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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (125440)	3/3/2004 12:15:38 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "So.. all Iraqis were hostile to US soldiers?? ... So 100% of any given population has to be "friendly" for you to support sending US troops in combat?" Of course not. Use your common sense. If one were to define "hostile populations" as populations where even one person was hostile, then my statement would be empty and could be replaced with a far simpler statement. The problem in Iraq is that the vast majority of the population is either hostile or indifferent to the deaths of our troops, and are either friendly or indifferent to the resistance forces shooting at us. Hell, our troops have taken casualties from the locals even in relatively friendly places like Kuwait and Germany. Your logical error is in persisting in trying to define everything in shades of black and white. As usual, the situation with "hostile populations" is one that grades over a wide range of possible levels of hostility. I'm against leaving our troops in places where we take not a single casualty, but where the local population simply WISHES that we weren't there. Even if a large MINORITY of the local population doesn't want us there, and that large minority is PEACEFUL I think we should consider whether or not we should be there. This is the situation faced by our troops in Korea and Japan, for example. I think we should only have our troops in places where both the majority of the locals and their government BEG for us to stay. Re: "I guess that would have kept us out of just about every war we've ever fought." My rules are for when we should occupy nations that are at peace with us, not nations that we were forced to defeat at war. The problem with Iraq is that it was a "preemptive" or "optional" war. With Germany and Japan in WW2, we did not have a choice. And by the way, we're not fighting a war in Iraq, we're engaged in Military Operations Other Than War. Re: "(my apologies to Faultline and the thread, as I have little desire to engage in a exchange of profanities with Carl. But neither do I feel I should permit him to have "one free shot" at me, either)" Sorry, I didn't mean to make a "free shot" at you. What I was pointing out (using a common engineering expression intended as humor) was that your logic was faulty in that it assumed a thing that was ridiculous. Let me spell it out more clearly for you, since you may have failed to see the point: Hawkmoon, March 1, 2004 Which seems to imply that you believe the military should never be used if there is a chance of an American dying. #reply-19865610 Your assumption (that which "seems to imply") was that I would be against any use of US military force that involved any casualties at all. This was a false assumption, just like assuming that your grandma had testicles. Furthermore, you damn well knew that it was a false assumption, so don't sit there and play all aggrieved with me. You're a tougher boy than that. Re: "But you're real slow when it comes to solutions." The solution to most problems is time (which "heals all wounds"). Wait and they go away. What Bush did was not a "solution", he made the problem worse. Waiting is a solution, it's just not the solution that you wanted to hear. -- Carl