get answers then beatings. I bet they’ve got drugs to use on them that we couldn’t even imagine. I guess one example that would be good is where some Army guy shot point blank right above some guys head to get him to talk because he had information that he needed to save his men. He got it and saved his men, but got in trouble for shooing near the guy. Should have been given a medal. Basically this is going to be a case-by-case thing. The fools who were taking pics were dead wrong and getting punished. Anyway…. I think you see what I’m saying.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: I’m not trying to condone torture by this next statement, but I hope we do whatever it takes to prevent any terrorist attacks and to keep these people off the streets of the world.
Jay, please elaborate. It sounds to me like your next statement is specifically trying to condone torture -- but your first statement says that you aren't trying to do that. I want to reconcile these. Did you mean "whatever it takes, except torture," or do you in fact condone torture, if that's what it takes? I don't see what you're saying, in other words.
Pix clearly defines "torture" very narrowly. Do you fall into that camp?
posted
My support for the presidency has been eroding since the "Mission Accomplished" moment and here of late, it's hard to tell whether it has been eroding faster or if there is just less left to erode.
I've said it before and I will say it again, when we started hearing of civilian contractors involved in the interrogations and the manhunts, we should have all taken pause. During the Vietnam War, "civilian contractors" doing interrogations were basically CIA-operatives. We've all heard the stories of brutality associated with that.
This time around, in releases from Afghanistan, Iraq and Gitmo, they've had no difficulty referring to CIA operatives when they are used. So that means the "civilian contractors" this time around are just who? And who do they answer to? Who has to keep the records?
Hey, the CIA spooks have a bad rep, but they have to answer, sometime, somewhere to someone. And there has to be some form of documentation, even if the general public never gets to see it.
But these new, "civilian contractors"? And their names crop up each time we hear talk of torture or mishandling.
These civilian contractors aren't the ones over there driving trucks or setting up water filtration systems. These are ones doing something that requires our government have some plausible deniability of.
And that makes me sicker and sicker every day.
And yes, Pix, each time we do something horrible and wrong to an individual, it does something horrible and wrong to ourselves. We're Americans, we're supposed to be better than that. We're supposed to be the good guys, even when it was the more difficult path.
Or at least that's the way we were raised to believe. When did we grow up and put away that childish notion?
And how do we, as a nation, ever get it back?
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We are ultimately balancing safety against freedom and it's natural for things to swing one way or the other depending on our fears (of real or imagined threats, the fear is still a driver). Extreme threats appear to require extreme action, but even this is driven by fear, not rational evaluation of long term interests.
Heck, prudent diplomacy years ago might've avoided this altogether. If we'd never supported Saddam, maybe he never would've become what he did. But our leaders then set up our leaders now by giving this guy the tools to subjugate his own people.
We aren't the only ones who've done such things and lived to regret it.
But we are the ones that can do the most damage simply because we can spread our influence so widely in the world. We have the money to promote lots of dictators, some of whom will turn out to be really bad people.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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The "War on Terror" needed to be waged. The invasion of Afghanistan was a great thing.
Iraq needed the US to step in and remove Hussein.
I agree with the war on that level.
We have troops who are giving their lives, years of their lives, parts of their bodies, parts of their peace, to accomplish great things in Iraq.
I agree with the war on that level and fully support those troops.
However, mistakes have been made. Some of them have been for political reasons, some of them have been for CYA reasons. Some of them have been done by the grunts on the ground. Some of them have been done at the highest level. Nobody seems to be taking responsibility for these mistakes unless the public forces them too. Unless the media starts demonstrating proof of a mistake, they are ignored, covered up, and white washed. Even then it becomes a silly name calling contest with the media saying "look at this." and the administration saying "liberal media hates President Bush!"
I disagree with the war on that level.
President Bush rushed into the war with little or no thought given to winning the peace.
I disagree with the war on that level.
President Bush cannot be blamed for all of that. I remember the UN tabling any meetings before the war on post-war Iraq, for fear that would make the war sound inevitable. Now many other nations would rather let the Iraq people suffer than offer help because the more the Iraq people suffer, the worse President Bush looks, and that makes them look better.
I disagree with the war on that level.
To quote the movie "Sneakers" "TO MANY SECRETS!"
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posted
Wouldn't it be nice if we (or the democratically elected government) still controlled afghanistan?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I won't give an opinion because I'm not a supporter of Bush or the war, but here's some interesting material giving one possible explanation for the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. The Brits also had problems with prisoner abuse, not just the Americans.
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posted
I haven't read the whole thread to this point (and don't have the time right now). But, I have read those posts from people who's opinion I weigh heavier than others (Bob, Tom, Dan Jay...) and it looks like everything boils down to one point no matter how it's debated (which wasn't the point of the thread) and that is:
The war is too secret and there should be more accountability in the higher levels of command.
posted
Incidentally, while I sometimes find this a bit hard to remember, I completely supported Bush in the Afghanistan war. So did most of Europe, as far as I'm aware. Now - well, as my father put it after the election : "OK, Bush started Iraq, he damn well deserves to be the one stuck with the problem of getting out."
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Personally, I do not believe that war is good. I did not support Bush in Afghanistan because the methods that he used were essentially useless. Bin Laden was not captured and that's that. IF that was indeed the true motive, he failed.
His shifting of focus away from his propaganda based original ideas in both Afghanistan and Iraq give me nausea. Now it is becoming believed that we went to Iraq for the sake of liberation of the Iraqi people. This was not the main focus that Bush tried to sell the public on pre-war. Then it was WMDs and terrorism.
I also do not believe in promoting fear to win votes. I watched numerous campaign ads in the weeks prior to the election and noticed the gradual shift in Bush's campaign away from issues and focusing once more on terrorism and making people afraid of the world. People throughout history have used such xenophobia to unite people to causes of their own desire and it is my opinion that this is what the President is doing once more.
I have a good friend who has the unfortunate job of being a convoy driver. Within the next month he will be shipping out to Iraq. Needless to say I am quite concerned for his safety. The continued violence and the lack of concern that Bush shows in response does not make me feel at ease.
Johivin Ryson
Those who watch rarely speak up. Those who speak rarely hear all. But those who listen see all there is.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I supported Bush in the Afghanistan War, though I was disappointed that Osama got away. I have thought all along that the Iraq War was a pretext war, and the constantly shifting rationales for it have only confirmed my opinion.
quote: The war is too secret and there should be more accountability in the higher levels of command.
Scottneb, this sums up my current feelings nicely, about the wars, Gitmo, and other problems with the Bush administration. The "classified" rubber stamp has been used too often and for reasons unrelated to national security, often for covering up data embarrassing to the administration, and there's no end in sight to that.
posted
I know Bob didn't want this to degenerate into a flame war, but I am a little stunned like Bob by your posts, Pixiest.
quote: I wonder why the non-native detainees in gitmo were in iraq or afganistan to get picked up in the first place.
I realize that in these situations mistakes happen and innocent people get hurt along with the guilty and that's just the way it is.
The geneva convention applies to uniformed soldiers. Not terrorists and their allies.
Yeah, you can't make a democracy with out cracking a few innocent prisoners. But don't complain about it, that's just the way it is?? Dude... that's just plain wrong.
Also, several in Git-mo were not picked up in Iraq or Afganistan--even if they were, do we have the right to indefinitely detain without trial anyone from Iraq or Afghanistan, even with flimsy or nonexistent evidence.? You don't think that will come back to haunt us? Already tyrannies around the world have justified detention with-out trial and other human rights abuses by comparing their methods to our US ones.
Of course I am less concerned with the rights of true terrorists than with the innocents who have been swept up like the Usual Suspects. They have become non-persons. And don't use that "they're all terrorists, or prisoners of war from a battlefield" excuse--Kurnaz, referred to on this other thread Bob started, has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 on trumped-up charges, after being hauled from a bus in Pakistan.
Finally, the Geneva Conventions that we are signatory to apply to more than just uniformed soldiers, despite what Bush memos and propaganda might say.
Parts excerpted from a longer and meaner response to Pixiest I posted and then deleted 24 hours ago.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Personally, I do not believe that war is good. I did not support Bush in Afghanistan because the methods that he used were essentially useless. Bin Laden was not captured and that's that. IF that was indeed the true motive, he failed.
Capturing Bin Laden is not the only goal here - crippling the organization by eliminating their state-sponsored safe haven was the primary goal, and it succeeded.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
That certainly appears to be true. Afghanistan is pretty much terra incognita for the terrorists now. I do wish we were concentrating more of our efforts there because the place still has built in problems that need to be solved before stable government can really take hold. And the fear is that the place could slide back into tyranny or fundamentalism without too much trouble.
posted
The fundamentalism is a bit more up in the air, but from what I am aware of, Afghanistan is about as governed by us and the government we put in place as it was by the Taliban -- not much at all. The warlords control the place, generally speaking.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
It may sound strange, but my support for Bush began eroding when he began suggesting that God was on his side and (at least by implication) telling him what to do. Generally speaking, for people of my church, claims of divine guidance require an essentially impossible standard of proof--on the level of, say, "Go raise those Iraqis you just killed from the dead." (This is partly because an authenticated claim would allow you to do just about anything--think "Exterminate the Canaanites!")
It wasn't clear what degree of guidance he was claiming, but after that I began taking more seriously the possibility that he was not clear on the immense importance of his actions, either because he was incompetent or because he had an apocalyptic agenda. At the same time, I kept bristling at people who said the dragging-on of the war was proof of mismanagement, because I knew that wars generally do not go as planned. As the months passed, though, and I heard of more and more events like Abu Ghraib, I finally concluded that whatever Dubya's motives, he really did not have a clue as to how to conduct a war and was not listening to the people who did.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Search for "warlords control afghanistan" and pick your source. Lots of them provide various primary sources, too.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Scott, it's a generally acknowledged fact that poppy production has gone up in Afghanistan since the war. Since we don't like it, and the Afghan government has outlawed it, someone's benefiting, and it ain't the poor dirt farmers--it's the warlords.
Not proof that they contol the place, but shows they are players, anyway. And shows the lack of control of KArzai.
quote: But to know, as the days passed and I traveled around Afghanistan, that the new mansions with the architectural adventurousness of Los Angeles belonged to corrupt government officials, often built upon lands stolen from poor Afghans[3] ; to learn that the provincial governor, who spoke fluently of "peace," "reconstruction," "international community," and "poppy eradication," was a drug lord;
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I guess I'm proof of the idea that the longer it takes the less support you have.
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