A Question

[Amber]

Today at school in scocial studies, our teacher showed us this cartoon picture, the kind you see in the news paper. anyways,
It was a picture of G. Bush in a goofy looking way with a list of countries that said. *Do Not Call Us* something like that, and our teacher was telling us what it ment and stuff and he was saying it ment Dont call us for help. like the war. and it listed France, Germany, Russia, ect. But the point is...
Why arnt some of these countries helping us with the war in Iraq? I mean, we helped them in tons of wars we helped them get Freedom, democracy and we helped with their wars. So why wont they help us in return?

I wasnt sure were to post this thread

[ILoveMyAbbyGirl]

Well think about it this way:

I am a country, I get into a war with another country, lets say Iraq, (for where we're at now.) I ask YOUR country for help.

`Would you want to go to war, lose money on weapons, use your soldiers, possibly getting them killed?
`Would you want a country against you when you didn't do anything to them in the first place?

Now, I don't know if that's true with France and US, but it's MO.

[babolaypo65]

MAny of the countries in the United Nations were opposed to the war. Now they are being asked to help fight and end it.

[PepperRSM]

I agree with Meg, but on the other hand, if you were the country who was asked to help and said no, then what if one day you get in a war and need help? Is the US gonna help you or not because you didn't help them? I don't know much about the current events going on but I guess I have mixed feelings about it.

[Amber]

Would you want to go to war, lose money on weapons, use your soldiers, possibly getting them killed?

Well my point is, many years before we did this for other countries. We sent solders to help them, gave money, weapens, and many of americans got killed. So why wont they help us after we went through with it for them? Dont they owe us for their Freedom they have?

[clara4457]

I think many countries feel the United States war in Iraq is not justified. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found and nothing was ever proven that Iraq had any involvement in the September 11th attacks. Even here many people believe that the war sparks of vigilantism.

Historically the United States has not gotten immediately involved in wars just on the say so of countries we had pacts with. WWII our involvement came only after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In WWI other European countries were fighting for several years before we became involved (I don't remember the trigger that caused our involvement).

My point is that the United States did not generally rush into wars with countries we had pacts with. An exception was the Vietnam War - which (if I am not mistaken) wasn't really considered a war until history made it one. At the time it was still considered a police action.

I think that other countries would have more willing to help if Bush had declared war on Osama Bin Laden and his followers, or if he had more proof that Saddam was directly involved in the attacks. September 11th outraged the entire world, but Bush's attack on Iraq is too far of a stretch for most countries to justify to their people. JMHO

[babolaypo65]

Actually we've been solidly criticized by other nations in the past for being slow and reluctant to offer up our assistance. World War 2 being an example. We waited quite a long while, and didnt "offer" to help until we were directly attacked.

Then, alternately, with wars like the Vietnam war, we helped and we were criticized internally and externally for being where we didn't belong...

Its a complex issue for any nation. And I'm not ready to second guess a country that decides not to fight. They should fight for THEIR reasons, not for our reasons.
IMHO.

Originally posted by Amber
Well my point is, many years before we did this for other countries. We sent solders to help them, gave money, weapens, and many of americans got killed. So why wont they help us after we went through with it for them? Dont they owe us for their Freedom they have?

[Amber]

Ok I see! Thanks

[popcornbird]

Why should we expect other countries to go and have their troops die for something we started and for something they were opposed to from day 1, before the war even started? Until now, they still haven't found any WMD, which was our president's *reason* to go to war in the first place. No WMD, no proof to justify the cause of the war. You may not realize this, but many many Americans themselves were opposed to this war and still are, so if so many of us ourselves don't see a valid reason for this, why should we expect others to send their troops for it? If a war was brought upon US, then I'm more than certain they WOULD help, but since WE started this was when none of the world agreed with it, we should end it ourselves. They have no reason to send their sons and daughters to die and if I were them, I would do the same.

We *supposedly* went to *help* the Iraqi people, and now after the war, the poor Iraqis are more miserable than ever. No electricity, none or bad water, have trouble getting gas for their cars in their oil filled country, and from what I hear on the radio, they are just sick of this. Sure Saddam was evil and needed to get rid of, but I don't think this was the right way, making the Iraqis more miserable than they were before. Now they need help, and our country's responsible for the aftermath of the war there, so we alone with Britain should be the ones to go and fix it/help them. If it drains our economy, well, who told our leaders to start it to begin with. They started it, they end it. All I know is that our current president has drained our economy since he came and it never got any better. So many people without jobs. Gosh, even so many Americans are suffering now if you think about it.

[smokey the elder]

Yahbut: a. If Saddam never had WMD, then whyintheh*ll didn't he show the world?

b. A subset of the iraqi people are sabotaging our efforts to rebuild.

This doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the war. (At first I was sure Saddam had WMD because he was acting so...guilty.) How much of that was Saddam being not right in the head?