Sun Feb 3 20:51:12 PST 2008 George Pinto wrote: > The current Iraq war, the Vietnam war were unjust, hence the killing of innocents is not only wrong, but also the killing of fighting personnel too. George Bush is guilty for the deaths of 3,000+ USA military personel and 150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. > Mario responds: > George, The "unjustness" of the Vietnam and Iraq wars is simply your opinion, without any context or perspective. I disagree on both counts. There is another side to both actions. > The Vietnam war was fought to stem the tide of worldwide communism during the Cold War. Back then the communist policy was to expand its influence and to dominate the world, by force if necessary. After the US withdrew from Vietnam, about 1 million innocent Vietnamese and over 2 million innocent Cambodians were massacred by the communists, far more than any estimate of the deaths during the war. The political left wing had previously falsely described the communists as well-meaning freedom fighters. I would submit that real freedom fighters would not turn on their own people and kill hundreds of thousands of them. > I would be interested to know whether you condemned the killing fields in Vietnam and Cambodia. > I find it curious that you would continue to describe the Iraq liberation as unjust. Unjust for whom? Perhaps it was for Saddam Hussein and his followers. > The country is now a nascent democracy - a democracy that worldwide Al Qaeda terrorists are so desperately trying to undermine. After the brutal heel of Saddam Hussein was removed by the only way possible - after the failure of 12 years of sanctions and 16 violated UN resolutions by Iraq - they have held three free elections to develop a constitution and government, a government that includes all segments of their society. > Why would you try to undermine and oppose a nascent democracy by your continuing attacks on those who caused it to happen, while happily living in a democracy yourself? > The new Iraq is recognized by the UN and most of the free world. So much for their liberation being "unjust". > No one with any balanced perspective on the history and current facts of this conflict would ascribe to President Bush all the lives that you do, without any context or perspective. > Had the radical Iraqis taken the opportunity of the removal of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship instead of attacking and killing each other, Iraq would have by now been well on the way to peace and prosperity, freedom and full democracy. >
