Pantagraph.com | Letters | There must be beter way to face problems than war

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

OGS wrote on May 27, 2008 11:04 PM:

" There are too many people in congress that own stock in the defense industry. Gee, could that be a conflict of interest? Oh my gosh, surely greed has nothing to do with it. "

DK61727 wrote on May 25, 2008 3:12 PM:

" "ThosSpence", four years PRIOR to the beginning of World War II, The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 by their general nature formalized the unofficial and particular measures taken against Jews up to 1935. The Nazi leaders made a point of stressing the consistency of this legislation with the Party program which demanded that Jews should be deprived of their rights as citizens. The laws were passed unanimously by the German Parliament: The "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor", prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between “Jews” (the name officially used in place of “non-Aryans”) and “Germans” and also the employment of “German” females under forty-five in Jewish households; the "Reich Citizenship Law" stripped persons not considered of German blood of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens” and “nationals.” [To be continued] "

DK61727 wrote on May 25, 2008 3:11 PM:

" [Continued] During a speech given on January 30, 1939, eight months BEFORE WWII (during the six year anniversary of his accession to power), Hitler foretold the coming Holocaust of European Jewry when he said: """""Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"'''''' On Sep 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland and started WWII. America didn't enter the war until two years later. Do tell, "ThosSpence", were not Hitler, the "Reich citizens" and the Nazi Party predisposed to annihilate the Jews? WWII didn't just happen to the Nazis!! The Nazis went out of their way to make both WWII and the Holocaust a reality. Shame all over you and your Nazi buddies, "ThosSpence". "

ThosSpence wrote on May 23, 2008 3:45 PM:

" To Philip Buffinton: a notable response coming from someone whose specialty is distortion and misrepresentation. What you describe as my "insane diatribe," namely that without WWII there would have been no Holocaust, has long been a well established position among scholars. Most scholars of the subject have long insisted on the distinction between various hateful forms of anti-semitic discrimination and harrassment, as awful as such matters were, and the organized, systematic murder of all Jews. It was the war that made the latter possible. This is not controversial. But then you wouldn't know since you don't know anything whatsoever about it. Philip, you don't know enough history to fill a thimble. But I refuse to waste any more time in exchanges with you. There can be no purpose to engaging an addled, provincial bigot right out of the pages of Sinclair Lewis. "

DK61727 wrote on May 23, 2008 1:44 PM:

" "ThosSpence", on 05-17-2008 @ 2:43 P.M., you demonstrated your complete lack of, either, your: 1) understanding of the English language or 2) ability to assimilate a congnitive thought. I DID NOT STATE, as you charged, that WWII made the invasion of Poland possible........nope, uhuh, nyet, negative, not, NOOO WAAY!! Instead, my actual statement was elicited by YOUR previous, idiotic statement, to wit: "It was WWII that made the Holocaust possibe". You actually said that WWII made the Holocaust possible. So, I responded to that insane diatribe with the following statement: ""As if it were equally valid to say that it was WWII that made the Nazi invasion of Poland possible."" Now, read that last statement, my statement, carefully. The sentence begins with the dependent clause "As if it WERE", clearly indicating the subjunctive mood (aka: conjunctive mood), which expresses statements that are contrary to fact at present.
"

Independent? wrote on May 23, 2008 1:33 PM:

" Proud Conservative... Your missing the point... I'll quote Obama here, "I'm not opposed to all wars; I'm opposed to dumb wars." Osama was never in Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq had no WMD's which coincidentally are the reasons we went to war. I would argue that Osama is laughing at us because we retaliated against a state who had nothing to do with the act deserving retaliation. If someone on the street randomly punched you in the face, would your response be to kick a different random person in the nards? Probably not. And yes, sometimes war is necessary, but should always, always be the last resort. Had we taken the time to go through the process and investigate first, we would never have been in the situation we are today. "

ThosSpence wrote on May 19, 2008 1:17 PM:

" To Yada: you are probably the biggest blabber mouth in the history of this site. Talk about projection. Believe it or not there is a vast literature on the Holocaust that addresses the complexities I hinted at. You might actually learn something. "

ThosSpence wrote on May 19, 2008 1:14 PM:

" To DK/yada yada: My prose is reasonably clear. As I said in my original post, war was the necessary antecedent conditon for the greatest crimes of the 20th century. To state, as you did, that WWII made the invasion of Poland possible is obvious nonsense. WWII in Europe was launced by the invasion of Poland. Can you grasp the distinction? You are also wrong about the Holocaust. Very few scholarly specialists on the Holocaust believe that the annihilation of the Jews was inevitable if Hitler took power. Most historians instead emphasize the unsystematic and improvised shaping of Nazi policies toward the Jews, seeing those policies as ad hoc responses of a splintered and disorderly government machinery. No German Jews (with the exception of small numbers in various pogroms) were murdered before the war. In fact, it was the seizure of vast areas of Poland and the Soviet Union that forced the issue. Nazi policy toward Jews was radicalized as they experienced success on the battlefield. "

soothsayer wrote on May 19, 2008 7:46 AM:

" Proud Conservative is right. Islamic extremists like bin laden hate us not because of what we do, but because of who we are. This is fundamental to understanding the Islamic extremist mindset. In their minds, anyone who is not Islamic and practicing to their way of life deserves to die. Remember, they missed out on major Western cultural movements like the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and so on. Literally their thinking is stuck in the 14th century. Also remember that state-controlled television feeds them a lot of propaganda, which is kind of like a chicken-and-egg situation. When faced with that kind of mentality -- one with a bizarre, distorted world view that wants to attack you and kill you if you don't convert to their way of thinking -- there times when you must fight. "

i said that wrote on May 17, 2008 11:53 PM:

" Oh, Proud Conservative, you live in another time. The Cold War mentality of the Fifties have ceased. Reagan gets the credit for that. Even though it was Gorbachev who brought about the sweeping changes which caused the end to Communist Russia. George Bush's mentality, and that of which you have expressed here is of an archaic mind. "

Proud Conservative wrote on May 17, 2008 8:43 PM:

" Send your letter to Osama. His followers would laugh in your face. Don't tell me they hate us because of our support of Isreal, either. They hate us because Americans have the option NOT to pray 3 times a day. They hate us because American women hold high positions in our society, and can actually show some forearm or calf in public. They hate everything we stand for, and have vowed to die in an attempt to convert us - or kill us. Sometimes war is the only answer. "

DK61727 wrote on May 17, 2008 2:43 PM:

" "ThosSpence", I'm willing to wager that I am not the only one who can no longer muster the discipline to force myself to read the entirety of your incessant blabbering. You actually wrote, *It was WWII that made the Holocaust possible.* As if it were equally valid to say that it was WWII that made the Nazi invasion of Poland possible. Is it this type of tripe that you learn when you go to stay with your Nazi buddies in Germany? Are you actually telling us that there was no legistlation in Germany, starting at least as early as 1935, and continuing onward, to remove Jews (non-Aryans) from civil society; that there was no predilection to exterminate the Jews until after the start of WWII? Germany didn't invade Poland until 1939. I guess what you are saying is Germany's midset was thus: Well, since we've already invaded Poland in defiance of the world and started a European war, we might as well go all the way and exterminate the Jews too. "

Paladin wrote on May 17, 2008 12:03 PM:

" ...to "mfdorf4": Do I "think we got what we deserved" on 9/11? Absolutely not. Do I think that there should have been improved lines of communications within the intelligence community to respond to REPORTED THREAT POTENTIALS vis-a-vis flight school enrollment by suspect personnel? Absolutely. Do I now, or have I ever, taken Saddam Hussein as a legitimate, serious threat to American legitimate government, or to American interests, abroad? Of course not, only an idiot would think the rifle-toting Cult-of-Personality regional / local commandante COULD be a threat, and not already be neutralized by his neighbors. Saddam threatened Kuwait, but it was a legitimate threat, until he had passed beyond the boundaries of the oilwells he already owned. Then, it became a punitive war. Then, WE got involved. We removed Saddam's capabilities of threatening his neighbors. You probably thing that the entire Ba'ath Party is loyal to Saddam, live or dead... "

Paladin wrote on May 17, 2008 11:08 AM:

" ..."holding back the Iraq government..."? We aren't "holding them back", they don't exist in any real capacity. By Platonic definition, a "government" (State) has to be able to provide for public peace, and defend its own borders. There is no internal group in Iraq that can possibly perform both of those functions, either any organization propped up by our Government, or any "terrorist" organization. We can call any group we like a "government", but if they fail to provide the basic equivalent functions of a recognizable State (heck, we recognize Kosovo, and THEY can't provide those functions without heavy NATO support), they aren't really a "government", at all. They exist on paper, but not on the street. Establishing such a "State" ("Nation Building") is what will cause us to be in Iraq for the long haul, not any questionable military successes or failures on the ground. "

mdorf4 wrote on May 17, 2008 11:07 AM:

" Paladin,
Do you think got what we deserved on 9/11? Nothing is black and white. We aren't in Iraq just because republicans are evil and greedy. That whole region is a ticking timebomb. While there are still a lot of individuals that hate us there, a government developing nuclear technology that hates us, full of fanatics has been removed. If a nuclear war does ever occur, it will be started by someone just like that. Someone willing to make a martyr out of an entire country to take out the evil U.S. "

mdorf4 wrote on May 17, 2008 10:39 AM:

" ThosSpence
I don't follow your reasoning. What does the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, bolsheviks and Pol Pot have to do with American imperialism? "

Robert Edward Johnson wrote on May 17, 2008 9:11 AM:

" dt, I'm also against giving up when we have essentially won, but you don't make an important distinction between troops and materiel. As you point out in VietNam, the North Vietnamese had been decimated (or worse) in recent battles and a democratic government had been established in the South. However, EVEN AFTER our TROOPS withdrew, South Vietnam held strong, controlling 95% of the land and people. It was ONLY WHEN the Dem "Class of 1974" cut funding S. Vietnam IN COMPLETE VIOLATION of the Paris Peace Accords which we'd signed, that North Vietnam (NOT the VC) took over. Thus, the situation in Iraq is NOT silimar since there IS no North Vietnam much less a USSR or Red China funding it. If you think Iran is like North Vietnam, ask what happened to Iran LAST time they fought with Iraq (ahem). The only similarity to Vietnam is that our presence is an actual HINDRANCE to peace since we're holding back the Iraq government and are a poster boy for recruiting for the insurgents. "

Patriot wrote on May 17, 2008 7:50 AM:

" dt I'm curious. What have we almost won? Are you saying that us terrorizing 25,000,000 people in Iraq we've done something wonderful? Are you saying by threatening Iran, a country of 66,000,000 people, we are doing something good? Did you know that our CIA helped put Saddam Hussein into power in Iraq? Did we do good then? Are you saying our Vietnam War that caused the deaths of around 3,000,000 Vietnamese was a good thing and something to be proud of? Did you know that our governments first name for our current demise in Iraq was Operation Iraqi Liberation, OIL? "

Paladin wrote on May 17, 2008 6:38 AM:

" ..."they need us to support them until they're established..." I can't wait to hear the definition of "established". Does that mean we have to stay there until they have had several successful elections ("successful" meaning people we want get voted in)? Until they have the internal military capability to withstand external aggression, without their military being divided into sects, clans, and political groups? Sounds like we'll be there forever, then. "It's about people and freedom..." That's a laugh. If people and freedom were our government's chief concern, we'd be at war with every tinpot dictator in the world right now (including the ones we support). Thank God, we aren't... "

dt wrote on May 16, 2008 9:58 PM:

" I'm against giving up when we have essentially won. In VietNam, the North Vietnamese had been decimated (or worse) in recent battles. A democratic government had been established in the South. We withdrew and the citizens were killed, maimed, etc. by the commies moving into the vacuum we left. The situation in Iraq is similar. We have won military battles decisively. There is a democratic government in Iraq. They just need us to support them until they're established. Pulling out will allow Iran to move in, control and dissolve all the good that has been done. It's about people and freedom, not oil or corporate profits. Those who think elsewise can call Art Bell. "

i said that wrote on May 16, 2008 4:24 PM:

" BJR, Hamas or Iran has never over-thrown another country's leader in a coup d'etat. But, America did just that to Iran in 1953. And, we are still battling with that problem today. Iran is America's problem only because America thought we should have an open flow of oil from Iran, and when that didn't happen, we killed their democratically elected leader, Mossadegh, and replaced him with the puppet Shah of Iran. That lasted until the CIA records were unsealed and Iran found out what had happened. Then they stormed the U.S. embassy, and now everyone hates Carter. Look up Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. And you will see who is civil. "

ThosSpence wrote on May 16, 2008 3:29 PM:

" Thanks, Chester, for a fine letter. The U.S. is the only longstanding democracy whose public officials regularly exalt and glorify militarism. Why is that? In the 20th century war was always the necessary antecedent condition for the greates crimes of modern history. There would have been no Armenian genocide without the Great War. Neither would bolsheviks and fascists have taken power over entire European states. It was WWII that made the Holocaust possible. And without the U.S. dragging a fragile Cambodia into its war with North Vietnam with its widescale bombing of the countryside, we would have never heard of Pol Pot. The U.S. is now the world's largest arms dealer, accounting for roughly two-thirds of world arms trade. It likely spends more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined. And it continues to extend further its empire of military bases that now encompass the globe. Americans are resolute in pretending that this is not an issue. Meanwhile, a militaristic, agitated and anxious America continues to project its own disorder around the world. "

BJR wrote on May 16, 2008 2:27 PM:

" Meh, if Hamas, Iran, and others are so civil, by all means go and tell them they should stop bullying Israel and making anti US statements. My guess is, you wouldn't make it back alive. Some liberals are just so gullable to the world around them. Let me guess, the Messiah BHO will just go over there and after his speech they will just admit they were wrong? "

Meh wrote on May 16, 2008 11:10 AM:

" pseudo-intellectual, we are more likely to have that situation with a Democratic President. What do we have now? Major offense, with no defense, especially in terms of port and border security, ignored or politicized intelligence, and diplomacy that consists of "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haw!" and the dropping of bombs.

Republicans aren't interested in protecting America. They're the party of mercenaries who use America's brave soldiers for the benefit of the favored corporations. "

Patriot wrote on May 16, 2008 10:31 AM:

" Well said Chester, unfortunately recent administrations have been getting worse and worse in terms of supporting their citizens. Our government has been taken over by corporate lobbyists. Traditionally, to governments, people are citizens, constituents, taxpayers, home-owners, members of families, humans, and ultimately people to be respected. But to corporations, people are customers which is a euphemism for suckers, rubes, marks, dupes, patsies, and fools who will shortly give up their money, and ultimately people not to be respected. Alas, this is the trend in America and its getting worse with each new and more secretive Administration, Republican or Democrat doesn’t matter and yet this is what most people constantly argue about on this site.
"

Crybaby wrote on May 16, 2008 9:23 AM:

" Dear Chester: Let's not forget that John Wayne also said "War is hell". I believe he said it in "Atilla The Hun." Also, ol' 'blood and guts' Ronald Reagan, carrying our burden in WW2 Hollywood, and presciently thinking of and for the current administration, said it also. I think it was in " Chickenhawks Are People Too". In any event, I agree with at least one poster here. We're not at war with anyone. We can't be. The Iraq mission was accomplished 5 years ago. On the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. You're forgiven for not remembering, Chester. And soon you'll be able to forget the Afghan unpleasantness. Depending on when we can schedule an Afghan hunting trip for our own Dickie ( 'our blood, his guts' ) Cheney. And turn him loose with Patton's ivory handled revolvers. You wait, Chester: we'll just see who can hit a bull in the arse with a handful of corn. "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on May 16, 2008 9:09 AM:

" When was the last time we had "a powerful defense, an effective intelligence network, and an effective diplomatic team?" Impossible under a liberal (Democratic) administration, especially a powerful defense. Liberals will always use economic weakness (real or imagined) to justify cuts to national defense. All administrations, at least since WW II, have struggled with intelligence. And as for diplomacy, "effective" is in the mind of the beholder. "

Paladin wrote on May 16, 2008 8:51 AM:

" We have had (and still have) lots of military analysts and command professionals, as well as numerous intelligence personnel, who do not agree with the means of providing Regime Change in Iraq. Well, they lost that argument, and now we have the situation we have there. Sherman was right, and war sucks (even though Sherman said what he said in order to justify his strategic intent, and the tactics he used to impose his will). To somehow equate the failure to use force (especially when it isn't necessarily appropriate) with "surrender" is silly. At no point since 2001 have we been in a position where we were about to surrender our national sovereignty to anyone. "

Meh wrote on May 16, 2008 8:37 AM:

" Mike, why are you conservatives so black and white? Why is it either bloody slaughter or surrender? What's wrong with having a powerful defense, an effective intelligence network, and an effective diplomatic team? "

Meh wrote on May 16, 2008 8:36 AM:

" dt, you're splitting hairs. We all know which war, declared or not, that we are talking about.

Although, I do think that the war on poverty and the war on drugs are jokes. The former can only be solved through the creation of good paying jobs of all kinds and the latter is an afront to freedom. "

Mike wrote on May 16, 2008 8:22 AM:

" Hey there is a BETTER WAY, its called rolling over and being a VICTIM!

Do you live in the real world or the library? "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on May 16, 2008 8:14 AM:

" Strange to quote Patton of all people on the subject of war; GP said a lot of things about war, mostly glorifying it. I agree with the writer, though, that resorting to war is usually foolish and immature, and almost never accomplishes any desirable result- EXCEPT when fighting for one's very existence. Unfortunately, because of various lusts we will always have war... unless we destroy ourselves someday with our weapons of mass destruction (or get wiped out by a natural planetary disaster). "

dt wrote on May 16, 2008 7:22 AM:

" Which "WAR" are you talking about? The war on poverty? The war on drugs? I don't believe that we are at war with any country. "

The Peanut Gallery wrote on May 16, 2008 7:07 AM:

" " ... I accept George Patton's quotation, ``War is hell.'' No person likes war ..."

I thought it was William Tecumseh Sherman, and that his quote was 'War is all Hell'.

I also thought that countries only rarely engage in warfare because they 'like' it. We didn't 'like' the First or Second World Wars. Please clean out your headgear. "

buckeye wrote on May 16, 2008 6:54 AM:

" YES "

LOL Liberal (:-D) wrote on May 16, 2008 4:22 AM:

" Hey Chester, it's great for defense contractors closely associated with the administration. What else matters? "

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