Pro Freedom
Pro FreedomMerriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
The war in Iraq: I watch the effects this war is having on the world in general. I am appalled at some of the reactions. We (free peoples) have such a responsibility to protect those who are less fortunate than us.
The first thought I have is for the people of Iraq and the children of that Country. The terror of living in a place where war is next door or at my front door is inconceivable to me. Yet the idea of those people suffering at the hands of a Regime who places itself higher than its people is more terrifying. Many people disagree with this as is evident on the news. Iraq as a people has prayed for help for years. It's their turn to be free and it's our responsibility as a free people, to protect those who can't protect themselves.
The United States has done some pretty bad things, I have learned, but I strongly believe this war is needed to take out a Dictator who controls and destroys it's own and possibly other Nations if given enough time.
Americans are spoiled, selfish, and truly ignorant of suffering as most in 3rd world countries, so to say we are resilient is a joke as we have never really had to bounce back from anything truly horrible. Yes we had the horror of 9/11, but people all over the world deal with such horror every day! It's time we stop living in the ignorance of Freedom and start showing people what Freedom is all about!
I hope not to offend by this page, just maybe have a few people put on the shoes of the oppressed for just a minute. If they did, they might feel a little differently after going hungry and tortured by its nation and seeing free people do nothing about it! -- KathyBracy
Kathy, events carry different myriad meanings to myriad different people, and that is Good. -- PhlIp
Have you seen the 50% of Iraqis voting against Saddam in the last election? Have you heard about the Iraqi director which said "Shame on you Mr Saddam..."? I don't think you have. It is nice to live in a country where people can vote and protest, it is sad to see the protest against the ones who helped them to be free. Thank you USA!
Er, the coalition is not just the USA.
Good call. Thank you, USA, small contingent sent by the UK against the will of most people in that country, and token forces sent by Japan, Australia, and various small countries mostly receiving American payments. Calling the war an American effort is much closer to the truth than calling it an international effort.
This is what your President's "freedom" feels like to some Iraqis getting in the way of your remote-controlled bombs:
Just a small price to pay for the greater good of http://www.newamericancentury.org
Also see http://electroniciraq.net/news/394.shtml
You are responsible for this.
WE, as free people, are responsible for this! Take responsibility for the freedom you have, to give others a chance to have it also. Only we have the opportunity to sit at our computers, stuffing our faces, posting these messages to each other because we are FREE to do so. Listen to the Iraq-Americans who are saying that their families are happy we have "finally" come to save them from Saddam and the Regime he created. I am not pro-war or anti-war - I am ProFreedom! -- KathyBracy
Enough with the pics.
Not that I especially like the picture, or that I feel it is anything other than sensationalism, but advocating actions while ignoring such results is hypocritical.
What it is more hypocritical is to show preference for some victims versus many more other victims, and it is a lot more hypocritical not to discriminate between accidents of war and murder, and it is the ultimate form of hypocrisy to throw the blame for that victim all on American shoulders.
I think Hussein is disgusting scum, and would gladly have him removed if I thought the benefits would outweigh the costs. People keep referring to the former, this is a reminder of the latter. And it's no more propagandical, and a lot more representative of what's actually going on, than the picture of a soldier and kid playing together linked to above.
When you judge that "benefits outweigh the cost", you prefer one set of victims (victims of accidents of war) over another set of victims. The later set is most likely a lot more numerous by all documented accounts.
I'm not giving preference to any victims. I understand that both Hussein and the war are likely to kill many people. I think the latter will definitely kill more people in the short term, and I don't trust America enough to set up a government which will improve things long term, given their track record with the "democracies" they set up. In the event that they actually do a good job fixing up the country after they win the war, I will change my decision. Any celebrations before Iraq is actually a better place are premature. Anti-war pictures are not taking into account both sets of victims.
Examining the past to get ideas about the future, waiting until something is all said and done before deciding whether or not it was a good thing, and trying to keep both the benefits and costs of an action in mind, but ignoring all possible negatives of a situation? For most situations involving anything political, you're probably right but that doesn't change the relative quality of the two. I assure you that nobody has anything to learn from anyone who is only interested in a very small part of a situation, and tries to ignore the rest.
The question is ill-posed in any circumstance. Try to define what is a valid question and what is an ill-posed question. How can one recognize what he doesn't know and how one recognizes the possibility of being in error.
About who is responsible for the hunger: It has been estimated that half a million Iraqi children have died since the gulf war as a direct result of US-led sanctions. The sanctions were applied by the UN and were applied to a regime which has shown little regard for its own peoples welfare and fate. It has misdirected food for oil funds to its own uses not related to providing food and medical aid.
Why have reconstruction contracts for Iraq been doled out already to Cheney's former company Haliburton? He still is still paid a million a year by Haliburton, you know? I do not think this war is about the people of Iraq. This is preparation for reconstruction which may not be needed unless the present regime succeeds in destroying their own economic assets. ( I think it not necessary to use a singular name as representative of who is responsible ) What you think will probably change when you see what happens when the people of Iraq have free choices concerning their own welfare.
I think it is a fine thing to die in the cause of "freedom" and "liberty", if that's what you choose to do. However, it seems incredibly wrong to me to have this "choice" forced on the Iraqi people. Maybe Americans value liberty over life, but clearly that's not how the Iraqis feel. I also fear that American motives are not a pure as the President's cabinet members say they are. I think the essentially unilateral assertion of American power is a new version of the Manifest Destiny of old, with a good helping of greed (for oil) and paranoia (against terrorism) thrown in. -- AndyPierce (who will write nothing on this page other than this paragraph)
Have your opinions on what the Iraqi people feel changed after seeing their jubilation at today's fall of Baghdad? Talk all you want about "greed", "paranoia",and "imposing our beliefs", but the Iraqi people, who for so long have been subject to murder, torture, and oppression, seem to be overjoyed that the Bush administration didn't listen to people like you.
The Iraqis have a lot to celebrate - both the end of Hussein, and the end of the American bombing campaign. That doesn't mean, though, that they wanted to be invaded in the first place, or that they are better off.
Force on the Iraqi people - Look at the happenings of the past 30 years and the force which included WMD used on citizens of that country by the present regime.
Our announced desire - is that these people have the opportunity to "choose their own destiny", free from the oppressive, destructive tyranny of a regime which has denied that opportunity.
The "Oil Greed" you speak of is the greed of consumer consumption throughout the world and is not isolated to the US. In twenty years or less the US will probably be in a position of not needing oil for gasoline. Look for increased production of FuelCellAutomobiles?, non-pollutant Hydrogen Fuel, alternativeShortRangeTransports, theHomeAsTheWorkPlace, and increased electronic commuting. The use of Oil will be for the making of Plastics and newTechnologyMaterials. Oil will be a market commodity much as salt is today.
A 40 nation coalition even if "headed" by the US and Britain cannot be termed "unilateral".
clearly that's not how the Iraqis feel I'm not sure this is a valid. look at the uprising in Basra.
Citizens again are loosing their lives in a rebellion which has brought upon them Oppressive fire from the present regime.
To Andy: Ask yourself how the kurds feel. Ask yourself how the Jewish people felt in WW2. Clearly the Germans felt very good about their leaders and at that particular time didn't want at all American liberty impose unto them. Sometimes huge masses of people may be wrong. Ask yourself how the next victims of a criminal regime will feel. Especially if their dictators feel free to act under the flawed international laws that puts "state sovereignty" way above basic human rights. What you and others do not feel very well is that we should all make a conscious effort to reach the day when whoever might contemplate to commit crimes against humanity will know they are fair game and no gullible pacifist will rise to their defense, and no absurd system of laws will cover their asses.
Better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished, or something like that. By all means, we should take out those who commit crimes against humanity, but only if the cost of doing so appears less than the crimes they intend to commit. Napalming a garden to get rid of weeds is so unbelievably stupid, it's hard to imagine anyone ever contemplates the equivalent. In this case, one might ask whether the new regime will be less oppressive to the Kurds (that was hardly something Hussein started) or even less oppressive to the Iraqis. I haven't heard anything about what they are planning to do with the country, besides "installing a democracy", and in the past the US has supported some less than pleasant regimes under similar guises. In short, I might agree with the initial sentiments, except I don't see how this war is ProFreedom in anything but name. The Serbian air attacks were supposed to be to protect the Kosovars against Milosevic, who was not exactly a peaches and cream leader, and KathyBracy explicitly disavows their value above. Someone would be welcome to explain how the present situation is better, aside from the stepped-up propaganda and holy war rhetoric.
I am talking about Freedom and that is all. The opportunity for everyone to have what I have. -- KathyBracy
What makes you think that the current actions are actually giving people the opportunities they deserve?
It's got to start somewhere. Freedom is a thing well worth fighting for. If there was a better solution for the people of Iraq, I would gladly stand up for it; unfortunately, a Regime was in control and the only way to remove it was to destroy it. I hope and I will surely make sure that we (and I hope I'm not speaking alone on that statement) as Democratic Governments and peoples will continue to help these people realize the dream we already have and enjoy. -- KathyBracy
It's got to start somewhere, but if you start and don't actually see that the changes stick, all you have done is waste time and lives. America has propped up any number of dictatorships around the world. The situation in Afghanistan was never as good as they announced, with most of the country under control of the exact same warlords as they were before, and without any sign of the free democratic elections that were promised, which is probably just as well since the government is losing its grip anyways. There is nothing to celebrate about the downfall of Hussein, until it is clear that Iraq will still be in a better situation a few years down the road, and the track record suggests America will make little effort to make this happen. If you think you can help ensure otherwise, I sincerely wish you the best of success, but am not at all optimistic. Save the champagne for then.
I agree that the solution seems elusive. My problem is with those who say we shouldn't have tried at all. It is an irony of the LiberalMind?. The LiberalMind?'ed would say that it is wrong for the rich to sit around enjoying their riches and doing nothing to spread the wealth around to the poor. But that same LiberalMind? says that it is wrong for those rich in freedom to try spreading the wealth and should instead just sit around enjoying our blessed freedom and do nothing. -- BrucePennington
I don't think it's particularly elusive. "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men." Would we (I'm in the US) want some big, powerful nation to come along and bomb the crap out of us, then tell us how to live? -- MikeSmith
I know of soldiers in combat who have asked aircraft to bomb on their own locations to defeat an overrunning enemy. I know of Iraqi's living in the US after Gulf War 1 who lost loved ones in Iraq because they thought it was safe to rise up against Hussein as the invasion began, but were left standing on their own as we stopped short of Baghdad. If I were living in fear, day to day, because a tyrant and his secret police were running my country by killing anyone who dissents, I would want someone with the power to help me, to step in and rescue me. So, I guess my answer to your question is yes. Now, whether they should tell me how to live, after the rescue, I'd say no. But, I'd expect them to let me decide how I should live. I think that is at the heart of W's efforts at democracy over there. Once we're gone, under a democractic form of government, they are free to choose a theocracy if they like. But the key is that they are free to choose it, rather than have it forced down their throats by the imams of Iran, Syria, or Iraq. At least they have the chance to choose. -- BrucePennington
So far, a good start. The Iraqi countryside is back in the hands of tribal authorities, the cities are in a state of complete disorder, religious and racial tensions have come back into their own, and Hussein together with several thousand of his troops have disappeared completely. Things may get better with time - I'm just making sure we don't stop thinking about them, just because the 'war' is over.
If I'm a voter in a country carrying out an aggression, discussing the situation on a wiki is political speech, not vandalism. Thank you for identifying the line between topicality and censorship. And Just Say "No" to PNAC!
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