From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: RE: Right-Wing Follies!!
Date: 12 Aug 1992 16:47:35 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: altair.crhc.uiuc.edu

In article <Bsu6Ay.38M@cs.dal.ca>, kumar@ug.cs.dal.ca (kumar yelubandi) writes:
|> >From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
|> >Subject: Re: Welcome to the Right-Wing Follies!
|> 
|> >I am glad you agree. However, my use of the word denoting bovine faecal matter
|> >is to refute your argument that the Democrats (or liberals or whatever) 
|> >supported intervention in the Gulf militarily at ANY time before they were
|> >overruled by the war commencing anyway; and that they were opposed to the use of
|> >force for any and all reasons before the war began. There was ample evidence of
|> >Saddam Hussein's thugs murdering people in Kuwait well before the war began.
|> >So your argument that they decided, in any number even close to a majority,
|> >to support the war effort out of sympathy for or horror at the lot of the murdered
|> >falls flat on its face right there. They DID support the war after it began,
|> >and that was because even the dove-iest of doves knew that not to do so would have
|> >opened him/her up to charges of unpatriotism, treason, wishing the deaths of
|> >Americans etc, even if those arguments are wholly without merit, and unrelated to
|> >the reasons for their opposition. 
|> 
|> 	Yes, there are some half-truths in the above drivel.  But if you 
|> actually believe the war began after the Jan.16?? deadline, then you are
|> sadly mistaken...or worse yet, a fool.  The war began, whether you believe
|> it or not, when Bush deployed the first American troops in Saudi Arabia.
|> And at this time, the UN hadn't even approved military action.  But you see,
|> Bush really didn't care two figs whether the UN approved or not, it was
|> more convenient that they did so later on.  For Bush, the brief five-month 
|> embargo served its purpose.  It gave him enough time to prepare the troops
|> for battle.  

What does any of the above hysteria have to do with your original point 
or my refutation of it? (To refresh your memory: Your point was that
the liberals and Democrats were great humanitarians who did not believe
in war for oil; and that they decided to support the war effort only after
it became apparent that war was (supposedly) the only way to stop the Iraqis
from butchering Kuwaitis -- both of which I refuted).


|> >See the difference between my refutation and your original statement(s)? I am not 
|> >saying that liberals did not ever support the war, but disputing both the reasons 
|> >that you attribute for their support, AND the timing of their support. You also do
|> >the Democrats a grave injustice by asserting that they would consider sacrificing
|> >American lives, military or civilian, trained or untrained,  in lieu of Kuwaiti 
|> >lives in re Iraq. Their repeatedly stated reason was not that the butchery, 
|> >human-rights abuses etc. needed to be stopped by US force, but that the sanctions
|> >must be given time to work. So, that's another inaccuracy. You are right on what 
|> >appened but not on why it happened.
|> 
|> 
|> The above paragraph is hardly cogent. But I suspect you are trying to put 
|> words into your mouth.  Nobody's asking American civilians to put their
	      ^^^^
I think you mean "... my..." there. 

|> lives on the line. And it was Bush who urged American soldiers to Saudi
|> Arabia, much like he urged them to Panama, not the Democrats.

Pay a little closer attention to what you wrote and what I was refuting, willya?
To refresh: Your point was that Democrats were willing to put American
military trained soldiers' lives on the line  to prevent the butchery in
Kuwait. I refuted that point saying that you misjudged their intentions,
and that you were inadvertently doing them a disservice by suggesting that
they considered it worth it to put ANY American lives in harm's way to save
Kuwaiti (or ANY non-American) lives.

|> Their lives on the line?  What was it?  50 deaths among 500,000 troops? 
|> (and many of those from friendly fire).  How many did the Americans kill?  
|> I think the ratio will laugh in the face of your argument.  

The fact that the Iraqi Army folded in the face of the American assault
doesn't mean that the Am's weren't in harm's way when they launched the war.
I am glad that no Americans died. I'd have been happier if NONE died. I admit
I am not happy at the lopsided ratio of Iraqi dead to American dead, but
my attitude is: Better theirs than ours. If indeed so many people had to die,
better that the majority were Iraqis than that they were Americans. Incidentally,
those deaths would have happened even if the Americans had been there to fulfill
the purpose you believe that they should have been there for namely saving the 
Kuwaitis.
 
|> 	I can't speak for Democratic Congressmen and their decisions
|> during the gulf crisis, but I think most liberals not in politics, would
|> agree that soldiers are there for a reason. We might differ on the 
|> reasons, you might think they are there only to defend America (here, I 
|> would disagree that Panama is the 51st state), and I might think their

They were defending an American INTEREST in Panama too, though it did
seem like an excessive use of force for the end result, I admit.

|> obligations include helping protect human lives all across the world
|> (jointly with soldiers from other countries).  But in the end, soldiers
|> get paid to risk their lives for civilian lives. That is the whole 
|> point in being part of the military.

Your definition of what a soldier's duty is, is shared by a minority,
even in the ranks of "liberals." 

I suggest you tabulate a list of "liberals" who believe that American
 soldiers' lives are worth risking if the effect is to save
the lives of non-Americans; or to defend an interest with little direct
impact on the USA. Your list will be painfully short, and thank God for
the US Army/Navy/Air Force/Marine Corps that it would be so.


|>                                   *******************************************
|>    Kumar Yelubandi                 **  I don't believe in a lot           **
|>    (good wines > good times!)      **  of things. And I quit thinking     **
							   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That is quite apparent. In fact, given the nature of your posts,
it is worth wondering if you have EVER engaged in the process of
"thinking."

|>    ...in the year 2525...          **  six years ago...so don't bother me ** 
							     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I won't. It's a waste of time anyway.

Srinivas Sunder                                     
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