Philippines 'pulling out' Iraq troops

[A_Wanderer]

Bloody Hell, are you people also blind to the fact that some 30,000 children died in Iraq annually as a direct result of Saddam missusing the UN Sanctions, compiled with the 70,000 or so people who would have been killed directly by the regime, e.g. summary executions, torture (the real kind with sharp razor blades and knifes). 10,000 people killed in a war is a lot less than those that would have died if we had left Saddam alone, how can anybody who genuinely feels compassion stand by and say that the Iraqi people were better off living in that vile dictatorship?

[Basstrap]

hey, I'm all about allieviating the suffering of others.

Fact is, there is a mess over there now that won't be resolved for many many years. I;m guessing we'll see strife and sufferring in iraq for the rest of our lives...bar a miracle.

[A_Wanderer]

But do you see the peace in the South and North of the country. You must know that the vast majority of the instability is occuring in the center, the so called Sunni Triangle where you have the highest concentration on Baathist remnants, the people who have lost because of the Iraq war. It is moving forward nicely, I honestly expected it to be tougher post-war but it has turned out a little better considering that you have a huge US presence only a day trip away from any terrorists and hostile governments (Syria and Iran, both countries who are actively undermining the construction phase).

So I ask again, what would you have done if you had the call in Iraq, knowing full well that a a coup would not work (They allready tried, someone spilled the beans and Saddam executed everybody with the remotest link to the plot) and assassination was impractical.

Again to be back on track. Pulling forces out of the country is a bad thing for all involved, it doesn't help the Iraqi people and will only lead to more instability and more innocent people killed.

[Basstrap]

probably a little more than what the US is doing in most dictator-led countries and countries with horrible human rights records...which is nothing

seriously...war in the apex of evil. It is the most vile thing the human race has brough to the earth.
I would not use it unless it appeared the very human race was in jeopardy. Otherwise, I beginning to think that the best thing to do is to leave the situation alone. Use more subtle means, perhaps. Measures that may be more effective but may take a lot longer.

But I don't know...maybe we should go start a war in every non-western country

god bless eurocentrism eh?

[A_Wanderer]

Really, now war is not the worst thing there is, I would say that allowing abuses to go on when there is a power with the will and ability to remove them. There is not the will to remove the House of Saud from power, or the Syrian Government but there was the will to remove Saddam and it was taken and I am very very happy with the result as are the Iraqi people, the majority of Iraqi's in a poll this month said that their lives are somewhat or much better off today than before the war, if isolationists had their way then they would all be suffering under the iron fist of the regime compiled with the crippling sanctions.

The more subtle measures were tried against Saddam for over a decade. Sanctions were used to no avail. The sanctions killed over a million Iraqi civilians. To alleviate the suffering the UN istigated a food for oil program which was rife with corruption and now the facts are coming undone (surprise surprise, many prominent anti-war figures were given the right to sell Iraqi oil on the black market). So you have a program of "peaceful" resistance that was failing outright and fucking up the country and killing vast ammounts of innocent people while the regime became more entrenched and eliminated its enemies. So we had tried all the other methods, they were innefective against this regime, war was a legitimate means to resolve the problem and it was the right thing to do. It is bad to be sure but when you look at the alternative it is the only sane option. Now if we took Basstrap's suggestion of only fighting wars when the human race was in peril we would all be doomed. Leaders wouldn't deal with threats, they would wait, and the threats would grow larger and larger until they truly were able to annihilate the world and we would all be killed. That is an illogical means of dealing with the world, you cannot talk peace with those that do not know the meaning of the word. Likewise you cannot claim peace unless it is a true and just peace and not the peace of the grave or peace of slavery that many here would prefer to see.

Again with the eurocentrism call, honestly I have been called eurocentric, ethnocentric and a dozen other labels just to avoid the one beneath, racist. I do not mind if people wish to label me in such a way because I am simply not, surely there is nothing "ethnocentric" in believing that all people should be free to live their lives in peace, without fear of dictatorships and violence. There is nothing particuarly western in thinking that freedom is the optimal state for mankind. It is not an inherently western concept because it works so well all over the world and the people of the world deserve it. I am rather shocked by the willingness of many to stand by and allow people to die needlessly because it's far removed from their everyday lives, to sit back and say that it isn't our problem and then cry when great crimes take place. This is the same ideology that allows great evil to persist. Would the Rwandan Genocide have taken place if Clinton had had some more backbone after Somalia, would the Holocaust have occured if the western powers had listened too Churchill in the 30's and prepared properly for war in Europe, the legacy of inaction is allways worse than that of direct force.

War is not the apex of evil, it is bad, but it is not the worst thing. War is a means to an end, in this case it was a means to rid the world of the most barbaric dictatorship of the latter 20th Century surely a just cause that was long overdue. Other Measures were tried and they failed (They were not more effective, they cost a lot more lives over 100 times as many as the war and they took a decade before anybody took an altenative course of action), containment didn't work and once taken the suffering caused by a brief war in the name of liberation was less by the first year than if nobody had taken action.

Inaction is the murderous path and knowing now post-war about the regime, the way that they tortured innocents (I repeat, download the Abu Ghraib video prewar and come back to tell me that you can sit back and not take action, the only reason people continue to say Iraqi's are worse off is because the mass media simply cannot show the true face of the regime is because it is so violent and shocking it would give peace protestors nightmares). George W Bush is a better peacemaker and has spread freedom in the world much better than Bill Clinton ever did, GWB has less blood on his hands today than Clinton did at the same point in his term and the war that was won in Iraq is going to be the cornerstone of the liberal democracy throughout the Middle East. I guess I am just one of those "ethnocentric" fools who thinks that Saudi Arabia is an evil regime that should be toppled and that the Iranian people deserve to have a true say in their own country if caring for human rights and standing up for them is ethnocentric then so be it and screw anybody who is progressive and accepting of other cultures.

By the way, the use of saying a place in hell by the side of Hitler was in reference to Dante's Inferno and was an allusion to a literary work and not an expression of religious conviction or beliefs.

EDIT
Basstrap, I presume that you think that Islamism does not pose a threat to humanity therefore the entire War on Terror is pointless until Osama posesses the capacity to kill us all. By abiding to your world view removing the Taliban was the wrong thing to do wan't it? And the US entering WW2 was useless because Hitler didn't want to exterminate mankind, only certain less "racially pure" groups, I mean the US could have allowed a Japanese economic sphere in Asia as well as a Greater Germania if it didn't enter the war, that whole endevour was pointless. And the war of Independence for the US that was technically wrong and unjustifiable because they were fighting for the pointless concept of freedom which doesn't really have an application in the real world. Where does your application of blind moralty towards war end? I suspect that it ends in a world devoid of civilization.

[STING2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar


Blah, blah, blah not even Bush is trying to use the argument of "Verifiably disarm of all WMD". But what has happen is that terrorist activity has risen globally since we attacked Iraq.

I've actually heard Bush restate his central case for war a number of times recently, even in the interview with the Irish Women he mentioned Saddam's failure to disarm.

Has the USA been attacked since the invasion of Iraq? Even if there is slightly more terrorism now than before the war, it is probably just a random bounce. I seriously doubt that terrorist globally need the removal of Saddam to motivate them to launch terrorist strikes. Outside of Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and Afghanistan, I do not see any significant increase in terrorism.

[STING2]

Originally posted by anitram


They did not want to be there in the first place, but you seem to be missing this. They didn't decide they "no longer" wanted to be there, they had no desire to be there at all. 90% of the people did not and I guarantee you that if 90% of Americans vehemently opposed the war in Iraq, there is no way Bush would have gone, and if he did, he'd be deserved toast in November.

The war to remove Saddam is over! Has been for over a year. Any decision to keep troops in Iraq now has to do with whether the country is interested in helping the Iraqi people or not.

In both cases, Spain and the Philipines gave the terrorist precisely what they asked for.

Answer me this, how will Spains and the Philipines pull out of troops help the Iraqi people and stop terrorism?

[A_Wanderer]

Outside of Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and Afghanistan, I do not see any significant increase in terrorism.

I will have to disagree with you there Sting, since the fall of Iraq there has been less terrorism in Israel/Palestine than before the war, this is to do with the West Bank Barrier as well as the cutting of support for the terrorist organizations (directly related to the removal of Saddam and the subsequent spooking of other Arab regimes about the risks of sponsering terrorism).

You are of course right on target when you point that there is no quantatative evidence of an increase in terrorism or Al Qaeda post-war, really when people argue that by removing Saddam we have inflamed hatred in the Arab world it is code of "they have been shown how impotent they were in solving an Arab problem so they have gone from hating America the Great Satan too hating America the Great Satan + 1", if anything we are showing the moderates in the Middle East that the civilized world means business and that the strangelhold dictators and terrorists hold over their lives is going to come to an end over the next decade, watch as apathy gives way to hope.

[Angela Harlem]

Originally posted by nbcrusader
Another win for the terrorist

What about the win for the hostage?

It makes me sick to hear how people become pawns. We hear all the arguments about the cause and the good fight for freedom, for the 'better of the people' but is this how the people are respected? It's little wonder they fucking hate us. It really is. I hate how the west appears to these people. I hate how there have been too many instances where governments have been forced by these repulsive people, to choose the belief in their good intentions or the life of (in this case) one man. And I hate how that one man's life ends up being worth nothing.
Want to bring God into this? More shame. The God I believe in would be just as appalled at humankind for having these situations eventuate in the first place. And I warily say this next sentence, but I'd think it is just as utterly shameful that a precious life is treated as such.

Doint misread what I'm saying. Bowing to terrorists is dangerous and never ideal. But it moots the point of fighting for freedom in the first place when life is so devalued. This numbers game is still about people. A whole bunch of individuals. More shame that this is forgotten.

[Basstrap]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer


...
EDIT
Basstrap, I presume that you think that Islamism does not pose a threat to humanity therefore the entire War on Terror is pointless until Osama posesses the capacity to kill us all. By abiding to your world view removing the Taliban was the wrong thing to do wan't it? And the US entering WW2 was useless because Hitler didn't want to exterminate mankind, only certain less "racially pure" groups, I mean the US could have allowed a Japanese economic sphere in Asia as well as a Greater Germania if it didn't enter the war, that whole endevour was pointless. And the war of Independence for the US that was technically wrong and unjustifiable because they were fighting for the pointless concept of freedom which doesn't really have an application in the real world. Where does your application of blind moralty towards war end? I suspect that it ends in a world devoid of civilization.

don't turn this around to make me look like some kind of uncompassionate isolationist fool.

WW2 was completely justified. They should have gone to war earlier. Aside from the horrible and sickening genocide, If hitler and the japanese had won the world would be a much worst place. (not saying anything bad about the japanese people as a whole, but I forget the leaders name at the time)

and don't make it seem like all this present day war is completely selfless. Thewar didn't start with iraqi freedom on anyone's mind. Homeland security was the purpose.

Okay...but I think I'll come over to your side.
I say next we attack China. But that would be a hard war, eh? and not much in it for us.
so...lets go for Africa! Millions of people starving and a big reason for that is corrupt government. They got lots of diamond mines too, so once we set up a nice friendly interim government we'll have it made in the shade.

And cuba too. Since castro is such a bad guy with killing his own people and stuff, I think we should go there.
But then again, CUba isn't exactly a nice juicy mid-eastern country

[A_Wanderer]

Sacrifice is part of the fight, making the tough decisions and sticking by them is how battles are won and in this case the Philipines government is loosing a battle to save a single life and at the same time condeming many others to death, it is about individual people. Individual people who face having their heads carved from their bodies while they are still alive and dying in a brutal fashion. I would rather see one individual be condemed to this fate than ten but others seem to think that this is an uncaring way to look at the world. I think that they are making illogical statements that do not take this into account.

It is a no way never proposition rather than not ideal when it comes to giving into terrorists demands - trading life and death is not the business that we should be in and in my humble opinion it is as simple proposition that by giving into their demands the Phillipines government is devaluing life, one of their citizens being saved means that dozens of other innocent people will now be killed. I said this before that you have positive, negative and neutral actions and in this case it has been a great positive result for the terrorists and shall only end in more bloodshed. This is not respect for life and this is what undoes the fight for freedom.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants - Thomas Jefferson

[Angela Harlem]

We are trading lives. That's all this is.

They win no matter what. Perhaps from where you stand you cannot see that, but dont ever assume you know the minds of the people who post in here. I take it that is who you are generally referring to. Placing 'seem' in the sentence doesn't make it a truth. Just an insult. And a presumption.

[Basstrap]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
It is a no way never proposition rather than not ideal when it comes to giving into terrorists demands - trading life and death is not the business that we should be in and in my humble opinion it is as simple proposition that by giving into their demands the Phillipines government is devaluing life, one of their citizens being saved means that dozens of other innocent people will now be killed. I said this before that you have positive, negative and neutral actions and in this case it has been a great positive result for the terrorists and shall only end in more bloodshed. This is not respect for life and this is what undoes the fight for freedom.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants - Thomas Jefferson

you really think that pulling out 51 troops is going to lead to wholesale slaughter of more innocent victims? if you do that is your OPINION and you cannot prove that there is ANY correlation between the Phillipians pulling out and any imaginary increase is innocent deaths because of that.
this is your OPINION, remember that. So don't go judging these people to fire and brimstone cos you think you know how the world works.

[A_Wanderer]

If you reward a terrorists actions then they will accelerate the use of such actions. A classic example is the Palestinians, starting in the late 1960's they hijacked El Al flights and pretty much overnight the UN gave them more reciognition than they had with 20 years of peaceful negotiation. Then the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics also gave their cause more attention and ever since then they have used terrorism over peaceful negotiation. By capitulating to terrorist demands the Philipines has ensured that the terrorist tactic of beheadding hostages will go on for much longer and with a much greater frequency than before. They are rewarding terrorism and if you don't believe that is so then there is no point in discussing the matter furthur.

[Salome]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
and if you don't believe that is so then there is no point in discussing the matter furthur.

I'm going to make that my signature

[Basstrap]

well..they released the hostage and he's safe and sound last I heard.

you know, didn't the US negotiate with Lebanese hijackers a some years ago?