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Is Obama A War Criminal

Is Obama A War Criminal

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 7.9%
  • No

    Votes: 32 84.2%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 3 7.9%

  • Total voters
    38
Iraq is not our country. While countries may have helped us during our revolution, they did not come and free us from England. We made the choice to break free. Iraq did not pose any significant threat to us. Not to our security. Nor were we under any obligation to free them, or mold them, or bring more injury to them.



As for Iran, they were doing that before Iraq, and moving rather quickly to a more friendly government. Iran's less desirable elements need a reason to push the hardliners forward. That's just one of the reasons they helped us going in. We enabled the less dersireable elements an opening, not to mention making Iraq more friendly for them.

Iraq was always a bad idea. A reckless one. No rewriting of history or new rationale will change that. In fact, no outcome there will change that.

Stubborn to the end. There's no rewriting of history here. Just your quest to only heed the sophmoric interpretation of it. I made the argument and you simply shut down because you need your protest. You've placed too much emotional investment behind it to simply think it through now. Like it or not, Iraq was always about more than just Iraq. I keep stating this, but you keep pretending the argument is solely about Iraq as if it is an island without a region. Were it just about Iraq, then **** em. But the fact that we made them our problem for a decade under UN starvation embargo makes them our obligation. Instead of finishing our mission in 1991, we chose the destiny of these people and the region. The ironic thing is athtprotestors used "soveriegnty" as the excuse to turn our backs as if we hadn't already been executing missions in the north since '95, bombed them four seperate times, and dictating the national condition since '91. You are in denial and you have yet to make an argumnent about how Iraq wasn't apart of this 9/11 mission. Try as you may, even Mr. Bin Laden stated it was (protestors, leftists, and pundits tend to ignore this part of the letter while embracing with affection the rest).

But this is the new America. Americans want us to turn our backs on allies now. They want us to deny our obligations and turn backthe clock to isolationalism. They want us to some how pretend that someone else will stepin top protect sea lanes, trade routes, and keep regional stability. That some how we can preach about democracy and still maintain Cold War prescription and celebrate dictator thrones (secretly of course because no Internet exists). I just don't get it.

And by the way, our enemies in the region since the end of the Cold War has been Sunni Arabs.....not Shia Iranians. Bringing up Iran's path prior to 2003 does nothing to explain away the very wider region of religious zealousy and terrorist organizations that are bent on destroying their local governments and disrupting American mission abroad. However, even before 2003, the Iranian government was actively persuing nuclear ambitions. Thisprogram goes back to the Shah, then Khomeini, and so on. They merley placed a nationalistic mouth piece behind the microphone to protect their religious powers from the people. And I get all of this from book reading...not headline reading. Vali Nasr writes a great book on the Shia culture within the region (focused on Iran). People, removed from the study, will always assume that the simplest answer will suffice them to perfect wisdom. The invasion into Iraq is their simple Ahmedenijed answer.

And no, the cost of the mission was always going to be high. Bush the sr was correct when he said going in was easy, leaving would be hard.

Yes..it was going to be high. I stated nothing contrary. I did state, however, that it did not have to be so costly. Tapping into Bush Sr. tells me that you do indeed lean on TV and politicians for your wisdom into these matters. General Zinni writes a very good book about the lead up to Iraq and he expressly writes that the Rumsfeld coven called the living CENTCOM plan "old and stale." The truth was that it called for far more troops and money than the Rumsfeld coven felt would pass Senate approval. Therefore, they chose the "No Plan" and pretended that social order and democracy would magically erupt from the ground once Baghdad fell. Of course, stupid civilians in Washington fell for it and our military was forced to execute a plan we knew was garbage and the whole tally cost even more blood and money as the result. You witnessed the results on TV and I witnessed the results in Baghdad. I witnessed it again the next year during Fallujah I and II. Had the CENTCOM Plan been approved, the military would have executed properly and not been forced to ignore every rule of Occupation 101. Therefore, it would have been less costly in blood and treasure. This is what I was getting at. Stop seeking the quick "nu-uh." I'm trying to discuss this with you without getting frustrated. Nothing is more irritating than an untrained civilian that knows exactly what the military should do. You may as well be a Secretary of Defense for President Bush.....or a President Bush for that matter.
 
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Stubborn to the end. I made the argument and you simply shut down because you need your protest. You've placed too much emotional investment behind it to simply think it through now. Like it or not, Iraq was always about more than just Iraq. I keep stating this, but you keep pretending the argument is solely about Iraq as if it is an island without a region. Were it just about Iraq, then **** em. But the fact that we made them our problem for a decade under UN starvation embargo makes them our obligation. Instead of finishing our mission in 1991, we chose the destiny of these people and the region. The ironic thing is athtprotestors used "soveriegnty" as the excuse to turn our backs as if we hadn't already been executing missions in the north since '95 and dictating the national condition since '91. You are in denial and you have yet to make an argumnent about how Iraq wasn't apart of this 9/11 mission. Try as you may, even Mr. Bin Laden stated it was.

But this is the new America. Americans want us to turn our backs on allies now. They want us to deny our obligations and turn backthe clock to isolationalism. They want us to some how pretend that someone else will stepin top protect sea lanes, trade routes, and keep regional stability. That some how we can preach about democracy and still maintain Cold War prescription and celebrate dictator thrones (secretly of course because no Internet exists). I just don't get it.

I didn't shut down. I have limited time and often have to be quick. I read your argument and it did not convince. i tried in a short space to explain why. And no, I don't see Iraq as an Island by itself, but rebutt with we made the region less stable and benefitted Iran more. The idea that changing Iraq would change the region was always flawed. Still is. We can't effectively remake the world with force. Nor should we. This misguided belief has been held by many a conquer, and I would not want our country to be listed with any of those.
 
By "those who mattered" I meant those who expressly deal with foriegn affairs, cultural issues, and wider national threats.


Most of those people opposed going into Iraq. We have a lot written on this by those type of people.


Seeing the man in Iraq as compared to seeing the regional threat are two different things. Public reasoning needs little more than a sensational headline and some extremist chain e-mails. I don't place too much faith in a people who use these things to determine national policy. Besides, aren't they too busy flipping channels or deciding whether or not to fully respect homosexuals? Foriegn affairs are for other positioned people to figure out, because the average public reasoning is void of the facts, history, and the efforts continually going on.

Most of our national conflicts came from neither imminent threat nor attempts to stop genocide. Your way of life has been built by missions that have contained and/or stabilized regions and trade routes. Good men have died for over two hundred years fighting in "wars" that have had everything to do with making sure you have all the luxuries Disney Land has to offer. Of course, the Gulf War was the only war in history where we drew a line in the sand and threw ourselves a false victory parade only to go and set up the mechanisms that would lead to 9/11. And still people deny the obligation to finish this even for their own sake. One may wonder what mechanism would have been set in play had we simply reached the German border and merely "contained" the dictator.

I think I address this in my other respnse.
 
Most of those people opposed going into Iraq. We have a lot written on this by those type of people.

Those type of people have been largely silent after the media moved on. Noticed that? Most of them were as foolish as those who were trying to use WMD to legitmize the effort. Nothing beats a set of good books on culture, history, and regional awareness. Never trust a politician's wisdom about military affairs and never trust a think tank or intel statistic/analysis that errs on the side of caution. It's always safer to predict failure than success and this is what the American public has been blasted with since 2001. In the end, all of them are silent about Iraq. There was no grand Iraqi civil war. No refusla to vote. No failure. No apologies. These same fools have merely moved over to predict failure in Afghanistan and the samesheep are swallowing it up.

Predict Vermont in the Middle East and you will always be dissapointed.
 
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I didn't shut down. I have limited time and often have to be quick. I read your argument and it did not convince. i tried in a short space to explain why.

Alright, alright. Not trying to get frustratedhere. I just don't see how you can't see the commen sense in this.

And no, I don't see Iraq as an Island by itself, but rebutt with we made the region less stable and benefitted Iran more. The idea that changing Iraq would change the region was always flawed. Still is. We can't effectively remake the world with force. Nor should we. This misguided belief has been held by many a conquer, and I would not want our country to be listed with any of those.

This is a pointless argument because Iraq is not the world. Nor have we ever conquered anybody. We have never assimilated or colonized. We have never kept captured territory. Iraq is no different. However, remaking the world is exactly what we have been doing since World War II. Notice how we were the most powerful nation on earth after World War I and still insisted that Europeans form into the League of Nations? Notice how we were themost powerful nation in history after World War II and still insisted on the creation of the United Nations? In both events, we proved what a powerful nation should do, which is empower the weak and unite the globe. For the decades after World War II, "McWorld" infected every corner of the earth and people enthusiastically invited the American way of life into their borders and jumped on our path. Globalization is largely due to the American will to change the world.

But back to Iraq, we are hardly forcing the wotld to change by force. Considering that the entire Middle East has had a modernist streak about it since the beginning of European colonialism, we are hardly forcing Iraq ro change. We just removed the thorn that held the region in check. I dare you to apply some common sense here..... Do you honestly believe that Al-Queda bombs and insurgent savagry upon their own fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't had an impact on the regional Muslims as a whole? That modernist voices haven't been using this to further their social goals against their oppressive governments (governments that give their radical crowd no way other than violence to express themselves)? That somehow, A-Queda's complete inability to recruit throughout the Arab world is not somehow contributed to this social and political change inside Iraq and their willingness to murder in the name of religious perversion and oppression? These are the dramatic changes that have gone on. In the end, we may owe our long term security to all those Muslims that were forced to look in the mirror everytime another 10 or 20 died from another Muslims hands. Before the Internet and international television, Muslims could look the other way and seek the foriegn devil to blame. Now they can't. Only peoplen the West keep harping on their inabilities to be responsible for themselves and blame Western cultures for daring to remove their dictators and oppressions.
 
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Alright, alright. Not trying to get frustratedhere. I just don't see how you can't see the commen sense in this.

There's nothing common about good sense. Many a person has thougth something sounded good and made sense only to find it was flawed, majorly flawed. You can't spread freedom or democracy at gun pont. And the fact is, iraq slowed down the movement and did not advance it.

This is a pointless argument because Iraq is not the world. Nor have we ever conquered anybody. We have never assimilated or colonized. We have never kept captured territory. Iraq is no different. However, remaking the world is exactly what we have been doing since World War II. Notice how we were the most powerful nation on earth after World War I and still insisted that Europeans form into the League of Nations? Notice how we were themost powerful nation in history after World War II and still insisted on the creation of the United Nations? In both events, we proved what a powerful nation should do, which is empower the weak and unite the globe. For the decades after World War II, "McWorld" infected every corner of the earth and people enthusiastically invited the American way of life into their borders and jumped on our path. Globalization is largely due to the American will to change the world.

No, Iraq is not the world. but it is the country we invaded needlessly. And we will stay there. So, for our desires, if not need, we have conquored. Iraq would not have allowed us a base otherwise.

And it is more than a little imperialistic to see us as remaking the world, especially by force. Woudl we really apporve of any other country, say Iran or Russia or China, remaking the world for us?
 
But back to Iraq, we are hardly forcing the wotld to change by force. Considering that the entire Middle East has had a modernist streak about it since the beginning of European colonialism, we are hardly forcing Iraq ro change. We just removed the thorn that held the region in check. I dare you to apply some common sense here..... Do you honestly believe that Al-Queda bombs and insurgent savagry upon their own fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't had an impact on the regional Muslims as a whole? That modernist voices haven't been using this to further their social goals against their oppressive governments (governments that give their radical crowd no way other than violence to express themselves)? That somehow, A-Queda's complete inability to recruit throughout the Arab world is not somehow contributed to this social and political change inside Iraq and their willingness to murder in the name of religious perversion and oppression? These are the dramatic changes that have gone on. In the end, we may owe our long term security to all those Muslims that were forced to look in the mirror everytime another 10 or 20 died from another Muslims hands. Before the Internet and international television, Muslims could look the other way and seek the foriegn devil to blame. Now they can't. Only peoplen the West keep harping on their inabilities to be responsible for themselves and blame Western cultures for daring to remove their dictators and oppressions.

If you claim Iraq was to change or effect any part of the world, you are using force to change the world. Invading Iraq was use of force. And removing one thorn to replace it with another is hardly endearing to moderates in the ME. Many of them consider us a worse option than the thorns removed.

And we don't remove dictators. We never have. That is again rather arorgant to see us as not only the world policeman, but the world savior. As I said, we didn't have another country come in and free us from Brittan. A people takes their country, not have it given to them. It is one thing to help a people, but another to invade and use them, and then say, "oh, BTW, you'
re free now, but we're staying in this huge base we built."

No, I don't see your argument at all.
 
I don't care who was aware of it. Prosecute her too as far as I'm concerned. The point is, it was a crime.

....and mr obama and his renditions, incarcerations without trial, evesdropping, and drone attacks that regularly kill inocents? Is mr obama a war criminal, professor?
 
....and mr obama and his renditions, incarcerations without trial, evesdropping, and drone attacks that regularly kill inocents? Is mr obama a war criminal, professor?

I'd say most of things could potentially classify Obama as a war criminal, except for drone strikes.
 
I believe that waterboarding IS torture (how is it not?). I also have no problem with acknowledging that Pelosi lied on this issue and went along with it.

Well, alrightie then!! let's start rounding up all american leaders starting with anyone still alive connected to fdr's administration because that man committed the most awful atrocities in american history. We might as well dig up anyone left from the truman administration as well. Nuking innocent japanese citizens just for nothing.....shame, shame. :mrgreen:
 
I think Guy was insisting that it SHOULD be done, not that it CAN.

That would be my point, we pretty much need to start thinking about being "realistic" here. In my fantasy world I'm a lot younger and my wife looks suspiciously like a young sophia loren. {sigh}

sophia_loren_nickname_01.jpg
 
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....and mr obama and his renditions, incarcerations without trial, evesdropping, and drone attacks that regularly kill inocents? Is mr obama a war criminal, professor?

Rendition is wrong. I oppose it. And I express this with my representative often. Has Obama incarcerated anyone new? The Bush problem will not be easily settled, but if he continues this practice with new prisoners, then he too would be open to the same criticism. And if he breaks the law with easedropping that too is breaking the law. He should be held just as accountable. The drone attacks don't qualify, didn't under Bush, but like with Bush, just as stupid. We cost ourselves more than we gain. So, I oppose those as well.
 
That would be my point, we pretty much need to start thinking about being "realistic" here. In my fantasy world I'm a lot younger and my wife looks suspiciously like a young sophia loren. {sigh}

Well, Guy IS a Libertarian.
 
Well, alrightie then!! let's start rounding up all american leaders starting with anyone still alive connected to fdr's administration because that man committed the most awful atrocities in american history. We might as well dig up anyone left from the truman administration as well. Nuking innocent japanese citizens just for nothing.....shame, shame. :mrgreen:

I don't have any problem with this. Except that those individuals are already dead. Japanese internment and the atomic bombs were huge atrocities.
 
That would be my point, we pretty much need to start thinking about being "realistic" here. In my fantasy world I'm a lot younger and my wife looks suspiciously like a young sophia loren. {sigh}

sophia_loren_nickname_01.jpg

lol I think your age is showing here Dutch.
 
There's nothing common about good sense. Many a person has thougth something sounded good and made sense only to find it was flawed, majorly flawed. You can't spread freedom or democracy at gun pont. And the fact is, iraq slowed down the movement and did not advance it.

This is very bumper sticker. Fortunately, we have not spread freedom and democracy by gun point. We merely removed the hinderance we used to support. These people freely went to the polls and freely voted. They accomplished something that Arabs have never accomplished in history, despite their well to do it since the beginning of European colonialism. For peopole to dismiss this and default to their bumper srticker protest, they absolute disrespect these people as insignificant. They matter because an entire region is looking at them.


The fact is that Iraq is going to push this region further than was possible before 2003. Are you watchning what is going on in Egypt? Do you think these people would be organizing in their protests for modernization and democracy were it not for the heart land of Islam serving as an example? You have been wrong in your shallow protests and the region is going to prove it. They already are. The protest of Iraq has become simple habit for most. Upon further analysis, the old pundits have become silent and only those too stubborn to admit they were short sighted continue the bumper sticker stage.

Like it or not, but civilizational advancement and true peace has never come without blood shed. And ours depends on this backwards region's ability to emerge from their path into hellish terrorism and religious doctrine. Just what do you think this civilization will turn to when oil runs out if all theyt know is dictators, religious zealism, and oppression? 9/11 was nothing in a region where nuclear weapons are the future.


No, Iraq is not the world. but it is the country we invaded needlessly.

Only to the near sighted and short visioned. Iraq will and is changing the region.

And it is more than a little imperialistic to see us as remaking the world, especially by force. Woudl we really apporve of any other country, say Iran or Russia or China, remaking the world for us?

Call it what you want, but it is the reality. Crack open any social history book. ....and Iran, China, and Russia stand for nothing that the majority of the world wants. This is why the majority of the world gravitated towards us. Even today, they may gripe about details, but they damn sure want us here. You should learn a little bit more about what this country has stood for since 1775 and what it has done for this world. People don't seem to realize that 1991 marked the end of thousands of years of oppressive prescription. Empire, Monarchy, Colonialism, Dictatorship, and Communism failed. What was left? And who made the global organizations to encourage "peace?" You should be prouder than what you are displaying.
 
No, I don't see your argument at all.


C'mon man. It's because you have grown accustomed to shutting down and withdrawing into the 2003 protest. Even President Obama has recognized the path the region is on and even he can't avoid that a democratic Iraq is the focus. But you can? Maybe you haven't thought it through as you think. Hate Bush, hate Rumsfeld, hate the execution they planned, but recognize what's going on at least.
 
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Well, alrightie then!! let's start rounding up all american leaders starting with anyone still alive connected to fdr's administration because that man committed the most awful atrocities in american history. We might as well dig up anyone left from the truman administration as well. Nuking innocent japanese citizens just for nothing.....shame, shame. :mrgreen:

See, the problem is that pampered Americans (and pretending Europeans) like to feel that everything they see around them has been brought to them via perfect behavior and larger-than-life righteousness. A few (4 to be exact) terrorists get waterboarded and we automativcally become the German Nazi scourge of our times. Only Americans are so deluded as to thinking that their life styles are not earned by others who can't live up to the surface image of perfection.
 
Only Americans are so deluded as to thinking that their life styles are not earned by others who can't live up to the surface image of perfection.

If we don't live up to the "surface image of perfection," as you call it, then our lifestyle is not earned, it is cheated.
 
If we don't live up to the "surface image of perfection," as you call it, then our lifestyle is not earned, it is cheated.

Congratulations. This is the world you live in. Surface image of perfection is for your kind. Making it possible is for others. America has not built its reputation on dreams alone. Why...I even heard about a couple atomic bombs over civilian cities somewhere in our history too. Our image is sound. But traveling the gutter to achieve our global station is sometimes always necessary. I live it and see it. It's the rest of you that would secretly rather just not know so you don't have to feel that you have to address it.
 
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Congratulations. This is the world you live in. Surface image of perfection is for your kind. Making it possible is for others.

If it's not possible then it's not possible, so be it. Better to succeed or fail as a country of high moral standards than using torture to achieve our goals.

America has not built its reputation on dreams alone. Why...I even heard about a couple atomic bombs over civilian cities somewhere in our history too. Our image is sound. But traveling the gutter to achieve our global station is sometimes always necessary. I live it and see it. It's the rest of you that would secretly rather just not know so you don't have to feel that you have to address it.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up atomic bombs, that was no war crime. Its irrelevant to this discussion. Torture of prisoners, however, is very much a war crime.

I disagree with your utilitarian view of war crimes. The ends do not justify the means. We as a nation must respect the laws of war. The fact that we torture our prisoners signals an erosion of human rights. It's despicable. If we don't uphold the standard who will?

I thank you for your service to this country. And it is brave people such as yourself that the laws of war protect.
 
I'm not sure why you keep bringing up atomic bombs, that was no war crime. Its irrelevant to this discussion. Torture of prisoners, however, is very much a war crime.

I bring up nuclear bombs, because if any President today drops them over Tehran or Beijing he would be blasted as a war criminal. This is my point. We need to get over our fascination to decree every damn thing a war crime just to satisfy our sense of self righteous superiority. As if war is something that is supposed to come with Milton Bradley instructions. The torture of prisoners is a war crime. Of course, being placed into uncomfortable positions is not torture. And waterboarding is a pascifists next step to declaring the use of bullets and harsh speak as a war crime. We can't even sand bag our prisoners on the battle field anymore in order to disorient him to his surroundings (which is prisoner 101) because the "watchdogs" whined about it being unnecessary and torturous. Once it became a political liability, decades old rules were out the window.

Guess what.....these types of things will persist without CNN's attention. But the American people will have back their illusions won't they? Or do you really think that Cold War spies were treated with kid gloves? Or that combatants on the battle field are given massages? The way these people were behaving was criminal and comparing the U.S. and it's "servents" to Nazis and actual torturous monsters was depraved.
 
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