A question for you pro-war people on here

If you are in favour of the war in Iraq or so called "war on terror" then what the fuck are you doing on a leftist hippy website?

Or have I got the wrong idea about this place, and in reality it's just becoming another breeding ground for the typical reactionary 'values' that the counterculture has tried to do away with for all these years?

 

Because this website isn't all politics man, that's why the political forums have their own section. Besdies, theres no such thing that defines a hippy, you can be a hippy and support the war. And also, when I wanna argue politics, what's the point in going to a place where everyone agrees with me.

 

So what happened to love and peace, did it just go on holiday for a while? Get real, the whole movement was virtually born out of Vietnam war protest.

 

i wasnt in favour originally of the war in iraq but was won over to it by the what showmet said

and I dont know how many years Ive been posting here when I came it said it was a free speech site Im taking it at its word.

Ive noticed how on uk you seem to have a group of proto stalinists who scream troll and ban him about anyone who doesnt agree with them that doesnt seem very progressive to me .

 

More importantly, if you are so passionate about supporting the war, what the hell are you doing shadowing a forum when you should have signed up and shipped off by now. As far as I'm concerned, unless you've done that , STFU. Chickenshit.

 

In order to prepare and organise a stronger movement and to celebrate all things that are counter-establishment and forces of capitalism.

There's enough fighting out there already without the division that is in here.

 

Showmet is very anti-war

No arguments from me there

I don't know of any pro-Stalin supporters on the UK forum and the only person to have been banned for trolling was bug_man and he has since been allowed back in.

Someone else was encouraged out because they turned every single thread into a war debate ... A thread could have been about ice-cream and it still would have got turned around by him ... That was spoiling the site for everyone.

 

I have a "support our troops" sticker on my car for 2 reasons..
1) I don't feel like being pulled over for a "bad cop, no donut" sticker
2) I support them...I support their right to live and get the fuck out of there.

I once had a professor that explained why war was sometimes needed to get peace. He was so convincing that I believed it for the good portion of that semester. That and his media driven classes rocked...nothin but slides of dead people and movies about dictators.

 

showmet is anti war but his argument was the clearest case for support of the war Ive ever read



well by proto-stalinist what I mean is much of what you seem to bring up in the begining of this thread you seem to be saying if your not left wing why are you here

 

This are the Hip Forums, not the Hippy forums... bag to differ.

You can reffer to yourself with that nice little stereotype, but same of us... sadly enough for you... do not come here to be uber hippies.

 

also do you need to be anti all wars in all conditions I could understand that as a concept
because lots of posters here seem to think fighting against the wests ok

 

I support love and peace for the future of the Iraqi people where the people actually elect their government and a dictator isn't in power with the only hope being his sons who are even worse would come to power after him.

But you know, I've always wondered how all the hippies here could bein favour of abortion, it's taking a life away from this earth before it even had a chance.

 

it's the whole righteous / unrighteous deilema. Not too many people think that bush was righteous.
It's also a trying to escape the cage thing..it's been closing on the US ever since the friggin patriot act. It's damn suffocating and just as scary as war against others.

I need spell check.

 

So that technically would either be a misunderstanding of or a disagreement with what I have written... please don't imply I have supported the Iraq war. I have consistently debunked all the justifications given for it; on legal grounds, on moral grounds and purely in terms of the efficacy of achieving its stated objectives.

 

hi showmet
"debunked all the justifications given for it; on legal grounds,"

it was your debunking on legal grounds that won me over you showed me that bush and blair most likely are war criminals as I dont personally believe that they thought that saddam was a threat or had wmd .

and as you said a war with the motive of compassion would be illegal.
I think that its very likely that their motives were good although they lied to get the war , I dont hold that against them

I think the americans have made a mistake staying so long in iraq but getting rid of saddam and sanctions which killed 2 million people is a very good thing .

 

Forgive me, but you sound like a 15 year old exitedly discussing politics.

 

thats partly because its 3.30 in the morning and Im falling asleep and also you didnt see the original discussion .

it goes something like this under international law you can only start a war if your attacked or have a real fear of being attacked other than that the war would be a war of aggression and illegal.

so for example a war that was all about regime change getting rid of a evil dictator that just killed his own people would be illegal and the people fighting such a war would be war criminals.

I dont know if the un could give sanction to such a war, but with saddam bribeing people and lots of dictators in the un I doubt that you would get them to support such a war

the war at present has killed 10,000+ but sanctions killed 2 million people if saddam was left alone he could have stayed in power another 20 years and his nasty sons could have taken power after him .
so I would say that a war of compassion was justified .

I dont know if thats much better than the original but I can barely see my computer keys

 

There is an exception to this; humanitarian intervention with proper UN authorisation in the case of preventing imminent or ongoing genocide, as an absolute last resort, where diplomatic measures have failed. War with the objective of compassion is outlawed without these safeguards for good reason - because in general there is no such thing as a nation state acting purely through moral purpose. Nations are not allowed to start wars against other nations because in pretty much every case, war causes more suffering than good. I can't believe anyone actually thinks that America was acting in Iraq for humanitarian reasons - and their policies and tactics in Iraq demonstrate that they have no such concern.

The Iraq case did not meet the test of a war fought to prevent suffering; it has caused more suffering than Saddam had been responsible for over the prior 12 years. As for sanctions and sanctions related deaths, this rather presents a case for rethinking the sanctions regime which went so much further than preventing Saddam re-arming that it actually stopped vital medecines reaching the people of Iraq because of the fallacy and punishing imposition of the "dual purpose material" stipulations. I don't think it makes sense to argue that we invaded Iraq to prevent ordinary people from dying from the sanctions we were imposing...

 

dont you ever sleep !its 5 in the morning

" nation state acting purely through moral purpose "I think thats what bush and blair both think they are doing or at least largely.
people are allways beating the west about supporting dictators and then when they start doing some regime change to get rid of them they still beat them up .
if they could have come up with a better type of sanctions wouldnt they have done so ,what would you have done to get rid of saddam
also they may be trying to do get into a position for regime change in iran .

 

I support the trooops too ... mainly because of their vulnerable age and the fact that most of them are coerced into the military from the poorest parts of the population. Recruitment drives never show the truth about what lies in store for them.