Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

The US war in Iraq

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

Absolutely not. I'm quite an optimist myself and proceed that way in my life. I was merely pointing out your use of the word "inevitable".

Ah...wishful thinking, an obvious, explicitly inherent term of positive enforcement/outcome is, unfortunately, often referenced in derogatory connotation by the anarchist/pessimist/saboteur.

Optimism is the path to innovation and evolution, ergo, a very worthwhile virtue to indulge.

We are in agreement.

Edited by -archimedes-
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 162
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

You people need to learn to think beyond yourselves, overcome your self-imposed myopia and gain an overall world perspective, in order to actually obtain a true perspective with which to formulate a method of ideological application...go out (beyond yourselves), turn around, and look back in instead of sitting there on the inside of your little worlds looking out.

Simply put, you help yourself, the individual, by helping the people/many.

Simply put, no one has "attacked" you, but in the statement above followed by this one;

I, again, encourage you to resist the primordial (or what have you) urge to attack me/my rationale/reasoning personally and, instead, "focus" on the subject matter at hand and on it alone.

you are the one who has become insulting. If you think the facts are on your side (which I've shown elsewhere by using your own sources that that is questionable) then you stick to those facts instead of accusing people of having "myopic" view of the world and suggesting that it is in their best interest to be altruistic.

I have no doubt that you think your perspective is the "true" perspective of the world, just like most (if not all) other people on this site think about their perspective. Thus, it does no good to assert that you have the "true" perspective and they do not.

So in short, you need to not tell everyone else what they need to do or think simply based on your "true" insulting perspective of their intellectual capacity or evaluations. I only say "you need" in the context of how it affects your continued participation on this forum and how much that is of value to you.

Also keep in mind that this is an Objectivist forum. Objectivism and it's application are what are discussed here. IF you think that the philosophy is flawed or you wish to discuss things in opposition to that philosophy, the rules dictate that you take that to the Debate sub-forum. IF you think your perspective on this issue is consistent with Objectivism and it's principles, you might be well served to demonstrate that rather than making a blanket statement such as to 'help yourself you need to help others'. Either way, stick to Objectivism and its principles and applications on this forum, take other issues to Debate or another forum. That is the focus here and wishing it otherwise or thinking it should be otherwise makes no difference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A series of large atmospheric explosions could significantly deplete the ozone layer.

Two things can be drawn from this statement;

1) "A series of large atmospheric explosions" does not equal "any" nuclear explosion despite a previous claim by archimedes.

2) "could" significantly depele the ozone layer does not equal will have global consequences, another claim by archimedes.

This statement;

The high yield tests in the fifties and sixties probably did cause significant depletion, but the ozone measurements made at the time were too limited to pick up the expected changes out of natural variations.

means it probably could have, but they don't know for sure.

As I also said elsewhere, depending on the threat faced, the possible threat to damaging the ozone may be preferable. As to whether or not everyone will be affected by one or more nuclear explosions, that's a matter of conjecture and subject largely to the scale of the nuclear attack.

Edited by RationalBiker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet still no posted credentials denoting your alleged proficiency of knowledge of "...all things nuclear...", whereas I've supplied links to credible sources on the subject matter at hand..., no offense, just lacking support for your, apparently baseless, contentions.

This is gibberish. I don't know what kind of credentials you have that you're so intent that everyone else has, other than having read your internet article - which I've also done.

Actually, the link read:

Yeah, I know. I said I read it. Minimal lasting effects.

Perhaps you've missed it, but we're talking about the use of nuclear weapons against, say, Iran. I.e. under 1 megaton, air-burst, and only one or two weapons used, with no retaliation from the enemy. If anyone actually reads your article, which is something you don't seem to do, then they'll see that this is not a big deal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
I think you have articulated your position better here. I am going to summarize my perception of your position. Please correct me if I am wrong. My intention here is not to be polemical but to be facilitating.

****************** Begin my summary of Andre's position *************************************************************

You are claiming that total war is necessary to combat an ideology but it is not sufficient to extinguish it. Instead, an occupation that involves both the threat of retaliatory force as well as a systematic deprogramming of the virulent ideology is a necessity. All of the examples from history that defeated a vicious ideology involved both a total war element and a significant occupation that involved deprogramming and some nation building.

Furthermore, if a nation will only engage the enemy militarily but not ideologically, then the malicious ideas themselves will not be eradicated, only many of the individuals who support them. Thus, if the ideas are not combatted as ideas, the only way to completely eliminate them is through complete destruction of the population, books and institutions that support the ideas.

******************** End my summary of Andre's position ************************************************************

If this is your position, then it sounds significantly more reasonable than what you initially appeared to be advocating. Of course, the position above is just descriptive and not normative.

While I agree that we certainly have no duty to rebuild the cities that were decimated through total war, it can often be advantageous to do so. When the cities are annhilated, the remaining population is left with nothing and is probably very susceptible to any seemingly promising ideas that will help them rebuild a nation. In many cases, it is arguably in our rational self-interest to ensure that they are rebuilt with the correct ideas; lest they again become enemies in the future.

As for your assertion that DavidOdden's principles amount to pure genocide, I strongly disagree. But I suggest that you take up this issue with him.

Yes, that is right. Think of America. Indians that did not assimilate, were wiped out, period, often carelessly. That is why America is as great as it is.

Look, when you have an enemy, your only choices are to kill him, or turn him into a friend. If you don't, he will forever be a threat to you, always looking for that opportunity to hit you in the back, to kick you when you are down. You can stop almost anyone by pointing a gun to their heads, but not forever. You cannot stop those who think they will be in paradise once you shoot them by pointing a gun to their head.

Islam is not simply "a system of faith", it is a system of faith only in the same way that nazism is a system of faith. It started as a political doctrine and all purely "spiritual" (so to speak) manifestations of Islam are -corruptions- of it, pure and simple, without backing in either scripture or history. A lot of muslims who try and not be political are either deceiving people (which is something they are told to do in Islam, in fact), or plain ignorant. It is a system centered on warfare and government, on law and war. Mohammad was a despot who waged war on his enemies, he enslaved the women he conquered into his harem, or the harem of his followers. Children were sold into slavery and whole villages wiped out on his command. His successors built a gigantic empire in less than a century after he died, practicing the same kinds of crimes.

:huh: I cannot believe, in this age of intellectual, scientific and common sense awareness, that anyone would advocate the use of nuclear armament, knowing that everyone, all around the world, would suffer the consequences, if but from the atomic fallout alone. :thumbsup:

I think neutron bombs are fallout-free. They were designed to stop a soviet advance, without destroying germany in the process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Some time back, Boortz was doing the usual pro-Iraq war rant and said in his usual snide way "You can't prove that the Weapons of Mass Destruction weren't trucked off to Syria" not a week later the final report comes out that these weapons never exixted.

Today, still defending the indefensible he said "You can't know what would have happened if Hussein had stayed in power" ans part of the justification for this mess.

Now, I always thought logic worked on what you know, not what you don't know, but that's just me.

Well I know five thingS

1. Al Qaeda in Iraq would have been confined to the northern no-fly zone controlled by the US, which is where the were limited to prior to the war; his on Fox News some week prior to the invasion.

2. there would be about 35,000 fewer US casualties, not to mention Iraq war vets and Reagan's Secretary of the Navy running as Democrats.

3. there would have been no Valerie Plame incident to demoralize the US intel community.

4. there's one egg Rush Limbaugh would not have on his face: "it will be a cakewalk" Some cake, some walk.

5. we would not have turned the Sunni Arabs against us by supporting the Shia who've been our enemies since '79

and it's a good bet that Iraq is on it's way to being another Islamic Republic, too, anschlossed with Iran, or broken into 3 pieces: More Global Balkanization like Kossovo.

Well, here's what we did know in late '02:

http://cockpit.spacepatrol.us/iraqnophobia.html

This is a whole business we'd be better off withut.

But then, how do you defend something that did not go through the normal Constitutional channels of a Declaration of War before removing a foreign government and instead was chivvied through the UN (which Boortz allegedly hates) and that used as a justification? Harry Browne, for whom I would have voted if he'd been in a viable political party, the only good Libertarian in 20 years called it "the biggiest adventure in big goverment; claiming the right to declare war on the whole world [bush having changed the standards of 'clear and present danger' to wage a peremptory rather than preemptive war]".

Bit tjem Bpprtz is a Libertarian who supports compulsory seat belt use and the huge cigareete tax increase.

Where's the front of the horse?

Edited by Space Patroller
Link to comment
Share on other sites

GRRR! I'm either due for a new keyboard or mine needs a good cleaning. I can see missing letters that I know I struck. Also, Where's the damn spell-check on this boad? Getting sick of editiong 3 times and still finding typo's towards the end of longer posts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GRRR! I'm either due for a new keyboard or mine needs a good cleaning. I can see missing letters that I know I struck. Also, Where's the damn spell-check on this boad? Getting sick of editiong 3 times and still finding typo's towards the end of longer posts.

Get Firefox. It has a built in spell check

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you are using Internet Explorer I highly recommend IESpell, which works in all windows environments.

As to the weapons of mass destruction and Bush's preemptive strike, it is certainly legitimate and moral for a free nation to take out dictatorships, and we don't need a weapons of mass destruction excuse. However, given the type of government that Bush et al enacted in Iraq, not it is not going to go well for us in the region once we pull out. So long as the Islamic Fundamentalists and Militant Islamics have a toe hold on a country, which they do thanks to Bush, then the will do everything in their power to take over. Just look at what is happening in Pakistan after Pakistan gave them the northern territory. It was major appeasement and the Islamics will not just stay put in their own fiefdom, but will try to overthrow all of western civilization with force and impose Islamic Law on everyone, using terrorism as a tactic to get what they want. They have a rabid ideology on their side, and the west has all but given up on reason and freedom -- so, it's not going to work out well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you are using Internet Explorer I highly recommend IESpell, which works in all windows environments.

As to the weapons of mass destruction and Bush's preemptive strike, it is certainly legitimate and moral for a free nation to take out dictatorships, and we don't need a weapons of mass destruction excuse. However, given the type of government that Bush et al enacted in Iraq, not it is not going to go well for us in the region once we pull out. So long as the Islamic Fundamentalists and Militant Islamics have a toe hold on a country, which they do thanks to Bush, then the will do everything in their power to take over. Just look at what is happening in Pakistan after Pakistan gave them the northern territory. It was major appeasement and the Islamics will not just stay put in their own fiefdom, but will try to overthrow all of western civilization with force and impose Islamic Law on everyone, using terrorism as a tactic to get what they want. They have a rabid ideology on their side, and the west has all but given up on reason and freedom -- so, it's not going to work out well.

I'm using FreFox 3.0.4.

This could end no other way. First; we are like Martians as far as they are concerned. Second; we don't have the power to do the job. Third a secular dictatorship that would be a wall against Iran is better than a Shia dictatorship.

I have misgivings about the "freer nation may attack a less free nation" doctrine. International Affairs are conducted under the rule that all nations are equal. Also there are no universally understood standards of "free" and "dictatorship" in which to frame that doctrine. By our standards the whole rest of the world is more or less of a dictatorship. For one thing there has been a long-standing tradition that dictatorship is a legitimate option to deal with national emergencies and that there were standards by which it was entered and exiited in an orderly way. There was talk in the Us durning the Great Depression of doing just that, but we did not have the entry and exit means codified, just as we have no laws regarding sedition yet we know that there is such a thing that ought be addressed. The net result is that practical application of that doctrine is a recipe for chaos and constant war. The Dictatorships would feel compelled to strike first. Controlling the use of war has been the driving force behind the formation of international bodies. Generally the Clauwitzian dictum of "War is an instrument of dipomacy" has been a linchpin of Realpolitik which has been the way of the world for over 100 years, and that, too has supposed to have been governed by law and in the US, the Constitution, which Bush sidestepped in a very unmaly way. The standard of judgement to which the US is a signatory is "clear and present danger" which seems to be the rational way to do it since that can be universally defined in military science, at least in the Western Wrold. Also there is the dictum that the more civilized can best lead by example. So that doctrine is not, and cannot be unconditional, and is framed by other principles.

Even if that doctrine were an absolute, "May" does not mean "ought" or "must". As I saic, by that doctrine we could attack 85% of the other nations, but must or ought we? We could have done a better job by liberating Cuba, which is much more of a dictatorship than Iraq, was of no use to us and has done us more damage or posed a greater threat. How about North Korea? Iran? Now thanks to this 6 year debacle, we're screwed, blued and tatooed. Our credibility is gone and our strenth is shot to hell, not to mention the economic debacle of "hyperinflation" that is about to fall on us.

Besides, this was not the doctrine that Bush used. The three major theses were that WMD posed a significan threat to us which was about 80% of the argument, the Iraqis would welcom us. which was false, only those who had a use for us, which was about 11% and "regime change" which was a floating abstraction attached to nothing in Reality about 5% and the rest was assorted crapola. So we must judge the action on the terms of the actor since it was he, not us, who did the acting.

There is also the question of WMD. The M-16 is a weapn of mass destruction compared to the flintlock which is a weapon of mass destruction compared to the gladius which is a weapon of mass destruction compared to the hand etc... Can one nation or group of nations tell any nation what it may posess without destroying the doctrine of international equality thus plunging the globe into warefare? Besides the whole idea sounds leftist to me (I first came across it on Star Trek The Next Generation in c1993 and I know that has about a 45 degree tilt to port and can prove it) and since when have we been an advocate of arms control? Does SALT I and SALT II ring a bell? We fought those on the principle that arms control itself was a bad idea. Besides was Hussein, a secularist, about to take a run at us who he knew could beat him if we set our minds to it and wouldn't we welcome the use of WMD, had he had them, against Iran? We'd be crazy not to. So, in fact, it was in our interest for him to have them. Now if Israel wnated to take him out. well they had "business" with him and that would be their business. Beyond that when Israel correctly bombed Osirak in '81, they got the diplomatic back of the hand from everyone; including the US.

Get Firefox. It has a built in spell check

I've got FirreFox 3.0.4. Tell me more and how to use it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no doubt that our foreign policy is terrible to evil; we often do not do things in the best interested of the United States. Regarding the Islamic Terrorism War, which it should have been called, I do believe that Bush went after two fairly easy targets -- targets that were not the central axis of that evil. He should have gone after Iran and Syria, and maybe Saudi Arabia, but he didn't because he didn't want to take on Militant Islam as an ideology to be defeated. So, yes, it was totally screwed up, and given the pragmatism and the political correctness of administrations since at least Vietnam, I don't think it could have been otherwise without better leaders in the Presidency and its administration.

The doctrine that a free nation has the moral right to take down a dictatorship does not place any obligation on the free nation to do so, unless their country is in the cross-hairs of the dictatorship. I'll go further and say that we should have taken out the Soviet Union before they became a powerhouse on the international scene. But one thing Objectivists are fighting that no one else is fighting is irrational philosophy, and how those philosophies led to those dictatorships in the first place. However, until the United States once again accepts reason and individual rights as an absolute on principle, then I think we will only see more pragmatism and international disasters.

**By the way, is it possible for a moderator to change the misspelling in the topic head? :)

Edited by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually this whole thing started because I was teeing off on Neil Boortz' lack of logic

There is no doubt that our foreign policy is terrible to evil; we often do not do things in the best interested of the United States. Regarding the Islamic Terrorism War, which it should have been called, I do believe that Bush went after two fairly easy targets -- targets that were not the central axis of that evil. He should have gone after Iran and Syria, and maybe Saudi Arabia, but he didn't because he didn't want to take on Militant Islam as an ideology to be defeated. So, yes, it was totally screwed up, and given the pragmatism and the political correctness of administrations since at least Vietnam, I don't think it could have been otherwise without better leaders in the Presidency and its administration.

The doctrine that a free nation has the moral right to take down a dictatorship does not place any obligation on the free nation to do so, unless their country is in the cross-hairs of the dictatorship. I'll go further and say that we should have taken out the Soviet Union before they became a powerhouse on the international scene. But one thing Objectivists are fighting that no one else is fighting is irrational philosophy, and how those philosophies led to those dictatorships in the first place. However, until the United States once again accepts reason and individual rights as an absolute on principle, then I think we will only see more pragmatism and international disasters.

**By the way, is it possible for a moderator to change the misspelling in the topic head? :)

I could see going after the Taliban. They were shielding Bin Laden.

I don't know about Syria, If they are a true Ba'ath state, then they are secular. However they do seem to be involved with Hamas and Hezb-Allah but that may be just for political convenience. I do know that Hussein and Al Qaeda hated each other and he regarded them as a threat to Iraq. I don't know if that's evil or just alien. As I said. we're Martians to them. Unlike us, they are millenia-old homogeneous cultures pretty much and separation of religion and state would be alien to them implying the sapration of the Good from the state. Even we subrogate politics to ethics by virtue of the fact that Politics is derived partly from Ethics by virtue of asking after "good government". but all secular states ought be used as a wedge against the Militant Islamists. However, there seems to be something in the Muslim mentality that the only way you can stop them from doing what they do is obliteration, or if not specifically Muslim then Near Eastern. But then, they have yet to have a Renaissance, let alone and Enlightenment. Secular states in that area may be the breeding ground for just such. Someone once said that we should obliterate Mecca to which I said. "They just might consider it the Will of God and we will have blown our wad. Maybe we should obliterate half of Mecca and ask if they would like us to finish the job but that could be mis-interpeted to. Maybe if we just took it over and made an impregnable forterss of it..." To me it just seems to be what you get when you mix integrity (loyalty to values) with mysticism of a strong type. This is what I think Christianity was like in the Middle Ages. Not evil, just wrong out of ignorance but powered by intense loyalty. In some ways these pople are admirable for their tenacity and strength of character; they live and die as they believe. It's a psychohistorical conundrum But then look at the Old Testament and see what the Israelites did and you can see what would scare the bejesus out of the Arabs. These people LIVE their religion just as we live Objectivism. It's just that we've had our Renaissance and our Enlightenment: For which the Muslims were resopsible. What it does show is what Rand pointed out as to how rare rational entities are in the world.

You are in good company with the idea that we ought have taken the Soviets out before they became a powerhouse. That idea was held by Von Nuyman (of the Von Nuyman machine). However, Rand seems to hold that if we had not propped them up they would have collapsed of their own weighlessness. Pat Buchannan has said that we ought to have let them fight it out with Germany on their own. There seems to be a logic to that. Left to their own devices, Germany and Russia would have fought to a draw that would have exhausted them both. We problably would have cleaned up the "winner" very easily. But that became a moot point on 7 Dec 1941.

What was really scummy to evil about Bush in this whole mess was a statement from Armatage at the State Department on the week of 2 Feb '03 that I heard with my own ears "I don't think we should include Iran in the Axis of Evi. They are really different..." Care to guess what that was to smooth the way for?

Thanx for the corrections.

Edited by Space Patroller
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now, I always thought logic worked on what you know, not what you don't know, but that's just me.

Well I know five thingS

1. Al Qaeda in Iraq would have been confined to the northern no-fly zone controlled by the US, which is where the were limited to prior to the war; this on Fox News some week prior to the invasion.

2. there would be about 35,000 fewer US casualties, not to mention Iraq war vets and Reagan's Secretary of the Navy running as Democrats.

3. there would have been no Valerie Plame incident to demoralize the US intel community.

4. there's one egg Rush Limbaugh would not have on his face: "it will be a cakewalk" Some cake, some walk.

5. we would not have turned the Sunni Arabs against us by supporting the Shia who've been our enemies since '79

and it's a good bet that Iraq is on it's way to being another Islamic Republic, too, anschlossed with Iran, or broken into 3 pieces: More Global Balkanization like Kossovo.

Well, here's what we did know in late '02:

http://cockpit.spacepatrol.us/iraqnophobia.html

This is a whole business we'd be better off withut.

But then, how do you defend something that did not go through the normal Constitutional channels of a Declaration of War before removing a foreign government and instead was chivvied through the UN (which Boortz allegedly hates) and that used as a justification? Harry Browne, for whom I would have voted if he'd been in a viable political party, the only good Libertarian in 20 years called it "the biggiest adventure in big goverment; claiming the right to declare war on the whole world [bush having changed the standards of 'clear and present danger' to wage a peremptory rather than preemptive war]".

I can easily agree with those five points. About the first point, that was used as a reason to go to Iraq, because a few 'Al-Qaeda' members were hiding, training, or in control of certain areas there--this was also released in the 9-11 Commission Report. Unfortunately, why this was a false reason, is because Saddam had no control over those areas after the Gulf War; the U.S. Air Force was constantly targeting and destroying anything that neared the zone, and destroyed Iraqi radar that was not in the zone if the station locked onto U.S. aircraft. Another thing about the first point is it's technically incorrect: AQI didn't exist prior to the war, it was Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish group--who later joined forces with Zarqawi--who operated in the area, protected from Saddam.

As far as Bush going through the normal constitutional channels, I doubt this would have changed anything. After all, congress did give Bush the blank check and Bush did what he wanted, which was popularly supported at the time. Even if the 'normal' congressional route was taken, the war would have still happened given the popular support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...