War: Yea or Nay | Golden Skate

War: Yea or Nay

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heyang

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War: Yea or Nay

It's apparent that things are becoming much more heated in this debate. Some may not want to 'comment' for fear of having to debate their point of view. So, I just wanted to anonymously poll the members of this board to see if we're in alignment with all the other polls.

Not looking for comments as we've already been debating on other threads.

Do you support a war against Iraq?
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

I voted Other - because, I am opposed to the war and believe there has to be a peaceful solution. I keep thinking of the movie "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?" It seems to be amounting to that - the US may be on its own in this one.


"All we Are Saying is, Give Peace A Chance."

Ladskater
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Can we make an option for "Bush is a moron and we must get rid of him."
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Heyang,

I think your first choice needs to be phrased "Yes, Saddam is evil and NEEDS to be removed from power," rather than "Saddam is evil and WE need....."

The way you have phrased that answer choice makes it sound as though the US is this evil big-brother type of power, that we are alone in our position that he needs to be removed, and that we are dead wrong in feeling that he needs to go.

If you go outside of the UN Security Council, you will find that the majority of UN member countries echo the sentiments of the US, Great Britain, and Spain.

Also, one of your other choices implies that it is okay for Hussein to threaten, terrorize, and murder, just so long as it is done to Iraqi citizens and not people from other countries. How very isolationist and ethnocentric!!!!
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Sk8cynic

I'd change it and a couple of other things if I could, but I can't edit a poll.

'We' means the global community - not the US.
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Heyang,

Thank you for the clarification......guess I'm pretty polarized right now!!!

Bummer that we can't edit polls...didn't know that!!
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Also, one of your other choices implies that it is okay for Hussein to threaten, terrorize, and murder, just so long as it is done to Iraqi citizens and not people from other countries. How very isolationist and ethnocentric!!!![/quote]
Where do we stop? North Korean regime is <em>at least</em> as bad, may be worse. The populations of many African nations are devasted by civil wars, coups, etc. (just yesterday there was a coup in Central African Republic that went all but unnoticed in the press). Do we occupy all those countries?
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Where do we stop? North Korean regime is at least as bad, may be worse. The populations of many African nations are devasted by civil wars, coups, etc. (just yesterday there was a coup in Central African Republic that went all but unnoticed in the press). Do we occupy all those countries? [/quote]


Your point is one of the exactreasons I am so aggravated with the UN. They have a very strange lexicon in that apparently "Crimes against Humanity" really means "Crimes against Humanity existing outside your country's borders." As far as I'm concerned, HUMANITY has NO BORDERS. A dictator/regime, regardless of their country's borders, either commits CAH (I can't type it again!) or does not commit CAH, and IMO it is incredibly hypocritical on the part of the UN not to address this accordingly. But the, that leads me to my next issue with the UN.

The UN has no concept of what the words "DEADLINE" and "COMPLETE" mean. I know that if my bank sets a deadline for when my mortgage needs to be paid, they mean it. If my note is $2,000 each month, and I waited for 4 months to start paying them $100 a day, the bank sure as hell wouldn't be giving me another 30 days to pay the whole amount due. They'd take away my house, and take me to court. If my little local bank can grasp this concept, and I get it, why can't intelligent world leaders get it?!

Before I get a barrage of replies about the difference being that there is a potential loss of life involved, don't they realize that there's already a loss of life involved????? What does tyrranical, despotic regime mean at the UN?!?! I'm arguing about the semantics of the resolution here, folks.... If, when saying deadline, the UN really means "begin total and complete disarmament by date A and complete it by date B" , then phrase it that way, for heaven's sake! "Unconditional, Full, and Complete disarmament" means exactly that! Even my 7 year old gets this concept.


UUURRRGGGGHHHH.........
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Cynic, you in no way answered my question of "Where do we stop"? You again made your point about the need to go to war with Iraq, but have not explained what makes Sadam so different from other dictators. One answer is that he has weapons of mass destruction (which would put N. Korea in the same camp, but let's overlook that for now).

Your point is that we should eliminate any dictator who commits CAH against his own people. Well, I am afraid the list there would be very-very-very-very long. Which brings me back to my original question: "Where do we stop?"
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Cynic, you in no way answered my question of "Where do we stop"? You again made your point about the need to go to war with Iraq, but have not explained what makes Sadam so different from other dictators. One answer is that he has weapons of mass destruction (which would put N. Korea in the same camp, but let's overlook that for now).

Your point is that we should eliminate any dictator who commits CAH against his own people. Well, I am afraid the list there would be very-very-very-very long. Which brings me back to my original question: "Where do we stop?"[/quote]

Unfortunately, I'm not a foreign policy scholar, so I don't really have any answers. I do know that one of the foundation blocks of the formation of the UN was to eliminate CAH. If this is truly the case and the UN is serious about it, then they need to use their intelligence resources from around the world, prioritize that very long list of regimes, etc., and in turn pass a resolution for each country addressing this. With each country having a resolution with a clear deadline that correllates with it's "rank of severity" (for lack of a better phrase), the UN would then start ticking down the list (a little naive, I realize, but I can dream).

The only problem with thi scenario is that the UN Security Council has evolved into a policing unit whose MO is one of "Stop! or I'll say "Stop again!!" Why would any tyrranical regime listen to that kind of order? It's like these parents of little monsters who are a terror in stores whose parents gently say, "Honey, you shouldn't do that" a zillion times, but can't understand why their kid ignores them. (Too long to post right now, but I'll have to share my experience on a nonstop from Seattle to Atlanta with regard to an obnoxious child and how I dealt with it).
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

What's happened to the UN Security Council is that it is behaving the way its Charter said it should. Every State has a right to vote. The veto section was instituted by the USA, I believe to protect American interests. Now it has backfired. No, skatcynic you are not a political affairs scholar.

You seem to be saying that everyone must agree with the USA and that there should be no voting aloud. What's the point of an international organization if one has to swallow the desires of only one speech?

The USA Government has the right to go to war without the UN approval. They are going to do that. You should be happy to see all these people who are going to die.

Joesitz
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

At the end of the 1991 Gulf War conflict the Allies did not sign a Peace Treaty; they signed a Cease Fire Agreement. Iraq's regime failed to disarm according to that agreement, therefore this is not a new war but more of a continuation of the previous war and technically it is a "legal" move as Iraq has been in breach of the Cease Fire Agreement for 12 years.

The US and UK wanted to go through the UN but the did not have to. When France ultimately said it would veto ANY and ALL new resolutions presented in the future that was pretty much the end of negotiations. Why bother negotiating if they have said they will veto anything that is offered to them?

So the US and UK had to basically do what the French wanted or do what they wanted to do. That is when they met with Spain and Portugal for the emergency summit. In the 11th hour after US, UK, Spain and Portugal made a decision, then Jacques Chirac said France would be willing to go with a 30 day extension, but he decided to negotiate when it was too late as the other leaders had already made up their mind to give the 48 hour ultimatum.

In the past when the US has used or threatened to use its veto power it has been extremely criticized - basically the same happened here with France - if it is going to Veto before it even sees a resolution then voting is pointless and negotiations are useless.
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Jules, all that's true, but I still think that it's just legal mumbo jumbo. No country is going to disarm, period. As for whether we have to do what the U.N. says, or what France says, or what world opinion says -- well, we don't, because we have the firepower and they don't.

I just think it's sad that we are using our status as the world's only superpower to act like a bully and impose our will on everybody else down the barrel of a gun.

Mathman
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

I pick yea.... but not the fact that the US is hating on France. Gotta remember: Statue of Liberty, gift from France. :)
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

ITA mathman, not only will Iraq not disarm but it has been regularly shooting at allied planes in the no-fly zone for 12 years. What puzzles me is this morning I hear that France says it will join the allied forces if Saddam uses chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction. I thought France was convinced that Iraq did not have either of these weapons.

I have nothing personal against France or the French, in fact I happen to like both very much, but as far as their government is concerned, this is fairly typical. It's unfortunate because the French could have worked for a better resolution if they had shown any promise of compromising.
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

Jules - I am not completely sure, in fact, I am guessing about France. I think France really believes that Saddam does not have any weapons of mass destruction that could be used in a war. When the US starts the battle and there is no retaliation of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq then France will have proved its point.

However, if Iraq does use WMD then France will bow down and join the fray albeit looking like a dummy.

I'm not at all sure what's keeping Russia from bowing to Bush. Must be the offers were not big enough.

Joe
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

...sigh.....this is going to get me in a lot of trouble....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just think it's sad that we are using our status as the world's only superpower to act like a bully and impose our will on everybody else down the barrel of a gun.[/quote]

This could be applied to the skating realm:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just think it's sad that the Eville Kwantophiles (not all Kwan fans, just the extremists) are using their status as the skating world's only superpower to act like a bully and impose their will on everybody else down the barrel of a gun.
[/quote]

Please keep in mind that I'm not referring to all MK fans (especially Mathman, who wrote the original quote. I look forward to his posts)!! We are all aware that there are more Kwan fans out there than there are for other skaters, and a minority of them give MK fans a bad rep.

Something to think about.
 
Re: War: Yea or Nay

But that's different. Michelliness is next to Godliness. Everybody knows that. :D

MM
 
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