My family is majorly pro-war. I'm tired of hiding my true feelings from them.

Your nothing but a neo-con rhetoric spouting, indoctrinated, government pawn. Who are you to suggest "conversion" of someones values? You have the arrogance to imply such a horrible thing because it sits well with your warped, brainwashed perspective. We don't all buy into the bullshit perpetrated by the 4th branch of the government (aka corporate media).

 

You need to post up more. I love reading your opinion.

 

Damn, but it does my heart good to read that there are some really tuned-in people out there who actually have a grip in reality. At one point my long-haired days had me living in a country where the Secret Police would raid a place, line people up against the wall and 'alter their political views at the source', permenately! Many mornings were spent visiting the bombing sites of targets of socio-political terrorist groups like Bader-Meinhoff and the Red Brigade. I have been stopped on the street and searched by security agents on a number of occasions. My high school was comprised of students from Capitalist, Socialist and Communist countries. American Government class was a clash of ideals. My vacations and travels as a teenager were to the countries you are watching on the news. Some of my school friends carried Communist Party cards, wore turbins, spoke Arabic/Chinese/Afrikaans/Greek/Portugese/Slavic/Russian/Hebrew/Spanish etc, supported Tito, were wounded in terrorist actions in Isreal and suffered from apartheid in South Africa. From these and thousands of other influences I have formed my opinions, my political leanings and my understanding of people, cultures and place in life. At NO time did I ever think to base my life on fucking lyrics from Guns and Roses songs or any other dumb ass source other than life itself. When you grow up, you'll get off your lazy ass, get out into the world, actually talk to people and hopefully listen and learn from others about what others require for their lives, how circumstances exist in their countries that hinder or threaten them and how we fit in to their success or destruction. I also suggest you read a book other than Harry Potter and realize that our country really does rely on you to become educated, and way beyond the stunted point you seem to have accepted as far enough. Sorry for sounding heavy handing in this, but if your thinking is this limited at this point in your life, you are way behind the power curve, buddy. I need you to expand your influences, your mind. If you think this country is doing wrong, you're just spouting out the same immature, unsubstantiated drivel all un-exercised minds do. I'm pulling for you, man. Ask, listen, LEARN. Don't be a dumb parrot!

 

*laughs*
Perhaps. But I meant the ones that are here to cause trouble and then move on. We have all run into them. I remember about five years ago, there was a group of flamers from this gaming forum that invaded hipforums. A whole bunch of people here that wanted to "peacefully flame back". It was funny watching the whole thing go down. But as you can see, they aren't here anymore. People get bored and leave.

 

I suggest violence. That'll show 'em.

 

Some are back, wiser though..........

 

You have to admit that it's the non-conservatives who have been starting all the flaming latley!

It never ceases to amaze me how non-tolerant and nasty many so-called 'hippies' can be. They contradict themselves and everything they purport to believe in.

 

Threadstarter asked the question as to what to do about her situation at home that involved her views about world events that differ from others in her family. Being as this is a forum, I thought she was sincere in her asking it and she was given a sincere answer in return, maybe not the one she wanted, but if she only wanted to hear from people who would agree with her and just support her view point, well I guess that's up to her to say. I was hoping she would counter, or others would counter with their own views, but no one has attempted to. Then why bother asking? If you want to see the difference between youths of yesterday and today, here's a good example. The Hippies of before would dive in and blast away to give and take over this issue, and you just hope people will go away, don't say anything that you might disagree with. Jeez! Yep, you are very right. Just ignore, and they'll go away. And why not. No one is going to get anything out of this crowd. Threadstarter will never tolerate any challenges to her life and god forbide others in this thread ever have someone disagree with them. Watch out, or they'll put a label on you!! God help our country!

 

I do have an apology to make to Threadstarter. I mistakenly thought the writer was male and wrote my reply as I would directed to a guy. I would never use such coarse language as I did to a young lady and hope she accepts my apologies. I can understand where her viewpoint on the question that she asked come from only because I don't see where she has sought any knowledge of the subject other than from intangable sources and sentimentality. My answer to her is to get out into the world she is seeking to influence with her viewpoint, and see if what she feels fits in with what the world needs. When she has done at least this much, then I invite her to post another thread. By the by, I thought her poem was well written.

 

Actually the intuitive side of the brain will often arrive to the truth of things before the reasoning side of the brain does. You have to meld the two sides of the brain together to make a coherent case against the war though. Other posters are correct in stating that knowledge is the key. If you argue just based on ‘feelings’ you will be looked on as a misguided child.

No one can tell you what path to take, that belongs to you alone. The most we can do is provide increased knowledge to better bolster your beliefs.

The utopian dream of peace, love, and harmony is something to dream of arriving to, but in the meantime we must deal with the injustices of the world with the truth of cold hard facts.

Let me proceed:

- The stated reasons for the war were by no means the actual reasons for the war. The Iraqi War, not unlike many previous wars, is based on lies. The war was never really about WMD’s, 9/11, or the war on terrorism. The actual origins of the war occurred in 1992 with a policy designed by Paul Wolfowitz, and signed onto by Cheney and Rumsfeld amongst others, called the Defense Policy Guidance. It was a policy deemed too radical by previous administrations and became implemented using the 9/11 attack as an excuse. I will include more on this later.

- The stated reason for the war was based on WMD’s , ties to terrorism, and the ‘imminent’ threat that they posed. The only reason that contained any basis in fact was the WMD’s story. The CIA was incorrect in stating that they thought the WMD’s did exist. Various CIA operatives also state that what is overlooked is the fact that they concluded that Saddam was contained and posed no ‘imminent’ threat to this country. They also concluded no valid link to the terrorists existed. The idea to invade Iraq was contained in the 1992 policy. The decision to go to war was made before any evidence existed to go to war. The intelligence was cherry-picked by this administration to justify the fact that they had already decided to go to war. Any intelligence gathered that countered the case the administration was making for war was discarded. A lot of the intelligence they used for the justification was either proven to be false before the administration chose to use it, or came from sources that the administration knew the intelligence community considered unreliable.

I include an unfinished blurb I was writing to post on another forum. This should contain more than enough information to lead you on the road to the truth behind the war:


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I have seen a lot of misinformation on the board concerning the War in Iraq. The War in Iraq was not a war of necessity, prewar Iraq did not have ties to terrorism, and a Saddam-led Iraq never posed an imminent threat to this country, and the Iraqi War had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The origins of the war occurred in 1992 with a policy paper called “ Defense Policy Guidance “ developed by the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz. A number of conservatives signed onto the policy including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. This policy is the basis of the current policy. Certain parts have been modified, but the great majority of it remains.

Key Points/Excerpts:

· The number one objective of U.S. post-Cold War political and military strategy should be preventing the emergence of a rival superpower.

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia."

"There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

· Another major U.S. objective should be to safeguard U.S. interests and promote American values.

According to the draft document, the U.S. should aim "to address sources of regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic government and open economic systems.”

The draft outlines several scenarios in which U.S. interests could be threatened by regional conflict: "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking."

The draft relies on seven scenarios in potential trouble spots to make its argument – with the primary case studies being Iraq and North Korea.

· If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action.

There is no mention in the draft document of taking collective action through the United Nations.

The document states that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action," but it also states the U.S. "should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies" formed to deal with a particular crisis and which may not outlive the resolution of the crisis.

The document states that what is most important is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that calls for quick response.



The main emphasis of the policy was to maintain the United States as the unchallenged superpower existing in the world. It calls for coalitions, but only ones where the US calls the shots and only existing until the ends is achieved. Currently the UN provides the mandates to be achieved for the aggregation of countries in opposition to world-wide threats. The current attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the UN is part of this policy. We do not want an organization to get in the way of our ability to unilaterally enforce our will in any situation.

Preemption is an element of this policy. A willingness to strike at nations that we PERCEIVE to be a threat, before the threat actually exists. It is proven that intelligence isn’t always reliable and can lead to attacks that aren’t warranted. This is creating instability in the world because other nations now look at us as a nation willing to attack without provocation. This never existed before as an official policy of this country. We have previously acted preemptively using the Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnam War) and the sinking of the Maine incident (Spanish-American War). These were based on either mistaken or concocted intelligence to justify those involvements, but it was never a stated policy. These were invented incidents to inflame the public into a pro-war mood. From a cited reference: “This country once rejected “unwarned” attacks such as Pearl Harbor as barbarous and unworthy of a civilized nation. Today many cheer the prospect of conducting sneak attacks—potentially with nuclear weapons—on piddling powers run by tin-pot despots.”

Rumsfeld's version adds a few new ideas, most impressively the concept of preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. These would be earth-penetrating nuclear weapons used for attacking “hardened and deeply buried targets,” such as command-and-control bunkers, missile silos, and heavily fortified underground facilities used to build and store weapons of mass destruction. The concept emerged earlier this year when the administration's Nuclear Posture Review leaked out. At the time, arms-control experts warned that adopting the NPR's recommendations would undercut existing arms-control treaties, do serious harm to nonproliferation efforts, set off new rounds of testing, and dramatically increase the prospects of nuclear weapons being used in combat. Using bunker-busting nuclear weapons is currently being floated as an idea in conjunction with Iran. Despite these concerns, the administration appears intent on developing the weapons. In a final flourish, the DPG also directs the military to develop cyber-, laser-, and electronic-warfare capabilities to ensure U.S. dominion over the heavens.

The leaking of this policy led to its condemnation by the George H. Bush administration and rejection by the Clinton administration as being a far too radical of a policy. Many of the main advocates of this policy became part of George W. Bush’s administration. The policy was relatively dormant until 9/11 and was seized on by the originators of this policy as an excuse to implement it. Intelligence shortly led to the fact that Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden were responsible for the attack and the primary bases of operation and Osama himself were located in Afghanistan. Proponents of the policy were calling for the invasion of Iraq before Afghanistan even though they knew Iraq did not contain the Al Qaeda threat because Afghanistan did not contain the elements they needed to further their stated policy!

Anyone interested in the origin and progression of the policy can read the following articles:

http://www.harpers.org/DickCheneysSongOfAmerica.html

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1214&prog=zgp&proj=znpp

Following is the view of a primary intelligence agent working directly with intelligence concerning Iraq and a second article concerning intelligence:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202-p0/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/intelligence/12995512.htm

How they were twisting events to fit the preconceived notion of going to war ileaked in behind the scenes memos:

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/index.html

This program run on PBS’s program Frontline called “The War Behind Closed Doors” is the program that got me pointed in the right direction on reasons for the war:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/



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I apologize for the length of this post, but I have strong feelings on this issue, and believe the loss of innocent American and Iraqis lives justifies the length to point out the true nature of the administration.

Other things you can look into. Why the government can say they don’t torture as they torture. How the government can say they don't illegally spy on it’s citizens as it illegally spies on it’s citizens. Look into the backgrounds of Karl Rove and Ahmad Chalabi. It sheds light on this administration’s true nature.

This hopefully be enough information to get you started on enlightened reasoning to counter the rhetorical nonsense the pro-war believers spout, on something they truly know nothing about.

I think the administration thinks the ends can justify the means. The means never justify the ends, because the means define who we are.

 

I'm not a democrat or a liberal. I'm not going to even comment on anything you said, for the most part all you did is repeat what I said in condescending prose, your obviously just another neo-con rhetoric soaked sponge...pointless waste of space, I can't believe you even bothered mentioning Saddam.......he's a fucking minnow in the belly of a whale. I think it's good you enlisted................one more down

-Now go fight in your illegal, immoral, invasion of a sovereign nation...get into that Marine pasttime of murdering women and children, fucking sheep, you deserve what your going to get because your just another part of the problem...........another waste of oxygen, people like you make me sick, my only hope is that your just another dumb white kid on a brainwashed crusade, not a minority being forced into this because its the only way out....

r.i.b. dude (rot in baghdad)

One more thing, i'm ANGRY, I don't respect you, I don't respect ANY neo-con, or a bullshitting get nothing done democrat, your ALL responsible for leaving a sick twisted mess for our children to clean up. Fuck flaming, Fuck censorship, i'm speaking my mind, and I know i'm right. No apologies to you..........just another neo-con sheep, off to Iraq, i'll keep you in my prayers bro.........it's too late to stop the monster you've become.

 

Of course you do.

 

I realize this post was not directed at me, but I wish to respond.

I have been involved for quite some time researching the reasons for this war. More so than anything involved in a single school project. The distinction between good and evil is not quite as clearcut as people want to lead you to believe. That distinction is often blurred.

Saddam Hussein was a 'good friend' to the US for many years as long as it served our purposes in our war against the 'godless' communists. Now that our global strategy has changed he is demonized. Yes, Saddam was an evil man, but somehow he wasn't so evil as long as he served our purposes. This storyline is repeated over and over in our involvement in Chile replacing a democratically elected Allende with the evil despot Pinochet; propping up the evil military government that existed in El Salvador; propping up a number of corrupt, soulless governments in South Vietnam; the list goes on and on. Wars in this country haven't been fought solely on the basis of good vs. evil; there always is a self-serving policy purpose behind it. If a war is worth fighting, then the REAL REASONS for the war should be revealed to it's citizens so we can make the determination if it's worth fighting.

I won't personally attack you, you seem to be well-intentioned. My previous post I included nothing but documented facts about the reason for war. It includes written and spoken testimony from the people involved and it does not correspond at all to the reasons given. I would encourage you to listen to the other viewpoint that exists. Whether you choose to believe is entirely up to you. The only thing I will say is that I truly hope you come back safe. I have a number of family and friends that served there, and my fondest hope is that they all come back safe, regardless of what I believe and know to be true.

 

Well, I think it is obvious that the powers that be in Washington really don't give a damn about the Iraqi citizen. But the soldiers who go do; what do they/we have to gain from Washington's quest for oil? Let them have their oil, if it means there's one less wacko leader and one more democracy in the world. It's never a bad thing to give a nation of people freedom, even if some psychos in this thread seem to believe so.

 

Hey it's been reopened!! Good call

 

Again today. My dad was talking about how the Israelis bombed some place in Pakistan and my mom said "It's great! I love it." Then she said "Don't you?" I just said "Yeah". But truthfully it breaks my heart that people do this. Why? I don't understand why there is so much hatred and intolerance! Why can't people just share the land? It's fucking heartbreaking and I'm not allowed to show it. It really is so very sad that so many people support VIOLENCE and HATE. My own parents. i'm so ashamed.

 

I've got it! I know how you can break it to them. Draw a white line across your house. Say "This side is the hawks and this is the doves. Then stand on the dove side.

You have to understand that some people (nations etc.) take religon very seriously. And most of the them live in the middle east. This is actually one of the first times isreal has done anything of this scale to something. And I fear the US will get invloved and if they do they undoubtly take isreal's side.

 

That's a pretty good idea. I felt I had to write a song about this war too. It's called "If Only We Could Love". It breaks my heart, truly, that people are so intolerant that they feel they must kill to prove they're right. Everyone is right in their own eyes. I just wish we could share the land.