We may not have invaded to promote our ideals but we're certainly doing it now which is part of the reason the "War on Terror" has been so difficult. Telling an Afghan in the mountains of Kandahar to lay down his weapons and adopt democracy is downright stupid. Tribal affinity, Islam and a place where a successful agricultural season (whether it's poppy plants or wheat) determines life or death is not a place that can simply give up its century old traditions in favor of "equality and justice for all". Just the same democracy in Iraq is not a new concept. They had democracy before the pilgrims built their boat for America, they just lost it along the way for good reasons I don't have the time or desire to go into here.

While it may seem I have digressed from my point here I guess what I'm really saying is that tactics, interogation and JDAMs are all symantics when no one can acknowledge the cultural duality that exists between an Islamic terrorist and a farm-grown Marine in Baghdad. What really needs to be done is we need to reevaluate and redefine what is "right" and "wrong" when the two very different cultures have different definitions of each. Then we can establish what is appropriate and what is not.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Very well worded. I agree.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

You need to study history more; in each one of the examples I cited, citizens were specifically targeted -- this was admitted to decades later by the individuals commanding the missions. The firebombing of Dresden is still debated to this day as one of the largest acts of the slaughter of civilian targets in the history of modern war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "massive producers of military industrial goods," they were cities filled with tens of thousands of people, and the centers of those cities were targeted, not the outlying districts, which is where the small amount of military factories were located. Their targets were decided on precisely for the reason of instilling terror and fear into the Japanese citizens and government, and they were successful in doing so. And the My Lai massacre was the known slaughter, rape and pillaging of innocent civilians, and is one of the darkest chapters in our military's history.

Stop assuming you know everything.

 

The Daily Show had a great debate on the issue of torture between Jon and Cliff May (President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies).

Very good points from two different camps.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

(SEMI-NSFW due to an F-bomb)

 

I'm no more assuming I know everything than you're claiming to be the arbitrator between "right" and "wrong". My Lai is without question the most disgusting moment in American military history and I concede that never should have happened. Not that we should have been in Vietnam anyway but that's irrelevant. In the case of Germany and Japan, what would your solution have been? Granted, we had every right to bomb Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshimo so long as our motivation was to win a war we'd been provoked into anyway. What would you have advocated we do in the face of throwing away the lives of countless soldiers? Men who volunteered to save their nation and the lives of those oppressed by tyranny in a war they nor their country had any role in creating. Just sit around and watch right? While Western Union letters and Family Readiness Group meetings go on much to the dismay of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters across the nation. I'm am all ears as to what your solution to this problem would be.