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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-07 15:37:42
All right, let's see if we can leave motives out of it altogether.
Of course, it's already been established by many here that all countries mis-state or equivocate when it comes to motives on the international stage so we can't necessarily simply accept what those countries might say at face value. This problem deepens when the stated motivations given by countries alter as questions arise about those stated motivations.
So in the absence of clear and reliable information about motives how do we proceed? Do we simply assume *no motive*? Not feasible really. Unmotivated action is the domain of psycho-pathology and I don't think we want to go there.
Something always motivates rational human action. Sort of a truism. Also sort of a truism that humans always want to try to understand the motivations of those whose actions affect their lives. And even sometimes to understand their own motivations.
Unfortunately this understanding of motivations tends to require the asking of the question "Why?".
Which brings us back to the problem of not having reliable information. Unless it doesn't. Perhaps it's wrong after all to say that in all cases all countries mis-state or equivocate when it comes to their motivations. Perhaps *this* time there's a country telling the absolute truth about their motivations, about all their motivations, each time they state their motivations, no matter which official of that country makes the statement. But then we have to open the door to the possiblity that other countries are capable of the same thing, of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Unless we don't and there's really only *one* country with the virtue of international truthfulness. That's a write off of the potential trustworthiness of an awful lot of humanity. Might not want to go there either.
None of which addresses the question of *your* motivation.
So, let's assume, for the sake of our conversation, that you have arrived at your point of view on your own, through your own in-depth research, independent of the views of USA or UK media, think tanks or governmental agencies. You have not been swayed or deterred either by mis-statements or equivocations. Neither have you bought into the notion that there is one country in the world and one only whose public statements of motive can be taken at face value and trusted.
You support war because you support war. That is the only non-speculative thing that can be said about your motivations. You don't support it because you believe the US and UK. You support it because you support it. Further to that, as you have said, you support it because it's a route to peace. Which, it must follow, we are not presently experiencing. Otherwise why go to war to acquire peace if we are already experiencing peace. So we must already be at war.
Which will lead us to peace, which is what you really want, and which we are apparently not presently experiencing.
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I want most fervently to end world hunger. By the logic of instigating war to achieve peace in a time of peace, I will have to see to it that many more people go hungry in order to achieve my goal.
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-10 16:47:14
I understand and enjoy the clever logic of your argument, however...
1) I do think we are at war right now. As a Quebecer, I can assure you a society can be at war with itself without a single cut or kill. And the costs of such a cold war are enormous.
2) Also, on motivation - I rely on the constitution of each country as a measure of ultimate motive. I expect the citizens of each country to hold their leaders accountable for each tenet of their constitution. Its not sexy or clever, but that's how I feel.
3) I don't want to go to war. But I don't see how we lift sanctions on Iraq without assuring ourselves that there is no threat of a psychotic regime from using its immense purchasing power to kill many hundreds of thousands of people. I believe the genocide that Saddam has unleashed within his country is a dress rehearsal for what he'll do as soon as he returns to pre-sanction conditions.
Am I wrong? I HOPE SO!
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Contributor: critictrue1
Date: 2003-03-10 19:36:28
Whose security concerns us?
Perhaps if the USA had not sold or given Iraq weapons of mass destruction we would not be in the present situation.
Why are we concerned about missiles with short ranges?
Is the goal to create a democratic state with Hollywood so that the Iraqi people will be able to see how we killed evil Saddam followers and helped the people. (US has bases in over 2/3 of the countries in the world. (Like the Roman Empire)
Even in Quebec, Canada we had terrorists and a desire to be free. ( I thought they were free in a free country.)
Lastly, Louis Riel that most honorable criminal that all Catholics and Francaphones need to thank.
Those that went west to KILL the devil received 1/2 section of land but the Metis, Poundmaker, Big Bear? > Castle Loma is a result of the moneys to be made.
Iraq needs to be destroyed for our security.
Intelligent people believe this?
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-11 15:38:26
Uhh, no one says Iraq needs to be destroyed for our security. But let me ask you:
Do intelligent people think the sanctions aren't destroying Iraq as we speak?
Do intelligent people think Saddam is not destroying Iraq as we speak?
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-10 19:56:04
"I do think we are at war right now. As a Quebecer, I can assure you a society can be at war with itself without a single cut or kill. And the costs of such a cold war are enormous." This is rather specious of you really.
"I rely on the constitution of each country as a measure of ultimate motive. I expect the citizens of each country to hold their leaders accountable for each tenet of their constitution." Me too. Where's the US Congress Declaration of War. That's their constitutional prerogative, not the POTUS.
"But I don't see how we lift sanctions on Iraq without assuring ourselves that there is no threat of a psychotic regime from using its immense purchasing power to kill many hundreds of thousands of people." Same way we did with a much more well armed Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. We contain and refuse to abandon diplomacy.
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-11 15:44:47
Okay, so we agree that the motives of a country are ultimately derived from that country's constitution. We're getting somewhere.
I don't think containment will work. It did not work with the Soviet Union, we defeated them by outspending them, not containing them. They were quite successful at expanding their sphere of influence over large swaths of the globe.
You are correct, I should not have mentioned Quebec. I was a little over-zealous.
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-11 20:08:55
"I don't think containment will work. It did not work with the Soviet Union, we defeated them by outspending them, not containing them. They were quite successful at expanding their sphere of influence over large swaths of the globe." OK...let's outspend Iraq. Pretty easy to do I should imagine. The Soviet Union is a curious artifact of history now. Whether we outspent them or deterred/contained them or whatever. We *did not* send 3000 Cruise missiles onto their heads. Maybe because we knew they had 3000 to send right back at us. Irrelevant really...the SU is no more and outright war was never declared.
Where did we get exactly with respect to constitutions? Can you 'splain to me what we can understand about the US motives by quoting from the US constitution and then advancing an argument about motives?
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-12 11:06:56
Inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The "root causes" of terrorism are people living without access to these rights.
When the US acts to keep these rights from people of other countries, it acts in a manner that contradicts its principles and therefore is in bad faith.
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-12 13:36:48
That's the Declaration of Independence actually. I do, however, take your point because in many ways the D of I is a more useful historical document when it comes to trying to understand some of the roots of the US psyche.
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-12 20:01:25
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."...is the bit most relevant to our discussion here I think. This is in the second paragraph, not much more than a couple of sentences beyond the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you alluded to.
This is then made more complex by the articulation of the theory of Manifest Destiny: "In 1845, a democratic leader and influential editor by the name of John L. O'Sullivan gave the movement its name. In an attempt to explain America's thirst for expansion, and to present a defense for America's claim to new territories he wrote:
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." (copied from http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/manifest/manif1.htm)
So we have the "right of the people to alter or abolish" their government coloured by "the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole...", then continent, now world?
Food for cheap pop-psychological thought, ne? :-)
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-13 15:29:00
Quite interesting stuff.
I think you are correct that the current update of that statement is "the world".
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Contributor: critictrue1
Date: 2003-03-12 09:15:39
The Berlin Wall came down mostly because peoples behind the Iron curtain were able to receive telecommunications from the west. East Germans modified their TV receivers and saw how west Germany lived for example. People lived off the state but stopped producing. No longer did they believe the lies of their government and one day the American public will wake up as well and realize that Ari and the boys hold dual citizenship.
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Contributor: cfallon
Date: 2003-03-12 16:47:43
Critictrue1:
This, along with that other comment regarding the Rothschilds comes across as a cryptic dig at a what? Some conspiracy that controls media and finance...
I really don't understand your point.
Dual citizenship with what country: US and Israel? Is that your implication?
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