Nov 24 2004, 12:55 pm
In response to Artekia
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Jotdaniel
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6.63 deaths/1000 live births is a very VERY small percentage, just over half a percent. I don't think its that disturbing at all(from a strictly statistical standpoint) seeing as over 99% of babies will live; 99% of anything is all you can hope to ever get.
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Jmurph wrote:
A very well thought out response, Gug. I applaud your willingness to look beyond the surface on this issue. As do I. =) The nuclear attack was simply the best of a lot of bad options. War is hell, as they say, and their was no easy solution. I think it important to remember that in context of continuing Japanese death marches, bizarre and cruel medical experimentation, torture, and prostitution the loss of civillian life was a necessary evil to prevent larger scale atrocities and losses both civilian and military. Agreed. By the way, to clarify my earlier statement: There is no justification for using nuclear weapons, but that doesn't mean that the alternatives are justifiable either. Using the atomic bomb was a very bad decision, in a situation where ALL the choices available were very bad. Perhaps it was the lesser of several evils; we'll never know for sure, though. Those of you who I've debated with about the war on Iraq will notice that this is a similar philosophy, though in the case of Iraq I'm still not convinced that the choice taken was the lesser of two evils. But I'm unlikely to be convinced via an internet forum, so in the interests of avoiding sparking off a huge sub-debate that will waste bandwidth and get nowhere, I advise you all not to bother trying. =) | |
Spuzzum wrote:
2,917 This comparison relies on the erroneous assumption that there's a causal relationship between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. White House advisers had been looking at the possibility of a strike on Iraq even back during the Clinton administration; Dubya talked of making Iraq a focal point before 9/11 ever hit. Iraq is not about hunting terrorists, WMDs, oil, religious crusade/jihad, politics, or any of the other generally silly claims that have been made on both sides; it's an attempt to create a progressive, democratic government in a place where there wasn't one previously. Bush is attempting to create a reverse domino effect, the theory being that once he puts in place one progressive, democratic government, others will practically put themselves in place. Personally, I think it's a nice idea, but a bit far-fetched. The timing doesn't help, either; this sort of thing takes a fair deal of manpower and enormous amounts of money, and we don't really have either handy at the moment (we could have at least tried to get Afghanistan settled in first, so we didn't have to divert as many soldiers there). | |
At the same time, though... look at the timing. Why now? Or rather, then... so comparatively soon after 9/11, riding high on the Afghan campaign that was pretty widely regarded as successful... it's a fact that Iraq has been in our crosshairs, but I don't think the trigger would've been pulled if not for the sequence of events that unfolded from 9/11.
As for the goal of installing a stable democracy... I don't know how that ever appeared feasible. If we have to force the Iraqis to accept things like ratios for women, what happens when we leave? Who doesn't think they won't start electing theocrats as soon as we clear out? If we have to keep our soldiers there enforcing it, is it really a democracy? Yes, there's a lot of Iraqis over there who do want democracy and freedom... for their own little group. I'm wondering if this wasn't more a case of inertia and inevitability. As I said, we had Iraq in our crosshairs for over a decade... we had all that momentum... and so much of life is "...seemed like the right thing to do at the time." | |