BF2S Forums Wikileaks Releases More Information about Iraq War

FEOS wrote:

Pakistan's not a real democracy? Really?

Unfortunately, Pakistan hasn't reached the level of stability to allow for the proper economic and political environment. My guess is there will be another round of Musharaf-like dictatorship before they can reach the stability required. They have to clean house in the NW and Baluchistan first.

Pick one and stick with it.

I don't recall those specific ones, but regardless, that is a strategy used (successfully) by countries in foreign policy for millenia in pursuit of their interests.

Blowback
Saddam and Bin Laden being two handy examples, not to mention the millions of futile deaths in the process.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2010-10-25 04:47:47)

He has pretty much redfined trolldom.

Uzique wrote:

feos has a very good point

almost every pre-colonized/non-independent state has had to go through some (brief) phase of right-wing, fascistic government to develop an economy. 'neo-colonialism' i think the academics call it, or just straight post-colonialism. kinda like where the country is still economically subservient to its original geopolitical business interests... and then develops a middle-class and an educated class based off their money and foreign investment. you need these things before you can properly set up a 'stable' democracy... growing pains, if you will. you can't just give the uneducated, impoverished proles full control after decades of foreign occupation or satellite-rule... by that point the uneducated ones will always have turned to forms of political and/or religious extremism, and there won't be enough brains in the country to handle it properly.

'benevolent dictatorship' seems like a necessary evil in the development of a new state; awkward adolescence for nations.

Don't forget those regions that, through cultural or religious traditions, are probably never going to respond well to western democratic government.
They are permanently mired in that 'awkward adolescence' of dictatorships and kingdoms, and the best they could achieve is a noisy parliamentary government.

Certain regions, they respect a man of strength as leader, they respect authority, they respect the word of a man.
Laws, to them, are meaningless paperwork and an excuse for corruption. 
Weasels and weak men rely on laws and paperwork, to them.

jsnipy wrote:

I look at these document releases as other occurance in war. Like you said there is nothing happening in any war now that has not happened before. The issue is probally more with lying and hypocrosy of what the US says it does and do vs what it does.

This is just an event in the evolution of data security. It will be interesting to see what measures evolve from these events.

Then again we take all of this for face value.

The key word here is HYPOCRSY. That abuses happen in every war we know. The problem is how the goverments try to hide these abuses and feed us imagem os soldiers giving candy bars to children...

what a dumb statement

Ticia wrote:

EVieira wrote:

jsnipy wrote:

I look at these document releases as other occurance in war. Like you said there is nothing happening in any war now that has not happened before. The issue is probally more with lying and hypocrosy of what the US says it does and do vs what it does.

This is just an event in the evolution of data security. It will be interesting to see what measures evolve from these events.

Then again we take all of this for face value.

The key word here is HYPOCRSY. That abuses happen in every war we know. The problem is how the goverments try to hide these abuses and feed us imagem os soldiers giving candy bars to children...

Or how our moral superiority is nothing but an illusion since the US military and their allies are as barbarous as the ones they're defending us from.

Small problem here. The US, NATO, their allies etc. being barbarous? Yes. As barbarous as the people they fight? No. Firstly, not every soldier in the military is going to be doing barbarous things. Secondly, how many USA soldiers harmed civilians or profited off war crimes? Maybe 20, thirty, or more,maybe a hundred, or a thousand.. Number of US soldiers who didn't do war crimes or crimes in general? The majority. Number of taliban and al qaeda troops who commit barbarous acts? EVERY SINGLE ONE. Even if they're drafted or a child soldier, they're forced to be barbarous by their leaders. The american's have a choice whether to be barbarous or not, these rebel and militia groups usually have no choice other than serve or die. Also, yes, it is sad when pictures of soldiers giving toys to iraqi kids and the like are staged to cover up the horrors perpetrated by americans.

The US deservesto be appreciated, they're not perfect but they are better than thousands of alternatives. You think chineseor russian forces would be lenient in a war on terror? Russia would probably bomb the crap out a town regardless of the innocents, although they'd try not to kill to many innocents with the actual ground strikes, and then rush the town with infantry and tanks leaving destruction in their wake, see Chechnya, even though they aint the USSR anymore they still use similar tactics. Yeah some terrorists die, so do tons of innocents. The americans keep civilian casualties very low and are constantly trimming terrorist numbers. The chinese in these situations? Don't even think about it, they'd send everything short of a nuke to the place they're attacking, and they wouldn't even try to minimize innocent casualties, maybe a few soldiers would try not to kill civilians but the chinese government would cover up the horrors allowing soldiers to commit atrocities with no fear of reprimendation. The americans are the best we've got in wars on terror, currently.

Last edited by Acerider (2010-10-25 09:22:51)

EVieira wrote:

Acerider wrote:

The US deservesto be appreciated, they're not perfect but they are better than thousands of alternatives. You think chineseor russian forces would be lenient in a war on terror? Russia would probably bomb the crap out a town regardless of the innocents, although they'd try not to kill to many innocents with the actual ground strikes, and then rush the town with infantry and tanks leaving destruction in their wake, see Chechnya, even though they aint the USSR anymore they still use similar tactics. Yeah some terrorists die, so do tons of innocents. The americans keep civilian casualties very low and are constantly trimming terrorist numbers. The chinese in these situations? Don't even think about it, they'd send everything short of a nuke to the place they're attacking, and they wouldn't even try to minimize innocent casualties, maybe a few soldiers would try not to kill civilians but the chinese government would cover up the horrors allowing soldiers to commit atrocities with no fear of reprimendation. The americans are the best we've got in wars on terror, currently.

I don't have to appreciate crap, the US does whatever the hell it wants to. Chinese and Russians are crueler, maybe so, but they don't pretend to be any different. Russia leveled Chechnya with artillery, and they never said they would do differently. They actually gave the civilians a warning to abandon the city.

You want to fight back the Talibans for 9/11, thats fine, but don't pretend to be you're better or nicer or some sort of "liberator" than you actually are. (or pretend there are WMD to give an excuse to invade some country...)

so how many acts of atrocities did you see committed by US troops in afghanistan? please tell us your experience.

Cybargs wrote:

EVieira wrote:

Acerider wrote:

The US deservesto be appreciated, they're not perfect but they are better than thousands of alternatives. You think chineseor russian forces would be lenient in a war on terror? Russia would probably bomb the crap out a town regardless of the innocents, although they'd try not to kill to many innocents with the actual ground strikes, and then rush the town with infantry and tanks leaving destruction in their wake, see Chechnya, even though they aint the USSR anymore they still use similar tactics. Yeah some terrorists die, so do tons of innocents. The americans keep civilian casualties very low and are constantly trimming terrorist numbers. The chinese in these situations? Don't even think about it, they'd send everything short of a nuke to the place they're attacking, and they wouldn't even try to minimize innocent casualties, maybe a few soldiers would try not to kill civilians but the chinese government would cover up the horrors allowing soldiers to commit atrocities with no fear of reprimendation. The americans are the best we've got in wars on terror, currently.

I don't have to appreciate crap, the US does whatever the hell it wants to. Chinese and Russians are crueler, maybe so, but they don't pretend to be any different. Russia leveled Chechnya with artillery, and they never said they would do differently. They actually gave the civilians a warning to abandon the city.

You want to fight back the Talibans for 9/11, thats fine, but don't pretend to be you're better or nicer or some sort of "liberator" than you actually are. (or pretend there are WMD to give an excuse to invade some country...)

so how many acts of atrocities did you see committed by US troops in afghanistan? please tell us your experience.

Errr, Eviera, I'm not American. I'm giving an unbiased opinion. Yes, the americans are the lesser of twoor three eveils.Im not gonna persecute all the americans for commiting war crimes, just the ones who did and the ones who tried to cover em up.

Acerider wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

EVieira wrote:

I don't have to appreciate crap, the US does whatever the hell it wants to. Chinese and Russians are crueler, maybe so, but they don't pretend to be any different. Russia leveled Chechnya with artillery, and they never said they would do differently. They actually gave the civilians a warning to abandon the city.

You want to fight back the Talibans for 9/11, thats fine, but don't pretend to be you're better or nicer or some sort of "liberator" than you actually are. (or pretend there are WMD to give an excuse to invade some country...)

so how many acts of atrocities did you see committed by US troops in afghanistan? please tell us your experience.

Errr, Eviera, I'm not American. I'm giving an unbiased opinion. Yes, the americans are the lesser of twoor three eveils.Im not gonna persecute all the americans for commiting war crimes, just the ones who did and the ones who tried to cover em up.

What I'm saying is I don't think anyone should put up with being lied to, or at least manipulated, because the US is the "lesser evil". I also don't think this deserves any "appreciation" , being the good guys is supposed to be the standard thing.

My intent  was not to sound like I'm persecuting, just that the hypocrisy of the difference between their alleged intentions and the real actions.

EVieira wrote:

Acerider wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

so how many acts of atrocities did you see committed by US troops in afghanistan? please tell us your experience.

Errr, Eviera, I'm not American. I'm giving an unbiased opinion. Yes, the americans are the lesser of twoor three eveils.Im not gonna persecute all the americans for commiting war crimes, just the ones who did and the ones who tried to cover em up.

What I'm saying is I don't think anyone should put up with being lied to, or at least manipulated, because the US is the "lesser evil". I also don't think this deserves any "appreciation" , being the good guys is supposed to be the standard thing.

My intent  was not to sound like I'm persecuting, just that the hypocrisy of the difference between their alleged intentions and the real actions.

Being the good guys is not the standard thing by any means.  It's more like being the guy who'll make you suffer less.

It doesn't have as much of a ring to it though, so we still have to use the "good" guy label.  It's war, what do you expect?  I'm sure we did some awful things during WW2 as well, and we allied with a guy (Stalin) that killed more people than Hitler.

War is almost always a matter of the "least of multiple evils."

EVieira wrote:

Acerider wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

so how many acts of atrocities did you see committed by US troops in afghanistan? please tell us your experience.

Errr, Eviera, I'm not American. I'm giving an unbiased opinion. Yes, the americans are the lesser of twoor three eveils.Im not gonna persecute all the americans for commiting war crimes, just the ones who did and the ones who tried to cover em up.

What I'm saying is I don't think anyone should put up with being lied to, or at least manipulated, because the US is the "lesser evil". I also don't think this deserves any "appreciation" , being the good guys is supposed to be the standard thing.

My intent  was not to sound like I'm persecuting, just that the hypocrisy of the difference between their alleged intentions and the real actions.

Sorry if came across a bit harsh. I defifreakinitely agree that manipulators deserve no appreciation. I just think the people who honestly stop bikering about the reason their stuck in a war and start fighting it for the good of their country are the ones who deserve appreciation. I'll phrase my point better : Liers, propaganda ministers and war-prolonging politicians= bad. Soldiers trying to do their best= good.

Turquoise wrote:

Shahter wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Stalin killed more people than Hitler.

/facepalm.
turq, go, like, educate yourself on the matter, whydoncha?

on topic:
war never changes (c). nobody walks away clean from it, regardless of the outcome.

Speaking of education....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_grave … viet_Union

Most estimates are between 10 to 20 million people were killed by Stalin, not including deaths due to war.

With the Holocaust (and including non-Jews that were killed in concentration camps), Hitler killed between 11 and 17 million people.

So I guess you're right, they most likely killed about the same number of people.

Think of it this way. It's not how many people they killed, it's how evil dictatory they were. So they're both very evil dictatory.

Acerider wrote:

Acerider wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Speaking of education....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_grave … viet_Union

Most estimates are between 10 to 20 million people were killed by Stalin, not including deaths due to war.

With the Holocaust (and including non-Jews that were killed in concentration camps), Hitler killed between 11 and 17 million people.

So I guess you're right, they most likely killed about the same number of people.

Think of it this way. It's not how many people they killed, it's how evil dictatory they were. So they're both very evil dictatory.

And let's look at more modern dictators. Hussein used the UN embargo to his advantage. He used the embargo as a scapegoat, stole the majority of his countries medicines and foods and life was a living hell for anyone but the rich.

I wouldn't say Stalin or Hitler were any better or worse than Hussein. They're all a chip of the old block. The old block being a red star. Wwhich was chipped with a hammer and a scythe.

Saddam was actually America's puppet briefly.