U.S. invasions

[krimsonviper]

Do you think its right for the United States to invade another country or overthrow another countries government? In my opinion, it seems to me that everytime we do this, we hurt said country. We force ideas or democracy onto people who simply aren't ready for it, and then leave, when we should have just taken it over or just did nothing at all.

I guess my example would be the Philippines. We took over, introduced our style of gov't, left, and now its become a 3rd world with a whole lot of corrupted politicians and it's not even prepared to deal with its terrorlst problems with al-queda(sp) or other muslim extremists. I believe that if we stayed there and made it a state or satellite country, it wouldn't be so bad.

Now, we've destroyed Iraq, and rebuilt it. Eventually, we're going to leave it to it's own people, and most likely will become an enemy of ours(all Islamic states do), but at least we had a known evil there and now we will have a random one that will eventually pop up and possibly become even more dangerous to the U.S. than Saddam was. The difference really is that the lives that were sacrificed in the war will be in vain, both our soldiers, and many crazy a$$$ men that fought our great country.

How can we force an idea, force ourselves into another region that will NEVER EVER climb out of their caves and modernize themselves even with help, when we still have plenty of things that we have to do in our own country to make it better. I.E political corruption, homelessness, border control, drug trade, gang bangers(our countries terrorists), and whatever else I can't name at 3:30 in the morning. I dont know, this is just something that I wanted to voice outloud and have other pick at my idea's

[rn79870]

If history is any indicator, unless the entire US is 99% behind the invasion, then it is a tragic mistake. WWII is an example where the the vast majority supported the invasion, and it went no holds barred. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, little support, even less application of the force necessary to succeed, and the bottom line is that there is no win possible.

The use of war powers, short of an all out attack on this country, should be limited to congress, and not simply the president. Then, let the military run the show.

Look at our current crop of candidates. Only one of them even knows what a salute is. We're screwed, really screwed.

[smockers83]

Had Pearl Harbor not happened to catapult us into WWII, that war in the US would have ended up just like every other one mentioned here. The reason wars fail on the domestic front here in the US is because of the way we fight.

The way to "force" our idea of democracy and freedom is through containment and allowing the "other" ideology collapse/implode on itself.

People forget that the war in Iraq is the same war we're fighting in Afghanistan...the global war on terror. Its just another theater of the war. The wrong theater, maybe. Why is Afghanistan justified and still justified...because of 9/11. Why was Iraq justified amongst a majority of the public at the beginning, because of 9/11, al-Qaeda, and fear. Again, if we want to spread democracy, we can't force it upon a people, but allow people to see and recognize democracy and allow the controlling ideology fall through a policy of containment.

The success of Europe and Japan after WWII can be duplicated through cooperation--those peoples didn't want war anymore. They were sick of it. It can also be duplicated monetarily, but with a very high price tag, one that we probably can't afford anymore so we'll need some help. People get all upset over McCain's comment that our military will be in Iraq for another 100 years. People, after we helped rebuild Europe and Japan, we still have a military presence in those places after 63 years. After WWI, we were no longer there and Europe fell right back into war...not saying that's the cause of the war, but just think about it.

[Jager]

Well as charlie wilson (the guy who engineered the afghan resistance movement against the soviets ) said, The US always gets the start right but we screw up the endgame.

if we had spent a few million in the late 80s under reagen to rebuild basic needed infrastructure in Afghanistan while it may not be very different today if we did that, the main reason afgans hated us was we left them a razed and destroyed country that we should have rebuilt.

Iraq is a step in the right direction but out of the 2 Iran was and should have been the target, and we shouldn't have started the war when we did with such flawed intel.

the US needs more guys who know what they do best and we need to take alot of the red tape out of the way. war needs to be left to congress but we also need a president whos willing to put troops on the ground effectively for his alloted 3 days.

theres a lot of issues and not a lot of solutions easily at hand.

[krimsonviper]

So then why can't we just let other countries govern themselves? As far as I am concerned, the U.S is a big bully who seems invade anothers house hold and tell them what to do. Personally, if a country isnt willing to start a civil war for itself to better itself, then why should we force them to? Its like trying to get grape juice out of raisins. Nothings coming out for the energy we've put into it

And why should we have rebuilt Afghanistan? It wasnt our war, we helped them to win it, and that should have been good enough. If they wanted us to rebuild, then they should offer us money.

And the war on terrorism is rediculous. Terrorism is everywhere, even here in the U.S, and if anything, we should concentrate on our own homes, after Afghanistan. I didnt see any real threat coming from Iraq. I would have preferred to have attacked N. Korea. Honestly, and I'm going to sound like some sort of looney here, I thoroughly believe that we're attacking the middle east because of its oil. As an end result we're making ALOT of enemies that will never forget us, and quite possibly destroy us or continually eat at us

[Jager]

well most of the worlds dictators or dangerous people the US put into power back in the 60s or later. Saddam is our fault, so is Castro, so is Afghanistan so is Iran. the onus is on our country to fix its mistakes, problem is we make them worse most of the time.

we gave the afgans billions of dollars in soviet and American technology, bought from the isrealis, the Saudis, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and others. we spent more money on the soviet vietnam as it was called, in order to break communism, then we have EVER spent before or since on a covert war. we spent more for other people to use then we spent in desert storm. a massive coalition of people with very different mindsets and even outright enemies. we would have spent less then 100million at that time to build basic schools hospitals and shelters for thousands of homeless teenage war refugees whose parents were massacred in the early days. We befriended these people , showed them how to fight, promised support, and the second the soviets started leaving we totally cut off funds, not even the most basic of human needs were supplied as promised to these people. you have a problem with terrorists? we trained these guys when they were 14-20 and then we betrayed our word, damn right they are mad at us, and lo and behold they use the same tactics we tought them 20 years ago against us..... what we did in the 80s has come back to bite us on the ***.

we shouldnt be asking for money from a country that lost 90% of its structures and has no running water in over 3/4 of the country.

to this day afganistan is extremely poor and relies on drugs to make the money needed to survive, We could have done something about that, instead we ignored it and now look where we are.

its not always our place to put our faces in other countries business, but everytime we do so we damn well better fix the country afterward. when we do we end up with places like japan and western europe. Massive economies able to support themseves VERY quickly, and while not pro american all the time, definatly not enemies.

any major war that we've lost or ended poorly has the same effect as hurricane katrina, a bunch of really pissed off people who where promised x and got Y or nothing at all, this time though those people have weapons and tactics to fight back.

like it or not the Us is treated by the world as a police force, we are supposed to go risk our necks for people and butt into situations, thats why we are the largest part of the UN peacekeeping forces all over the globe, why we have a few hundred thousand troops in south Korea, and why we have billions of dollars in missile defense systems we gave the Israelis and our bases in saudi arabia, and operate in japan to dissuade china /north Korea from firing.

if we are to continue this role we HAVE to finish the jobs we start, otherwise pull the troops home let the world go nuts. let the nukes fly from religious bigots in india and pakistan and watch north korea roll over south korea and japan if china doesnt do it first.

its a total catch 22 I agree , but shall we sit back and say eh why bother?

[krimsonviper]

no i do agree with what you're saying. You do get my point to a degree, and while what I'm about to say will sound retarded, I'm going to anyway

"Finish the job/take over the damn country/annex the mother fvcking country basically, or dont do anything at all."

Why do we have to be the #1 in protecting the world? As apart of the UN, why cant all the participants in the UN give the same percentage of troops/man-power as we do?

I do agree that it was messed up that we left Afghanistan like that. If I had known about that piece of info I probably wouldnt have been so cold hearted about my comment.

I feel that if a country is trying to put up a fight and asks for help, sure, we should butt in because they asked us to, but agreements need to be put forward. Sort of like a prenumptual agreement. We agree to stop the people you dont want fvcking you, from fvcking you, but this is what I want in return. Not necissarily a permanent take over, but more of a 100 year occupation. Your money is your money, but we're the parent and I WILL TELL YOU HOW TO SPEND IT AND I WILL TEACH YOU MY METHODS so that when you're on your own, you wont break down and have the same problems as before. If we arent willing to do this, then yes, yes we should sit back and say "why bother?"

Plus we might be able to make some money off of another country

I'm looking at it from a winner takes all POV. It probably seems horrible, but thats just my take.
Modified by Absolushun at 4:02 AM 5/5/2008

[audtatious]

Why do we have to be the #1 in protecting the world? As apart of the UN, why cant all the participants in the UN give the same percentage of troops/man-power as we do?

Some countries do not have a strong military because they know we are there. Good or bad that is still the case. The UN itself is so full of corruption it's pathetic and the Security Counsil is fractured. Why didn't countries like Russia and others join the coalition in Iraq? Because they had money invested in Saddam which they would never get back. When you have big players doing an end-game even to UN sanctions then you have no hope of getting a committal of involvement from them due to financial and political positioning. Look at Darfur and the genocide and such going on. While we are locked in with Afganistan and Iraq nobody is doing a damn thing about it and some of the people who b1tch about us being in Iraq and call us warmongers also b1tch that we are not over there helping them out. Catch-22 indeed (or "damned if you do, damned if you don't")

I feel that if a country is trying to put up a fight and asks for help, sure, we should butt in because they asked us to, but agreements need to be put forward.

That assumes the people themselves are strong enough to put up the fight in the first place. In a large number of cases, that does not happen for they are unsure if they will get any of the support they hope for or are too scared that they and their families will be slaughtered.

[AZhitman]

Absolushun, your "winner take all" idea is top-notch in my mind...

Unfortunately, we have a bunch of namby-pamby handwringers who are APPALLED at the idea of us "forcing" western ways on people who have lived in mud huts since prehistoric times.

God forbid we should eliminate a dictator, protect and educate women and children, assist with implementation of democracy and self-rule, and leave the country in better shape than it was when we walked in.

The fact is, certain political types won't allow us to "finish the job". Our hands are bound.

I am a proponent of Imperialism. We win the war, we take over the country. You can keep your religion, you can keep your way of life, you can keep your rich traditions and your culture, but you're NOT going to violate human rights. You're NOT going to treat women like second-class citizens. You're NOT going to force children into laboring. You're NOT going to pollute your water supply. You're NOT going to lack for modern health care or education.