This war from a veterans view

[superstu 0]

This was forwarded to me, so i'm sharing. lucky you

"This gentleman makes a heck of an argument for justification of a war
with Iraq.

I asked a friend of mine who is in his 80's who was in the Korean
War and World War II to give me a little history lesson and his
thoughts today on War. I am sharing this because it is a different
look at the War. It is not my opinion just thoughts from an honorable
man that lived through two Wars and that I have a great respect for.
Thoughts to think about:
.
I'm not going to get into a history lesson. The short, short version is
that the League of Nations (established after WW I to prevent wars)
failed to stop Mussolini's Italy from invading and conquering Ethiopia.
It failed to stop Japan from invading and conquering Manchuria and
much of China. Their committees wrung their hands spoke in
platitudes but did absolutely nothing to stop war.

At France's coaxing Britain's prime minister Nevil Chamberlain met
with Adolph Hitler in Munich and surrendered the Sudetenland to
Nazi Germany in the interest of "peace in our time." The French and
British watched as Germany took Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia. They all had committee meetings and wrung their hands
and talked of peace.

World War II erupted when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Britain
had a mutual defense treaty with Poland so they couldn't escape.
They declared war on Germany. Germany had a mutual defense
treaty with Japan so Japan declared war on Britain. France wet
heir pants and surrendered to Germany as fast as they could and
gleefully shipped all the Jews they could find to death camps in
Germany to prove to Adolph that they really were on the side of
Germany.

Japan attacked the United States and, because of Japan's mutual
defense treaty with Germany, Germany declared war on the United
States.

Up until December 7th and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a
large number of our people were wringing their hands and saying,
"Appease Hitler. He is really a good guy who just needed a little
more land for his expanding population. The dear man just wants
peace. And World War II was in full swing leaving better than
50,000,000 people dead including about 450,000 American
soldiers and sailors.

Three cheers for the League of Nations!
After World War II it was decided to do the whole thing all over
again. This time we would call it the United Nations and we will
have committee meetings and hand wringing parties and make sure
peace prevails throughout the land.

While that august body wrung hands the Soviet Union split Germany,
invaded Poland and Yugoslavia, Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria
along with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The peaceful world saw
Korea with 37,000 American soldiers killed, over 1,000,000 South
Korean soldiers and civilians killed and the country nearly destroyed.

Since then we have had over 50,000 American soldiers killed in
Vietnam and have fought wars in Somalia, Herzegovina, Panama,
Granada,plus the Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

We should have gone into Baghdad and taken out that evil regime
then but the United Nations would have no part of that. All they would
allow was for us to chase the Iraqis out of Kuwait, then peace would
prevail.

Now, here we are with Saddam violating all 17 United Nations
resolutions while he has massed poison gas and bio weapons.

He is frantically trying to develop a nuke and his buddy, Kim Jong-Il
of North Korea may give him a few. (It was the United Nations who
prevented us from taking North Korea when the war was hot and we
had the means to do it.) Peace!!!!!!!! Sure.

France is wetting their collective pants in fear that the United States
will take Saddam out and along with him, France's 60 billion dollar
contracts with Iraq. Russia hedges because Iraq owes them 6 billion
dollars that they sorely need.


In answer to your question....... hell yes we should go to war with
Iraq. We should have done it six months ago. We should also get
out of the United Nations. Can you believe that the United Nations
has appointed Iraq and Syria to head up the United Nations
Disarmament Committee? Can you believe they have appointed Libya
to head up the Human Rights Committee? All three of these countries
are on the UN List of Terrorist States.............Absolutely
unbelievable.


Just don't get me going. Throughout recorded history the only time
peace has prevailed is when the good guys have militarily whipped
the bad guys. Who are our best friends in the world? Japan because
we whipped them. Germany because we whipped them. Italy
because we whipped them. Britain because we whipped them.


This is one opinion, on the War but this is the eyes, ears and heart
of an American Veteran..."

Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down

[wmw999 2,589]

Very eloquent. Of course, my father, who is also a WW2 veteran in his 80's, disagrees with it, I'm afraid. He believes strongly in the United Nations, and spent a significant part of his life overseas working for USAID.

All I'm trying to say with that is that for every experienced viewpoint, there's probably a counterpoint. And we should listen to plenty of them, on both sides -- not just the comfortable ones. And then make up our own minds.

Wendy W.
(who, by the way, is quite proud of her father)

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[superstu 0]

Definately agree with ya there. I was just putting it out there because I thought it had interesting points that some might not have looked at.

Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down

[Tf15 0]

Here's an opinion from Winston S. Churchill:

"Better jaw-jaw than war-war".

Three times is enemy action

[kiltboy 0]

I hate to feed what I believe is a troll but this looks like a propaganda email.

I'm sick of reading the propaganda crap that is spouted. There have been several historical debates on these boards regarding the role of the league of nations leading up to WW2 and the language got pretty heated. They were at least debates that were backed by cited references.

I'm sorry but the gentleman does not make a heck of an argument for war in Iraq.

David

[PhillyKev 0]

I don't know, I think it has some valid points and can definitely see the reasoning behind that viewpoint. I happen to disagree with it, but I do think it is a valid reason to support the war. At least it's a much better reason than trying to claim Iraq is a direct threat to us.

[nathaniel 0]

Quote

(It was the United Nations who
prevented us from taking North Korea when the war was hot and we
had the means to do it.)

I've done a little reading on the Korean War and the impression I got was that it ended b/c the US and China both decided they didn't want it to get Ugly. MacArthur being sacked and all, I mean.

Willing to be disproven, tho.

nathaniel

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[kiltboy 0]

Hey PhillyKev,

I'll have to disagree with the points that are raised in the initial post (not yours) simply because there is little regard for the feelings in Europe at the end of WW1 as it's been dumbed down for the masses. WW1 was carnage and whole generations had been killed, economies crippled so there was v.little appetite to take in Germany in round 2. Therefore a policy of appeasement did occur. That and the UK and France did not have the military might to take on Germany as they had effectively disarmed themselves. The RAF only rearmed from biplane fighters in 38/39 where ME109s had been used in the Spanish civil war. As for the Jews well anti-semitism was rife in Europe and the US prior to WW2 so nobody really cared what happened to them (I'm thinking of a boat load of Jews that were allowed to leave Germany prior to 39 but were refused entry in every port they tried including New York.
I can see where a Veteran could raise the arguments presented in that email but I see those arguments as being from a narrow viewpoint instead of looking at the bigger picture of the time in question.
I fail to see where the similarity between WW2 and now exist but I've made those arguments before so I won't repeat them. I don't see Iraq as a direct threat to the US as it is possible to make chemical agents anywhere with a bit of knowhow (ask a disgruntled grad student). The recent anthrax problem was sourced from a US lab. Nuclear weapons are scary but present an engineering problem as well as obtaining the fissile material.

Regardless of whether anyone suppports the war or not the war has been going on for a couple of weeks now. I see propaganda battles from both sides as well as some pretty crappy journalism (not from the embeded guys who, with the excetion of Geraldo Rivera, report what they see and have done an outstanding job to date.

There are soldiers out there because previous governments, not just the US but others in the UN, shirked their responsibilities. I hate being lied to and I detest when someone seems to pat me on the head as if I don't understand what's going on.

Of the veterans of WW2 I've known, including my own grandfather, they have singularly never said war was a good thing. Something that should not be rushed in to . It could be a cultural difference on my part as a Brit in the US.

Rant over it's been a shitty day. I'm not venting at you so please don't take it as such all the above comments were directed at the posted email forward.

Edited to add. Superstu this wasn't a shot at you either so please don't take it as such I just wanted to vent some frustration at what I believe to be propaganda in the hope that whoever started forwarding it at least gets to read a response from someone.

David