The answer without a question

[aristide1]

And there are times we shouldn't be sheeple. Lots of them.

I have seen a lot of these "war is not the answer" signs lately

http://www.answers.com/topic/lately
http://dictionary.die.net/lately
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lately
http://www.allwords.com/word-lately.html
http://ardictionary.com/Lately/1190
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lately

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

World War 2 is a challenge for anyone who is against wars -- I'll admit that. But if WW2 was justified -- I would say that using it as the benchmark, then ALL of our more recent wars fall far short.

The Iraq War is a travesty.

We were wrong when we supported Saddam Hussein -- and we, the USA did support him.

Saddam Hussein had NOTHING TO DO WITH AL QAEDA , and he had NOTHING TO DO WITH AL QAEDA's ATTACK on the USA on September 11th.

The only thing that we have succeeded at by being in Iraq -- is to greatly strengthen Iran.

[andyb]

Neil I totally agree with all of your points in the post above.


Andy

[Matija]

Well sure Neil.....if everyone in the USA had been Quakers in 1940, we'd all be speaking Japanese and German right now.

No, you'd be speaking Russian.

The real reason why USA entered WWII was to prevent the Soviets from spreading all across Europe - and they would have. Everything that happened on the Western front pales in comparison to the Eastern front; that's where Germany was really beaten.

The irony of it all is that USA waging silly wars has made today's Russia incredibly strong. While you are owing more and more to China and your economy is collapsing (and sadly doing bad things to the rest of the world), Russia is getting more full of oil and gas money. If they close the pipes - half of Europe freezes to death. I personally predict EU and NATO breaking apart in a couple of decades and a lot of countries siding with the big red bear.

Overall, I will start worrying when the things around me stop carrying the sign "Made in China".

[Bluefront]

Neil....Hitler had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Any yet we attacked him first, before attacking Japan. You don't see any similarity? Hitler at the time was incapable of attacking the USA......our enemies in the Middle-East, who are not located in a single country, certainly were, as evidenced by 9-11.

Our enemies over there, do not share a common border, do not act in the conventional ways of war....... but they are certainly our enemy. The War on Terrorism, as it is called, will be on-going......as long as we have enemies. The dumb bumper sticker in the OP, does not keep us free and safe, as any US president is pledged to do.

[aristide1]

While the thinking among us hear an echo apparently the word lately seems to not exist in the usual three dimensions for all of us.

Let's see if this definition of lately is any better:



Don't know who is in the photo, but you can tell he loves his country and can still think for himself, ie he's not a sheeple. Too many are just party followers, the very definition of sheeple. That's lately.

Can you hear me now?

But just in case we can't stop addressing the stupidity of bumper stickers how about the dumbest of all the bumper stickers:

[Bluefront]

Neil..... since you are reading this thread, perhaps you can stop our resident spam artist.

[VanWaGuy]

Funny how Aristide's definition of sheeple means those that think but disagree with him, while anyone who would blindly agree is not a sheeple.

[aristide1]

Sorry if the thinking soldier bothered you.

Obviously the supremacist remarks were OK though.

And I cite my quotes, not like others.

Neil, do you think you can teach other people the word lately?

There are sheeple in both parties. People who believe that paying taxes means the can be non-participants.


Political extremist - Unable to address the issue (hint-lately), labels others or their facts.

By the way I don't agree with hybrid vehicles or solar panels (highly toxic) but they are brought to us by people that think, not sheeple.

Anything else? Oh, almost forgot, being a sheeple is PC.

[VanWaGuy]

Aristide, you go on and on regarding lately and supremacist.

The person described that they saw the sticker lately. The lately being when they saw the sticker, then they go on to ask what the question to said answer would be.

At that point, it would be perfectly reasonable to respond with a history of the issue when attempting to describe it to someone. Your going on and on about lately is rather pointless and sounds a lot like "that depends on the definition of is is.

And your injecting the word supremacist is just as pointless. Just because a person presents a stat that says xx Americans were killed in battle y does not make them a supremacist. That was an illogical jumping to a conclusion on your part. That person could very well believe that all needless deaths are tragic, but that those that are closer to home get a little more attention with them.

Whenever I see a report on the news of a local boy getting killed in the war, that has a larger affect on me than others. That does not at all mean that I think the local boys are superior, nor does it mean that I think the other deaths were meaningless, but you seem happy to jump to that conclusion just because someone sited a count of American losses.

Your point that no one has argued against your big deal about lately and supremacist could just as easily be explained by the fact that they saw the illogical statements and did not bother as your conclusion that you were uber brilliant and no one could argue those points.

[aristide1]

Just because a person presents a stat that says xx Americans were killed in battle y does not make them a supremacist. That was an illogical jumping to a conclusion on your part.

That would be correct, if that happened, but it was this:

Any loss of American life is terrible.

OK, so we'll go with this as being correct. It's up there with "God is on our side."

Taking a cue from you it's interesting to watch the new facets of the thread that are OK from others, but not here.

And your injecting the word supremacist is just as pointless.

If you really want to address pointless it's the argument that the OP's bumper sticker is not always the right. Well gee, no kidding. And yet that "pointless" point-of-view is repeated over, and over, and over again.

But hey, that's OK, right

But you know what? In time I may agree with you. Saying "We are all human beings." is rather pointless with some people around here, perhaps not you, but.......

Thanks Mr. Pot, you sure put Mr. Kettle in his rightful place.

[VanWaGuy]

Sorry, you are correct that I quoted the wrong passage, but that does nothing to correct the logic errors in your argument.

Fine, go with "Any loss of American life is horrible". It is still not valid logic to call that supremacist. That is only attacking the other person and not the logic. He does not say ONLY the loss of American life is horrible. If one thinks that all un-necessary loss of human life is tragic, then it logically follows that loss of American life is horrible, as Americans are human.

[aristide1]

He does not say ONLY the loss of American life is horrible.

Then he could as easily left out the word "American" as he did "lately." But he didn't did he?

I appreciate you categorizing me in this manner, I do regret you don't admit that I'm using the exact same techniques as BF. The other side of the same coin per se.

(Who kept pushing a pointless point first? Who spammed first? Who's the poster child for the double standard? I didn't open the door, or didn't you notice?)

You see me doing this with anyone else?

OK, now ask yourself why.

When one insists on acting like a child (do I really need to link to prior posts to the gloaters? The effectiveness of CP? Vince Foster?) one should not get upset to be treated like one. You set the standard, you set the tone. Years ago this was referred to as "You can dish it out, but you can't take it."

[Bluefront]

VanWaGuy...... Don't feed the trolls. It just encourages them. And don't be too hard on the guy. He's about to endure at least four years having an American war hero as the president.

That would be at least as hard as having Slick Willey's soon-to-be ex-whatever, sitting in the Oval Office (with the stained carpet).

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello Carl,

Neil....Hitler had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Any yet we attacked him first, before attacking Japan..

I think your understanding of the timing is incorrect. We fought for almost a year in the Pacific against Japan, before joining in the battle in North Africa, and then into Europe. We first bombed Italy in December of 1942. You should watch The War on PBS -- I had a poor understanding of the timeline of the war prior to watching it.

And all we had going into Iraq was some trumped up lies. In WW2, practically the whole world was in flames. The two situations are very, very different.

[Bluefront]

Neil..... our war against Japan immediately after Pearl Harbor was mostly one of retreat, and of course there was fighting. But we never made a concentrated effort until the war in Europe was decided. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Japan was the real threat to the USA. And we were very lucky the Japanese fleet did not continue onward after Pearl Harbor to our west coast...a real possibility since most of our Pacific fleet had been destroyed.

Hussein and Hitler compared......

Both evil dictators.

Both in control of a powerful military. At the time of Gulf War I, Iraq's military was rated #4 in the world.

Both Iraq and Germany had invaded, and waged war against neighboring countries.

Both countries had a history of killing their own people.

Both countries were working on or attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, and were known to have other illegal weapons (poison gas for instance).

The list could go on.... the point is that we (all countries) waited too long to stop the German dictator, which could have been accomplished in the beginning. But we did stop the Iraq dictator, a fact some people don't seem to understand, although I think it should have been done at the time of Gulf War I.

[thejamppa]

... Unfortuantely peoples who are loud these days seem to think that wars must fought without killing innocent and without breaking laws... which as sad as it is, is impossible.

You don't think that after all the hype about weapon accuracy that the ratio of targets to collateral damage could be just a wee bit better than what it is now?

600,000+ dead Iraqi's, how many were just people minding their own business?

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Voltaire

Weapon accuracy? In Finnish artillery is one of the world's most accurate. With still using same method's from WWII we can hit from Water bucket from 10 KM with 122H63. But accuracy doesn't mean anything really, if enemy hides behind civilians. All that firepower is useless if you can't use it.

Problem in Iraq is that its unconventional warfare and american's have tried to fight it with conventional way.

Yeah and some person said also that: Kill one and you're murderer. Kill million and you're hero...

Problem for american troops is: That they do not know land they are, they do not know customs, they do not know their enemy and what's most important: they do not know anymore why they are fighting and dying.

Let's compeare modern air strikes what USAF makes in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Now Compeare them to USAF Berlin Bombings, Tokio Firebombings or RAF's Dresden massacre...

Things have been improved. But army is one riggid organization that values its traditions more than anything and any changes in military organizations take time and are slow... It took over 5 years but slightly american forces in Iraq have started to adapt and understand their situation... But adapting in situation in general level takes time.

Prior Battle of Somme 1916 infantry Dogma was to move slowly bayonet fixed on massive line after heavy bombardment. After German machine guns slaughter 50,000 soldiers in single day there was really forced situation for reconsidering tactics. Unless tactics really, really badly fails, then expect military change very slowly. Only after serious losses changes become more rapidly.

[aristide1]

That would be at least as hard as having Slick Willey's soon-to-be ex-whatever, sitting in the Oval Office (with the stained carpet).

More Spam, or is this factual and on topic?

And worth defending too.

Thejamppa, you're correct, but we digress a little, no? And I'm not sure where our tangent is going. The sticker remains an accurate remark to the costs of war in the present, and to many historical times, and like all rules can never be applicable 100% of the time (childish but required need to state the obvious).

VanWaGuy, now read this respnse and then BF's last post and try to apply your justice and fair play equally. I'm curious to see the results.

[VanWaGuy]

Aristide,

It is your lack of respect for others on here that I am reacting to. Your certainly do not have to agree with myself or Bluefront, but calling people names like you called him supremacist is uncalled for.

I have re-read this entire thread. In many places, I see Neil and Bluefront among others exchanging information regarding their points of view, but sticking to examples and trying to make logical arguments.

I am not singling out your arguments unfairly. You are the only one that I see that starts attacking the other people if you do not agree, and if you do lose a point justify it by saying oh well, you are just as bad as me, or no rule does not have exceptions, or don't pick on me, pick on everyone else, so you lose a logical argument, and still think that you won. (I guess this really justifies Bluefront's don't feed the trolls suggestion. Sorry, I will try that after this post.)

Neil often has a point of view that I disagree with, as I am VERY conservative, and at least from my perspective many of his ideas seem quite liberal. (And I do not use the words liberal or conservative as bad words at all as the press seems to do at times.) These things can be discussed in an environment of respect for each other's views (and really, that is the only way you will change minds). We are both entitled to our own ideas, and many of us can discus them in a civilized manner, not fling mud at the other person, admit when we make an argument that had logic errors, and even sometimes change our minds in light of new information presented by others.

Man, why can't I just ignore the trolls?

[aristide1]

Aristide,

It is your lack of respect for others on here that I am reacting to. Your certainly do not have to agree with myself or Bluefront, but calling people names like you called him supremacist is uncalled for.

Plural? Name one other person.

I am not singling out your arguments unfairly. You are the only one that I see that starts attacking the other people if you do not agree, and if you do lose a point justify it by saying oh well, you are just as bad as me, or no rule does not have exceptions, or don't pick on me, pick on everyone else, so you lose a logical argument, and still think that you won. (I guess this really justifies Bluefront's don't feed the trolls suggestion. Sorry, I will try that after this post.)

Do I see you addressing pointless equally? You tell me. How about the reoccurring stain jokes, how do they fit in? Its rather ironic that BF requests not feeding the troll, he can't conduct a conversation with facts, let alone relevent facts.

Neil often has a point of view that I disagree with, as I am VERY conservative, and at least from my perspective many of his ideas seem quite liberal. (And I do not use the words liberal or conservative as bad words at all as the press seems to do at times.)

As I pointed, I don't agree with Neil all the time as well. Did I attack him? Again, what other(s) do I bother with?

These things can be discussed in an environment of respect for each other's views (and really, that is the only way you will change minds). We are both entitled to our own ideas, and many of us can discus them in a civilized manner, not fling mud at the other person, admit when we make an argument that had logic errors, and even sometimes change our minds in light of new information presented by others.

Man, why can't I just ignore the trolls?

When you're asking me that question you're asking the symptom. You need to address the cause, it would be far more useful.

[JoeWPgh]

Aristide,

It is your lack of respect for others on here that I am reacting to. Your certainly do not have to agree with myself or Bluefront, but calling people names like you called him supremacist is uncalled for.

I have re-read this entire thread. In many places, I see Neil and Bluefront among others exchanging information regarding their points of view, but sticking to examples and trying to make logical arguments.

I am not singling out your arguments unfairly. You are the only one that I see that starts attacking the other people if you do not agree, and if you do lose a point justify it by saying oh well, you are just as bad as me, or no rule does not have exceptions, or don't pick on me, pick on everyone else, so you lose a logical argument, and still think that you won. (I guess this really justifies Bluefront's don't feed the trolls suggestion. Sorry, I will try that after this post.)

Neil often has a point of view that I disagree with, as I am VERY conservative, and at least from my perspective many of his ideas seem quite liberal. (And I do not use the words liberal or conservative as bad words at all as the press seems to do at times.) These things can be discussed in an environment of respect for each other's views (and really, that is the only way you will change minds). We are both entitled to our own ideas, and many of us can discus them in a civilized manner, not fling mud at the other person, admit when we make an argument that had logic errors, and even sometimes change our minds in light of new information presented by others.

Man, why can't I just ignore the trolls?

I'm all for respectful disagreement, but perhaps because of your conservative slant, you only see the insults from one side. Start with BF's sig, and we are already out of the bounds of respect and common decency. Then go to his argument, which is transparently silly in it's attempt to incite.

The shorter Bluefront: Because war is sometimes unavoidable, those who believe we should try to avoid war are wrong, always. Nevermind that most wars are avoidable and do little to alter the arc of history, other than to kill a bunch of people and blow up a lot of stuff. Then again, there are some from the right who only seem to voice their 'patriotism' when we are blowing stuff up. Go figure.
To return to the original answer without a question, a more accurate 'answer' would be "War is very, very, very rarely the answer."
But that won't fit on a bumper sticker as neatly.

[NeilBlanchard]

We, the USA supported Saddam Hussein -- we supported him by selling him arms (including chemical & biological), and we gave him intelligence. We supported a lot of "evil dictators" -- as long as they were on our side in the Cold War.

We supported the Shah of Iran, who was definitely an "evil dictator".

Here's Donald Rumsfeld (of all people) shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983:


I came across this one, and I agree with it:

[VanWaGuy]

Hi JoeWPgh,

Thanks for the civil reply. I agree 100% with your first point, and that is why to be fair, I identify myself as conservative. I try to avoid any such bias, but as a human, I know that is bound to happen.

I also agree regarding Bluefront's signature, and I have said that before. What made the current one disappointing for me is that I thought his previous one was one of the best I have seen. Also, not at all to say that your opinion is invalid, but to explain mine, since he entered that signature months ago, I do not count every instance of it as a fresh statement in the current topic, and for that matter, for several of the regulars in this thread, I stopped reading before I got to the signature as I have seen them before and did not think that they were specific to this thread.

Also, although I know that you disagree with him, I believe that you are mis-representing Bluefront's position. He himself early in the thread said that the statement is not true universally, and then offered up the alternative of saying war is not the answer in Iraq. (That from memory, not an exact quote.)

[croddie]

Look this thread has got really confused.
The OP said "war is not the answer" should be specified properly.
NeilBlanchard said it's a general statement by the pacifist Quakers: i.e. "was is never the solution to any problem".
Then people started talking about iraq which is irrelevant to the question of pacifism, especially as it was not used by anyone as an example of a just war.
And then when to support dictators which is irrelevant to the question of pacifism and war in iraq, and the us constitution, the geneva convention, and habeas corpus, which are not very related to the question whether to wage war in iraq, which itself is unrelated to the question of pacifism.

[AiDnDtel]

War is hell, but sometimes it has to be done.
Here is an interesting article on war.
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,166386,00.html
I believe that WW ll can be considered the last honorable war.
There is no war since which I personally would of got involved in.

[Bluefront]

As with all these sorts of threads, there are relevant issues not directly concerning the OP......but closely related. So I guess you need to follow along closely if you're interested.

Dictatorship is a fairly wide-spread form of government. It's when a dictator starts showing evidence he is a serious threat to everyone around him, that he deserves real attention. A dictator in some small "banana" republic may be a bad guy to his own people......but hardly capable of starting WWIII. Determining just when there is a real threat is not easy....

The USA has had a communist dictatorship 90 miles off-shore for a long time. The only time it mattered much was when that country started importing missiles. Since then we have mostly ignored the place.

On a side note....The little quote I'm using as a signature, pretty well covers my attitude toward a philosophy. There's nothing political about it. Both candidates running for president this year are Liberals, from different political parties. Now if you cannot handle someone's opinions about philosophy, you really need help..... But I will admit to using the word "Liberal" as a dirty word.

Back to the OP.... You'd need a big bumper sticker to be really truthful. Neil's sticker might read "Except for WWII, war is not the answer". A Quaker might rightfully have that "war is not the answer" sticker on his wagon. My own sticker might read "war is the answer under certain circumstances".

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

Nobody has taken on this fact:

We, the USA supported Saddam Hussein -- we supported him by selling him arms (including chemical & biological), and we gave him intelligence. We supported a lot of "evil dictators" -- as long as they were on our side in the Cold War.

We supported the Shah of Iran, who was definitely an "evil dictator".

Here's Donald Rumsfeld (of all people) shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983:

[Bluefront]

Neil.....we all make mistakes. At the time, Iran was perceived as the greater threat. It wasn't so long after that, that Iraq gained that position. If my memory is correct, we were using the Iraq/Iran war as a sort-of pay-back for the earlier Iran hostage fiasco......by supporting Iraq.

Which of the two countries was/is worse as far as the USA is concerned.....debatable.

[blackworx]

Neil,

As I'm sure you're aware, the US supply of money, weapons, technology, strategy advice and intelligence to Saddam Hussein's regime is just one example of over a hundred years of Western meddling in middle eastern affairs. Prior to the US it was European countries (principally Britain and France, but also Italy and others) fighting proxy wars, bribing for allegiance and redrawing national borders. That said, the stakes were never higher than at the time of your photo, the height of the cold war, nor had the middle east ever before experienced interference from all sides on such a spectacular scale.

Seems to me the current situation is one of "as ye sow, so shall ye reap".

As a sidenote: there's something about Rumsfeld that just gives me the creeps. I'm not sure, but I think it might be because he's an unreconstructed, bona fide, twenty four karat, straight up warmonger. Apologies if that offends anyone* - it's just my opinion.

* Except possibly Donald himself, although I doubt he's reading

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi Carl,

Neil.....we all make mistakes. At the time, Iran was perceived as the greater threat. It wasn't so long after that, that Iraq gained that position. If my memory is correct, we were using the Iraq/Iran war as a sort-of pay-back for the earlier Iran hostage fiasco......by supporting Iraq.

Ah but we also armed Iran.

We're just fickle and two-faced -- and we'll support anyone if we think it'll help us. So much for being a principled democracy.

Our war on Iraq was ill conceived, trumped up by liars, planned by know-nothings, and anybody who spoke what they believed to be the truth (like General Shinseke) were run out of town, and if you criticised their "evidence", they outed your wife in the CIA, then they handed out no-bid contracts -- and went to war. Then we get this:



This pinhead of a president thought it was all done on May 1st, 2003...