Hi,
I too am not a Micheal Moore fan.In fact I hate him.I think he is very selective in the stats that he gives in his books and movies.Someone told me that he doesn’t take questions in press conferences.I don’t know how true this is, but if there is any truth in it whatsoever he is a complete hypocrite.
However I also hate George Bush and his views.I am against the war in Iraq.It is probably strange to hate both Bush and Moore but I do.I would welcome your views on a topic.
If George Bush really cared about people under cruel dictatorships,why did he invade Iraq and not put North Korea as his main priority where millions of people have died of starvation under Kim Jong ||.Its a place where people are pretty much prisoners in their own country.It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I am not hating on any members here,I just would like to here some of your views,thats all.
Thanks,
Jeff

Yep, I don’t really like either of them myself Jeff. I think we are far from alone on that score.
It’s a shame Moore works in the manner he does, because I think he makes some excellent points. But his style leaves him very open to criticism and even moderates can see why people don’t like him.

Make sure you get into some of the discussions here on Moorewatch. Always good to have as many different voices as possible.

Ya i will do CM,thanks for the reply

Although you’ll hear different from a couple of posters here, the vast majority of us are much less ideologues and much more concerned citizens with varied and valid points of view. I’m mostly conservative and I support the war, but it’s my conservatism which drives me to think that we’ve been betrayed by Bush in nearly every other issue, or at least a buttload of ‘em. While I think using the word “hate” to describe how one feels about his own President is a bit over the top, I don’t think you’ll find any people jumping down your throat simply because you said how you do feel. However, if you start framing your arguments the same way as Moore does, or Uncle Teddy does, or Dick “The Turbin” Durbin does, with provable lies incessantly repeated from here to eternity, you’ll get earfuls of criticizm on a regular basis. You’ll also have your eyes opened as to the depth and amount of research to prove one’s position will be used to counter lies and clear attempts at disinformation. It’s up to you whether you allow your hate for Bush to control whether or not you’re willing to see, recognize and acknowledge truth when it’s presented. Do that and you’ll have fun here. Go the other way and I doubt you’ll have any fun.

Blues

PS: Oh, I forgot to mention also, don’t take it personally if this thread gets locked. There’s a 10-post rule before anyone is allowed to start creating threads.

jeff841 - 04 August 2005 08:19 AM

Hi,
I too am not a Micheal Moore fan.In fact I hate him.I think he is very selective in the stats that he gives in his books and movies.Someone told me that he doesn’t take questions in press conferences.I don’t know how true this is, but if there is any truth in it whatsoever he is a complete hypocrite.
However I also hate George Bush and his views.I am against the war in Iraq.It is probably strange to hate both Bush and Moore but I do.I would welcome your views on a topic.

There’s a lot of middle ground between Moore and Bush, so I don’t think it’s strange to hold your position.

If George Bush really cared about people under cruel dictatorships,why did he invade Iraq and not put North Korea as his main priority where millions of people have died of starvation under Kim Jong ||.Its a place where people are pretty much prisoners in their own country.It just doesn’t make sense to me.

NK has nukes and we think a containment strategy involving Japan and China might help crack them.  On the other hand our containment policy against Iraq hasn’t worked for years.  In fact, I could make the argument that our Iraq containment policy was among the biggest factors that led to 9/11.

The Middle East is just a gigantic problem because of its economic importance and it’s tendancy to breed terrorists.  In the past our strategy was to prop up friendly regimes, but Bush has essentially said that policy was a failure and it’s time for a different approach- promote democracy over there and give people a stake in their own government and futures and hopefully that will help moderate them (as it has in the West and Japan, for instance).  You can argue that there are other countries in the ME more deserving of an invasion than Iraq, but I think Iraq was chosen because they’ve been our biggest headache there for so long, our containment policy wasn’t working, and the other options were to just let Saddam off the hook (not attractive) or topple him.

PS: Oh, I forgot to mention also, don’t take it personally if this thread gets locked. There’s a 10-post rule before anyone is allowed to start creating threads.

We haven’t enforced the rule on the new forum yet because old members are still coming back with new usernames and low post counts.  Probably when the problem that lead to the rule resurfaces, then we will start enforcing it.

To your question as to why Iraq over North Korea, it all comes down to the details.

Firstly, any military action would most likely result in huge civillian casualties. Both the North and South have enough conventional artillary pieces pointed at each other to more or less completely level the other nation in a matter of minutes. I do mean level. That includes capitals, major cities, even small farms. That’s before we start tralking about missile sites, or aircraft. Over the last 50 years of cease-fire, both sides have built up to ridiculous levels. I obviously don’t have access to estimated casualty reports, but a couple of posters have actually served in Korea, so they might be abvle to enlighten further.

Secondly, North Korea is still allied with China. While China certainly doesn’t want to see North Korea destroy it’s gains with the West, made over the last few decades, neither do they want to abandon it. They still, to my knowlege, have pacts and treaties to defend each other. While China’s military is woefully underequipped, they outnumber ours by a huge factor. So, we have the possibility of intervention by China, which turns an attack on Korea into a huge shooting war.

Thirdly, and this one is pretty important, N. Korea already had nukes, and claimed to have delivery sstems that could reach not just the South, but all the way to Japan, and further. That means that, as a last resort, Kim Jong Il turns Tokyo into glass. Obviously, something we’d want to avoid.

Lastly, it comes down to the availability of other options. With both North Korea and Iraq, our relations were strained at best. However, there were strong regional forces that could assist us with talking to North Korea. China, Japan, and South Korea all pressed for seats in talking the DPRK down from the ledge it crawled out on. Previous attempts at talking with Saddam had produced a stack of UN Resolutions, with little to no real results. We hadn’t tried much talking with N. Korea.

I don’t think you can point at just one reason as to why we attacked Iraq and talked with N. Korea. There are a good many reasons to do so. While it’s not good for the people of the DPRK, there’s unfortunately little we can do militarily that wouldn’t involve millions of people dying on both sides. With Iraq, the death toll would be in the thousands.

And whether you think that a nation should be able to ‘select’ a country to go to war with, and at the time of its choosing - that comes into the equation for many (but certainly not all) of us as well.

The ‘huge civilian casualties’ argument is certainly interesting given the extreme and threat that Iraq was meant to pose at the time of invasion.

Jeff - do you believe if Saddam had complied with the final threat (that if he and his sons didn’t leave Iraq within 24 hours, they would be invaded) the US and UK would have just packed up and gone home ?

CM,no I don’t think even if Sadaam had left Iraq with his sons the US and UK would not have invaded.If they had left, there would have been civil war with different people trying to seize the power.They would have gone in no matter what.
But can any of the people here who support the war honestly see an end to the car bombings,suicide bombings,kidnappings etc in Iraq.I think that it will go on and on, because a lot of people who are brought up in Iraq(and other middle eastern nations), will be brought up to hate anyone in their country from the West.The Bush Administration were short sighted in going to war.
Thanks to everyone who answered me on the NK issue.They were some good points there.I must keep this post short as I am finished work now.I’ll be back on tomorrow.thanks.

jeff841 - 04 August 2005 02:04 PM

But can any of the people here who support the war honestly see an end to the car bombings,suicide bombings,kidnappings etc in Iraq.

I definitely see how it can end. It may not end tomorrow or even next year, but I believe it will end (and hope it will) The thing I see is that for every American they kill, the insurgents are killing several Iraqis. I don’t think the average Iraqi is interested in Jihad or insurgency, I think they are just trying to stay out of it, trying not to get killed. I can’t see why they would want to join up with an insurgency that is killing their own people. I also don’t see evidence that they are joining the insurgency in droves. As more Iraqi security forces are trained, they will be more able to police things themselves and hopefully if it’s Iraqis policing rather than Americans, the likelihood of the avg Iraqi fighting them will decrease.