Why some Americans may be supporting the War and genuinely think it should be fought?

Translation: as I asked a question 3, instead of 33, hours ago.

let america go have their war. why must britain get involved?

i am so moving to finland;)

I wish they'd 'fuck Australia' too. How embarrassing to have ones country siding with the Americans.

Hey - I recognize this! It's a quote from Starship Troopers.

One little bomb called the Atom bomb dropped in the heart of Japan and they never fucked with us again.

This would be less scary if I hadn't read in the newspaper the other day that a nuclear strike against Iraq becomes an option when US troops are attacked with B or C weapons. Someone tell me that's not true, please.

Nuclear weapons leave radioactive waste that can last for years and can create clouds of radioactive dust that can blow over long distances. They are dirty weapons whose only place is at a strategic, MAD-type scenario, and not regular battlefield use. Hell, we are seeing bad effects in Iraq from depleted uranium ammunition, and now they want to go and drop nukes?

Our military is so much stronger than onyone elses its not even funny. Everyone else is years behind, and the only country which is even trying to catch up is China. War with China will be a distaster, mini-nukes or not.

It's also interesting to note how these two lines completely elide several years of down-and-dirty war with Japan, not to mention Germany and Italy; it's as if, yo, they fucked with us, we used a nuke or two, and that was that. Aren't quick and clinical military actions -- wars with almost no sense of sacrifice -- also kind of pussy-ish too?

Heh. Yeah, true.

No, I think intelligent pro-war arguments (ones that don't rely on pussy this and pussy that) are possible. It's just that this isn't one of them.

Apart from that whole Lockerbie bombing thing, huh? Still, no Americans died there, so its not really that important.

I think his point is more along the lines of using Iraq (which seems to have potential to be terroristic) as an example to other terroists.

That's the heart of it, yeah. If people in 1945 were to read the above then they'd weep.

Apart from all the Americans who made up most of the passengers on the plane, of course.

likewise it is good to see that the other side to this side isn't composed entirely of wildly irresponsible and lazy hippies.

But unlike Mandee, I couldn't just shurug it off the other night and got depressed reading all of the other pro-war messages on there. So the first semi-intelligible post I saw, I grabbed and posted here, to see whether any commentary could be made in regards to why some Americans passionately feel this way. I wasn't being facetious in reporting on its responses either: 68 people responded affirmatively.

The one that is demonstrated on this thread is far and beyond more intelligible than what one would usually see

I really don't know why I go in there when it just dishearetens me. I think I do because I want to see what "the general populace" is thinking - the common people who have no interest in intellectual discourse. But I keep forgetting that those message boards are not really representative of anything at all (a small sample size anyway); besides they are continually being monitored by the AOL staff, so many are regularly being removed to make room for new ones. However, remember from the Typo Thread - absence of spelling errors does not automatically = intelligence! Just patience, and a desire to self-edit.

That rant would make quite a bit of sense had Iraq been behind 9/11, but since that is not at all the case, it doesn't. In this case, it's as simple as that.

Well that's why I posted this, to show how alarming it is that many people are accepting the Bush administration's attempts to link Iraq with Al-Quaeda. This Hispanic girl I work with, who seems to be fairly intelligently enough (that sounds REALLY condescending, sorry), she said yesterday that we better attack or else we're just going to be attacked again, "like 9/11." I asked her, "who are you talking about...Iraq never even attacked us?"

"Oh."

I guess its not a question of intelligence, but how well-informed one is.

You have far more faith in humanity than I do. The idiot AOL user closely models my impression of the average human being.

(yes, terribly rude to own mum but being nagged transatlantic-style by burgeoning right wingnut is a provocation for me being v. bitchy just to MAKE IT STOP).

Anyway. I quit. The entire argument has been moot for over a year in some circles. There are those I can talk to about this and those I quite obviously can't. Frankly it's not worth my time.

Also, anyone who says, "If you don't like America, then leave!" is an idiot who does not understand the point of America.

(Neither of these have any bearing on my views on the war, which are so conflicted and tangled that I don't even know how to express them.)

my country is going to go to war despite the wishes of its people, and im not angry. you're going to get the war you want, and you are angry. i dont get this

its Saddam's apparent threat to set the oil refineries on fire that is interesting tho - clutching at straws eh?

I think posting up such an obvious straw man for people to swipe at like a pinata at is no less a troll than a thread about Toploader.

I'm angry, Gareth, because I feel like I see less critical thinking and more backslapping amongst the peace crowd. But actually less so in the hours following the protest, methinks.

I'm not really angry now. You guys are cool. Just as long as I don't see any Toraneko posts for a while. *hissing noises as steam escapes*

yes there has been backlslapping as well as critical thinking. but this is due to the huge volume of antiwar stuff, theres going to be all sorts.

is it not acceptable to be anti-american though? i love going to america, and i have really liked all the americans i have met, but i am vehemently opposed to american foreign policy. im not a fan of the american domestic policy either, but that is internal stuff so thats not for me to say. can this be classed as anti-american, if you are referring to foreign policy that i believe has a negative aspect on a number of countries, my own included? is disagreement with a countries political system basically being 'anti-xyz'?

(Not to mention all the other inhabitants of America who don't even live in the USA).

I was not trying to inflame rhetoric either way, please believe me.

Well, no. It wont be any good for the people working the fields, but those will be just brown people, so who cares? The chances of oil being contaminated by nuclear waste is very, very small.

Millar: You could be labeled as a right-wing zombie just as easily.
As for the knee-jerk comments:

"oil" - Yes the left tends to oversimplify the role of oil ("we just want to take their oil" = nonsense) but if you don't believe that Iraq having 11% of the worlds oil figures into this, you are a fool. For an intelligent look at the role of oil in the upcoming war, read this http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

"colonialism" - The US's meddling with 3rd world countries post-WWII has been, on the whole, distasterous (for them). There is no guarantee the Iraqi people will be much better off without Saddam - case in point Afghanistan, where outside of Kabul, everyone is the same or worse off than under the Taliban.

"US is worse" - Worse than? I don't see anyone saying this.

"North Korea is worse" - This is just a way of saying that Bush's policy about WMD is wildly inconsistent, which points to other motives for the Iraq war.

"Saddam is Nice" - Now you are just imagining things.

Your main problem, Millar, is that you believe most of what the Bush administration says, while most people here are very skeptical of anything coming from them. And this scepticism is earned: Bushco have told a number of big lies over the least few years (Iraq has drones that can reach the US, the aluminum tubes thing, that Iraq was a year away from making the bomb, various abortive attempts to link al-qaeda and Iraq). So arguing from "evidence" whose sole source is BushCo will not convince many here.

really? so I guess the particular doomsday scenario some have been citing as a reason to attack Iraq - saddam develops bomb, launches at Israel, Israel massively retaliates with own atomic bombs, middle east oilfields irradiated, world civilisation returns to stone age - is completely without foundation, then? (non-rhetorical question)

Or maybe he's just skeptical of liberalism? The dogma door swings both ways.

from the USAID website:

"Since October 1, 2001, the U.S. has committed $840 million in humanitarian and reconstruction aid to help the people of Afghanistan with the U.S. fulfilling 95 percent of the $297 million pledged at the Tokyo Conference in January 2002." The United States contributed more than $23 million to health in Afghanistan in 2002. Since April 2002, 2 million Afghans in rural areas have enjoyed improved access to primary health care. In addition, 4.3 million children were immunized against measles, 120,000 insecticide-treated bed nets were provided, sixty-eight clinics received drugs and equipment, the central surveillance system of the nationwide polio eradication program was revitalized, the national curriculum for midwives was revised and training for auxiliary midwives developed. America's Fund for Afghan Children has raised more than $1 million in the past two months, bringing the total donations to the fund to $11.4 million since October 2001. The U.S. is investing more than $38 million to help the Afghan people strengthen civic institutions and reinforce democracy and stability. The United States is giving $5 million to facilitate the Afghani government and encourages other countries to fulfill their pledges. The women's resource centers are part of $100 million specifically assisting women. The U.S. has committed $80 million to reconstruction of the main commercial road between Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat. Construction is underway. The U.S. is assisting the Afghan government in creating a national army. In 2002, American soldiers helped train 1,600 Afghan soldiers."

From my understanding of how oil is extracted, the chance in any event of *oil* being contaminated seems small - oil is stored miles underground. The wells are relatively tiny holes poking into the oil reservoir. Nuclear material getting into the oil in any significant quality seems small.

He can be skeptical of both Bush and his critics. But some of Bush's lies are so transparent (e.g. Iraqi drones reaching the US which makes no sense at all whatever your politics) that a critically thinking person would not take anything Bush says at face value.

Oh yeah, I did say that, right after I said Saddam was a nice peace-loving guy. Imagining things again.