Was the Iraq War justified?

[mafwons]

Right! The guards at Auschwitz deserve our respect because they were serving their country. The soldiers who marched into Poland deserve our respect because they were obeying the country's leader. The soldiers who invaded Iraq deserve our respect because they were protecting the profits of the oil cartel.

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." -- Matthew 6:24

The stench of hypocrisy around religious and patriotic persons can be nauseating

I think you have made a point here, but disrespecting soldiers cannot really solve anything and most soldiers believe in whay they are doing. The guards at Auschwitz were probably respected by the Germans at the time. We cannot show love through hate. However I do believe that belief in Jesus and his teachings and national patriotism are mutually exclusive, instead of synonymous as most people of a religious bent in amerika seem to think.

 

[Gracchus]

I think you have made a point here, but disrespecting soldiers cannot really solve anything and most soldiers believe in whay they are doing. The guards at Auschwitz were probably respected by the Germans at the time. We cannot show love through hate. However I do believe that belief in Jesus and his teachings and national patriotism are mutually exclusive, instead of synonymous as most people of a religious bent in amerika seem to think.

I was a soldier for six years, until I realized that the Viet Nam War was racist and colonialist. So I told them I was not going to obey orders anymore, took my General Discharge, and left.
I have more respect for the resisters who went to Canada or to jail than for the fools who marched off to kill and die because it was expected of them. They may have signed up because they believed that they were serving their country, but being stupid, being deceived, being gullible, does not deserve respect.

 

[mafwons]

I was a soldier for six years, until I realized that the Viet Nam War was racist and colonialist. So I told them I was not going to obey orders anymore, took my General Discharge, and left.
I have more respect for the resisters who went to Canada or to jail than for the fools who marched off to kill and die because it was expected of them. They may have signed up because they believed that they were serving their country, but being stupid, being deceived, being gullible, does not deserve respect.

Thanks for your service. Obviously you were young, gullible and stupid as was I. Different war same nonesense. But I thing taking a perverbial dump on young soldiers like the hippies were doing in your generation does little to foster goodwill wjich is needed to explain to young soldiers the problems with the curruption they are supporting. I hate this national patriotism thing we got going here.

A lot of soldiers (marines, sailors, and airmen included) are not bright enough to see whats going on but war seems to have a way of changing attitudes. A lot of the guys I served in iraq with have come to understand what the situation is so to speak. These are guys who never would have (myself included) woken up to the facts. So maybe our service to our country is learning the nasty games its up to and speaking out about it. I always like to get opportunities to get to bend peoples ears about the nonsense our counyry is up to. I was at an event where they were recognizing vetrans a while back, and later my sister in law asked me why I didn't stand up, and it gave me a great chanve to explain to her just why I didn't stand up.

 

[High Fidelity]

I say yes, I just think it was incredibly poorly executed.

Hindsight is 20/20, so we can't really pick fault with intelligence when for all intents and purposes it was seemingly as credible as they could have hoped for.

 

[psalms 91]

I was a soldier for six years, until I realized that the Viet Nam War was racist and colonialist. So I told them I was not going to obey orders anymore, took my General Discharge, and left.
I have more respect for the resisters who went to Canada or to jail than for the fools who marched off to kill and die because it was expected of them. They may have signed up because they believed that they were serving their country, but being stupid, being deceived, being gullible, does not deserve respect.

And neother do any who left this country or did what you did. I served during Vietnam and while I didnt agree I most certanly doid not agree with turning my back on my country. I saw the people that hated the soldiers and they are still in my mind as ungratful, unpatriotic, and lucky that they live in a country that would tolorate this. I think everyone that left or refused should have been jailed

 

[Gracchus]

And neother do any who left this country or did what you did. I served during Vietnam and while I didnt agree I most certanly doid not agree with turning my back on my country. I saw the people that hated the soldiers and they are still in my mind as ungratful, unpatriotic, and lucky that they live in a country that would tolorate this. I think everyone that left or refused should have been jailed

I didn't turn my back on my country, but I did help my country turn its back on the war. You went and obeyed, and the murdering racist fools who gave you your orders, who engineered the Gulf of Tonkin, were properly grateful. They even put up a wall with a lot of names on it. And from start to finish, lots of money was made. War is 'good business", or as Smedley Butler more bluntly put it, "War Is a Racket". As it turns out, I didn't have to go to war to figure out that "war crime" is a redundancy. I owe not one iota of obedience or loyalty to a murderous business cartel.

The US blocked the election that would have re-unified the Viet Nam after the French left, and started a war that killed an estimated two million Vietnamese.

There are, as far as I'm concerned, moral imperatives more important than country or even family, or even, as a notable Jewish rabbi pointed out, than one's own life.

Of course a Roman who claimed to be his follower, said, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."--- Ephesians 6:5

So if you're a slave you had no choice. I was not a slave.

Of course I'm not a Christian, but perhaps you are, and thus have a much more accurate view of how to serve your master. I have found that religious people always know what God wants. It's almost as if the religious person builds his god in hin own mind, which is why he always knows what "God" wants.

I just think it's strange.

If there is a "Judgment Day" we can, perhaps, get a ruling on whether it is better to obey an evil order, or follow you conscience and defy even the state.

Of course we're a little off topic here, but if you've understood one war the rest are pretty easy to follow. All that changes is technology and geography. The bleeding and screaming and men soiling themselves are pretty consistent.

 

[Nickybobby]

And neother do any who left this country or did what you did. I served during Vietnam and while I didnt agree I most certanly doid not agree with turning my back on my country. I saw the people that hated the soldiers and they are still in my mind as ungratful, unpatriotic, and lucky that they live in a country that would tolorate this. I think everyone that left or refused should have been jailed

Regardless of what others here think, I thank you for your service and welcome you back home.

 

[Gracchus]

And neother do any who left this country or did what you did. I served during Vietnam and while I didnt agree I most certanly doid not agree with turning my back on my country. I saw the people that hated the soldiers and they are still in my mind as ungratful, unpatriotic, and lucky that they live in a country that would tolorate this. I think everyone that left or refused should have been jailed

So, which master were you serving that you are so proud? We read in the Bible that the early Christians were pacifists and held all their goods in common. One of the reasons, perhaps the main one, that the that the Romans persecuted Christians, was that Christians refused military service. In fact, soldiers couldn't even be Christians. The Christians wouldn't let them! Of course that changed when Constantine made Christianity the official state religion.
After that, Christians were happy to march off to kill on command. The German soldiers of both World Wars marched off to invade other countries wearing belt buckles that said, "Gott mit uns". (God is with us.) What god were they serving, I wonder? Don't answer this here, but ask yourself: "What god was I serving?"

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." -- Matthew 7:21

Of course I'm not a Christian. I realize you think that makes me morally inferior, but I would be ashamed to call myself one. Still, we both made hard moral decisions. I chose to follow my conscience. And so, I imagine, did you.

 

[Optimus Fortis]

How is the Christian community in Iraq doing these days?

 

[psalms 91]

So, which master were you serving that you are so proud? We read in the Bible that the early Christians were pacifists and held all their goods in common. One of the reasons, perhaps the main one, that the that the Romans persecuted Christians, was that Christians refused military service. In fact, soldiers couldn't even be Christians. The Christians wouldn't let them! Of course that changed when Constantine made Christianity the official state religion.
After that, Christians were happy to march off to kill on command. The German soldiers of both World Wars marched off to invade other countries wearing belt buckles that said, "Gott mit uns". (God is with us.) What god were they serving, I wonder? Don't answer this here, but ask yourself: "What god was I serving?"

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." -- Matthew 7:21

Of course I'm not a Christian. I realize you think that makes me morally inferior, but I would be ashamed to call myself one. Still, we both made hard moral decisions. I chose to follow my conscience. And so, I imagine, did you.

Funny, I thought Jesus helped the centurion or am I wrong

 

[mafwons]

Funny, I thought Jesus helped the centurion or am I wrong

I fail to see how that pertains to this conversation. Did Jesus help him because he was a Centurian, to thank him for his service to the empire?

 

[Mediate]

I can understand why a soldier, patriotic to his country, devotes what may be his own life to defending that country. I get that.

However, I have a strong sense that the soldiers, patriotically inspired by the brave men of WWII and such, have been deceived into fighting for a cause that was never a moral cause, but rather the grinding of gears by a dis-compassionate capitalist government.

The United Nations council, the same institution who instated the Geneva Convention after WWII, for the purposes of avoiding and deterring any further war of such catastrophic magnitude, have signed, sealed and convicted America of committing the most heinous international crime under the statutes of that Convention - an unprovoked war. In effect, Bush stands convicted of the same crime as Adolf Hitler.

The result is that there rages a conflict in countries most densely populated by farmers and villagers. The ratio of civilian deaths to insurgent or military deaths is a mind boggling 7:1 and the most afflicted are those who seek nothing more than to feed their families.

Conservative estimates of the fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan exceed 1 million, with the majority being civilians.

I don't deny that a soldier does what he is told, and if he's deceived, he is deceived. But to say that a soldier deserves gratitude for participating in an unjust war is to forget that these people sign up with the knowledge that they are under the complete and total command of the government of their country. Who can both serve God unwavering and serve their government unwavering, particularly when the two demand very different things?

I don't have any gratitude for those willingly killing Iraqi and Afghan civilians under orders from on high. I have gratitude for those who refuse to do so.

 

[Nickybobby]

I can understand why a soldier, patriotic to his country, devotes what may be his own life to defending that country. I get that.

However, I have a strong sense that the soldiers, patriotically inspired by the brave men of WWII and such, have been deceived into fighting for a cause that was never a moral cause, but rather the grinding of gears by a dis-compassionate capitalist government.

It seems that many people who share views similar to yours seem to believe they have moral and intellectual superiority over those soldiers. Don't confuse yourself, very few are deceived. They know what they're doing and believe in it. Your opinion is different? Oh well.

The United Nations council, the same institution who instated the Geneva Convention after WWII, for the purposes of avoiding and deterring any further war of such catastrophic magnitude, have signed, sealed and convicted America of committing the most heinous international crime under the statutes of that Convention - an unprovoked war. In effect, Bush stands convicted of the same crime as Adolf Hitler.

It may be the same institution in name, but the folks on it are not the same. However, as far as I can tell, Bush was convicted by a tribunal in Malaysia...not quite the same thing but nice attempt to besmirch him.

I don't have any gratitude for those willingly killing Iraqi and Afghan civilians under orders from on high. I have gratitude for those who refuse to do so.

Don't inflate your own worth, they don't need your gratitude, pity or attention. They will still be ready to protect your right to call them murderers, even though you'll never understand that or appreciate it.

 

[Mediate]

It seems that many people who share views similar to yours seem to believe they have moral and intellectual superiority over those soldiers. Don't confuse yourself, very few are deceived. They know what they're doing and believe in it. Your opinion is different? Oh well.



It may be the same institution in name, but the folks on it are not the same. However, as far as I can tell, Bush was convicted by a tribunal in Malaysia...not quite the same thing but nice attempt to besmirch him.



Don't inflate your own worth, they don't need your gratitude, pity or attention. They will still be ready to protect your right to call them murderers, even though you'll never understand that or appreciate it.

A murderer is a murderer mate, and a gun is just a more lethal version of a sword, something Jesus told his best buddies to put away. One of my closest friends is in the British Army and he hates what's come out about the war. He's been shot twice and has seven years left on a contract, fighting a war he doesn't give a damn about.

This is a guy who kicks a football around with Afghans whose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, daughters and sons have been blown to smitherines, shot, maimed, or whatever else, by predominantly American (and predominantly indiscriminate) bombings. He's lost one of his own close pals to Afghan gunfire.

You confuse fighting for rights with fighting for oil, because you're blinded by Uncle Sam and Buddy Jesus - and it's pathetic.

Don't attack me because I don't give your government the respect you so obviously think that it deserves.

The UN Charter dictates the terms for what's classed a war of aggression. Read it. The Iraq war is a war of aggression. Not least because the US invaded a whole country to fight terrorists that represent no governments.

 

[RDKirk]

I say yes, I just think it was incredibly poorly executed.

Hindsight is 20/20, so we can't really pick fault with intelligence when for all intents and purposes it was seemingly as credible as they could have hoped for.

Actually, no. We who were in the intelligence business at the time knew the administration claims of stockpiles of WMD were false.

I had worked Iraq intelligence from the late 80s (I was one of the people in the Pentagon who helped create intelligence packages for Iraq in their war against Iran) through 2000. I was heavily involved during the first war. There is still an item of my own personal discovery and involvement that on the White House website. I was the guy who first saw those fighter planes dispersed to the temple at Ur (because I was always interested in old biblical sites, so I always took a look at them).

As I watched Colin Powell's speech to the UN, I was standing up shouting at the television in exasperation. The intelligence had been totally cooked.

That's why immediately afterward, a group of CIA intelligence analysts actually resigned so that they could protest how the intelligence was being twisted. The colleagues I phoned told me, "That's not what we've briefed."

Most people do not remember earlier on when it was leaked that the Intelligence Community did not have evidence to back up what Rumsfeld and other civilian leaders were saying about "stockpiles of WMD." When that came out in public, Rumsfeld stated his intention to create a special unit in the Pentagon "to find what the other agencies have missed."

What? Think about that for a moment.

Eventually, the then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Admiral Lowell Jacoby (who had been my own boss from 92-96) admitted to Congress: "Senator, we had no reliable evidence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

This was after his own boss had stated, "We have reports! We know where they are!"

But the key to the deception is in the wording.

Admiral Jacoby: "We had no reliable evidence."

Rumsfeld: "We have reports!"

Yes, we have reports. We have reports of anything you want to hear. We have reports of space alien abductions in Kansas. But as Admiral Jacoby said, we had no reliable evidence.

At one point, Rumsfeld said in a press conference: "I have one report of unknown reliability..." when speaking of Iraqi involvement in 9/11. As a former intelligence analyst, my response was, "What is the SecDef doing with 'one report of unknown reliability?'"

If all an analyst had was "one report of unknown reliability," it should have stayed on his own desk until he had a lot more to go on. "One report of unknown reliability" should never have gotten all the way up to the Secretary of Defense...unless the SecDef had demanded that every report no matter how scurrilous go straight to him.

In that case, he would have been influenced by a lot of garbage that otherwise would have been weeded out by the analytical system. This is a little-known fact: The US government pays defectors for information, and the juicier it sounds, the more the US pays. Defectors know this, so they will say whatever they think the US wants to hear.

Intelligence analysts know this as well, so all human intelligence is repeatedly evaluated against information gathered by other less self-interested means. But if the SecDef has demanded to see even "one report of unknown reliability," he doesn't get the benefit of that evaluation process. If that report had been evaluated by even the first analyst, it would have been given at least a preliminary reliability index--the reliability would not be "unknown."

I don't know how much President Bush knew about all this. I suspect Bush knew nothing more than Rumsfeld and Cheney allowed him to know. But I know Rumsfeld knew the truth because Admiral Jacoby would have been the one who briefed him, and Admiral Jacoby testified, "We had no reliable evidence...."

 

[RDKirk]

I have researched about this topic (ie, the Christian perspective of the Iraq War), and I have found articles which say that the Iraq War was a just war, but I have also found other articles written by Christians who believe that the Iraq War was wrong.

What's your perspective on this issue?

Inasmuch as the specific justification given for the war was a lie, and was always known by the Secretary of Defense that it was a lie, then the war was certainly not justified.

 

[Nickybobby]

A murderer is a murderer mate, and a gun is just a more lethal version of a sword, something Jesus told his best buddies to put away. One of my closest friends is in the British Army and he hates what's come out about the war. He's been shot twice and has seven years left on a contract, fighting a war he doesn't give a damn about.

This is a guy who kicks a football around with Afghans whose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, daughters and sons have been blown to smitherines, shot, maimed, or whatever else, by predominantly American (and predominantly indiscriminate) bombings. He's lost one of his own close pals to Afghan gunfire.

You confuse fighting for rights with fighting for oil, because you're blinded by Uncle Sam and Buddy Jesus - and it's pathetic.

Don't attack me because I don't give your government the respect you so obviously think that it deserves.

The UN Charter dictates the terms for what's classed a war of aggression. Read it. The Iraq war is a war of aggression. Not least because the US invaded a whole country to fight terrorists that represent no governments.

Of course...you know a guy who had a friend who was related to someone who did something once so you now have expertise. I see.

Murder and killing are not the same, mate.

The UN is a joke.

 

[Gracchus]

Of course...you know a guy who had a friend who was related to someone who did something once so you now have expertise. I see.

Reports in the media are verified by people on the ground. But that doesn't fit with you pre-conceived notions, so you will dismiss that evidence.

Murder and killing are not the same, mate.

I hate to break it to you, but sometimes they are. Soldiers are paid professional killers. The only possible excuse for a soldier is the justice of the cause for which he kills. The Nuremburg defense is not acceptable.

The UN is a joke.

It is ineffectual, largely because of the veto power of the Security Council. No one can be allowed to interfere with the financial interests of the multi-national cartels.

 

[Mediate]

Of course...you know a guy who had a friend who was related to someone who did something once so you now have expertise. I see.

Murder and killing are not the same, mate.

The UN is a joke.

From a conversation tonight with my friend who was related to my aunt's dog's brother. No not really. He's in the army.

Q ''As for the war itself, particularly Iraq, almost every British soldier I ever met disagreed with the reasons for the war. We were shown war-crime videos and images of nuclear weapons and their effects to the tune of heavy metal, in order to psyche us up for the invasion and show us what we were dealing with, but we all knew it was nothing more than propaganda. The accusations and evidence supporting the invasion of Iraq were entirely unfounded, though we swore ourselves to Her Majesty and as any British soldier will tell you, we'd have followed her to the ends of the Earth regardless.

The war was an invasion to control oil, to further the capitalist economic interests of the US and UK under the guise of some moral consideration for the Iraqi people. Now, it may well be that the Iraqis were being oppressed, but that just makes a nice media story. The US and UK governments don't care about that. *laughs* There's always an ulterior motive'' UQ

The UN may be a joke, mate, but it remains that the Rules of Engagement and the Geneva Convention seem to be two things American Military personnel are ill-equipped to follow:

Q ''The Americans .. *laughs* we looked down on them. They're trigger happy buffoons, unreliable and ill-skilled. I never encountered them training with live rounds, as we did, and they killed blue on blue on far too many occasions during my service. As for civvies, they don't care. Civvies meant nothing to them''. UQ


I have no end of respect for soldiers like those who fought the world wars. What I don't have respect for are those who go into Iraq with the 'kill-the-jihabs' attitude. At least the people I'm speaking to have some sense of moral character, even if they aren't religious and have pledged their allegiance to HM. They go to Iraq and they limit casualties, they are careful and considerate as much as the situation allows them. They aren't abusive nor mean or nasty in their methods. They do what needs to be done, but they don't like having to do it and nor to they take it to extremes. They also understand that the war was unjust and they don't believe in it.

As for someone like the other kind of soldier protecting my rights. I don't need anyone to do that. Don't inflate your own worth. I'd be happy to not be a citizen of a country that goes to war unjustly, nor for some smarmy war-loving soldier to think I want, value or need his protection.

I'd rather not have a morally vacant militant who thinks he's protecting me, yet really killing for gasoline.

At least after WWII people in the UK could walk around with some sense of pride in the people who defended Europe, but for the most part, I think the members of the public with any sense of reason are ashamed of Iraq.

I tell my friends; 'if you wan't me to talk impartially, if you have an issue, if you want me to listen, I'll do that. I'll be your friend. If you need money, and I have it, it's yours. If you want to go out, then we'll go. If you need a place to crash, I have one and you're welcome. If you want to vent, I'll be able to see your side, even if i don't agree with it. But never ask me to support the cause you fight for, because I never will'.

 

[Soothfish]

What do you mean by justified? Morally? Strategic? Those are very different things