Attack on Falluja gets under way

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3992263.stm

 

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson

 

As long as those patriots is of a different skin tone and religion than your own and live somewhere far away.

I doubt Jefferson meant that one nation should force "liberty" down the throat of another nation with force. I wouldnt call that liberty. However benevolent the US rule of Iraq is compared to Saddamn and in my opinion it isnt very Itaq is very much non-free now as it lives under the yoke of foreign rulers.

 

Heh. If there's one thing Jefferson didn't mean by that statement, it's that it's necessary to secure liberty by invading foreign countries.

 

How refreshing that liberty needs to be fed with the blood of the innocent as well, Darkwolf. I imagine that's a quote from either the War of Independence or the French Revolution - neither of which seem particularly transferrable to what's happening in Iraq.

Ask yourself, Darkwolf - would you feel any different if your country had become a de facto satellite state?

 

The jury is still out as to whether or not Iraq will in fact be a puppet of the US.

In regards to the rest of you, go read you history books again. There were quite a few foreign players in the American Revolution (Rebellion). I wonder how many in Europe thought that America would be a satellite state of France at the end of the war. I wonder what the people of France thought of their military being involved in a "foreign" war??


Additionally, look up how many years it was after WWII before Germany and Japan had independent gov'ts. These things take time, but unfortunately society is so used to seeing the world changed in less than 2 hours in movies and TV that we no longer have any patients or understanding if something takes more than a week.

 

The Conservative Checkbook:

1. Blame the Media: Check
2. Don't dissmiss the possibility of Iraq actually become a puppet, instead, try to avoid the answers and not answer directly: Check
3. Call the 'Go Read History Books' Card even though someone doesn't seems to understand that the % of the foreign soldiers in USA were not, not even CLOSE, to the % of the foreign soldiers in Iraq: Check


Congrats Darkwolf, you are a full-blooded conservative. Or should I say my condolences?

All above should be taken as a small joke, it is NOT a flame.

All above should be taken seriously as I am serious of it:

Go Falluja, hope you layeth your smackdown upon thee American invaders, or at least hold out long enough for the Americans to understand that you don't want them there.(That would be quite hard though.)

 

When did Japan actually NOT have a independent government after WW2? Japan created their government themselves not by the help of foreign troops in their terretory. Germany on the other hand was in ruins and the dispute of what should be done with Germany went on long after the war. The establishing of BRD when it was eventually decided did not take long and the democratic process came quickly. Besides Iraq is very different from these two and neither one can really be compared to Iraq since the circumstances were so much different. Quite frankly I do not know any examples of similar "democracy by force" wars/liberations in history.

As for Fallujah from what I've heard the battle is going well so far despite the claims of the local media that the americans are a bit "trigger happy", but the problems in the rest of the country seems to be escelating. A couple of bombs in Baghdad and the coalition seems to be loosing ground in Ramada.

 

Blame the media? HUH, where do I blame the media? I blame the zombies who think that the world should be like the movies and TV. You forget one of the key beliefs of the conservative: society is a result of the people, not that people are a result of the society.

I do not dismiss the possibility of Iraq becoming a puppet, I simply state that it is unfair to judge it yet as the time frame is too short. Of course they are under our control at the moment. No one denies that. But power is slowly being transferred. Get back to me in a couple years about this one.

Please tell me the % of soldiers fighting in the American Revolution that were citizens of the US. I can tell you it is -0-, they were all foreigners as there was no American nation and the only natives were Indians. Every war is different. Additionally, this war was not started to liberate Iraq, it is just a nice side affect.

Now, if the vast majority of Iraqis wanted us gone, they could push us out. The fact is that there is only a % of the population that wants us gone before the new Iraqi government is established and viable. Unless all the soldiers that I am talking to are lying, there is a large number of Iraqis that understand we will improve their lives and that do not want the insurgents to take over.

Are they happy we are there? Of course not! No one is happy to have an ongoing war in their backyards. Do all of them hate us and want us dead? I don't think so. I think they want peace and opportunity, and realize that the best chance for a prosperous future comes from setting up a new stable government, and they can't do that at this point without help. They do want us gone as soon as it is done, and I don’t blame them for that. Additonally, I don't believe that outside of the insurgents, any material number of Iraqis want Saddam back.

Of course there are those Iraqis who don't want to change, and they are resisting, but to claim that all Iraqis are in this category is a bit of a distortion.

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that this war was started in early 1991. Hostilities were ceased later that year, but unfortunately, Saddam never honored the terms of the cease-fire. Thus when Bush 43 elected to enforce the terms of the cease-fire, he went to the UN and gave Saddam one last chance (res 1441) and when Saddam chose not to comply Bush legally enforced the terms of the cease-fire.

It is unfortunate that a few key nations chose to put their own financial interests above enforcing the cease-fire, but given the economic issues faced by those nations I am not surprised by the choice, in fact I am certain that the US would have done (and has done in the past) the same thing if the roles were reversed. None of the nations in this world are pure as the driven snow.

Mogoroth:

It has been a long time since I have taken a history class, but as I remember, after WWII we forced Japan to completely reform their government, and Macarthur essentially wrote their constitution for them. While we never occupied Japan in the way that we did Germany and have Iraq, our war ships were in their harbors, and of course there was the threat of another nuke being dropped on them (of course we didn’t have another one, but they didn’t know that). Our military presence there was slowly scaled down, and I am not sure, but I believe that we still have a military base in Japan.

Of course following the Kerry logic, we should have stopped at Midway, as Australia and China did not provide enough troops or monetary support to continue the war any further.

 

Again, I am not blaming the media.

In American, the media isn't primarily who puts out movies and TV shows, that would be the job of the entertainment idiotrusty (with the exception of CBS and Dan Rather, their media department is more entertaining than their entertainment department, and more fictional to boot!). The media reports the news (again, giving CBS as an exception).

Nice selective quoting though, you should come work for one of the major American political parties (Democrats or Repbulicans)! They love to do that.

 

And Fox isn't? I don't know how long you've been gone, but Faux News is taken as seriously as moveon.org around here nowadays.
Still, nice to see ya back. :thumbs:

No, he just thinks it's better to fight a known enemy than an unkown one and sending troops to rape 14-years old and humiliate prisoners plus to get some oil. Dubya is ya friend, Mr. President of Oil Company.

 

I'll concede this for now - time will tell, and most people probably just want life to be stable again. But for the moment, it is unarguably true (and not without justification, given that US troops control the country). One way or another, the US will still be draining Iraq's oil reserves through deals and official reconstruction agreements. Australia did the same thing to East Timor, and I don't think our government is any more or less altruistic than Bush's. This fact alone will keep the fires burning for insurgents and terrorists everywhere.

Well, don't blame us - we don't have those resources! We were busy fighting in Papua New Guinea, North Africa, Europe and the Philipines, IIRC. Besides, after Pearl Harbour, America had its nose bloodied and like most of us, the sight of its own blood propelled it forward.

 

I think you need to clarify this

 

American troops want to take the city, but there has to be a city left to take.

"A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier. I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were there.

It was last place you could get medical attention because the big hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on Monday.
A lot of the mosques have also been bombed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3996111.stm

Is bombing places of worship and medical centres really bringing democracy? No wonder the fighting is going on longer. If I were an Iraqi I would be outraged and probably join the resistance.

Things like that and raping 14 yearolds just enforces my opposition to this 'war on evil'

 

Depends, were hostiles using these as firebases, or attacking our troops from them?

If yes, flatten them, if no, and they are being actively targeted, then there is a problem.

It is kind of funny how the opposition to anything will take the exception and try to present it as the rule.

 

These Mosques are ancient and beautiful buildings, which should be protected. I don't think democracy is cutting off electricty, water and medical suppies. I guess you think its okay to kill 100's of civillians if it means getting at least one insurgent.

 

Hooray for strawmen!

 

"When did Japan actually NOT have a independent government after WW2? Japan created their government themselves not by the help of foreign troops in their terretory"

Completely WRONG!

Japan didn't have an independent government from 1945 - 1952. The country was occupied by US troops, and the government, as well as society as a whole was greatly restructured by the US Government in general, and Douglas McAuther specifically, who was the military govener of Japan during the occupation.

The major difference between the occupation of Japan vs Germany after WWII (and if you think that Japan wasn't in ruins following the war you are very mistaken) was that it was an entirely American occupation.