Reasons for going to war

Nothing wrong with exporting values and ideals unless you use the barrel of a gun to do it.

A few events where violence or funding of violence have been supplied by the US since they aquired nuclear weaponry

Cuba (Bay of pigs. Attempt to install puppet government)
Iran (toppling Mohammed Mossadeq through covert operations together with brittish inteligence agencies and supporting the Shah. Ie; installing puppet government)
Chile (supporting the military coup of Pinochet through funding and political support)
Korea (Using military force to support south Korea in civil war)
Vietnam (Using military force to support South vietnam in civil war)


More recent:
Nicaragua (Supporting the contras)
Colombia (supporting the cleansing of marxist guerillas. This seems like a pretty common theme though so I`ve not included every such incident)
Haiti (removing various leaders, occupation and later reimposing Arstide only after promises of neo-liberal and free market policy making (ie; installing puppet government)
Serbia (together with NATO, thwarting Russian influence and establishing european and american influence in the region.)
Iraq II (invasion and installing temporary puppet government)
Iran (Various covert attempts to topple their current leadership)

I`m sure there are a few more I have forgotten, especially in the 60-ies and 70-ies

Now, don`t get me wrong here. I`m not saying that all of these things where "bad". I`m on your "side" as well and I believe in democracy and capitalism in general. But it makes it no less expansionistic than the Soviet union helping their fellow communistic parties in Eastern Europe and Asia to "fulfill their manifest destiny".
 
I probably wasn't clear enough in my response to these two points (4 and 5), but I tried to explain why I would think that we should not go to war unless the country trying to develop nuclear weapons was clearly expansionist - i.e. would try to militarily attack other countries. I would hope that, in such a case, we would not have to act alone but that a UN effort could be put together. After all, part of the UN charter was a reaction to the rise of Nazi power in World War II and the prevention of another strong military expansionist power from causing world calamities.
 
My folks immigrated to the US from Poland where they experienced first-hand the love of that particular Big Brother - both during WWII and for decades afterward. I'm not sure what you're assuming that my "side" is but, just because I don't agree with you that the US was acting as dispicably on the world stage as the Soviet Union does not mean that I believe it is blameless. It is all a matter of degree. Overall, it has done more good than harm. You yourself stated:Why would you have said that if you believed that the US intentions were as dispicable as you seen to more recently claim?
 
I agree that the US has done more good than harm. The world is a better place for US being there. But that doesn`t outrule that it has been expansionist in the past. The Roman empire was good for the world at the time, but it was one of the more expansionistic empires ever created.



US existance makes the world a better place, even if "their" intentions have been self-serving and egoistic in nature. I also have to say that it`s foreign interventions are not on the plus side in my book. Rather leading through example, international-institution building, motor of the world economy and dettering any attempts to usurp US military supremacy. I`m also very, very thankful for its role in both world war II and the cold war in europe.

Edited for clarity. US is not an individual really, so when I refer to US intentions, it is really the intentions of various individuals and possibly the aggregated intentions of the populace.
 
Both. The things we can do to attack the terrorists themselves are limited and many of those things are already being approached by the Bush administration: shutting off funding, pushing or cooperating with other countries to take actions against their internal terrorist cells, etc. Of course, the general understanding was that we went to war in Afghanistan due to the fact that the Taliban were openly supportive of Al Qaeda (or using delaying tactics near the end to still defend them without being held accountable).

One question does arise - what do we do if a country is a terrorist haven simply out of the ineffectiveness of the government to stop them? I would hope that we could solve things diplomatically and with financial or military aid to counter their terrorist presence. However, what if they refuse our help and are still ineffectual? I have mixed feelings about this. I suppose that, if those terrorists posed an imminent threat, then we might not have much of a choice other than invasion (open or covert).
 
Indeed for all we know, an expansionistic 'Islamia' that seems terrible from our current viewpoint may eventually suceed in uniting the world, and bringing forth a golden age without war after the mass subsumation of cultures eventually adapts Sharia law into something we would have difficulty seperating from the various 'christian laws' we have in Europe and elsewhere.

With hinRABight its quite easy to see the benefits of things that seem terrible at the time - you can't easily judge whether an action today will lead to a greater good in the future, but at least we can try to be consistant in our judging at the moment. If we are against expansionistic powers, then its only fair to be against them all, seeing as we have no idea what overall good or evil will eventually end up.
 
Sorry, was going to edit it to make it more clear that I was agreeing with you and referring to the OP, other than on the exapantionistic power going for nukes which I think you would really need to know all the circumstances
 
In response to all the stated reasons, I pose the questions:

1 - Can we win?

2 - If we can win, is the cost worth the benefit?

If the answers are yes in both cases, then cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!
 
wouldnt one of the things we could do against terrorists include killing the terrorists? how many sources of funRAB can we shut off? how much can we rely on other countries to fight our war for us?

if we eliminate the terrorists, wouldnt that solve both problems at once? a terrorist supporter cannot support terrorists that have been eliminated.


good question. lets say this group of terrorists in this ineffective country attacks america. do we eliminate the terrorists ourselves, or do we demand that the ineffective government eliminate them for us? or do we install a more effective government in that country then ask them to eliminate terrorists for us?

if a group of terrorists attacks america, do we diplomatically ask them to stop, or do we make efforts to forcefully eliminate them?
 
Of course, we should imprison or kill the terrorists that we can access and should make every effort to find them in regions under our current control (in the US, and partially in Afghanistan and Iraq). Unfortunately, this is far from an easy task and truly neeRAB to be a global international effort to be at all effective. This may not be perfect but it is really our only option.
Almost as a definition, terrorists do not head their own state, though they may be supported by a state, so making an isolated attack on the terrorists is not really possible outside of regions directly under our control, unless you have international agreements. If a group of terrorists is hiding within a country that is ineffectual in stopping them, then our pressure on that country should be in direct proportion to the threat to us posed by the terrorists. Ultimately, this may mean that we might have to invade that country if the threat is very dire.
 
I acknowledge that the US has taken some ugly foreign military actions in the more distant past, and that many of these actions were also done openly. I just mostly concentrate my judgement of a country based on its most recent history - around 25 years - since that is the potential sphere of influence of those currently in power. It is hard to justify taking action against a country for something it did 25 years ago, unless that country's infraction is ongoing. Russia is an interesting example since it was still comunist and officially expansionist around 15-20 years ago, but then underwent its quasi-democratic transformation. That is recent enough that those who were once in power still have influence. Fifteen years from now, the ruling generation may have all grown their careers purely in the post-communist era.

As for more recent US actions, I see no open actions that qualify under my definition of military expansionism. We (hopefully) do not intend to permanently stay in Iraq and the state we are setting up does seem to soon be democratic - not a puppet state. However, I would agree with you that we should be more accountable for the covert actions that we do - both to our own public (which probably would not be supportive of many of these actions) and to the world.
 
Even if you do claim that the US plans on forcing democracy throughout the world through military means, that is much different than the Soviet's imposition of communism on most of its sattelite countries and the hypothetical imposition of expansionist fundamentalist Islam on the world. In the latter two cases, the imposition of communism or fundamentalist Islam would be done forcibly on a people who are against those systems and would never introduce those systems of their own free will. It seems that most people in the world do want democracy, though I agree that they simply don't want it imposed on them from a foreign power.

Also, imposed democratic systems are inherently uncontrolleable by the imposing power - they cannot be made into puppet states. Soviet-style communist systems and fundamentalist Islam can easily be made into puppet states.
 
Indeed, but the point was that the US was bad post WW2, the NAZIS were bad during WW2 and I thing that even then they did an incredable service to humanity as a whole by setting an example that allows us to finally manipulate the masses to understand 'Never Again' to the best of our ability.

Its no comment about the behaviour of the US in recent history (even as a slightly cynical EU citizen, I am thankful the US did the job we could not and maintain our current position within the international community) but that even taking the very worst of our behaviour (seriously, the British Empire is a prime example of this - a really quite nasty regime that seemed to benefit its members even though today its practices would be unacceptable...welcome to the Tau'va) we can see that it led to something good in the end.

Its not up to us to count the cost (I still don't know who is really able to do this, the problem with conditional history..ah well)
 
Unfortunately, though it may or may not be generally true that things ultimately turn out fine in the end, certain types of military expansionism can be quite damaging to a local area and to the world for decades or even centuries before they finally improve - the experience of most Eastern European countries is one recent example. It is best to avoid those situations when one can.

As for post-world war II USA, it may have gone too far in its paranoia against communist agression during the cold-war - such as in covertly or overtly toppling otherwise popular and/or democratic governments if they seemed to be pro-communist. However, as an EU member, you have to acknowledge that, if there were no US superpower to counter the Soviets, the shape of Europe and much of the world might have been much different than it is today. I still maintain that the US has done more good than harm on the world stage. Also, though its intentions are not always as rosy as it tenRAB to claim, US intentions (as in Iraq) are also not as dispicable as many seem to claim.
 
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