Boeingman said:
France's position is based on nothing but pure financial interests.
You are quite probably correct. So is Russia's position. Now that we know that, would someone please tell me .....
What is the position of the US based upon?
Spare me the idea that it is based on "freedom" and give me something concrete. Spare me the idea that it is based on "disarming Sadam of WMD" (I pray that after the invasion we will actually find all the WMD that he allegedly has. If we don't, then I guess we'll have to "plant" them or someone is going to look awful stupid.) Spare me the idea that it is because he has "violated UN resolutions". Spare me the idea that it is because he is "a dictator". Spare me the idea that it is because we "want to help the people of Iraq."(Most Americans don't give a da*n about the people of Iraq, and a huge percentage don't even know where it is.)
Reading the rhetoric in this thread, it is clear that the majority support the war, but it is not at all clear (to me) WHY you support it. No one has articulated his/her reason for support as yet. (Unless of course you blindly follow the President like lemmings).
It is also clear that disliking the French is "politically correct" among the majority of writers. Why are they disliked ... because their President disagrees with our President on this issue?
Since you all set yourselves up as "defenders of freedom", why is it that you call fellow Americans that express their right to exercise freedom of speech by voicing an opinion, different from yours, "Anti-American"? This American is all for defending "freedom", but a lot of you make me wonder if you understand what freedom really is.
Most of you criticize the French as ungrateful for the help we gave them in WWII. Maybe they are ungrateful, I really don't know, but I doubt it. Being grateful for the help we gave them does not require blind acceptance of all future decisions of the US Government. Maybe in your minds it does? Does it?
ALL of you anti-French seem to forget that if if were not for the help of France, we Americans would have lost the revolutionary war with Great Britain. It was not George Washington that defeated Cornwallis. It was the French army/navy. We got that help, thanks primarily to two men. one of them French (Lafayete) and the other American ... no, not Washington, Benjamin Franklin ... whose superb diplomacy convinced the French king to aid the rebel revolutionaries. In the war of 1812 with Great Britain, were it not for the French, the fledgling US would have lost and been returned to the status of a British colony.
To the gentleman that mentioned the French defeat in Vietnam ... yes, they lost and that was a good thing. That was a revolution too, not very different from our own revolution against the English. By the way, we tried to take the place of the French by dividing Vietnam and colonizing the southern half. We lost too, after killing nearly 60,000 American young men, wounding a couple hundred thousand more, and dividing our own country. We even had our army kill American students, for exercising their right to free speech. We called them anti-American ... just like some of you are doing right now. We stopped the killing eventually, only because the American people did not support the US Government and they made it known.
While you ridicule the French for their position against an invasion of Iraq, no doubt you praise the British for their support. Well, it is true that we have the support of the British Prime Mininister (Mr. Blair). It is also true that 85% of the British people, do not support their own Prime minister or us. Why do you ignore that fact?
Some reference the French governments refusal to let us overyfly France when we chose to attack Libya. Those of you also praise the British for permitting our aircraft to depart from British bases and overfly the UK. Of course you are entitled to your opinons. However, you seem to forget that, in that case, the French people opposed their government and took our side. The British people also opposed their government and ours, and masses of them showed their opposition by burning the US flag in the streets of London, in living color. To my knowledge, the people of France have never burned the American flag in the streets of Paris. How come you French bashers never remember that?
Why are you not raising an outcry against the Germans? They don't support us either? How quick you seem to forget what the Germans did to all of Europe and to us.
Have we ever been at war with the French. Have they ever attacked us or killed our people at any time in history? It seems to me, that the only reason we love to hate the French is because they don't let us tell them what to do, and they are "arrogant" enough to see themselves as more than our equals, not militarily, but as a people. Are you sure it is the French that are arrogant or is it we who are arrogant because we think we're better than them? Objectively, it seems like we are very much alike, which is probably why we don't like them. They are too much like us, i.e., arrogant and self-centered.
Somebody, please explain to me (if you can) what is the difference between Sadaam Hussein and the Iraqi government ignoring UN resolutions for 12 years, and the Israeli government ignoring UN resolutions for 50 years? I would really like to know. It looks to me like this is not about who ignores UN resolutions. It's about who we like and who we do not like. We ourselves are about to "ignore the UN" because our President does not agree with its opinion. What's the difference?
By now, I'm sure that most of you have decided that I am just another darned liberal, left-wing, anti-war, SOB. After all I dare to question YOUR motives and that surely means that I am anti-American too. Right?
Well, you're full of it! I have worn my country's uniform with pride, and have fought in its wars myself ... also with pride. So did my brothers and brothers in law. So did my father and his father before him. So did my nephews. My son would have too, but he was the wrong age ... too young, and then too old.
I support our military personell and always have. They don't make wars and they never have. All they do is fight the wars created by politicians. They have always done so, with dignity and honor and courage. They deserve our praise, our trust and our respect. This is NOT their war, and neither were any of the others. If they are ordered to invade Iraq, I will support them in that too and pray for their success. So should every American.
However, do not confuse support for our military with support for our government's political decisions. The United States government, is not the same as the US military. Our military is but a tool of the politicians.
I supported WWII. I supported the Korean War. I supported the Gulf War. I support what we are doing in Afghanistan, and I support what we are doing in the Balkans. I did not support the Vietnam war, and I do not support this Bush war. Why, because we are doing this for all the wrong reasons, just like we did Vietnam for the wrong reasons, IMO.
Yes, Sadaam is an evil man and a dictator and I wish he was not in power. But, I am not willing to sacrifice the life of one young American to remove him. When we expelled him from Kuwait, that was proper and justified. Not because we were "defending Kuwaiti freedom". That's BS. There has never been any Kuwaiti freedom to defend and there is none now. I supported that because I believe that nations should adhere to the rule of law. No nation should be free to invade another nation, that has not attacked it, mereley because it "doesn't like its government or its leader". That concept applies to my nation as well. Might, does not make right.
When the US decides to invade another country because it doesn't like that country's dictator or government, that is little different from Hussein's invasion of Kuwait .... illigitimate.
If the government of Iraq is to be removed for violating UN resolutions, why don't we remove the government of Israel for doing the same thing? How do we justify the US invading another country, without UN sanction? What's so different about that. Is it OK just because we have the military power to do it?
Why do we call the Pakinistani dictator our ally, when we had to bribe him and his country with money to gain his support? Is his country a democracy or is he just another dictator paid to be on our side. Why are we offering our allies the Turks, billions of $$, to change the vote of their parliment, which does not at this time want our army in their country?
I respect everyone's right to support his war, but I also respect the right of those who do NOT support this war. There is nothing more "American" than freedom of expression. When you are willing to take freedom of desent away from those of us that disagree with you, then it is YOU that are anti-American.
