What will you be playing to celebrate?

I was afraid that I may have gotten too overzealous with my initial comments in this thread. It's great to hear such wise words from you guys.

One thing that still erks me to this day is the policy of silence the Japanese government uses when confronted with dark areas in their history such as WWII crimes. My Dad receives a daily Japanese language newspaper, and in the english section I occasionally see articles about the "comfort women", women from China and Korea who were abducted and made to serve Japanese soldiers as sex slaves. The Germans have repeatedly apologized and made massive reparations to Jewish families and Israel for Hitler's crimes. I was raised in a "Japanese Way" to be honorable and face up to my mistakes, so when I see modern Japan sixty years since WWII unable to issue any kind of apology for so many of the wrongs committed then it makes my blood boil and I feel ashamed.

You folks are so right about separating the everyday people from the few in power who make the decision to go to war. Case in point.

My father was shot down twice during the war, so I'm quite fortunate to exist and be able to post in the Audiogon forums! A few years after my father moved to the US he was contacted by a man saying he had some how located my father through the War Department and he in fact was one of the guys that shot my Dad down. My Dad flew reconnaissence missions for the Japanese Navy in areas such as the Aleutian Islands in the north Pacific and Rabaul in the south. On one of these missions he was shot down and survived two days floating in the middle of ocean with his wounded navigator until a Japanese sub located them. My Dad often jokes that if he didn't have photos and information the Navy wanted they might have left him bobbing up and down like cork.

The fellow who contacted my Dad was a lawyer from New York who happened to be in Los Angeles and was wondering if my Dad would like to meet for dinner. I don't know if I was born at the time but my Mom went along and they had a very nice time. My father said this man from New York was apologetic, but my father really had no ill feelings. As with some of the other WWII my dad met they all agreed that they were only doing their job for their country and there was no personal animosity at all.

I realize the way one feels about their war experience largely depends on how traumatic it was, so I find it interesting that Vietnam veterans seem to harbor much more resentment. It could have to do with the way the two wars were viewed and treated by the public at the time.

I can remember being a young kid at my parent's dinner parties and having some WWII vets there. Most were my dad's friends from his architectual firm and had served the US military in the south pacific and Europe. However, my favorite "uncle" was a guy named Ted who served under General Rommell in the tank brigade in north Africa. This was one funny and fun guy to be around! Can you imagine a German soldier, a couple US army guys and a Japanese pilot having a family get together? Pretty neat stuff.

Lugnut, I often forget your theory of how money runs the world and I'm jolted back into focus when I see preferential treatment given to firms like Haliburton. The way the bidding was conducted and post war rebuilding planned, it makes you think the whole purpose for chasing Saddam into a hole was just so we could rebuild the damn country. It doesn't seem to make sense since it cost so much to conduct the war in the first place.

I guess I'll throw my 2 cents in on this - what the hell, it's still a free country, right? The people who say this Iraq war was based on oil are probably right. Those who claim the CIA trained Osama and helped out Saddam are right too. I think the US also helped Fidel Castro get to power along with certain people in South America who commited atrocities. Weird foriegn policy things happen when you live in a country (the US) where leadership changes are frequent and public opinion flip flops on different issues. All that said, let's remember that Saddam was a guy who killed hundreds of thousands of people, mostly his own during his 30+ years in power. A guy like that sitting on 25% of the world's oil had the means to buy just about any military weaponry he wanted, given enough time. For those who think that the US sanctions were responsible for the death of thousands of Iraqi children, give me a break. What money Saddam did get from oil sales he did not spend on medicine or aid to his citizens (like he was supposed to) but rather continued to spend on his military, lavish lifestyle and even more outlandish spending on the construction of Mosques - to hell with building hospitals, buying medicine or investing in infrastructure. The guy was mad and didn't give a second thought to the suffering of his people - even when confronted with the FACT that he would be attacked by the US! Further to the east of him is another mad man by the name of Kim Jung Ill, North Korea's "beloved leader" who's people are dying by the bushel daily for lack of food, while he still maintains a "million man army", has schoolkids revere him as a God and basically wants to blackmail the US by expecting us to pay him for NOT building nuclear arms. Some say we should take the deal, even though Clinton made the same deal and he obviously broke that! There are tyrants all across the globe who deny food, medicine and basic freedoms to their people. Ususally they rule in corners of the world that, unfortunately for the residents of those countries, don't have any stategic or "threat value" to the US.

The UN is not and never has been consistent or decisive, save the 1991 Gulf War. The UN has always turned a blind or reluctant eye to atrocities in the world. Think Idi Amian (sp?) in Africa, Poppa Doc in Haiti, the Khemer Rouge in Cambodia, Rowanda, Kosovo, China under Mao, etc.,etc. Where was the UN while these dictators and "evil" governments were executing their populations? Nowhere. Where was the US? Nowhere. Why? Because people who hold opinions like the ones expressed here about the US "shouldn't go it alone without the UN" or "this is all about oil" or the "US is an empire and bully of the world", etc., etc. It is because of these sentiments that the US is reluctant to take action. The UN? Count how many times they've taken action to stop the killing and repression worldwide!

It is unfortunate that we live in a world where these kinds of crimes against humanity are commonplace. Lets be realistic, world peace is a pipe dream. It seems to me however that even the most jaded and "peace loving" among us can still recognize a brutal dictator - history has shown us who and what they are along with their M.O.'s on the world stage. The danger in doing NOTHING when these people are in control of either a vast natural resource (like oil) or technological capacity (nuclear arms) is too great a threat to look the other way. I think it is a reality that wars will be fought in the future to stop just such a dictator or government before the outcome becomes catastrophic on a global scale! What if the "great powers" had invaded Germany and stopped Hitler after the capture of the Sudatenland, Checklosovakia or the "integration" of Austria instead of waiting years after finally attacking Poland? The answer? Several million less deaths! Did I agree with the invasion of Iraq? Not entirely and I wish more countries would have been on board. But at the end of the day, the sanctions in place were deteriorating and were in fact the bargaining chip Saddam was using, cooperation with the search for WMD in exchange for the lifting of those sanctions. If he didn't have any (and he probably didn't) he could show the world, have the sanctions lifted and then have his scientists dig up the records, blueprints and plans and reconstitute those programs. By then it would have been way too late! And if Saddam got old and died before all the pieces fell into place, then we could have looked to his children (models of society that they were) to finish his vision. It really bothers me when people can't learn lessons from history. It could very well be that the US prevented the future death of millions on both sides by the actions taken earlier this year. Those that would rather say that this was fabricated to take the heat off of Dick Cheney, who after getting into office had to liquidate (or put into a blind trust) all his interest in Halliburton needs to re-examine the facts.

It always amazes me when the US gets such a bad rap around the world, but especially in Europe, for its decision to throw out the Iraqi dictator. How come you never hear the same world outcry about the policies of N. Korea or Iraq (pre-GW2)? People seem to be more set to burn an effigy of Bush than they are of Kim Ill or Saddam Hussein!

I do not agree with all of the things this country does nor have I been 100% behind George Bush. That said, I am proud we have a leader who is willing to call these regimes out and put them "on notice". The guy has the balls to lead not look at polls. I am less proud to see the other "world leaders" sit idley by. If people accuse Bush and the US about being in it for the money, they should pay closer attention to other governments and leaders who choose to keep the status quo, make deals (and money) with these world despots and not make any waves. Those are truly the characters who are in it for the money. Probably why Germany and France were so against an Iraq invasion in the first place. Did anyone see the list of all the German and French companies that did business with Saddam? We can throw the Russians in that same lot as well! The US may not always be right but our motives (thank God) aren't even in the same league as those of the Iraq's and North Korea's out there! It's about time we all acknowledge that there is good and evil in the world and stand up for what is right, not for what is popular!

As for my song; "Daylight has Broken" by the muslim activest fromerly known as Cat Stevens! May there be a little less suffering in the world this year (I know there will be in Iraq)! Tony

Ah, but Gunbei, the money to conduct the war comes from your tax dollars. Haliburton may not even pay any tax??? The money to rebuild Iraq will also come from your tax dollars and make Haliburton and its owners even richer than they are now.

GWB and his buddies may simply be trying to ensure that the conditions for winning re-election are in place for 2004. Money wins elections, among a small number of other things. Corporate contributions make up a huge proportion of funds available to run campaigns, no? How do you ensure you get the greatest corporate contributions? Its all pretty abysmal...

In the end, all of this may be about a small group of people wanting the power to rule the strongest nation on Earth for another four years. Daddy Bush only had one term - a humiliation to be erased by the prodigal son? Although its arguable about how far he could have gone in 1991, Daddy did not really finish the job in Iraq at that time. Is the son being driven to redress a wrong, one that was obviously not of his Daddy's doing? I really don't like to sound so skeptical.

Hey Slappy, you better be shakin' in your boots, 'cause the Canadian Navy has these Sea King choppers that could really cause havoc if they were unleashed on the US... That is, by falling out of the sky onto unsuspecting Americans. :-) The Canadian military is a shadow of its former self, and may be another reason why this country didn't commit to the coalition of the willing in Iraq. However, there are some 2,000 Canadian troops on the ground in Afghanistan stationed near Kabul.

It may be that a lot of the UN's indecisiveness during the '90s had to do with the intransigence of Security Council members and dues owed to the UN by one of its strongest and wealthiest members. It may appear that some leaders sit idly by, but what you don't see are the diplomatic efforts to bring about change in countries that have less than democratic leadership/government.

How does one decide who should be invaded and toppled and who should not? What of the sovereignty of nations or the international/multilateral agreements in place all over the world? If, for example, Great Britain decided to invade France because it felt the President or the regime in power needed to be deposed, the rest of the NATO membership would be obliged to come to the defence of France.

Sure, Saddam is evil incarnate, one of the worst seen since WWII, but lacking proof positive of WMDs, should he have been deposed in a more or less unilateral fashion? Looking at it from another angle, even if the existence of WMDs were proven, who's to say Iraq should not have the capacity to develop nuclear capability, whether for military or civilian purposes? Well, perhaps the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (not sure if Iraq was ever a signatory), which may not have existed if the UN did not.

Sure the UN has a sketchy history, but it is the member nations, and particularly those on the Security Council, that make the decisions. Right or wrong, the US and its coalition members failed to convince other Security Council members of the case for invading Iraq. Should the UN and the Security Council simply acquiesce to an influential and powerful member simply because the latter says so?

If you don't like the way your neighbour treats his child, what do you do? Do you go over and beat him senseless? Or do you call the cops and appropriate authorities to investigate? They investigate and maybe lay charges. Those charges are presented before the court and the judge or jury decides whether to punish. Kind of like the UN, except that if the members of the UN can't agree (e.g. on the results of the investigation/weapons inspectors in Iraq) or if they don't provide the UN with the means to act (e.g. a clear mandate and sufficient means/forces in Rwanda), well there's not much it can do.

Bravo, Treyhoss and Mghcanuck! It never ceases to amaze me how complicated, yet at the same time how simple affairs like these are.

I agree as a whole and without the advantage of knowing the alternate outcome [if we had done nothing] that it was a very good thing Saddam has been removed. Just think what might have been if Gore was President when 9/11 went down and how events would have played out afterward.

We may be viewed by some nations as being quick-on-the-trigger cowboys, but the way Germany and France acted has left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't blame the Bush Administration for freezing out those countries from the post-war rebuilding contracts that tried to prevent a UN mandate for invading Iraq. It sure seemed that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder let his personal dislike of Bush dictate Germany's stance on this issue. I thought French President Jacques Chirac liked GW? I heard that prior to giving a speech blasting the US position that Chirac's people would contact the Bush people and let them know what was going to be said in advance. With strong French public opinion against the invasion, it probably would have been political suicide for Chirac to back Bush.

So what are these Sea Kings and should I worry about them falling on me in California? Oh, and Mghcanuck, I heard the US military was VERY impressed with the Canadian sniper units stationed in Afghanistan.