Where does Iraq and the Middle East go from here?

[Mr Khan]

SamuelRSmith said:

spurgeonryan said:
Are you blaming the US then, for a majority of those deaths? Come to think of it, I do remember having to clean up a humvee that was splattered with a soldiers brain matter. Does anyone have a list of how many US injuries there have been?

I would just like to see a graph from you or one of the other geniues on this site that post in political threads, showing the ways that Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed these civilians. I wonder if anyone from these countries care at all about any of the American Peoples sacrifices since we went over there?

Notice I said American People. The American Government is basically worthless to me. Trillions of dollars in debt, over spending on Defense, making us go to Iraq in the first place, and the myriad of other things that they have miss managed over the last decade with The Bush and Obama in charge. I am annoyed by the government as well, is what I am saying, but to say that we (America) killed most of those people you have listed up there is kind of harsh.

I didn't say that America killed most of the people, I just say that it's disturbing and upsetting when we celebrate the deaths of some humans (enemy combatants), or are completely callous to the deaths of others (civilian casualties). These people are no different from you or I, they just happened to exist within an arbituary barrier which we "declared war" on, and so their rights didn't matter anymore.

It's not just a problem with Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the US, it's a problem with war.

I do not believe that war is a natural state for man. War is a tool for big Government, and the military industrial complex. Through their friends in the media, and the body politik, they manipulate us into supporting these wars, by dehumanising us, by making us blood-thirsty. The media treats war coverage like some kind of action movie, or videogame. It's disturbing.

When you think about what happened in Iraq over the past two decades, the amount of suffering that people have gone through, because we decided that we didn't want Sadam in power, anymore. Yes, he was a bad guy. But does that justify dropping chemical agents on his retreating armies in the first Gulf war? Does that justify bombing water treatment plants, and power stations? The sanctions after the first Gulf war included restrictions on the imports of materials required to rebuild water treatment facilities. The result of this policy was over 500,000 deaths from cholera, and other water borne diseases. These people meant us no harm, and yet we murdered half a million of them to get at one man... and he was still in power! It didn't even work! But, hey, that's policy. That's war.

I do not blame the American people, either. Something like 70% of the American people want out of Afghanistan. Does it happen? No. These elected men, who are meant to represent the people who vote for them, completely deny their wishes. In doing so, they risk the lives of good Americans, and they steal the money from all other Americans to pay for it all. I entirely blame the people in Washington  (and those in Hollywood and New York who do everything they can to brainwash the people into supporting this stuff).

Odd. Given your strong beliefs in natural law and human nature, i thought you would have assumed war was inevitable.

My view on it is that war is primarily an aberration, existing either as a miscalculation or as an act of desperation (like terrorism). Countries that feel they've been completely backed into a corner resort to war, countries that start wars that they then lose misjudged their ability to win, while countries that don't surrender immediately and later lose misjudged their ability to survive (although if you feel that your enemy is going to utterly destroy you either way, then you fight out of desperation, the irrational belief that the more damage you do to your enemy will make your own death more meaningful).