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Debate:Is the Iraq War a success? (view source)
Revision as of 05:28, November 17, 2009
, 05:28, November 17, 2009→Yes
"Mr. McFarlane was a national security advisor for President Ronald Reagan."
"Mr. McFarlane was a national security advisor for President Ronald Reagan."
[user Howard Long]
[user Howard Long]
When approaching a matter of international relations, you must have an open mind, and drop everything that is moral, or left up to conscience. That way you are left with the nature of how states act. International relations are not at all powered by moral, but powered by nature. It is the nature of the state to act in a certain way. That nature is determined by several factors including the make up of the governmental entity, the type of government it is, and the power of the government. People usually do not factor into how a state behaves with other states. That being said, the state that is most powerful has the control. They can, and do, act not as a police force per se, but more like the dictator. Does this mean that the post powerful state is going to go raveging through the other states raping the women, and stealing the gold. Not necesarily. Although this is entirely possible those of you familiar with world war II, which was to put it basically, a state carrying out it's job according to international relations. All it means is that the most powerful state is free to take uncontested liberties that other states cannot. Such is the case in the IRaq war. We had a mission to overthrow Suddam and impose capitalism and democracy on the nation of Iraq, also they have oil. Not that we don't have oil, it's just that we can force it out of them easier than we can get it from ourselves. This is not cruel or wrong by any means when talking about international relations. It is the right of the powering state to do these things. And America is the powering state. Believe it or not, America is not the stand-alone good samaritan, superman, hero everyone makes it out to be. As a state, we have needs. Also, we have wants. And we fulfil these wants and needs by going to other nations and putting military bases in them, and getting involved with conflicts that don't endanger American freedom. We always have something to gain out of the deal. the Vietnam war is a perfcet example of this. Russia was trying to take over the world, and they wer trying to take control of vietnam. Well America came it and over took South Vietnam in order to combat the Russians. We didn't give a damn as to what happened to the villagers of Vietnam. That's not why we were there. That's also why there are so many horrible stories of rape and mass murder committed by american soldiers. Our mission was to stop Russia through the Vietnamese. This is called realism. Realism states that there is one state in control and all of the other states want to be in control. It turns into the survival of the fittest and who can out military the other. Wars are going to happen, and that's the nature of the beast. Getting back to the part of the state having something to gain from being in certain places, allies will form also as another way for a state to get what it wants or needs. To stop Hitler, America had to join forces with England and France, and Russia(Although France had it's own problems with the Maginot line.) We had something to gain from allying with them, obviously. But what happened immediatley after the war ended? the Cold War began with Russia and America and 2 wars resulted form it: Korea and Vietnam. We broke our alliance with Russia so fast, it made everyone's head swim. But why do we remain "close" with places like Australia, and England. Mostly because we have something to gain by being allies with them and allowing them to conduct their business as they wish, rather than conrtolling them and forcing what we want out of them. In Australia's case they absolutely love us because if it wasn't for us coming to their rescue, they would all be speaking Japanese right now, and they are pretty much eternally greatful to us. But what did we have to gain from saiving some Ausies, dingos, and roos? A stepping stone to the stopping of Japanese island hoppers from taking over the West. So what does this have to do with present times? We have something to gain from being in Iraq. It gives us a shoe in to being a controlling state over a large resource. As for Afghanistan, I see no need to be in there. In fact. We will lose if we continue this pursuit. No nation has ever in the the history of ever and forever won in the land that is currently known as Afghanistan. Russia lost and they were just about as powerful as us. We are in there now and we are gettingn our asses handed to us. Obama doesn't want to put forth the effort needed to actually make and impact on the war and we are losing because of it. Not that we would win anyway, but this is sort of speeding up the process. Now will we be left in ruins like Russia is? Probably not. We are smart enough to keep our nukes at home and I don't think it'll make to big of an impact on our armed forced. But that being said it is a fruitless adventure. One that should be stopped immediatley. The reason for being in there given by the government is that we are getting back at the terrorists. One steadfast rule in international relations is that you don't acknowledge a terrorist attack. You sort of turn the other cheek. It's like the bully on the school yard. If you ignore him he'll go away. Notice how after 9/11 we didn't run right over to afghanistan where Bin Laden was adn drop a nuke on the whole nation? Instead we went into Iraq to do what Bush's mission was, even before 9/11 which was to pick up where Senior left off. Had 9/11 not happened, we would still be in Iraq. We didn't go after the terrorists at all. But it make for great media coverage to go along with our sterling save the day hero reputation. Now that that is all said and done, was there anything wrong with going into Afghanistan in the first place. No. We were mearly acting as the controlling power and doing exactly what we were supposed to do according to international relations. mattfelton 9:20 11/116/09