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Originally posted by taxwonk
There isn't a lot of difference a government killing its own people and people getting killed in a war.You can call it collateral damage if you want, but it still boils down to killing innocents.
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So there is no difference between the US sending soliders into WWII where some of them forseably died, and the government intentionally infecting black men with syphillis (which they knew would could them - the Tuskegee experiement) for a study.
Pretty much the same thing?
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Originally posted by taxwonk
Sometimes that killing is acceptable. It was acceptable in WWII because of the fact that Hitler was practicing genocide.
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I agree. I think getting rid of Stalin would have justified killing millions of innocent Russians, just like getting rid of Hitler justified the killing of millions of Germans.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
Of course, we didn't get into WWII because Hitler was practicing genocide. We, meaning the upper levels of military and civilian government knew it was going on, but they didn't think it was worth getting involved in. We got into WWII because of Pearl Harbor, and the fact that Germany declared war on us after we declared war on Japan.
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I think FDR wanted to get us in even before he knew about the Genocide. I think FDR thought Kryselnacht and the invasion of Poland was enough to justify going to war agaisnt Germany. Unfortubately the rest of the US was not as enlightened.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
I also don't think it was a bad thing that Saddam was deposed. Had Bush I done it in 92 when we were driving him out of Kuwait, I would have wholeheartedly supported that. But he didn't.
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I think he didn't because he was too caught up into UN mandates. He also assumed that the insurgency would take Saddam out.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
Bush II also didn't depose Saddam because he was killing off thousands of his own citizens and trying to exterminate the Kurds.
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I think that was part of it.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
In fact, we've stood by for decades as Iran, Iraq, and Turkey have all tried to eradicate the Kurds.
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That is what happens when you have moral relativists sitting around saying that we can not be the policemen of the world, we can't shove western values down other peoples throats, and if innocent people died when we were trying to stop the genocide that would be just as bad as the genocide.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
W went into Iraq because he was getting his ass kicked by the press for failing to get Bin Laden. He needed a diversion. That's why we went into Iraq. And killing people because you need to boost your poll ratings isn't true or just or right. It's cynical, dishonest, and borders on the criminal. I say borders because I'm not aware of an existing statute that would expressly fit this situation.
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I disagree with this assumption altough I do agree that killing people to boost your polls is a truly despicable act. I don't think Bush did that, but he did he would be a truly awful person.
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Originally posted by taxwonk
As I said yesterday, right war, wrong time, wrong reasons, too great a cost.
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That is fair.
