Debateful

Should the United States turn into a militaristic nation? If you are not sure what a militaristic nation is, read up on Ancient Sparta and then on Israel. In Ancient Sparta, every man had to serve in the military until they were thirty. And in Israel, every citizen has to fight in the military, commonly called Mandatory Military Conscription. With all of these wars going on and the constant enemies that America is gaining, should they turn into a militaristic nation and develop a much more powerful military? Debate your opinion.

Edit: Since this thread has turned into a debate over whether or not the United States should have messed with Saddam, I am editing the title. I'll create a new debate over militarization in a short while. Nice debating! 8-)

While it is accepted that you have to fight for your freedom, if you are forced to fight, you aren’t free. While I am the first to agree with something if it is for the greater good, I don’t feel that the wars we are fighting today are for any benefit. We are fighting to spread our sick and twisted form of “democracy” according to President Bush, but we pick and choose which nations we want to tear apart and rebuild. Need I remind any one of OIL? (Operation Iraqi Liberation) While oil may not be the sole reason we invaded Iraq (hey, we had to try and get the WMD’s we sold them back, didn’t we?), you have to look at another of America’s oil suppliers, Saudi Arabia. We aren’t trying to spread democracy to them, are we? Because they feed the American addition to fossil fuel, we leave them be. Even after such atrocities as 9/11 involving Saudis (*ahem*Osama*ahem*) we didn’t go to war with them. We invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.
War can be a huge money maker, but right now, America is making poor investments in war. I know it’s sick to look at it that way, but what was it that pulled America out of the Great Depression again? As a country, we need to be united, and unable to form unity and stability within our border, we spread our chaos, uniting ourselves in had against other governments, countries and people. While a stronger military would have many benefits, the methods of achieving one have to be handled delicately. The Draft, a past method, failed the instant Americans decided they didn’t want to be in a war they didn’t support, and I feel that it is the same way today, except because our military is volunteer based, countless young men who don’t want to fight are saved from the battle field.

You know, some of the most patriotic individuals are those that were 'forced' to fight for their nation. In Israel, they know at a young age that when they turn eighteen, they will have to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). I have come across numerous individuals who live in Israel, who as teenagers, were anxious to join. For some of them, they had already begun their training, perfecting their bodies in such a way that when the time came, they could fight for a unit for honorable than another. Why is it, then, that they find it honorable to fight for their nation, but in America, we find it 'against our freedoms' to fight for ours?

The problem with America is that we have lost our patriotism. No one is patriotic anymore. It took the United States getting attacked for individuals to suddenly become patriotic. The twin towers had to be hit for us to suddenly feel patriotic. And now we've got protesters arguing the war. Stop! Stand by your nation and allow the soldiers to fight their war. At one time, war was honorable. Soldiers were respected individuals. Now? In the Vietnam War, no one praised the soldiers when they came home. There was no honor. At one time, America was patriotic. In World War II, the entire nation militarized. We were ready and we all stood by as we went to war. Why is it different?

We went to war against Germany; however, it was Japan that was the one that attacked us. We attacked Afghanistan and then we attacked Iraq. Want to know the truth? We should attack the other nations as well that harbor terrorists. I don't support President Bush nor do I feel that he is a good President. But he said something that I feel is very good. "If you harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist." Iraq funded terrorism. Perhaps they did not fund Al Qaida, but there is no denying that he hated America and that he funded terrorists.

If there was mandatory military conscription, every individual would understand the perils of going to war. No matter what, if you were forced into fighting someway or another, you would understand brotherhood. The most loyal individuals are those that have to fight with men next to them. In Ancient Sparta, you defended the man to your left. There is honor and there is justice. Sure, war is bad. However, at a time when there is more and more hate towards our nation, I am a firm believer that we should be prepared for anything. And one way to do that is by mandatory military conscription. It would bring a whole new sense of patriotism. Everyone would understand the feeling of brotherhood.

The difference is that America is just not as good as it used to be. I mean, the reason why we didn't honor our soldiers from Vietnam was because they lost! It was a stupid war, and none of our business. I sure as hell don't want to be patriotic if we're not being honorable as a nation. And sure, the Iraq war is also none of business. Who cares if Saddam killed only around 300 people, I thought our real goal was to get Osama. And if our country is going into another stupid war with Iraq, who wants to be patriotic for fighting a war that's none of our business.
And everybody forgot why 9/11 happened. People are blaming Muslims on that and because Al Qaeda hates America. They hate America cause we are selling weapons to Israel and with those weapons they are killing Palestininians. We seriously need to solve the Israeli/Palestininian Conflict before going to war with any other Middle Eastern Country and there are other places where our troops are needed, such as places like Darfur, Sri Lanka, and Lebanon where thousands of people are getting killed monthly.
In order to be patriotic, we need to be proud of the nation we live in.

And why shouldn't we be proud of the nation that we live in? We have the best military, we have amazing education, we have wealthy individuals, we have a lot of literature success, and if you think about it, our culture is very diverse. What is there not to be proud about? We went into Vietnam to stop oppressors. We went into Vietnam to prevent the spread of Communism. The Communists were our enemy! They wanted nothing more than to obliterate the United States. If we prevented the spread of Communism, it would have been ONE LESS enemy to deal with if Russia ever attacked us. I hate to break it to you, but I would hate to have all of those small, yet incredibly populated, Asian nations all against us. I don't care if people like the war or not, it's not our soldiers that pick the war; it's the government. We should ALWAYS praise our soldiers. They're the ones that ensure that we're not being invaded and obliterated ourselves.

You talk about the war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein killed a lot more than 300 individuals. Look up the Kurds. Iraq did mass murders on hundreds of thousands of Kurds. Guess who was responsible for that? Saddam Hussein. The same goes for World War II. We, as a nation, were firm on going against Hitler. Why is it that the nation's opinion on genocide has changed so much? Now, I am a firm believer on the war in Iraq. I think that we, as a nation who promises safety to their people, should try and help other nations out if we can. At one time, we were offered help by the French in the Revolutionary War. It's now our turn to help other nations. But, that's just a personal opinion.

The reason we're being attacked is because we're helping Israel. We're supplying weapons to ensure that Israel does not get obliterated. Do you know who is one of our strongest allies is? Israel. They are one of our only consistent allies in the Middle East. One of the only. Saudi Arabia is an ally, but not overly so. Every other Arab nation hates us. Iran wants to nuke us. Syria wants to kill us. Jordan does as well. This brings up up another entire debate about religion that I won't step in to. The point is this...I agree that we should defend those African nations, but I am a firm believer in our national security as well. It was obvious that Hussein hated America. And it was not an impossible thing for him to have WMDs. But, the amount of time it took the UN to go in there to search, the man had plenty of time to get them out of his nation. We, as a nation, should stand by and respect those soldiers that are fighting for them. It becomes easier to fight if they have individuals supporting them.

Ok, so I guess I agree that we must defend our troops, but I still stand against the war. “Hundreds of Thousands” of Kurds? Where is the proof for this? Saddam Hussein was proven guilty in court for the executions of only less than 200. There was also a chemical disaster that had 5000, but that was the maximum I saw. We are in the wrong place. And having the best military, the best navy, and the best whatever is nothing if we are not using the resources wisely. We have no right to decide what kind of government other countries want. You say that Communism has nothing better to do than to hate Americans. This is a lie. The only communist country that was bent on destroying us was Russia. China did not wish to do anything to us, and in fact, we are close allies with the Chinese and at first, Vietnam was siding with America until we sided with the French to get back the land.

You want to talk about China? The Red Storm is coming, my friend. China won't be a western friend for long.

Americans learned that communism was simply atrocious; not communism itself, but the countries that have implemented communism into their lives. If you look at Russia which used to be known as the U.S.S.R., they were communist and were our enemies. Although, they were our ally in World War II to fight against the Axis Powers, but when the Cold War arrived, they became our enemy. Communism and democracy hasn't been proved to correspond with each other. It does sound reasonable when you say that we should allow the type of government other countries have, although, what if that particular type of government takes over our "ideal" government?

Perhaps you will go [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack]here[/url] and read about the Halabja Poison Gas Attack. That town had 80,000 individuals. These '5000' deaths in the chemical disaster was not a disaster, it was an attack by the Iraqi government that was controlled by Saddam Hussein. And perhaps you will then read [url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0513/p08s01-wome.html]this article[/url] which talks about all those males disappearing, all those villages that were destroyed, and how many other villages were subject to chemical attacks. Now, the question that must be asked here is: Do we consider chemical attacks to be a weapon of mass destruction or do we only consider nuclear weapons to be a WMD? I consider gas to be a WMD, which shows that Saddam had them already. What was to stop them from gassing another nation? OR! What was to stop them from gassing us?

During the time of the Cold War, North Korea was against us, Vietnam was against us, China WAS against us (because they were funded by the Russians). The way the Communists worked was this: they would provide weapons and funding to the weak nations of Asia. That's why you'll notice most of those nations were armed with AK-47s, and Russian made tanks, and Russian made airplanes. The Mig was a big plane for China...That's a Russian made plane. Russia was funding these nations, so there is no denying that China was against us. McArthur wanted to invade China because he KNEW that Russia was expanding there, but America said no, after World War II. Communists were against us. Cuba was against us (hence the Cuban Missile Crisis), there were hostilities with other nations as well. Russia bred hate against America just like America bred hate against Russia.

Now...As for us not deciding what government another nation should have, you're right, we shouldn't. However, the minute that that government is oppressing another nation, I feel we SHOULD step in. In Iraq, it was obvious he had committed the systematic murder of the Kurds. I provided you two references. The South Vietnamese asked for our help when the North Vietnamese invaded them to spread Communism. That was why we went in. We didn't want the spread of Communism. We did not care about giving the French their land back; we were interested in preventing the spread of Communism. That was our goal. And because the nation was so against the war, we failed.

In addition to why we tried to prevent communism was that we didn't want a country to fall to communism because the neighboring countries may fall too which was known as the domino effect. The domino theory referring to the communism in Southeast Asia stated that Indochina may fall to communism; Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Basically, many Americans loathed communism because many of us believed that democracy is the ideal type of government. Jacob stated that our goal was to prevent the spread of communism and that was what the United States aimed for.