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Poll on Had to Wars and Want to Wars

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Poll on Had to Wars and Want to Wars

from PolMach Forums
“I will bring this country back to the time honored tradition of going to war only when we have to and not because we want to.” John Kerry

At first I thought this was a miss statement two week before the DNC convention. I know all politicians miss speak because of miss reading a line on the teleprompt or just by accident. Both Republicans and Democrats do it. But he has said it at the DNC convention and I believe two more times since then. This is in no way a slam on Kerry.

This is a Poll only. I am wishing to get info on what wars we had to fight and what war we wanted to fight. Please use the following format:
_________________________________________
What do I consider myself: Independent-Moderate

War of 1812 (Note: We started): Wanted to
Mexican American War: Wanted to
Civil War: Had to
Spanish American War: Wanted to
World War I: Wanted to
World War II: Had to
Korean War: Wanted to
Vietnam: Wanted to
Panama: Wanted to
First Iraq War: Wanted to
Bosnia: Wanted to
Serbia: Wanted to
Second Iraq War: Wanted to
_____________________________________
Sorry if I missed any wars, I know there are more.
politics
10,729 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top

Panama: pre-emptive to protect it's interests
First Iraq War: pre-emptive and reactive. Entered the war in response to Kuwait and international calls for support.
Bosnia: pre-emptive and reactive. entered the war for humanitarian reasons. There were mass graves located.
Kosovo: pre-emptive and reactive. entered the war for humanitarian reasons. Reacted before mass attrocities happened


panama declared war on the us prior to the invasion.
first iraq war was sold as preemptive to prevent an invasion of saudi arabia. 
what were we trying to preempt in bosnia & kosovo?  i dont believe protecting citizenry qualifies (im also not denying it was necessary)

Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top

The war started back with Kennedy. Do I think (if he had lived) he would have conducted the war better then LBJ? Yes. But I believe I read some where that the people of South Vietnam did not want to be part of a Communist government. The VC never had a majority of the population on their side. The VC/North Vietnamese operatives just scared most of the populace into staying quite. In fact if you remember it was the North Vietnamese Army who over ran the South not the VC


the vietnam war started long before kennedy.  the rebellion against french colonial rule was interupted by ww2--during which ho chi minh was a valuable asset to the allies fighting the japanese.  after the war, ho tried to maintain a good relationship with the us (you may be surprised to know his he started his declaration of independence from france almost word for word with ours--he changed 'all men' to 'all people' intentionally to include women).  when france found itself losing to the vietnamese, it prevailed upon the us for support--by threatening to back out of nato.  in 1954, the country was partitioned as part of a cease fire and elections were scheduled.   by that time the us was in the grips of mccarthy anticommunism and the usa intervened to prevent elections that would very likely have been won by the north.  when guerilla warfare broke out in south vietnam, the us began sending in military advisers to assst the south vietnamese army.    for the majority of vietnamese--like the majority of iraqis--the issue wasnt communism or democracy or anything other than ending 700 years of foreign occupation.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top
during which ho chi minh was a valuable asset to the allies fighting the japanese


Has anybody noticed a sickening trend twoards the fact that people we rely on or help arm at one point will turn around and stab us in the back? North Korea with its nukes, The current admisinistration in Iran (which we put into power). Osama bin laden. Saddam. Whenever the CIA gets involved in a war it always hurts us in the long run.
Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
I stand corrected on panama.

first iraq war was both pre-emptive and reactive. Reacted to Saddams terratorial ambitions which he clearly showed by taking Kuwait and pre-empted further land grabs by removing him from Kuwait and destroying his military.

Bosnia and Kosovo were pre-emptive in the sense that the US was not involved in the war, and involved itself. It attempted to preempt further human catastrophies. It was also reactive thoguh in that only signs of current human catastrophies brought the US to the stage of entering the situation.

Paul.
Reply #30 from PolMach Forums Top
The current admisinistration in Iran (which we put into power).


New to me, and I'm a History Major.

We didn't put the present government into Iran. Send me a refence to this, it would be a good read. If your refering to the fact that we supported the previuse government, which caused the present government's founders to revolt and take power, I get your point. I don't agree, but I get your point.

Or were you saying the last Iraq (Saddam)?
Reply #31 from PolMach Forums Top
I only read a few of the replies and just one thing struck me, somebody gave a long talk on the different wars and that we shouldn't police the world telling the conservatives that is liberal policy and then the very next reply is that yea let the UN police the world, I ask then who is the UN? For the most part it is us here. They want food, asks it of us. Even if they need a majority of troops then they will ask it of us here. But now let me take on this police the world idea. For one thing I do consider the War on Terrorism to be World War III. We are fighting for our very way of life here in the United States, make no mistake they can't be talked to, they don't care what we got to say or what we will give them to keep them under control. They want us dead, all of us, men, women, and children. That is all they want so in my opinon, it is far better to being fighting in these other countries then to be fighting here in ours.

I don't think we will ever really know how hard the attacks on us on 9/11 really hurt on economy. I run my families small business here in a little town in Pennsylvania. We are a newstand. And let me tell you we were hit pretty hard by 9/11. Most people ask me how, well we have and sell around 2000 different titles of magazines. One of 2 things happened to magazines after 9/11. They either went out of business or they put their price up. I talked long with my wholesaler as to what was going on and what happened was after 9/11 happened, alot of major advertisers pulled all their adds from the different magazines. The ones that were too small to hold on went out of business and the ones that could make it had to put their price up to keep going to make the difference up from all the lost advertising.

Why did I bother to tell you that? Well my point is that we were very hurt by the attack on 9/11 and everybody can say well Bush did this or he didn't do that for the economy but the fact is 9/11 impacted us very hard. In my opinon if we let the terrorists go and we pull back then they will come to us here and if they do that not only will we be fighting a war here but our economy will take a major hit too. Just my opinon. Have a good day.
Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top

I concur with that list pretty closely.

Ironically, the first gulf war was probably far more justified than World War I was. 

Reply #33 from JoeUser Forums Top

BTW, the US had no treaty of alliances in World War I.  There was no legal justification for the US to enter World War I.  Our reasons to enter World War I were remarkably similar for our reasons for declaring war on the UK.

If you think World War I was a "just war" then one must assume that you must be in favor of US action in Iraq. 

Rather than say "had to" or "chose to" I'll use a sliding scale:

10 = had to

1 = war of choice

War of 1812: 3

Mexican/American War: 4 (I give it slightly higher because we wanted their land - i.e. it was slightly more in our interest)

Civil War: 10

Spanish-American war: 1

World War I: 3

World War II: 9 (Germany declared war on the US after Japan attacked)

Korean War: 5

Vietnam war: 4

Panama: 7 (Noriega declared war on US, Panama Canal security vital US interest)

First Gulf War: 8 (Kuwait was a friend of the US, unless you're biking to work, oil is a key strategic resource)

Kosovo: 1 (what the hell was that about?)

Second Gulf War: 4

Reply #34 from PolMach Forums Top
only read a few of the replies and just one thing struck me, somebody gave a long talk on the different wars and that we shouldn't police the world telling the conservatives that is liberal policy and then the very next reply is that yea let the UN police the world,

Great post, Culpy, what area in Penn.? I used to have some family in Ambridge (right outside of Pittsburgh).

Let me reply by saying that actions in the private sector are going to be affected by world events no matter what and that America can only do so much. In my opinion, we've done little more than dump money and push ourselves on most of the people we've tried to "help" and, in doing so, hurt ourselves even more in the long run. What we could do instead is spend the taxpayer dollars we've been diverting to other countries on the one country that needs it most - America. We could help pay down the debt, this would hedge up small businesses and keep our position in the world marketplace secure. We could spend the money on Americans, to further enrich them by means of an affordable tax cut. We could use the money to provide more education and health benefits for people so that they have more money in their pocket. Instead, our unimaginative and careless leaders answer with war, as our shrill scream for vengence grows higher and higher, our black stripes dip lower and lower.