Quote:
Originally posted by Cowperson@Sep 7 2004, 08:51 PM
Will all due respect to the families, I'll ask a question of the panel:
"Is the 1000 number largely a politically symbolic one given 16,204 Americans were murdered within the borders of the USA in 2002, a single, average year for that country, more than 11,000 felled by gunfire or eleven times the number who died in Iraq? "
Is it fair to make that contrast? Is this a big deal or a symbolically big deal?
Secondly, what price does a nation of 300 million, which suffered 50,000 dead in Vietnam, pay as it pursues its geo-political goals which its duly elected government considers to be in the best interests of its citizenry?
Cowperson
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I think you hit the nail on the head with the last bit of your post. Is 1000 deaths too many to further the goals of a nation with a popualtion of 300 million, especially, was you point out, when over 16,000 are outright murdered at home? (A chilling stat, maybe they should do something about those eh? I'll never understand Americans...
)
I would have to say no. 1000 deaths is not too many to protect such a large countries interests and safety, and they should be thankful there are young people will to do that job for them.
However, this is assuming the goals of the conflict were met. And here's where the situation gets sticky.
We'll ignore the other ideas and theories of what the true reason for invading Iraq was and just go with the current administrtions boiler plate. To prevent attacks on the U.S. soil (or interests) that would have been encouraged or sponsored by the Iraqi governement through funding or the sale of WMD. To prevent further (assuming you believe they were in IRaq in the first place) terrorism from citizens or groups in Iraq.
It is of my opinion that they have not succeed in this yet. So would 1000 lives be too much to achieve those goals? No. But have the goals been achieved? I don't think so.
We all know that no WMD were found. Some people would have you believe that they were completely destroyed or moved, but given the scale of the program the U.S. insisted they had, that is hard to believe. It is also hard to believe that if U.S. intelligence was good enough to find so called WMD's through satelitte photos, spying and other intelligence, then they wouldn't know about where they were moved to or how they were destroyed. Until there is actual proof, you can write off the whole WMD thing.
The link between Al Qaeda and Saddam is also sketchy at best. And just because I know someone is going to bring it up, harboring one terrorist and giving $25,000 is hardly what I would call a link. $25,000? These operations cost millions and millions of dollars. What's $25,000 going to get you? If that is the best link the U.S. has, that is the reason few people outside the country believe them. Sorry, don't buy it.
But in the largest sense, the goal was to make things safer. So ask yourselves, has this been done? Again, the answer is no. Terrorists flooded into Iraq during the power vacuum. But the strongest case against the safety question is, will it prevent further terrorism?
The way I see it, is the invasion has given a whole new generation of Iraqi's and Middle Eastern muslims to be mad at that States, which in turn feeds the fire for future terrorists. I can't and won't say if they DESERVE to be mad, I'd be pretty thankful to get out of underneath Saddam's boot, but you can't tell me there hasn't been BIG problems caused by the invasion. Yes I know these things take time, governments aren't created over night and many people are trying to disrupt the cause but, holy smokes, it could have been handled better. The world knew that area was prime to fall apart without strong rule because of all the ethnic and spiritual factions living within it. Bush oversimplified the problem and handled it poorly.
The biggest argument against the idea that things are safer or will be safer in the long run are of course the photos taken from the Iraqi prisons. Anyone who thinks that those photos didn't just GUARANTEE 50+ years of new terrorist activity is just fooling themselves.
So would 1000 lives be too many to ensure the safety of a nation? No. Have they insured it though? No. And might they have even made is worse. We will see.