Bringing the draft back ???

MossRoad · Apr 22, 2004

In my opinion only...

 Why only Iraq? 

Because N. Korea doesn't have any oil and we stalemated them once already with terrible loss of life. What would we gain by going there again? Nothing but a war with the Chinese and another terrible loss of life. The only possibilities I see in their future are endless rhetoric, capitulation or surgical strikes.

On the other hand, Iraq was a pushover to get out of Kuwait(don't tell that to any families that lost loved ones there) and someone probably thought it would be a pushover again, 10 years later.

Two possibilities come to my mind.

1. We(our government) were made to believe(by their government) that they had WMD and were going to use them on us or our allies. If this is the case they made a terrible blunder, as we called their bluff and didn't wait around for it to happen. In that case, I think we were justified going in there.

2. We(the people of the US) were decieved by our government as to the reasons for going in there. Those reasons being who knows??? Enforcing UN resoultions, capturing lucrative oil holdings, revenge, diversion from problems at home, intimidating other "rogue" nations, etc... who know?

I mean, heck... after 9/11 everybody could see that Afghanistan was going to be the big battleground. The terrorists blatently claimed responsibility, told us they did it, told us where they were and told us they were going to do it again, as soon as they could. That one was completely justified, in my mind.

But Iraq... since we kicked them out of Kuwait, they were still a threat to the region, but seemed to be contained. They didn't appear to be a direct threat to us at the time. They may have supported terrorism, but so did alot of other countries. It seemed we should have let the international community take care of it until it was obvious that they couldn't. But we went in there on the WMD reason, which changed to the humanitarian reason because of the brutal dictator once it was clear we weren't going to find any WMD real soon.

Good grief, can you imagine what will happen if they actually do ever find WMD burried in the dessert? That will bolster the war mentallity and then other threats will more likely be thought of as beatable. Then here comes the draft because no one will volunteer for that one. Scary times we live in.

Thanks for the chance to voice my opinion.

Best wishes to all that have loved ones in harms way in the military.

Tractors4u · Apr 22, 2004

( Good grief, can you imagine what will happen if they actually do ever find WMD burried in the dessert? That will bolster the war mentallity )

People complain that we haven't found WMDs and now you speculate as to the negatives of finding a WMD. If we find a WMD how about saying, "Wow the president was right". If we found a dozen WMDs with address labels to the USA it still wouldn't be enough for some people. I go back to one of my earlier comments. Some people are against this war simply because of Bush.

slowrev · Apr 22, 2004

If you will check history Israel sort of founded the modern bombing concept of terrorism in the middle east when they bombed the British over there and run them off. I guess the rest of the groups took this as a working example and followed suit.

MossRoad · Apr 22, 2004

I didn't say one way or the other who I was for or if Bush was right or wrong. Personally, I hope that they find WMD. It would eliminate a lot of doubt, both in our nation and abroad.

Hank_Kimball · Apr 22, 2004

( It seemed we should have let the international community take care of it until it was obvious that they couldn't ) 

17 violations of the Gulf War treaty,harrased and kicked the inspectors out,the US and Britiain air craft taking fire on a regular,almost daily basis in the no fly zone. The United Nations done absolutely nothing and would not ,heck they are finding out the oil for food program was a way of lining the UN's pockets.The United Nations is a joke and Bush the same thing as told that to them when he spoke in front of the UN and told them it was time for them to stand up to Hussein or the US would go it alone.

 On February 26, 1993, an explosion occurred in the World Trade Center. The explosion caused six deaths, 1042 injuries, and nearly $600 million in property damage. This is when they should have started the War on terrorism,we had a very big wake up call and did not follow through.
Thank God we now have a President who has the grit and good moral character that President Bush has.

Bob_In_MN · Apr 22, 2004

Man--I've stayed out of this for as long as I can.

I'll start by saying:

I'm not a vet.
I wish I would have served my country.
I'm thankful to those that did/do.

Andy's comments on the war and spending money on schools got me thinking.

In Minnesota, nearly 1/2 of the $30 Billion state budget is spent on education. We're constantly told we need new referendums and that a vote against a referendum is a vote against the children.

The funny thing is--we don't have more children in MN schools than we did 20 years ago, yet it costs more to educate them. We spend $10,000 per student in Minneapolis and have a deplorable graduation rate. I've researched this quite a bit as I typically find myself defending my position of opposing throwing more money at the education problem hoping that will take care of things.

Here's what I have learned from a study comparing education stats (in MN) from 1989 to 1999.

Our English as a second language population is up over 200%. Our special needs children have been mainstreamed into classrooms and many of them need to be accompanied by someone from one class to the next (these are paid positions). More children have mental health related learning disorders and many of these disorders are caused by the stresses of being new to the country and finding a hard time "fitting in". There are teachers telling me they have new students (new to the country) that are physically 8th graders who read at a 4th grade level. It's not their fault, but it costs more money to educate these children than it does an english speaking child. I also believe that many of the dollars spent never get to the classroom where it can do some good.

We (MN) have the highest (or second highest) populations of Somali and Hmong residents in the U.S. It costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars just to incorporate the various languages into our new light rail system (another bright idea brought to us by Jesse Ventura--man I wish he would have stuck to wrestling).

So--I'll say that I supported the invasion based on the WMD issue. I'll choose to believe Bush made a decision based on evidence available at the time (others can form their own opinions). All Americans will have an opportunity to voice their opinion in a few months.

BUT--we will continue to pay a high price to have open borders. This price will (in my opinion) be paid in dollars and lives. It also seems to me that if we don't help police the world, we will continue to get an influx of immigrants from the, for lack of a better word, crapholes of the world. Some of these people will be good, some bad, but make no mistake that we will either be paying to help these people in their country or we will pay for them when they come here.

OkeeDon · Apr 22, 2004

(
Well, AHHHHHHH.... yes. Confused. How can you explain administrative policy so clearly and yet believe in media reports linking Iraqi to 9/11.)

Ah, but I didn't say I believed the reports. You implied that I believed the reports, and I simply let it pass as I thought that anyone who had read my post carefully would have seen you were mistaken. If you go back and read my original post on this subject, you'll see that what I was talking about was the reasons why so many other people believe the Iraq invasion was the right thing to do. Then, you questioned whether the administration had ever said anything like that, and I provided evidence that they had certainly implied it. Me believe it? I wouldn't believe anything that bunch said. Even when I think they're right, I question why they really said it.

If this was the typical open forum, with lots of flames, I might have let 'er rip about -- well, I can't go there.

Boondox · Apr 22, 2004

( Thank God we now have a President who has the grit and good moral character that President Bush has.
)

Hank, I agree that Bush II has grit. The moral character bit I'm not sure about. And bright he's not; I guess that's the part that has me worried. He has been taken by surprise several times now (the Iraqis didn't welcome us with roses, the mission was not accomplished, the disbanded Iraqi army didn't just suddenly decide to become bright upstanding citizens, the Pakistani border turned out to be porous, etc), all things a primer on Arab history would have told him had he opened a book. He and his administration are not prosecuting this war in an intelligent manner. I'm worried. I'm really worried...

Pete

Hank_Kimball · Apr 22, 2004

Moral character: Bush is a choir boy compared to our previous leader.

Intelligence,I do not agree with you there either.

There are a lot of Iraqis that have welcomed us,go back and watch the videos when we rolled into Iraq and the statues came down.

 ( the disbanded Iraqi army didn't just suddenly decide to become bright upstanding citizens,
) 

Are you saying they are the ones causing us the problems now ?

I blame Rumsfield and Tenet for the problems we are now facing in Iraq. I think McKain needs to replace Rumsfield. We need more troops on the ground a lot more.

Clinton done 0 in the battle against terrorism,like I say this should have been dealt with back in 1993.Thank God Gore did not get elected.

Boondox · Apr 23, 2004

Hank, no argument about Clinton's morals, but for a president to ram his personal beliefs down the throat of others isn't exactly saintly. Dismissing the concerns of large numbers of the people he represents as "unimportant" is, if not immoral, at least plain dumb. Remember how Reagan (in his first term, before his mind faded) used to take his thoughts to the public on TV and radio...so even if you disagreed with him you understood his motives and felt somehow heard? I miss that! Among the president's duties is being the moral head of the nation; given the polarization of the nation I can't give Bush an unqualified success in that arena. And I say "among" because morality isn't everything. Jimmy Carter was an incredible moral man, yet his presidency wasn't exactly a resounding success.

Bush is not bright. (And before you respond in anger know that I'm a combat vet who stands solidly behind our troops, and have been a Republican since the Ford administration.) Clinton was bright, but completely amoral. I'm not impressed with Kerry either, and wonder what is it about we Americans where time after time we end up with choices like Bush vs Kerry? Why not real choices like Bob Kerrey on the Democrat ticket vs Powell on the Republican? Men of principled intelligence.

Powell -- McCain...now there's a ticket! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif