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Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...military-leaks
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Re: Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
Every war is ****ing awful. It needs to be stopped altogether, not just US conflicts. It's not like some wars are nice and civil while others are brutal. They all have to do with killing our fellow beings because some leader on the other side of the world doesn't like what some other leader said about something.
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Re: Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
Yes, the US is ****ing awful. The US has been responsible for the most awful things that have happened over there. The US military are the only ones doing anything awful over there. The US has done nothing useful there.
You have no ****ing clue. |
Re: Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
First off, I will say that Bush did the right thing in retaliating against Al Quaeda. I don't believe that the war had to push so much on Saddam Hussein instead of Osama Bin Laden though. This war was a ****ing mess. We could have captured Laden long before Saddam if we had only thought correctly. Instead, yes we hung a top named terrorist in his own country THAT WAS ****ING TELEVISED NON THE LESS. Complete and utter bull**** that we went after the 2nd most wanted. This terroism on the US started with Osama, why not get him first? Its not like we couldn't have gotten Hussein seeing as him and his sons were completely stupid :/
But to read about these reports, just reminds me of the World Wars. It's brutal, distasteful and just down right wrong. But, what can WE do about it? it's the military. >.> |
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IMO the American government should have stayed out of all this **** completely. |
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Stop for a second and turn on your empathy switch before you blindly defend your country. Note that 66,000 non-combatants died at the hands of the US in a unilateral war that is not internationally supported where the only lasting change and objective we fulfilled was building bases near their oil drilling sites. Put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi for a second: the White Man has come to your land and has killed more innocent people than not in a war that you don't understand and has only caused problems and in general made your life worse. Now while you're sitting in the position of empathy and pondering this war from the inside the question you really have to ask is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=603EdqmOYzw |
Re: Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
Reason 1 why I don't believe in God: religion = war ; war = death ; death = bad, therefore religion = bad. (amongst other reasons, but I realize this is a topic to be discussed at a later time.) 2 cents.
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But don't confuse the parlor tricks for creating morale with the fascist dominoes that actually tip us into wars. Anyways being a Dawkins athiest is trite and boring and a waste of your time and thoughts. |
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If it makes you feel better, I joined the military to go to college.
On topic: Geneva Conventions. I've heard from numerous peers of mine that, when downrange, there are quite a few soldiers that don't follow Geneva Conventions. Which is sad. But I don't think people should blame the entire military on breaches of the Conventions. I was at MEPS (the processing station for the military), and I was sitting with a bunch of kids out of high school. I was talking to them, and the majority of them had the 11B MOS, which in laymen's terms, is an infantryman. Now, I would never take that as my job because I scored too high on ASVAB. But when I asked them why they took infantry as their job, about 95% said that they wanted to either "blow **** up" or "kill terrorists." And that's exactly what they (think they) are doing. |
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I'm not an American and I admit I don't follow up on much of what's going on in that country. Call me ignorant but I'm just wondering, why is the war still going on?
Common sense has to agree with Fido here. Its obvious 9 years later that this isn't about 911, it isn't about nuclear weapons, or about oil, so why has the Obama administration fail to end this like he said he would? The only thing that this war has done for america is spend billions of tax dollars on a cause that's unclear. It's completely distasteful to read an article like this and know that the people who should be presecuted won't be held accountable. |
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In your experience would you say that Generation Kill miniseries pretty accurately creates the image of the modern day solider?
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The war was about "spreading democracy" in the Middle East. Except what we we're trying to do was we we're trying to create a pro-Western government in Iraq that had some sort of weak coalition government because we feared that a majority Shia controlled parliament would end up creating a like-minded political bloc with Iran (hint: this is what happened in the end.) So we're pulling out because we really can't do ****, and they essentially have a "democracy" it's just not the one we preferred for our interests and also not one that will stay a true "democracy" for too long. But we still have people occupying the bases that are strategically located near oil fields. We are still busting up Oil Workers unions, and we are still flooding corporate investment in that seems to be poised to take advantage of the resources and the workers. The more you read about the Middle East the more you see how oil seeps from the pores of conflict. |
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Oh hey. I'm just gonna leave this here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXUssG6_Ecc Watch it and perhaps you will learn a few things about the military. Oh, and if you have time, view this as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0 |
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Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.
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I absolutely agree with this. No one here is saying that war is not a bad thing, but the chances of billions of people actually banning together to stop this thing is absolutely impossible. The truth is this was started years ago, and now there is no turning back. We will have to continue this war and use our military forces even if this mean there will be more horrible things happening. War cannot be stopped and will always be around. Religion does not = bad. People = bad. Edit: and again this -V |
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Stopping war is impossible, you can't create a utopia. If we tried to create one massive world utopia, we'd have to go back to the beginning on mankind which is not humanly possible. Opinion is what keeps this world spinning, if we didn't have people disagreeing then what would there be to do? Sit there, do nothing for hours on end..
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I live in a world of war, I do realize this. I also live in a world of love, peace, unity, racism. It's not a matter of I am pretending to live in a world I don't it's that I don't really care because I know one person isn't able to change the world completely.
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The problem with this is that most people are very deluded about these topics, with very little possibility of encountering a reliable source of information they trust. Quote:
Opinions are what bring out the diversity in people, but that doesn't necessarily lead to aggressive fights. There are plenty of ways of taking advantage of disagreements in positive manners. Quote:
"religion = war" Fallacious. Religion is a set of principles and beliefs. War is simply a means of aggressive disagreement between extremists of each side. These extremists are not usually not accurate representations of the religion itself. 82% of Americans are Christian. Does this imply that these 82% of people are always at war? "war = death" War may cause death, but that doesn't mean they are equivalent. "death = bad" While death is generally considered to be a negative impact on humanity, it is part of the life cycle. Death cannot be so black and white to be immediately classified as "bad," as all things in the universe are to some degree beneficial and detrimental. You merely assume that in the specific case that war is usually bad and causes pointless destruction, that you separate the two cases and then combine them by transitive property, which is fallacious. "religion = bad" So you basically just combined relative concepts that weren't even necessarily true with equal signs, and then mathematically declared them to be the exact same thing, and hence assuming that the transitive property was a legal application here. Despite common sense knowledge about the benefits of religion, moderation in every day life, balance and clear separation between principles of faith and reason, and the eccentricity of special extreme cases, you decide to connect nonsensical arguments and ideas in order to arrive at the final conclusion that you are against religions. Next time, you should look at things from as many perspectives as possible before you judge, and actually apply arguments that make sense. As a person that is against religion, isn't it ironic that you don't actually apply any logic or reasoning to back up your faith-based environmentally-impacted observed opinions? |
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stargroup got trolled
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Free will lead to war. War very costly, lead to death. Death very bad. Therefore free will very very bad.
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"Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening."
So wrong, unless your definition of a civilian by necessity makes someone a non-civilian if they take up arms or the fact that they become active and a leader of people makes them not a civilian. Individuals found companies, found religions, take down governments...change happens from individuals! Its all about how driven you are, how resourceful you are, and how intelligent you are. Most people who share you view of the world are not driven enough to make a difference, IMO, and are cowed by the very thought of the enormity of the effort and planning involved it takes to make a big difference. Or rather, they won't even get into the planning stages of what might be involved, because its just so damned huge of an effort to put out. Which almost equates to what you said, but is in fact quite different, because by saying that you have no power, you will also never try, and therefore never succeed, regardless of how easy or hard it would be do. You're also passing on the message to others that it is impossible, and if they believe you, they too will do nothing. "Free will lead to war. War very costly, lead to death. Death very bad. Therefore free will very very bad." Freedom doesn't lead to war. Also, no country is ever really free by fact of being a country in the first place. I would say freedom specifically makes 'war' much less of a likelihood, because war implies something largescale and organized. In an anarchy, you might have more fighting, but to get something organized enough for a war while still remaining free seems unlikely. Regardless though, my free country doesn't force me to join the military, and allows me to vote. |
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stargroup your reasoning is terrible
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Stargroup.
Take logic and reasoning. You'll find that 100% of mathematicians agree with rushy. |
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Organized religion is a scheme all in itself. Also, Rushy religion is usually not the basis of war. So, you can't use that so broadly as a analogy to describe war as a whole.
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War a grander form of "We can't come to any other mutual agreement but we both can't allow this situation to go on any further, so we're going to start causing you harm if you don't comply."
Religion can indeed fuel many wars because in most cases it's an ego displacement. "I ignorantly hate race X" gets displaced to "God hates race X and I must follow God's word." Religion can be a pretty dangerous tool because of, largely, these two things: 1. We can justify anything by saying it's God's word, because we can't disprove such a thing. 2. It's considered disrespectful to step on the toes of the religious -- religion almost demands a sort of unwarranted respect. It's certainly more complicated than this but this is the stroke of it. |
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It demands unwarranted respect because you can basically argue any ideology you want, no matter how self-serving or socially-grating it may be, and basically tell people "Oh no, you can't question my beliefs -- they're holy. Don't disrespect my religion."
We're seemingly free to criticize politicians and economists but it's considered poor form to tell someone that their religion is batshit. |
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Well, even blabbering about a political stuff can get you into a load of arguing.
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Right but at least we can debate politics with evidence and proof. I might argue one side of an issue, cite statistics, mention alternative plans that might maximize utility, etc, and you might take another side because you interpret things differently (hopefully also with proof).
Religion doesn't fall into that category. There's no way to disprove or prove anything anyone says, and so it comes down to "Well I will cause harm because I said so," in its most basic form, where war/oppression is concerned. Having no justification is pretty dangerous. |
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Rubix, are you agnostic by any chance?
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I am an agnostic atheist.
Specifically defined: I do not believe in anything theistic, but I also think that I have to be fair, as a scientist, to say that the concept of God is by definition an unknowable construct (we can't ever disprove God) -- I do not believe the probability split between God possibly existing and not existing is 50%/50%. |
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Religion is not bad in general, though anytime one preaches something other than love and understanding, it is. In a way, we are all religious, and we are all philosophers, although the former has a negative connotation among most intellectuals, and so they might take offense to that label. |
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Get your terminology right and try again next time. |
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That brings us to origin. For one, it again assumes an origin to begin with -- which we don't have *direct* evidence for since we don't yet understand fully the point in time in which Einstein's equations break down, yet we have evidence in terms of quantum cosmology that suggests possible explanations for the universe's "progression" (the simultaneity of events regarding the singularity), but again, none of it is fact yet such that it explains "what the hell really happened." It doesn't mean we have to "believe" in anything until the evidence is more conclusive regarding the question we're addressing directly. Believe it or not, it's okay to say "I don't know." Because nobody does, yet. It's okay to reserve judgment until all the facts are in. Seriously, quit being a smartass when you have *no idea* what you're talking about. It isn't a "which is it" scenario -- you're loading the terms. "Objective beliefs" in itself is a completely laughable phrasing. |
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Well, regardless of the purpose or lack thereof of the universe, evidence has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is impossible to scientifically affirm purpose or purposelessness. If you think that evidence collected from the physical world has the ability to tell us whether there is a purpose to the universe, then you are misinformed.
Anyway, that wasn't what I was trying to get at. You believe that the universe is purposeless. But you do things. Therefore your actions are arbitrary like those of religion, in that the preference of one action over another is much like the preference of a flavor of ice cream over another. So to pride yourself in not doing things in a completely arbitrary way like religion is hypocritical. |
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Again, you're an idiot.
Purpose is a human construct. If you want to invoke a "higher purpose," then you might look to religion or something similar because it's assuming something arbitrary and without evidence. We have evidence for purpose where human constructs are concerned. Way to strawman and misinterpret my argument BTW. Do you even understand evolution? It's not like we can dig in a rock somewhere and "discover purpose." Purpose is an evolved construct just like any other function of the human mind. Why do you think we feel happiness/sadness/emotion/etc? Purpose is a side-effect resulting from our evolved nature to test the consistency of the world through pattern matching and logical inferences regarding causal links. Couple that with human utilitarian concepts and you have "purpose." Sure, we "do things." But our actions aren't "arbitrary like religion." They're, at the core, utilitarian and causal. Why do you think we "like" one thing over another? You conflate the concept of purpose in a scientific sense with "purpose" as it's typically defined in most religions. We can lead "purposeful" lives where human utility is concerned, and this is well-evidenced in practically every nook and cranny you can think of. But "higher purpose" is an invoked piece of BS that has no basis in anything and is a displacement of the human ego and utility. I seriously can't tell if you're trying to troll me or if you're genuinely this ignorant/thick. My money's on http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/174/trollface.png but who knows. They let just about any kind of trash into UCLA these days, especially those who need to ask about "retrospective decision making" in a blatant misunderstanding of probability. What the hell do you even learn in school? Whatever it is, you need to get better at it, because you genuinely suck. |
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Regardless of why you think he's posting what and how he's posting, at least try to keep a civil tongue?
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The fact that you mention purposeful lives “where human utility is concerned” shows that you believe purpose does not objectively exist but instead exists relative to some cause, in the same way that velocity does not objectively exist except when measured relative to some defined stationary point. If you want a high-paying job, you “ought” to get well-educated. If you want to become a good fisher, you “ought” to have patience. But these are conditionals that assume the purpose of the thing that came before them. I believe you would agree with me if I said that these things had no objective purpose, but instead just did something that would potentially lead to more utility. Utility is an arbitrary purpose, though, and so the rest of activity is, as well. A decision is fundamentally backed by dogma regardless of the logical validity of the argument for that decision. |
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![]() statistics can determine a lot of useless **** if you don't take the time to critically think about things from an inside view i'm not saying it's possible to view as many things with an inside view than it is with a broad mathematical view but those statistics can be interpreted in a lot of useless ways making religion the enemy is like making stupidity the enemy. it's detracting from where a real focus should be by focusing on meta-elements (and also issues that you aren't going to make a lot of progress with whatever specific problem domain they create by combating on this meta-level.) i haven't found a reason to try to deal with anything beyond a case-by-case basis. i have a feeling a smarty like rubix or iam90 could come up with something tho. |
Re: Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.
Devonin:
Alright. Ledwix: I'm in a mad rush this morning so I'll make this quick. I think you're confusing what it means to believe in something, similar to the common misconceptions that atheists "believe" in something just as arbitrary as a theist "believes" in God. There's a difference between a belief and lack of belief. Your initial point was that we are all religious because we either hold a belief about a God/Gods and/or hold some belief about the origin and/or purpose of the universe. A belief is another way of effectively saying "in my opinion" or "what we think" about some positive statement, and it may or may not be true. This is different from a factual statement where knowledge and facts are concerned, defined as "justified true beliefs" (what's true for me is true for you). A lack of belief simply means "I won't claim this to be true and I am reserving judgment until I have evidence" or simply "I don't care enough to form an opinion and therefore have no belief one way or another." Atheism, for instance, is a sort of non-theism. It simply means "lack of theistic beliefs," meaning you do not subscribe to any one theistic belief. It does not mean you are saying there is no God with certainty. But we can claim that all evidence points to other explanations that suggest that we live in a Godless universe or a purposeless universe. "Purpose" is typically defined in religion as a sort of "higher purpose." If you want to lob "humanized causal purpose" into that category as a way to say that everyone is religious because we all "do things," then good luck to you. You may as well call an apple religious because it falls from a tree. You're trying to argue that any sort of "purpose" is somehow "religious" in nature. I am saying this is clearly false -- "purpose" is, in itself, a highly loaded term. We can define it as either a function of "higher purpose" (a certain end-goal or meaning invoked by a higher authority) or a "human purpose" (something we do in our everyday lives with some desire or goal). The former has no evidence and the latter does -- the latter one isn't a "belief" in the same manner. I don't hold any positive beliefs about the purpose of the universe. I hold true to the facts and evidence that tell me that I do what I do because of utility, which is a well-evidenced concept that ties into events just as arbitrary as the apple example I mentioned earlier (at their origin and core). This isn't a religious statement, but is instead a simple function of causality through evolution and necessary conditions. But again, if you want to define this "purpose" as "religious," then you must, logically, claim that an apple falling from a tree is religious or that a bear eating fish is "religious" or that a rock sitting still for centuries is "religious." |
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that's why i'd like to see people more educated on the subject of religion... if we didn't have concepts like God to fall back on, maybe we wouldn't be so deft at justifying our basic flaws... but probably we would. who knows |
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The problem is that people do things in the name of religion. It augments and organizes unjustified thought into a potential weapon, and that's what I dislike about it. You don't see atheists organizing together and doing awful things in the name of atheism.
As religion is an emergence of the human psyche/ego, again, the only way to stomp out the negative effects is to promote education. We typically find that the more educated/intelligent one is, the less likely they are to be religious. I don't have a problem holding an arbitrary belief in a God as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. But what I DO have a problem with: -Telling kids that they will burn in hell for their sins -Promoting nonsense about not questioning authority under rule of God -Teaching falsehoods and spreading misinformation about science based on religious scriptures (such as trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, etc) -Trying to push religious doctrine into schools, public policy, government, etc. -Causing harm to others in the name of your religion or scripture |
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but then morals and assimilation!!
the least america could do is remove religion from their system entirely. I'd be sad to see an excellent presidential candidate not get voted in because he doesn't believe in god. |
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I look through this thread and see a lot of people that just shouldn't be in here talking about anything.
More so than anything else. War is hell. Don't pretend to understand it. For those of you who have a semblance of what's going on, more power to ya', and for those of you who actually know what's going on... You're too far and in between. Zat is all. |
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Goddamn I need to stop posting this late at night. I don't even remember typing that.
I'll have to find some time to read this thread at some point because I'm too sleepy right now. -__- |
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