Iraq: What Should Obama Tell all the US Iraqi Vets?

[JoeB131]

Your venom for your own kind and your own culture and its own religious underpinnings seems quite extraordinary, and, shall we say, atypical.

As to the rest - stop it - you're scaring the womenfolk.

My "culture" is not a bunch of rich corporations trying to make a profit by sending young men off to war with people who aren't our enemy.

You deliberately confuse the presumptuous and (church-) unauthorized secular suggestion of religious complicity, with a casus belli that could be held up as an example of religious motivation for large-scale warfare.

Nonsense.

Now, if the German leadership had said: "We are embarking upon this war because this is what God wants of us" - and if that was the primary and broadly accepted casus belli - then, you would have a case for large-scale religiously-motivated warfare within Christendom in recent times - which, of course, you don't.

But that's EXACTLY what they said!

"Full of gratitude, we can say today that God was with us. The enemy armies who boasted that they would enter Berlin in a few months are with heavy blows driven back far east and west. Numberless battlefields in various parts of Europe, and naval battles off near and distant coasts, testify what German anger in self-defense and German strategy can do. No violation of international law by our enemies will be able to shake the economic foundation of our conduct of the war." - Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1915

God Is With Us | World War One | Kaiser Wilhelm II

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work. - Adolf Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

Besides, what does Christians acting against the core teachings of their Founder have to do with religiously-motivated large-scale warfare in recent times?

Good Question- let's look at that.

'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." - George W. Bush.

 

[Kondor3]

Your venom for your own kind and your own culture and its own religious underpinnings seems quite extraordinary, and, shall we say, atypical.

As to the rest - stop it - you're scaring the womenfolk.

My "culture" is not a bunch of rich corporations trying to make a profit by sending young men off to war with people who aren't our enemy.

You seem to be struggling with Enemy Identification.

Not to worry... the rest of us are covering for you.

You deliberately confuse the presumptuous and (church-) unauthorized secular suggestion of religious complicity, with a casus belli that could be held up as an example of religious motivation for large-scale warfare.

Nonsense.

Now, if the German leadership had said: "We are embarking upon this war because this is what God wants of us" - and if that was the primary and broadly accepted casus belli - then, you would have a case for large-scale religiously-motivated warfare within Christendom in recent times - which, of course, you don't.

But that's EXACTLY what they said!

"Full of gratitude, we can say today that God was with us. The enemy armies who boasted that they would enter Berlin in a few months are with heavy blows driven back far east and west. Numberless battlefields in various parts of Europe, and naval battles off near and distant coasts, testify what German anger in self-defense and German strategy can do. No violation of international law by our enemies will be able to shake the economic foundation of our conduct of the war." - Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1915

God Is With Us | World War One | Kaiser Wilhelm II

No, that is not EXACTLY what they said.

That is a secular ruler trying to piggyback on religious sentiments in order to reinforce his secular agenda.

If, in August 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm had pitched the launching of WWI as religiously motivated, rather than being motivated by alliance-commitments and opposing mobilizations, then, you would have a case. But that's not what happened, so, you do not.

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work. - Adolf Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

That is a secular ruler trying to piggyback on religious sentiments in order to reinforce hsi secular agenda.

The secular motivations for Nazi persecution of Jews was set down very clearly and repeatedly in Mein Kampf, years before that speech.

And that's not even 'warfare' in any readily discernible sense; merely a secular leader doing a bit of touch-up work on various rationale to support a program of persecution.

Another long stretch, and another fail, methinks.

Besides, what does Christians acting against the core teachings of their Founder have to do with religiously-motivated large-scale warfare in recent times?

Good Question- let's look at that.

'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." - George W. Bush.

Too funny (your attempt to pitch this as religiously motivated).

1. Did America support the incursion into Afghanistan, because God told Shrub to do it?

2. Or did America support the incursion into Afghanistan, because al-Qaeda had just killed 3,000 of our people, and because they were based in Afghanistan, and because their like-minded Taliban host-government would not give them up?

If the former (1), then, yes, you're correct, it was a religiously-motivated war, on a large scale, undertaken by a leading country within modern-day, secularized Christendom.

If the latter (2), then, you couldn't be more wrong, about Afghanistan being a religiously-motivated war, on the part of Christendom.

Within the sampling universe of Americans who supported our going into Afghanistan, in order to kill al-Qaeda...

How many do you think supported it primarily because of (1)?

How many do you think supported it primarily because of (2)?

I don't think you want to pitch it to the audience, that American popular support for the war was motivated by (1).

You'll get your backside kicked by the audience, and laughed off the thread, if you do.

Gotta say, Joe, that that wasn't even a very good try, never mind anything even remotely approaching successful.

And, next time, consider omitting the juvenile Godwin-esque imagery, eh?

 

[JoeB131]

Uh, Dumbass. Nobody at the time thought the Afghanistan War was an issue, but the IRAQ war, the one that everyone now agrees was a huge mistake, Bush said God told him to do.

That's the point.

You seem to be struggling with Enemy Identification.

Not to worry... the rest of us are covering for you.

No, I know exactly who MY enemies are. Big Corporations. The source of all evil in the world.

Muslims. Meh, not so much.

Now getting back to the point. The problem with the Christian God Man is that he is just vague enough to be all things to all people. WHich is why you can have War Jesus and Hippy Peace Loving Jesus and people can find chapter and verse to rationalize either one.

 

[Kondor3]

Uh, Dumbass. Nobody at the time thought the Afghanistan War was an issue, but the IRAQ war, the one that everyone now agrees was a huge mistake, Bush said God told him to do.

That's the point.

You seem to be struggling with Enemy Identification.

Not to worry... the rest of us are covering for you.

No, I know exactly who MY enemies are. Big Corporations. The source of all evil in the world.

Sounds like a personal problem.

Muslims. Meh, not so much.

As I said, you are struggling with Enemy Identification. In all likelihood, time will cure that.

Now getting back to the point. The problem with the Christian God Man is that he is just vague enough to be all things to all people. WHich is why you can have War Jesus and Hippy Peace Loving Jesus and people can find chapter and verse to rationalize either one.

In its Western incarnation, the principle of "Just War" is a fabrication of fallible Church Elders, and not part of the Core Teachings of their founder.

Those Core Teachings are a Reset Button which serves to bring Christendom back from the brink of the abyss (of religiously-motivated large-scale and sustained violence) whenever it strays too far from those Core Teachings.

Christendom is quite capable of engaging in warfare.

It is also far less likely to engage in RELIGIOUSLY MOTIVATED warfare than its contemporaries.

 

[JoeB131]

No Muslim has ever done anything bad to me.

And frankly, most Muslims where as horrified by 9/11 as we were. They were happy to help us hunt down the perps.

Until your Boy Bush started talking about "Jesus' and "God" and "Crusades" and went around willy-nilly attacking countries that had nothing to do with it and talking about "Axis of Evil" (none of whom had anything to do with it, either.)

Imagine if we had a sane, rational president who just focused on stamping out Al Qaeda instead of inflaming 1/6th of the world's population.

 

[JoeB131]

[
In its Western incarnation, the principle of "Just War" is a fabrication of fallible Church Elders, and not part of the Core Teachings of their founder.

Those Core Teachings are a Reset Button which serves to bring Christendom back from the brink of the abyss whenever it strays too far from those Core Teachings.

Matthew
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.


Doesn't sound like a HIppy to me.

 

[Kondor3]

Uh, Dumbass. Nobody at the time thought the Afghanistan War was an issue, but the IRAQ war, the one that everyone now agrees was a huge mistake, Bush said God told him to do.

Go back and look at your example.

You were citing an example pertaining to Afghanistan AND Iraq.

Consequently, I responded by focusing on your leading premise, the Afghan-centric illustration.

If you wanted to ensure a different focus, you should have made that sufficiently clear, in our context, so that a reasonable person would have construed it thus.

Don't blame me for your shortcomings in collaborative focusing.

Dumbass, indeed.

 

[jillian]

perhaps cheney and friends should apologize to the vets for creating a situation where they fought for no reason

 

[hazlnut]

1 End the regime of Saddam Hussein. - DONE, but bad idea.

2 Eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. - LIE WAS EXPOSED.

3 Capture or drive out terrorists. - FAIL

4 Collect intelligence on terrorist networks. - GOT WHAT THEY COULD.

5 Collect intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction activity. - NONE EXISTED. THAT WAS A LIE.

6 Secure Iraq's oil fields. - FAIL.

7 Deliver humanitarian relief and end sanctions. - SEMI-FAIL

8 Help Iraq achieve representative self-government and insure its territorial integrity. - FAIL.


Obama to Vets: "Please forgive George Bush and Dick Cheney for lying to you."

 

[Kondor3]

[
In its Western incarnation, the principle of "Just War" is a fabrication of fallible Church Elders, and not part of the Core Teachings of their founder.

Those Core Teachings are a Reset Button which serves to bring Christendom back from the brink of the abyss whenever it strays too far from those Core Teachings.

Matthew
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.


Doesn't sound like a HIppy to me.

Somebody else is going to have to drag you over to the Religion forum, where you can argue all this to your little heart's content. I've gotta go out-and-about in the world today.

The only one of those four examples you're serving up, which even gets you into the ballpark, is the first, and that has been explained-away well enough by others, time and again.

If Jesus was speaking literally, then it is strange, that he refrained from allowing his followers to build him up into a political figure or liberator-figure around which the Jews could have rallied to throw off the Romans.

It is also curious that Jesus told his followers to put down their swords and to offer no resistance when they were accosted by a detail of soldiers (Herodian? Roman?) dispatched to arrest Jesus.

But that's another argument, for another day.

As to the rest of these, clearly, we are looking at utterances designed to clarify that loyalty to God must supersede loyalty to family and friends, rather than serving to justify anything even remotely connected to war.

 

[Kondor3]

No Muslim has ever done anything bad to me.

Yet.

Mostly because the rest of us won't let them get a foothold here.

And frankly, most Muslims where as horrified by 9/11 as we were. They were happy to help us hunt down the perps.

There are varying schools of thought on that one.

Until your Boy Bush started talking about "Jesus' and "God" and "Crusades" and went around willy-nilly attacking countries that had nothing to do with it and talking about "Axis of Evil" (none of whom had anything to do with it, either.)

My boy Bush?

Hardly.

Shrub was right to smack the shit out of Afghanistan.

But he phukked-up in taking our eye off the ball, and attacking Iraq, and not finishing the job in Afghanistan, then getting the hell out of there.

Hell, I think we should have merely conducted airstrikes on al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and sent-in commandos to kill that phukker Bin Laden, and then been done with it.

Shrub screwed the pooch in a dozen ways.

He's not "my boy".

Imagine if we had a sane, rational president who just focused on stamping out Al Qaeda instead of inflaming 1/6th of the world's population.

Agreed.

But the confrontation between Islam and The West was coming soon enough anyway.

This just gets it out into the open, sooner, rather than later.

 

[Kondor3]

perhaps cheney and friends should apologize to the vets for creating a situation where they fought for no reason

 

[Dot Com]

What (then) Senator Obama told Bu$h II BEFORE vietraq:


Transcript: Obama's Speech Against The Iraq War

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

\end thread

 

[Claudette]

[

Before 1948?? Whole different world then.

The Oil Companies made the Arabs rich. Once they got the oil out everything was nationalized and the Arabs got rich. The same Arabs who would like to take over the world.

As for the Jews? Guess taking back their homeland is shit to you. Last I heard they had UN approval for taking back their homeland.

Oh and the Muslims will be everybody's problem if they get their way.

Hey, I j ust checked for you. There isn't a Jihadist hiding under your bed. There isn't one in your closet, either.

Now for the UN, the UN Has also passed 43 resolutions calling on the Zionists to stop abusing the Palestinians. You really can't have it both ways on the UN.

WOW Nice to know those sweet, gentle and kind Muslims who've been killing people all over the world aren't under my bed or in the closet. I'm so relieved.

Those assholes could however show up at my local mall, pizza parlor or just on the street handing out all those explosive goodies they are know for.

Your biased Joe.

You hate Jews and see all kinds of things wrong with them but you see nothing wrong with Muslims killing people all over the world.

I'm sure all their victims would agree with you. NOT.

 

[Dot Com]

^ deflection

see post #314 for on-topic info

 

[Oldstyle]

No Muslim has ever done anything bad to me.

And frankly, most Muslims where as horrified by 9/11 as we were. They were happy to help us hunt down the perps.

Until your Boy Bush started talking about "Jesus' and "God" and "Crusades" and went around willy-nilly attacking countries that had nothing to do with it and talking about "Axis of Evil" (none of whom had anything to do with it, either.)

Imagine if we had a sane, rational president who just focused on stamping out Al Qaeda instead of inflaming 1/6th of the world's population.

So because Al Queda flew those planes loaded with innocent civilians into buildings that you don't live or work in...you believe that they didn't do anything bad to you? Really, Joe?

 

[JoeB131]

[

WOW Nice to know those sweet, gentle and kind Muslims who've been killing people all over the world aren't under my bed or in the closet. I'm so relieved.

Those assholes could however show up at my local mall, pizza parlor or just on the street handing out all those explosive goodies they are know for.

Your biased Joe.

You hate Jews and see all kinds of things wrong with them but you see nothing wrong with Muslims killing people all over the world.

I'm sure all their victims would agree with you. NOT.

NO, dummy. I hated Apartheid. I have no problem with White People.

I hate Zionism. I have no problem with Jewish folk.

Most of the people Muslims kill all over hte world are other Muslims, and frankly, we Americans are pretty ******* good at killing other Americans. Thanks, NRA!

 

[JoeB131]

[

So because Al Queda flew those planes loaded with innocent civilians into buildings that you don't live or work in...you believe that they didn't do anything bad to you? Really, Joe?

Those 19 guys aren't "all Muslim". Some of those buildings and planes had Muslims on or in them.

You stupid ***** took what should have been a fight with a small criminal gang and turned it into a war with the world's second largest religion.

And now that you are GETTING WHUPPED you want to cry about it.

 

[Kondor3]

[

So because Al Queda flew those planes loaded with innocent civilians into buildings that you don't live or work in...you believe that they didn't do anything bad to you? Really, Joe?

Those 19 guys aren't "all Muslim". Some of those buildings and planes had Muslims on or in them.

You stupid ***** took what should have been a fight with a small criminal gang and turned it into a war with the world's second largest religion.

And now that you are GETTING WHUPPED you want to cry about it.

Whupped?

Who is getting whupped, again?

And by whom?

 

[JoeB131]

[

So because Al Queda flew those planes loaded with innocent civilians into buildings that you don't live or work in...you believe that they didn't do anything bad to you? Really, Joe?

Those 19 guys aren't "all Muslim". Some of those buildings and planes had Muslims on or in them.

You stupid ***** took what should have been a fight with a small criminal gang and turned it into a war with the world's second largest religion.

And now that you are GETTING WHUPPED you want to cry about it.

Whupped?

Who is getting whupped, again?

And by whom?

You're kidding, right?

America doesn't want to play in their sandbox. They play too mean.