Would you defend your country from an invasion?
 

During a recent conversation regarding Iraq, the usual discussion about insurgent attacks on military targets came up, and I started wondering just how many people would take up arms if their country were invaded.

Here's the question: If your country were invaded by a foreign nation, would you be willing to take up arms against that invsion force? Assume that their stated purpose is to overthrow your government and they claim that they will not take permanent control of the country. Also assume that the invasion force is of sufficient size and power to defeat your country's military.

There ins no doubt in my mind that I would fight back against any invading force. I do not politically support my current government officials, but I'd rather die fighting than see our government ovethrown by an outside army. I would not attack any civilian or unarmed person, and I would not take part in any situation that carried a high risk of civilian casualties, but I would fight an invading army with the knowledge that I would probably be killed while doing it.

But what if your current gov't was a dictatorship where people are routinely killed for speaking against said dictatorship? Or where people are tortured for the pleasure of your countries ruler?

I think to properly answer the question, you need to state what is the makeup of the gov't that's currently being overthrown.

it all depends on what 'your' government is. if you're in america, it's the US govt. and form of democracy. if you're a cuban, then it's castro. he's asking for our personal perspectives if 'your' country were invaded.

As an American, I would. Without hesitation.
If I were living crushed under the boot of a sadistic thug like Saddam, Castro, or Kim Jong-il, and a liberating force came to overthrow the government, I would do anything I could to help the invaders.

What he said.

if i supported the institutions already in place before the invasion... then yes i would.

if i was in opposition to the native regime, then i would wait to see what would shake out of the new system before taking action.

i would, under no circumstances, kill or endanger my countrymen in the process.

Yep, its all about context.

Well then, let me quote someone else for my answer:

Without context, it's really not worth voting on the poll as it will cause people to draw inaccurate conclusions and attempt to apply them to real-life situations, such as the insurgency / terrorism in Iraq.

That said, as an American, I think the only invading force we would need to worry about is our own government and if it came to that I would probably join a resistance movement to some degree.

If i weren't currently benefitting from the current power structures i'd, at the very least, do nothing. I'd think anyone living below the poverty level might welcome a change of leadership, depending on the one being proposed.

Especially if those living below the poverty level believe it's the fault of the current administration.

Those who lift themselves out of poverty make that claim pretty unconvincing, though.

Our economy couldn't exist without a huge underclass. The few who lift themselves out poverty rarely do so without some form of government assistance. Those who lift themselves out of poverty are flukes.

Besides, it isn't the current administration that should be blamed, try as you might to write me off as a bush hater. Clinton fucked the poor just as much, if not more, than bush has. The blame belongs to a system who claims to worship rights, but employs an economic system that forces everyone to worship the dollar. I would imagine that anyone who truly believes that the system is broken, and thinks a better one could be put in place with the help of an invading country would gladly stand idly by. And let's be clear, if you think the system is working to the benefit of everyone in the country, you're not paying attention.

This is all purely for sport though. If you think what i'm saying is treasonous, well, then, i'm just going to preemptively call you an puppy rapist so that we can just get the thoughtless ad homs out of the way.

Come on. Nobody said that, so please don't start pushing it that way when it's going well.

A couple of decades ago there was a made-for-tv movie series called "Amerika" that was based upon the Soviet Union successfully invading the US and taking over it's government. There were quisling's of course, but the body of Americans resisted in various forms which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the invading force.

I wouldn't be foolish enough to throw rocks at a tank, but I would join the resistance and serve in whatever manner I could. I believe most Americans would do the same.

Mmmmm I don't remember the series very well, it was pretty bad, but I thought in the end the Soviets won.

Was that the one where both the republican and dem presidential candidates were secret communists or agents or some such, and the guy from hart to hart became the defacto leader of the midwest?

I was just trying to keep it going well by preempting any such talk. I wasn't pushing it any way but away from there. From my experience, unless the idiocy of such accusations is exposed from the get-go it is only a matter of time before they surface. I bet it still comes up though.

Ustwo, elphaba, are you guys talking about "Red Dawn"?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985/

Come forward a few years - It was worse than the movie with Patrick Swayse and jennifer Gray

this was a made for television miniseries..
Amerika
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/

I liked Red Dawn even if it was silly.

Amerika was just stupid.

I come from a hunting family. The only people in the military were in it for WWII and only oneo f them served over seas so I wouldn't join the military probably (bad knees, can't run, you know...) but if they were in Texas or something I'm a pretty good shot with a deer rifle, so I'd do my part until they filled me with holes.

Sheesh, people. I didn't say it was a good production and I also didn't realize this was a movie critic's topic. I referenced it only in conjunction with Mr. SelfDestruct's original question. Read slowly now, move your lips if you need to... "If your country was invaded..."

Exactly my thoughts!

Maybe an invasion is what we need to pull us together....... we sure as Hell aren't getting any closer to bettering ourselves with current government spewing hatred and talking about how only their side is right and the other 50% of the country is totally wrong and only wants to destroy us.

I proved I'd fight for my country invasion or not by having been in the Navy. By speaking out, signing petitions, attending fundraisers and demonstrating for causes I believe in....... in other words defending what freedoms we have left.

ok, honestly, i would fight, but mainly bc i do have an intensely patriotic streak.

the one thing i have to ask: how would you honestly know you are under the rule of a despotic government. Seriously, people adapt to whatever leadership they are under and they tend to stay down and try to keep out of the gov't's way. ok, not always, but honestly, wouldn't we have seen an iraqi civil war well before we jumped in? Or wouldn't there be an uprising in several other countries with despotic leaders...

Either way, i would jump in with the fury of a rabid hyena.

Hey, nobody badtalks the Swayze. Red Dawn should be in every honest Patriotic Americans movie collection, maybe with a little spot light and its own viewing case.

Anyways, if we were invaded, I think most people would stand up and fight at least if only by helping a resistance movement. Lets not forget I live in the South. Christ when Deer Hunting Season hits 60 percent attendence of most public schools drops for weeks. I feel sorry for the invading force, all of those humiliating polaroids of beer toting back country freedom fighters putting their corpses into suggestive sexual positions. Christ it would be an epidemic unto itself.

Think about that though. What if we were invaded, and the South played a major role in the resistance that drove the invaders out. Think about that, reparations for the civil war anyone? I know of certain proud northerners who would silently curse under the table when they were forced to buy drinks for the john deere toting old boy when he walked in the bar. Comments, rants, lets keep this one rolling.

It's all about context, as others have said.

That said, I would likely resist if anyone tried to invade Canada... as it stands the only likely suspect would be the US and while it would be difficult to fight back I can assure you it would be a good fight.

Can I ditto a ditto?

Anyways I love Red Dawn. It may be full of crap but I love it.

OK...fair enough. And, to be honest, that didn't work out so hot for us in 1813, did it? ;)

Ummm dramatic over reaction?

I don't think anyone was critiquing you or your judgement so chill out, relax, have a beer.

Or did you already report it as a troll post :rolleyes:

As a Canadian I would definitely fight back. But who is going to invide us???? Nobody ever has before... oops I forgot, just Americans...

anybody ever read Ultimatum by Richard Rohmer?
americans attack canada... a neat little what if?

http://www.ffbooks.co.uk/n3/n18916.htm

It all depends on the situation. Ultimately I care more about the current and future of my wife and child than anything else so I'd so whatever necessary to keep them safe.

I voted yes, I would fight to defend the american government. If I were living under the rule of a government that murdered, stole, raped and otherwise tortured it's own people, I would immediatly join any force that promised to remove said government.

Ok, let me throw a slightly different question out there. If a country (let's say Communist China or a resurrected Soviet Russia,) whose government you have seen as contradictory to your personal political and religious values were the coutry in question (for the US, assume that they bullied Mexico into cooperating and were pouring over the border,) would you support an extremely corrupt US government who violated the human and civil rights of its citizens through indefinite martial law but still allowed you to freely practice your religion and vote in elections?

I'm trying to create a hypothetical situation in which you would be in the same situation as the Iraqis. The problem I'm having here is that I don't know of any TFP members who believe that the authority to rule in government comes solely from God, so we can't think in the same way. I'm trying this question because it puts us in a situation in which we are oppressed, but the alternative is a government that goes against our moral and ethical standards.

i´d fight against an invading army or any corrupt criminal administration killing the country from within. The latter being a much more plausible scenario.

You are grasping at straws I'm afraid.

Iraq has been a secular government for quite some time. So while you may have sunni's out of power fighting to get their power back, and you have imported religious terrorists from across the mideast, it’s a unique situation which doesn't translate well.

The closest real world example you could get would be the soviet resistance to the Nazi invasion, but since the Nazis were welcomed until it was learned they were worse than Stalin (at least worse than Stalin until after the war, then its very debatable) it doesn't work to compare it to Iraq.

So if I were an Iraqi citizen who knew anything about world history I'd be first in line to help the coalition.

There is no hypothetical comparision you can make to justify the terrorist attacks I'm afraid.

Hell yeah I'd fight back!

Please clarify your position on Nazis being welcomed in Russia (was there a reason you referred to them as Soviets - a government that did not yet exist?) My history texts seem to have omitted that rosie relationship.

By your hypothetical and using that as a guide..... I would fight to the death against a government that went against my moral and ethical standards.

So yes, against a Chinese or Soviet (if they were still around) I would fight to my death.

As Pedro said, it is much more plausible especially as heightened as politics, greed, powerlust and partisanship hatred is, that we may see ourselves crumble from within. To which again, if in all honesty we were to go into a depression and the administartion did nothing to help the people, I would form a rebellion..... hopefully a peaceful one with demonstrations and elections, but in an extreme case where the party in control did all they could to keep their power and not listen to the people....... I'd take up arms..... or move to Canada and wait to see if things changed.

Stalin and Hitler hated each other. They both used their uneasy peace to build troops and fight each other.

Stalin was content to let the Germans move West at the beginning of WW2 because he didn't believe his country was ready for a showdown. He preferred to remain neutral until he was ready.

Stalin was quite content defending his own borders and nothing else. It was Churchill and FDR that needed him to drive the Germans Westward and contain them.

As for the Russians welcoming the Nazis that's a new one on me. :lol:

Me, too, Pan. But I could have missed that day of scholarship in gradeschool. :)

http://www.historyofnations.net/asia/ukraine.html

Sigh, I know you guys have a different political point of view, but please, try to be civil.

Ukranians are different from Russians, I believe at the time Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia were as they are now independant states. I am being civil.

It's funny this topic has come up.

When I was living in Japan last semester with a Japanese family, my host family was communist and thought of America as being ruled by rich, greedy, blood thirsty men. My host mother asked me one day, while driving around a scenic back road in the mountains doing some flower watching, if I would defend America if we were at war and being invaded.

I told her yes, definitely, without a doubt.

Why, she asked? What is there worth defending in your country of greedy, materialiastic people?

Freedom, I said. The freedom to be greedy, or to be generous. To be miserly or a philanthropist. I told her the Japanese government could take away all of their citizens' freedoms, like during WW2, and the citizens would submit and do nothing about it. And she admitted I was right, she would do whatever her government told her to do.

This was all in Japanese, which made it doubly fun.

But, I would definitely defend our country from invaders. I kind of wish a scenario would occurr in my lifetime where I was still able to fight and it happened, because I think this country would emerge much stronger. We've been left to our own bickering for too long.

on the narrow factoid level, ustwo is right.
but it seems an interesting problem, the factoid-level correctness followed by a claim to "knowledge of world history"---

obviously the alliance that linked hitler to stalin (1939-1941) ended abruptly with the german invasion.

obviously not everyone in the ussr was equally a fan of stalin's--o what to call them---murderous policies of the 1930s--few areas felt the impact of these more fully than did the ukraine.
that this is the case should by this point be beyond doubt.
witness the famines of the early 1930s for example.

the strange thing was how this came to be understood---apparently a purely antisemitic explanation was compelling to some segments of ukranian society--something on the order of the world jewish-bolshevik conspiracy--at any rate, yes, there were ukranians who not only welcomed the nazis but who went well beyond welcoming--like the ukranian nationalist army--
these fine fellows were most enthusiastic. they demonstrated their enthusiasm by undertaking such lovely duty as accompanying the ss and mowing down jewish women and children...

because, you see, mowing down men was seen as ok, but women and children that were thought to demoralize the ss.

the onu--what great folk--you are right that they existed but obviously know nothing about them: the onu and related organizations machine gunned thousands and thousands of jewish women and children not because they thought stalin was worse than hitler, but rather because they actively agreed with the anti-semitism of nazi ideology.


you chose a really fucked up example for making the point i think you were trying to make.
i really dont know what you are trying to say by using it.
maybe you could explain rather than simply patronize?
because what i see in this argument is the work of an arrogant dilletante, an argument that at a very superficial level fits, but when you actually look at what you refer to twists everything you say through it into a place i doubt seriously that you wanted to go.

because no matter the number of arguments we have in this forum, ustwo, i do not think you actually hold the beliefs that you would have to hold for your post to obtain with any real understanding of what you are referring to historically in place.

either way, it casts your entire position in a funny light--are you really (accidentally or not) equating the collaboration of the the onu and its ilk with the nazis with iraqi collaboration with the american coalition?

i am completely opposed to the iraq adventure and even so would never--ever---have gone this far in denouncing the american occupation.

and i dont think you could have found a way to damage your own position more thoroughly than this had you set out to do it.



side note: curiously, in the fall 1945/early 1946 the command structure of the onu was protected from war crimes prosecution by the united states after ww2 on the grounds that they could form the core of an anti-communist nationalist army. same went for the romainian iron guard--lots and lots of fascists--who were among the worst--were protected by the americans---you know, those champions of democracy.

So true, thought I dont know that we need an invasion to straighten things out. I would settle for a country unifying sporting event.

This is of course open to debate, but you are cleaving rabbits.

the other color
 

/me can help out tec with his job...
interesting topic of which i am very familiar...

It'd depend on the situation. If I was going to fight, though, I'd start by going after the collaborators and Quislings first. They are softer targets, and have earned a special place in Hell for their aiding and abetting of our enemies. Somebody brought up the movie "Red Dawn". Remember the Mayor, Darryl's father? That's who I'm talking about.

And so on....

Do you all not realize that we ARE living under a government that rapes, steals, murders, tortures, ect., ect,. A government is like a parent or a spouse - you don't truly see the faults until you have all the information and an outside perspective. State, local, and federal governments all across this country are incredibly corrupt. I know that thousands of dollars in my tax money are being laundered to the mob and various other political buddies. I know that many of my states' congressmen have committed felonious acts in order to stay in government. I know that the federal government routinely silences those that may cause harm to it. Does this bother me? Not too much. I still would happily and bravely give my life for the nation that I love and that protects me.

What I'm saying is that no government is perfect. If this was posted on an Iraqui message board, or a Japanese one, or a North Korean one, or a Argentinian one, or an Indian one, or a Pakistani one, then the responses would all be very similar. For the most part, we inside a country support our government. This is part of the problem with Iraq - the insurgents LIKED what they had before, because it was the only government that they knew.

We go all high and mighty thinking that America is un-corruptible, that the government is just squeaky clean and nothing nefarious ever goes on. Well, you're wrong. Taken out of context, our government could look as bad as Saddam's (this is part of what the Iraqui people are force-fed, and part of the reason they hate us).

In the end, no government is perfect. Politics and government is dirty. However, this is still MY country, and I love it and am in support of the way they run the show. I would never stand to oppose the United States government, and I would fight off any invader wishing to change the government that I know and want. The same reason we defend the US is the same reason many living under a dictator join his army - it is the only thing that they know and the only thing that they know to support.

Yes, our government sucks. Compared to the alternatives, however, I choose to stick with it. It's not perfect, but it's light-years ahead of every other form of government out there.

A few weeks ago, I watched law enforcement officers "torture" a subject. To be honest, it made me shake my head and chuckle. why? Because the LEOs didn't particularly want to "torture" this guy, but he wouldn't take "NO" for an answer, so they had no other choice. Throughout the entire thing, he kept screaming "Why are you doing this to me?" He just couldn't understand that it was his actions that made them respond the way they responded. All they wanted was for him to calm down and sit or lay down peacefully on a bench for a half hour without restraints on. He knew this, but refused to comply. In many other cultures, and under many other forms of government, he'd have been severely beaten or even killed. Here, he was roughed up enough to get him properly restrained, and then he was put into a hospital.

It's all about context. Who would invade the US? Mexicans? Zee Germans? Heck, if we could get the Dutch to invade, I might even turn my coat, and if it were the Canadians, I'd welcome them as a liberating army.

Flip side of that: Honest to god Chinese invasion, storming Long Beach, hand me that RPG, like a good fellow.

In the Land Down Under, we're used to the idea that one day we're going to piss Indonesia off really badly and wind up with a good million or so troops swamping our northern borders. I think we're counting on the huge numbers of poisonous animals and unfriendly terrain as much as we are our small defence force, but if neither of those do the job, I'd be there with a sharp stick and bad attitude helping out.

If anyone had the balls to attack this country, they'd be dead far before they reached Denver. But if they did reach Denver, fuck yeah, I'd fight back. And so would every person that I know. Obviously this thread is in relation to us being in Iraq. But there is no comparison in reality.

I wouldn't have to fight back, because I live in the US, and before I even knew what was happening, it would be over.

Bring it on. I know those Canadians are just chomping at the bit to come down and take our prime real estate!

You say that not in the context of living in that society. Life under Saddam, Castro, etc would be normal as far as you're concerned and you wouldn't know any different from your countries situation and what it's like to live somewhere else like America. Cubans, N. Koreans, and others aren't taking up arms to oust their dictators so either they like how they're living or they're just not interested in change.

I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure the outback would do them in. With the majority of everyone on the southern half of the continent, they'd be dead from thirst or venom before they even got there.

ok another question....

say a person from an allied country..(say australia, japan, britain etc) came and wanted to defend your country from this invasion, and they were caught by the 'invading army'. would they be granted protection under the geneva conventions and international law? or would they be granted 'illegal combatant status' since they were not fighting for the US army, but rather as some sort of mercanery or freedom fighter.

p.s. hell yes id fight for my country!

I guess we could do without Cairns, Darwin and Brisvegas. That was the thinking during the Second World War, anyway. I don't know if anybody discussed the plan with Queensland or the Northern Territory, though.