Was it worth it?

[poncho]

If it was worth it the neocons wouldn't have had to make up so many lies to invade Iraq and their faithful followers wouldn't have to keep denying they made up all those lies to invade Iraq.

The only ones that benefited from it were the multinational banks and corporations that gained control of the economy and resources. But then as with most of Washington's military adventures overseas that's what's it's all about anyway.

Dollar hegemony and control of resources at any cost for the benefit of a handful of people.

Gotta give our oligarchy credit. They sure know how to take care of themselves.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Was it worth one trillion dollars, 4,500 lives, and countless other lives devastated either physically, emotionally, or both to replace Saddam Hussein with Nouri al-Maliki?

How is Iraq better?
How is the Middle East better?
How is America better?

The truth is, freedom, the right of a nation's self-determination, and establishing a line that evil cannot cross is always worth whatever cost incurs. The cost is not the issue. What is at issue is whether a nation willing to undertake the cause of freedom, of other nations' right to self-determinism, of the stand against evil, can do so without taking responsibility for what remains when the battle is won.

Since the United States rose to superpower status, we have been willing not only to take up those causes, but to remain behind afterwards, not to build our empire, but to help a people build their own empire. As a nation, we have no desire for empire. We have always held to a benevolent demeanor that desires the same for other nations that we ourselves enjoy. That is the truth of which we speak.

The Little Marxist Dictator has abandoned that truth for his own version of "truth," which is part of Satan's lie. It is the same lie accepted by American presidents since Vietnam. I fought there. I can speak authoritatively about it.

We could have won the war at any time, should have won it, right up to the point that we packed up our gear and came home. It is often explained that our leaders "lost their resolve," but that does not begin to explain it.

What actually happened is that our leaders traded honor, duty, and the cause of liberty for polling numbers, votes, and approval ratings. It was at that moment in history that our leadership gave up all pretense of leading and surrendered completely and irrevocably to the lure of power, popularity and expediency. Since Vietnam, this trident of political pretense has ruled our decision-making domestically and internationally.

We have a responsibility to the world as the standard bearer of freedom. When freedom cannot be won by diplomacy or at the negotiation table, then other steps must be taken, particularly when greed, tyranny, and evil are the chief motivations of those who stand against it. But our leadership has abandoned that responsibility in favor of personal power and aggrandizement. We pretend to counter wickedness and immorality, but our leaders have actually embraced it, and flaccidly parrot the greatness we once actually possessed while watching polls and counting votes to assure they remain in a position to enrich themselves monetarily and egotistically.

The world was saved from evil, unimaginable inhumanity, and tyranny of fascism and imperialism by a good, moral and decent nation that then reluctantly established itself as the buffer that would prevent evil of such nature from ever rising again. For a mere 50 years that endeavor was successful, even as cracks appeared in the foundation of resolve that enabled us to defeat an evil ideology, though certainly at great cost. Now the world looks for such a nation again.

But that nation has become like the rest of the world, and the world is worse off because of it.

We have no conviction. We have no righteousness. We have no morality. We have no soul. We are lost, and the world with us.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

If that is indeed the national philosophy how do we pick that nations to help become self determining. What about Syria, North Korea, or any number of states where the people have no rights and tyrants reign supreme?

I appreciate much of your argument, even if I may not totally agree that the US can or should play the role of world policeman, I have nothing but the highest regard for the brave Americans who go and fight.

But it seems that deciding which countries to police is inconsistent. Why Iraq and not North Korea. Why Iraq and not Iran?

I think there needs to be a 'worth it' to consider. Do we count the cost before we decide where to go to battle? Should we?

 

[poncho]

That was a pretty good speech TND you sure know how to layer on the ole red white and blue.

You got all the elements in there to, half truths, twisted history, some out right lies and you even managed to blame the democrats. Couldn't leave that one out!

I'll bet you even had a tear in your eye at the end there.

The truth is the banks and corporations that took over in 1913 have been feeding us all a bunch of lies and fear wrapped up in a nice tidy red white and blue package to get our young men and women to go die so a handful of elite's could increase their global power and control over everyone and everything on the planet.

That's what oligarchs do. That's what oligarchs have always done. Talk the masses into giving up their lives and freedom so the few can live in palaces.

 

[Salty]

TND, That was an excellent and thought out presenation. :thumbs:

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

If that is indeed the national philosophy how do we pick that nations to help become self determining.

You misread. That used to be how our nation behaved. No more. We only pretend, and essentially do nothing.

Do we count the cost before we decide where to go to battle? Should we?

Interesting you should ask that.

Luke 14, NASB
27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
29 "Otherwise , when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish'."​

Jesus' lesson is to always consider the total cost -- not just the monetary but also the practical as well as the spiritual -- of any undertaking. What is the right thing to do? You ask in this post "why not" certain countries instead of others. For one, it goes back to the turning point in U.S. history I spoke of during Vietnam. It is no longer a moral imperative, but a political one, and the considerations of the former are far different from the latter. Doing what is right is often overruled by what is expedient, and expediency is measured not in "right" but in "popular."

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

So in an ideal world with an ideal America doing what she should do we would go to war to free any oppressed people in the world regardless of the cost and regardless of popularity?

Not trying to be smart, just want to clarify the position.

I would contend that America should take care of America first - and only get involved elsewhere when there is no other choice. And if we do it we should not leave the freed people in the jaws of wolves when we leave.

When, beside WWI and WWII did the US act on a moral imperitive? I am not even sure there was a moral imperitive for WWI, but that is probably best left for another discussion.

 

[poncho]

There never was a moral imperative in America's foreign wars.

We've always taken the side of the bad guys first (except for maybe very early on before 1871 when the US was still a republic), funding them arming them building them up only to turn around and use them as an excuse to invade and occupy their countries later on and take away our liberties here at home by increasing the size and intrusiveness of our own govt.

If Washington and the money changers had stayed out of it there might never have been two "world wars" and the never ending military interventions that followed.

Like Smedley D. Butler said . . . "war is a racket". The only ones who benefit are the elite who fund them and reap the rewards. What are those rewards? More money, more power and more control.

 

[Salty]

...Not trying to be smart, just want to clarify the position.

I would contend that America should take care of America first - and only get involved elsewhere when there is no other choice. And if we do it we should not leave the freed people in the jaws of wolves when we leave. ...

C (is it okay if I call you C? :laughut

But now seriously - and agian I am not trying to be smart but to look at a comparision----- then should you not condend that Americian missioanres should be involved in Home missions first?

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

0

C (is it okay if I call you C? :laughut

But now seriously - and agian I am not trying to be smart but to look at a comparision----- then should you not condend that Americian missioanres should be involved in Home missions first?

God gave Chrisitans a world mission - 'Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the unttermost parts of the world.' He did not give the same commission to governments to bring people around to their way. God did not say 'go ye into all the world and americanise it and make it 'safe for democracy.''

If America was unevangelised I would agree, but it it not. It is quite possibly the most evanglaised nation on the globe.

America has no God given business in other nation's affairs. The church has a world mission.

A non sequiter IMO.

 

[Salty]

God gave Chrisitans a world mission - 'Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the unttermost parts of the world.' He did not give the same commission to governments to bring people around to their way. God did not say 'go ye into all the world and americanise it and make it 'safe for democracy.''

If America was unevangelised I would agree, but it it not. It is quite possibly the most evanglaised nation on the globe.

America has no God given business in other nation's affairs. The church has a world mission.

A non sequiter IMO.

C - I fully agree with you - but I thought it was an interesting comparison to consider. Lord bless you in your ministry.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

Obviously, and I think most folks see this, this thread was not totally about Iraq. The question is how should the US weigh up whether or not it is worth it to send our children to die on foreign battlefields?

I am becoming more and more of a non-interventionist as I get older. Quite possibly it is because I have 5 sons between 18-35 (and a son-in-law active duty USAF) and I weigh the cost personally. Am I willing to support military action some place that really has no impact on America's peace and security?

As TND mentioned the cost is more than just monetary or in numbers of lives, but in what is right and wrong. I am asking myself if it is morally right to send our sons and daughters to die in a war that is not going to have any measurable impact, even for the country involved.

I see Iraq as an example of that kind of war. Brave men and women went and fought and died and were maimed and wounded - but for what? Yes, they did the right thing. They were military personnel and they followed orders no matter how they felt about the war. Then, 2 1/2 years after the last of them left the country, it is right back where it was before the first invasion.

How long can we justify this kind of action? Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq have all been places where all we seemed to do was spend money and expend lives - then quit and come home leaving the situation status quo antebellem.

Is this really wise foreign policy? Does America really have a moral imperative to fix all the ills of the world no matter what the cost?

 

[Aaron]

God gave Chrisitans a world mission - 'Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the unttermost parts of the world.' He did not give the same commission to governments to bring people around to their way. God did not say 'go ye into all the world and americanise it and make it 'safe for democracy.''

If America was unevangelised I would agree, but it it not. It is quite possibly the most evanglaised nation on the globe.

America has no God given business in other nation's affairs. The church has a world mission.

A non sequiter IMO.

But you have asserted time and again that America is not and never was a Christian nation. Funny you would have a judgment against the actions of its government when a republican was in office, but preach that we should honor and blindly obey the socialists.

 

[carpro]

The truth is Iraq is right back where it was.

No, it's not.

Saddam Hussein is dead. So are his likely replacements, his torturing. murderous. raping sons.

Further. If it is the same...

Show us where the current regime in Iraq has murdered 300,000 Iraqis since they've been in power.

Show us the army that was one of the largest in the world and a threat to every nation in the region.

Tell us who is writing checks to the families of suicide bombers that kill Israelis or Americans.

Any Kurds been gassed lately?



After that , you can tell us again that it's right back where it was.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

Give Maliki time. He's only had two years on his own so far. This is a bad guy, mark my words. And he, like Hussein, has plenty of weapons provided by the United States.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

Was it worth one trillion dollars, 4,500 lives, and countless other lives devastated either physically, emotionally, or both to replace Saddam Hussein with Nouri al-Maliki?

How is Iraq better?
How is the Middle East better?
How is America better?

I was very much in favor of the war when it started, but as it dragged on and on and I realized I was wrong. As time went on, I realized I was wrong.

If I had any idea then what I know now, I'd be screaming louder against the war than anybody.

 

[preachinjesus]

No war is ever worth it.

Especially ones begun on the basis of fraud and lies...which most are.

 

[carpro]

Give Maliki time. He's only had two years on his own so far. This is a bad guy, mark my words. And he, like Hussein, has plenty of weapons provided by the United States.

So you admit it is not, in fact, right back where it was.

You just think that it eventually will be.

That is a completely different hypothesis. Instead of looking at things as they are, you want us to guess what it will eventually be like. Just as you are.

 

[Salty]

No war is ever worth it.

Especially ones begun on the basis of fraud and lies...which most are.

You're right - we never should have gotten invovled in WW II

 

[carpro]

You're right - we never should have gotten invovled in WW II

Considering the fact that Roosevelt practically issued an engraved invitation to the Japanese to attack, you may well be right.