While the 'civilized world' looked elsewhere...

[Lordathestrings]

'Uncle Joe' Stalin had a colourful phrase to describe the masses of well-intentioned, but sadly misguided people who would invevitably protest any Western attempts to contain him. He called them "useful idiots". They still exist today. Last weekend, the streets were filled with them, howling with outrage that the US would dare to use its military power against Saddam Hussein. Jeez, the nerve of some countries! :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, a week ago, before the anti-US protests happened, India expelled Jalil Abbas Jilani, acting High Commissioner from Pakistan, along with four other Pakistani High Commission staff members. Pakistan gave 48 hours notice to India's acting High Commissioner, Sudhir Vyas, and four of his colleagues, expelled for alleged "involvement in activities incompatible with their status".

These two countries are this close to war, possibly nuclear war, and I have yet to see or hear of any protests in the streets of Europe or North America. This conflict has much more potential to cause World War III than another Gulf War does. Where are all the painfully sincere peaceniks that were so adamantly demanding that America must "Give Peace A Chance"?

... or is it politically correct for neighbors to nuke each other, as long as they don't have any, like, ulterior motives, y'know?

[SLY]

I don't think that India & Pakistan are gonna nuke each other , or even start a war at all.

They had over a million soldiers on the borders months ago (right after the afghanistan conflict) ... And nothing happened , cuz the so much contries pressured them not to do so ... Even if no body took action I bet they would never start a new war , since they're both nuclear now ... These people ain't too dumb.

What is not politicaly correct is the U.S. intentional ignoring of the UN and the international comunity for their own plans.
If they moved on like this ignoring countries such as Russia , China (France & Germany currently too), and destroyed the UN authority , this is what may lead to the world war III .

[Dr_simon]

The US have India by the purse strings, and India will do what the US says. I don’t think nuclear Armageddon will result in the fighting over Kashmir. It has not produced the kind of irresolvable stalemates that give rise to red button pushing to date.

Do you ever read "The Onion" ? There is an interesting piece regarding North Korea. That is where my attention is currently focused !

As far as the quote from Starlin is concerned, well we say the result of his political ideologies. I would question his judgment as to what is idiotic and what is not.

I still remember the Cuban missile crisis, when the US and the USSR were tittering on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, do you really thing either would have tolerated any political or military intervention by the UN or any one else for that.

[u10ajf]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
sadly misguided people who would invevitably protest any Western attempts to contain him. He called them "useful idiots". They still exist today.

Excuse me but a lot of highly intelligent, critically thinking people fall into your "useful idiot" pigeonhole. Most of the protesters I know are politics/International relations students.
Assuming Saddam has Chemical/biological weapons this is how we will find out; by retaliation. All you need to do to create support for terrorism is to break a people by bombing them and their families.

Last weekend, the streets were filled with them, howling with outrage that the US would dare to use its military power against Saddam Hussein. Jeez, the nerve of some countries! :rolleyes:

Since when was war against one person? Many innocent people will die lots more will loose their innocence and die thereafter. Saddam is an evil bastard, no mistake but there are tons of evil bastards all over the world and nobody cares what they do to their people unless they can make some financial gain by "liberating" them, look at all the wars in Africa, who cared?

I don't know what the Canadian press is like but if it's anything like the American's its focus is tunnel-visioned and myopic.

Where are all the painfully sincere peaceniks that were so adamantly demanding that America must "Give Peace A Chance"?

SHOVE Y0UR STEREOTYPES WHERE THE SUN DOESN'T SHINE. Lots of very normal people have been protesting in Britain, close on 2 million out of the 60 or so million. Public opinion in the UK and the US is against war not backed by the UN. I really begrudge the stereotype of tree-hugging, dope-smoking hippies with childish-naive attitudes. These stereotypes are perpetuated partially by the desire of individuals involved to be recognised as belonging to a group of people who have solidarity and can probably trust one another (allowing short-cuts to be taken in establishing new friendships) and partly by right-wing press reports which like to suggest that opposition to government policy is largely the product of some people's large drug intakes and not a well-considered, legitimate response to bad policy. True, whatever a government does will come under scrutiny and you can't make everyone happy all of the time but if people don't protest other people will not take the time to evaluate the information available and form their own opinions.

If a regime change has to happen in an oil-producing country I dont' trust a load of ex-oil, motor car and weapons building industrialists who repeatedly de-regulate restrictions designed to protect the environment, work force and poor people from exploitation to do so.

Meanwhile, a week ago, before the anti-US protests happened, India expelled Jalil Abbas Jilani, acting High Commissioner from Pakistan, along with four other Pakistani High Commission staff members. Pakistan gave 48 hours notice to India's acting High Commissioner, Sudhir Vyas, and four of his colleagues, expelled for alleged "involvement in activities incompatible with their status".
These two countries are this close to war, possibly nuclear war, and I have yet to see or hear of any protests in the streets of Europe or North America. This conflict has much more potential to cause World War III than another Gulf War does.

Protests about what? What are our governments (Canadian and British respectively in our cases) doing to involve themselves in this dispute? I don't bloody know! Maybe you're right that this is a more serious problem but frankly my current nightmares are American in origin.
I'd be interested to know more about this issue but I don't see why knowing about it should change a thing about my own personal feelings about USA inc. and a British gov. that allows Americans to base missile "defence systems" in our country making us an obvious target if America decides to pick a fight with someone really dangerous.
If you were a dangerous megalomaniac with a nuke would you use it on your immediate neighbour?
The effects of their own weapons would totally screw their environment and poison a whole heap of their own people. This is before we consider an actual nuclear RESPONSE.

... or is it politically correct for neighbors to nuke each other, as long as they don't have any, like, ulterior motives, y'know?

P.C. or not it's insane. It's terrorists and not governments who might not care if EVERYBODY dies for their crazy cause.

[Raskolnikov]

Political disidents in the US:
http://www.naplesnews.com/02/01/graphics/14protest3.JPG



Political disidents in Iraq:
http://www.dhushara.com/book/death/gen/kurd.jpg


"Out of sight, out of mind"

[u10ajf]

Point well made but I have also seen some very very horrible pictures of the results of the last gulf war also. Naturally they were censored at the time and only authorised journalists were allowed in. To dissatisfy the military is to loose authorisation and to be censored.

It seems unlikely to me that occupying forces would make as much of any effort to rebuild Iraq as they will to bomb it. When there's poverty and starvation (which, yes, there is also now, cause of sanctions which some argue could be lifted following regime-change) there's desparation and surely that's conducive to terrorist causes.

Also people seem to be missing the point that killing a whole heap of soldiers, whilst considered "legitimate" military practice is pretty horrible. No political purge is likely to have the same death toll as the destruction of a whole army. What I should like to know is "Is sadam's army conscripted?", I believe this is likely because in the Iran-Iraq war he sent children over mine-fields to clear them for his elite troops, this isn't something I can imagine kids doing by choice. Are the army to be fought willingly fighting for Sadam's regime or just folk like you and I who would rather not bloody their hands? I heard that troops surendered readily in the last war. 60% of the population of Iraq is Sunni Muslim, Sadam's ba'athist party is secular and supposedly socialist. This means 60% probably don't support him, maybe this is an argument for regime change also.

A subsidiary note: US female protesters would appear to be cuter than ours.

[Azrael]

I realy pitty those who do not even try to ask WHY there is so much terror and pain in the world. i only hear them all shouting "we must not accept terrorism, we must fight terrorism, we must kill all terrorists". THAT is what i REALY call naive - not the tree hugging hippies.
If you only would be a LITTLE interrested in collecting knowledge of the backgrounds of the past history (which are to be found all across the net and in papers, etc) and realy start adding them up and draw logic non-prejudiced conclusions, you will see that all those Terrorism problems are home-made (not only by the USA though - that would be unfair - but it plays a VERY vital role - thats why it is mainly directed towards the US). And history has proven us often enough that fighting terror with terror(war) DOES NOT WORK AT ALL - it only leads to more terror! However - we will see what the future brings - the sad thing is, that our children are the ones to suffer.. i realy am afraid that our generation will not be mentioned as a very good one after we are gone.

[u10ajf]

I'm not sure its possible to do anything mindful without prejudice. My own views are prejudiced by the things that lead me to formulate them, so, I take it are the views of you guys! I'm here to find new prejudices, that's what makes this sort of thing so interesting for me, not the opportunity to bash people for their views but to test my own and my ways of expressing them.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Political disidents in Iraq:
http://www.dhushara.com/book/death/gen/kurd.jpg


"Out of sight, out of mind"

I bet you can get even more cruel pix from North Korea or hot places in central African nations.

But since these countries don't have much oil or other solid economical bases (i.e. it won't be a great benefit economicaly and/or politicaly to invade them , or not worth the money that would be spent on them) , they don't get much attention from the U.S. .

Excuse me , I'll have use your quote : "Out of sight, out of mind" !

[Christoph]

LOL Rask . . . you're the man. Thanks for the good laugh.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
I bet you can get even more cruel pix from North Korea or hot places in central African nations.

But since these countries don't have much oil or other solid economical bases (i.e. it won't be a great benefit economicaly and/or politicaly to invade them , or not worth the money that would be spent on them) , they don't get much attention from the U.S. .

Excuse me , I'll have use your quote : "Out of sight, out of mind" !
It's not even close to being out of my mind. It quite honestly bothers me quite a bit, however:
-Iraq has has been under obligation to disarm and prove that it's disarmed with the penalty of invasion and regime change since the end of the Gulf War. No other nation in the world is under such obligations.
-I'm sure we can both agree that Saddam and his government has been lieing about their weapons programs, and I would contend that they're lieing to hide the fact that they're not in compliance with the UN demands, and have no intention of ever being in compliance with the UN.
-Not following through in Iraq sends a message to all those other nations that there is no international will to follow through with the demands the international community makes. Worse yet, it gives them a blueprint to follow: Hold out until the very last second, make a minor, meaningless consession so the dovish elements in the UN say "hey, look, that's progress! Let's give them more time!" and repeat as neccessary until the world gets bored with it and moves onto something else.
-If this is really about oil and boosting the US economy, why go through with the HUGE expense of war and then several years of occupation if the same exact goal (increasing Iraqi oil production to lower the price of oil) can be acheived peacefully? This war and the deficit spending and post-war recession that will acompany it (if it happens) will hurt the US economy for several decades. However, when you consider the financial (but more importantly, human) cost of waiting, it's pretty clear (to me anyway) what action has to be taken, and now.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Azrael
I realy pitty those who do not even try to ask WHY there is so much terror and pain in the world. i only hear them all shouting "we must not accept terrorism, we must fight terrorism, we must kill all terrorists". THAT is what i REALY call naive - not the tree hugging hippies.

I think you're half right. One of my main criticisms of the Bush administration (and conservative America in general) is that they really don't think or care about how most terrorists became terrorists in the first place. They see changing US policy as "giving in" to the terrorists (something that admitantly, shouldn't be done), but they also fail to realize that US policy has infact created much of the problem, and certain areas of US policy should be chanced, not to capitulate to the terrorists, but because the plolicy was wrong.

About 3,000 years ago, Sun Tzu hit the nail right on the head in regards to war and how it should be waged. He pointed out that war sometimes has to be fought, and that turning away in such times is detremental to a nation, but so is fighting a war that doesn't need to be fought. He also pointed out that the war should be fought to be won because drawn out conflicts are costly and tend to fail and backfire. Sitting down and really looking at the history books shows these principals to be absolutely correct, right up to today.

A quick, decisive war in Iraq followed by a positive reconstruction of Iraq will work to eliminate terrorism (Osama bin Laden often points to the plight of the Iraqi people when justifying his Jihad against the West), and a potential source of very nasty weapons for terrorists. A long, drawn out war with heavy civilian casualties will make all of the above worse, but by that same token, doing nothing is already making the situation worse.

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by u10ajf
...re are tons of evil bastards all over the world and nobody cares what they do to their people unless they can make some financial gain by "liberating" them, look at all the wars in Africa, who cared?...
This is a major issue I have with this whole Iraqi war talk.In the other thread(and Rask,do you see how quickly cynism kills a thread?),I mentioned our(Kenya) own former president.If you ask me,this guy should join Milosevic in the Hague(and I'm not the only Kenyan who feels this way).President Moi had torture chambers in the basement of the govt. building holding the headquarters of the provincial adminstration.Quite some nerve there.He's massacred people.Is nerve gassing a whole village(Saddam)any different from bludgeoning some 300(official figures,who knows what the real figure was)people to death on an airstrip(Moi)?.Or killing several thousand people,and displacing tens of thousands more,under the guise of "tribal clashes"?(The Kenyan situation is such that we're so spread out and intermarried and dependent on each other and stuff,it's impossible to hurt another tribe without hurting your own,hence it's next to impossible to have a real tribal war).
The man behind these things is the man Bush described as "a good and strong leader."(He was right about strong)And when did Bush say this?October 2002.Not 16 million years ago.Not during the cold war.Not during his election campaigns.LAST YEAR,OCTOBER.Condemning Saddam(and no,I do not support Saddam),while at the same time praising a presidednt with similar traits to saddam.
Now,I never was good in math.But it doesn't add up.Not to me.Iknow,Iknow,saddam is an arse hole that needs to be removed from power.YES.But why is it that people who are the same are not the same to Bush?A bastard is a bastard.
I'll use an analogy to how I see this.You take the bus to work.A robber takes the same bus,but for different reasons(he might also,in his own sick sense,say he's going to work).You're in the same bus,but for very different reasons.Same thing here.I may want to see saddam ousted.So does Bush.But I can't help feel,for the reasons I've said,that he's doing it for other reasons.
About India and Pakistan:
This is a very different situation,Lord.For the following reasons.
India isn't trying to remove Perves Musharaff from power.Neither is Pakistan trying to displace Vajpayee.They are squabbling over borders.
These two countrties are about the same size,in terms of military might.Compare Iraq with USA.India knows Pakistan can **** her up.So does Pakistan.Which is why all they're doing is sabre rattling(If you're fighting,then ****,fight!!)
Rask,you say that Iraq is under some obligations from the UN,and that no other country is under such obligations.True.Now,how did Iraq get under those obligations in the first place?Was it coz Saddam gassed his own people?Was it coz he killed political dissidents?Was it coz he was stowing oil wealth away while his people were starving?Was it coz he was forcing children into his army?The answer to all these questions is no.Saddam got under those obligations when he invaded another Sovereign nation.So to me,grounds for war should similar to these.But don't tell me it's coz he's such a demon and he is causing so much suffering to his own people,blah blah.You(America)don't care about those.I don't know what you care about.But it definately isn't that(People suppresed and dying under a dictatorial regime).
In that other thread,someone talked about Saddam obliterating Israel from the map.Please.Even he knows that would be the end of him.Or is he suicidal as well(now I'm being cynical,but nicely).

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by kingdavid
Rask,you say that Iraq is under some obligations from the UN,and that no other country is under such obligations.True.Now,how did Iraq get under those obligations in the first place?Was it coz Saddam gassed his own people?Was it coz he killed political dissidents?Was it coz he was stowing oil wealth away while his people were starving?Was it coz he was forcing children into his army?The answer to all these questions is no.Saddam got under those obligations when he invaded another Sovereign nation.So to me,grounds for war should similar to these.But don't tell me it's coz he's such a demon and he is causing so much suffering to his own people,blah blah.You(America)don't care about those.I don't know what you care about.But it definately isn't that(People suppresed and dying under a dictatorial regime).

Wait-wait-wait-wait--
You agree that Saddam is under certain obligations* from the UN, but you don't agree that he should be removed from power for not meeting those obligations... even though the consequences for not meeting the UN obligations have ALWAYS been invasion and regime change? What gives?

The best analogy for what's going on here is that of a criminal on parole for "Crime X." Saddam invaded Kuwait, the sentence for doing that was regime change, but he's been put on parole (given a second chance), and if he plays by the ALL the rules, he gets to stay in power of Iraq.

If a criminal is put on parole after serving a portion of their sentence, they don't have to commit Crime X or a worse one to go back to jail to serve the rest of the sentence, ANY violation of the conditions of parole means the criminal goes back to finish the sentence for Crime X and, depending on what they've done, they could end up serving a more severe sentence.

You're basicly saying "OK, we told him that if he didn't stop selling drugs we'd put him back in jail, and maybe he's still selling Crystal Meth to high schoolers, but he's not selling it to grade schoolers any more, so lets ask him one more time to please stop dealing and if he still doesn't listen we'll ask him again, but using different words." If the problem weren't really so serious, that could be a Monty Python skit.

Finally, I think I'm a better judge of what myself and America does and doesn't care about as I live here. Have you ever even visted? Not that it's directly related to Iraq, but if you're on AOL Instant Messenger and want to talk to somebody who can describe how it feels to see first hand the huge void in Manhatten where roughly 3,000 lives were suddenly snuffed out, IM me (Letch be Friends), I'll be happy to fill you in.


*The basic obligations in question being; disarm of ALL weapons of mass destruction, have NO missles with a range greater than 90 miles (150km, right?), put an end to ALL weapons development, and finally PROVE via UN inspections that all of the above have happened.

[SLY]

Dude , why haven't we seen the US forcing Saddam to make some political corrections ?
The only thing we've heard was ORDERING Saddam to resign & leave ... And it doesn't make any sense, cuz everybody know he would never take such an action since it would hurt his fu*king ego.
Why haven't we seen demands of democratic elections under UN supervision instead ?
Why do they ONLY speak of war?

And tell me , which is more dangerous on the UN's authority & future , the US attitude or the Iraqi attitude ?
At least , Iraqi officials (I don't mean to defend them of course) show respect to the UN when they speak .
On the other hand , the US is like denying the whole International community & the UN for their own good.
Is this how you teach "Democracy" to the rest of the world?
It's very normal to disagree with other countries like Russia,France,etc. ... But since most of the UN disagree with the US , the US should step back and respect the interests of other countries instead of implying their domination by military force.

This discussion will never end , but I'm afriad that if the US went for a war without support from the UN , it might be the mistake of a lifetime.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
Dude , why haven't we seen the US forcing Saddam to make some political corrections ?
The only thing we've heard was ORDERING Saddam to resign & leave ... And it doesn't make any sense, cuz everybody know he would never take such an action since it would hurt his fu*king ego.
Why haven't we seen demands of democratic elections under UN supervision instead ?
Why do they ONLY speak of war?
A). Actually, the message being sent to Saddam is essentially "Comply with the UN resolutions completely and fully or we WILL kick your hind quarters."
B). Name a single alterior motive for going to war with Iraq that couldn't be attained much more cheaply IF a peaceful resolution were possible.

And tell me , which is more dangerous on the UN's authority & future , the US attitude or the Iraqi attitude ?
At least , Iraqi officials (I don't mean to defend them of course) show respect to the UN when they speak.
The US is atleast being honest about it's position. Iraq has been telling bald-faced lies all along and still expects the UN to take them seriously. Now THAT is disrespectful.

The sad fact is that in the UN today, there isn't the political will to enforce it's own resolutions, therefore it's made itself irrelivent. France, Germany, and Russia's governments want to hold onto votes so they can stay in power (and keep a few billion dollars in sales of Iraqi oil too), and a lot of other governments resemble Iraq's just enough to make the idea of regime change a scary proposition.

[SLY]

First , a war can NEVER be called a cheap solution , innocent people's life ain't cheap.

You're saying that France, Germany, and Russia's governments want to hold onto votes so they can stay in power (and keep a few billion dollars in sales of Iraqi oil too) .
Why don't you flip it over ?
The US isn't satisfied that they're getting nothing that worth a sh*t from Iraq , while countries like those mentioned are getting it all ... So the US decide to invade Iraq with some bullsh*t reasons , so they can make some moeny from/with Iraq in the near future.

May be it's all about interests and money , if so , the US will be like a thug who kills for money. (sorry for being a little rude , but I realy didn't find other words to express)

Which is more cruel & evil ... Trying to prevent a war for your own interests or declaring a war to serve your interests ?

[Azrael]

Sly.. this is senseless - it is the perfect example of how good propaganda works. (sorry - had to say that - no offense though!)

[SLY]

I'm not making a propaganda for any side , I'm justy posting my opinion as an outside viewer .

I naturaly lean towards peace anyway .

[chris mood]

Remember, President Bush did not win by a large majority of the votes here in the states (were not even sure if he won by majority at all). I, myself, don't feel that Mr.Bush is a good representation of the American people and am counting the days until his 4yr term is up.I am tired of making excuses for our Presidents neanderthal behavior and am having a hard time developing a sense of american pride w/the way national affairs are being conducted by our government.

[noticingthemistake]

I think your both right, SLY and Rask. My countries order to force war is wrong, both Bush and Saddam are lying about their reasons. That's politics, if I've learned anything from it. It's that politicians will only tell you what you want to hear to get your support. Bush to me is a fool, his agenda in this whole matter is more personal than diplomatic. He's a ticked off Texan who wants revenge on the guy who tried to kill his daddy. He said it himself but now he's trying to cover it up with terrorism and the fact that Saddam is a dictator. First of all, Saddam wasn't the one who bombed us. So let me ask what happened to the primarily agenda of finding Bin Laden??? We should be focusing more of our resources to that end and protecting our mainland. War is only leaving us open, if Bush had any intelligent he would know this. This leaves me to believe, he just doesn't care as long as he gets his revenge. The cost of lives is meaningless, and he’s a coward. Saddam challenged him to a debate, and Bush answered only with irrelevant jokes. I am not pro-Saddam but I will not support a meaningless war where many of my country men and country are put in greater danger because of our leaders personal differences.

Now yeah Saddam is a dictator and he has weapons of mass destruction. The US in its best interest should get rid of the weapons first, but seriously he would be a fool to use them. We have much more destructive weapons at our disposal which could turn Iraq into just a big crater. Now we don’t know where Bin Laden is, but we do know where Saddam is. So it’s much easier for us to jump on his tail. As for removing him from office, I think that's a decision for the people of that country and as far as I know that's not exactly what they want. Although I believe this support is done in fear. Plus, I think Iraq would serve better under a new leader. If we were to go into Iraq and force this, we would only be doing the same thing that Iraq did to Kuwait 10 yrs ago. As for Germany, France, and Russia, they're doing the EXACT same thing. For the profit of oil, so F*** them. Who will rule Iraq after Saddam is out?? Well of course someone picked from the Bush administration, to me it‘s called conquering. The UN is right to veto our actions because this is exactly what they stand strongly against.

This is sad to say, but I’m in much more fear of my own government than that of another or terrorism. The thing what ticks me off about the 9/11 thing is our own government knew that something was going to happen, but let our pride blind us from it. Not that we knew where, and when but in that week; they were aware of suspicious things going on. Threats for the most part, and we ignored them and look what happened. Now again we are ignoring a much greater threat by starting a war (accompanied by more threats). To me this is a battle plan, and it would work flawlessly. Force our troops and much of our defensive systems away from the mainland to fight the war with Iraq, while terrorists invade and start destroying what they can. They would have less resistance with our forces half way across the world. Again we are setting ourselves up for more disaster because of our pride and stupidity.

[SLY]

I know your feeling dude , as the time goes on, it shows how screwed up is he with diplomacy .

[noticingthemistake]

Another thing, we've decide to stack on another war on the pile. I'm talking about North Korea. A resoultion, WORLD WAR 3!!!! I am ashamed! :(

[chris mood]

Remember, recent transcriptions of the Hoover adminstration showed that they knew Pearl Harbor was going to happen and they did nothing to stop it.
Also remember, Bush dropped bombs on Iraq within 2 months of taking office.

[noticingthemistake]

That's our pride. Recently and of more focus now you have to look at the TWO attacks on the trade center. It was attacked previously in the early 90's, sorry I can't recall the exact year. No one was killed and the building didn't suffer too much damage. This event was also followed by threats from terrorist org. Look at the bombing of US embasses in Africa, they were also pre-warned by threats. Now were getting more threats, just recently. What's next??

But wait, lets start a war somewhere else. The pushing of this war with Iraq, in my opinion is going to cause another world war. I am not exagerating. We are apart of the UN, actually were one of the nations to create it. But you got us and the people who support our cause inside the UN, then you got those who strongly oppose, which is a greater number. Since the UN is combined of most nations, the difference in the votes is going to cause disagreement between those nations. Bush himself said he is against and will go to war with any nation that opposes. Since this is "supposively" a war on terrorism. We're looking at the beginning of World War 3. And I'm ashamed to say our nation and our president is the one forcing this seperation.

[SLY]

You're right , and if it doesn't start a big world war , it will just cause more rage & anger in most countries specialy in the arab world ... This would make lots of things even more complicated than they realy are now.

[noticingthemistake]

Exactly, and since your from Egypt you would have more of an understanding of that point of view. In all truth, almost all the people in America oppose this war. Not even the families of those who lost their lives in 9/11 want this war in the name of their loved ones. They don't want it to be in vain. Bush and his administration are the only ones pushing it, so american's are not truely free. We also suffer the consequences of our acting government. There is not much we can do about it either, except talk. WOW! :sarcasm: I think most americans are now looking forward to the elections so we can try to get him out before this goes too far. And hopefully the next guy won't enforce this issue anymore, and settle to distillment in the Arab nations and UN.

P.S. We need Hilary Clinton as president. Screw tradition, she had a more responisible, respectable, and mature way of dealing with such things. Or at least someone like her.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 02-27-2003 at 10:40 AM]

[SLY]

Sadly enough , we're the ones who take the consequences of our governments mistakes.

I know that most americans are against war , it's very obvious cuz the anti-war protests in your country is hell more than in mine !

[chris mood]

When Bush was asked about his feelings on the anti-war protests in Washington he stated that one of the great things about living in a free country is that you can voice your opinions openely...but, at the end of the day he still had a job to do. -LoL- This is not a president of the people!

[noticingthemistake]

I'm sorry that true, SLY. People should be responsible for their own actions not someone else's. It's just funny to think, America is the land of the free. Those who believe that are blind. Yeah we have certain freedoms most nations don't have, but our government still has the power to take those away without opposition. Even with our entire country is against a war, our acting power can overrule and enforce its agenda. Same with the elections process, an entire country can vote against something yet our government can force its own vote and veto the peoples. A government is a wolf in sheeps clothing, we don't shoot people in public. We have means of bankrupting them or making them disappear. There are millions of unsolved cases that directly point to government involvement. We're called free because we are lucky enough not to have a dictator like Hitler or Mussolini (sp) YET. :(

Yeah chris I saw that too. Whata douche bag!

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 02-27-2003 at 11:19 AM]

[Azrael]

Originally posted by SLY
I'm not making a propaganda for any side , I'm justy posting my opinion as an outside viewer .

I naturaly lean towards peace anyway .

I was not refering to you SLY

[SLY]

Azrael - Oops , I mixed things up cuz you mentioned me at the beginning of your post .

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
...even though the consequences for not meeting the UN obligations have ALWAYS been invasion and regime change?...
Really,Rask?
I must have missed the news.You tell me.Besides the Taliban,what other regime has the US toppled?When was this?What were the circumstances?
I really would like to know,coz I haven't heard of this before.I mean,you're using the words "...consequences...have always been invasion and regime change..."
I've never heard about that.
About what America cares(or doesn't care about):
I think you've largely missed my point.It wasn't Saddam who bombed you.According to American media report,19 of those hijackers were Saudi.Not Iraq.Your govt.(as far as I've heard)isn't even associating Saddam with 911.Osama's the culprit.So I feel telling me about the 3000 lives lost doesn't weigh in on your reasons for going after Saddam.If in fact you're going after Saddam for 911,then I think that is misdirected anger,sincee like I said you're not linking Saddam to it.
My raising the question of what America cares about rose from my observation from your arguments that Saddam's a bad regime that should be removed,on the one hand,while on the other hand showing open support(not your arguments,Bush)for a similar ruler.
And just because I've never visited America does not necessarily mean I can't develop some understanding of America.Actions often speak louder than words.If America cared about people oppressed by bad regimes,then Bush wouldn't call our former president a good and strong leader of Kenya.If I was Bush,we wouldn't even have diplomatic relations.
That was my point.
About parole,you're never sent back to jail on suspicion of having broken your parole conditions.You're sent back to jail on the strength of hard and conclusive evidence.If you ask me,frrom Blix's report,you can't use the words hard and conclusive evidence.

[Edited by kingdavid on 02-28-2003 at 05:08 AM]

[SLY]

Agree with "kingdavid" ... Obviously , the US is ONLY accusing non-alies nations of Human Rights abuse .
If you don't change some bad regiems cuz they're US alies , then you DON'T have the right to change non-alies bad regiems.

[Edited by SLY on 02-28-2003 at 06:39 AM]

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by kingdavid

I think you've largely missed my point.It wasn't Saddam who bombed you.According to American media report,19 of those hijackers were Saudi.Not Iraq.Your govt.(as far as I've heard)isn't even associating Saddam with 911.Osama's the culprit.So I feel telling me about the 3000 lives lost doesn't weigh in on your reasons for going after Saddam.If in fact you're going after Saddam for 911,then I think that is misdirected angersincee like I said you're not linking Saddam to it.


After we went looking from Bin Laden and tracked his AL-Quida Group, we found that many of his representatives were found in Iraq. So we naturally know Saddam was housing terrorists. Their is quite a pile of evidence that supports this, we also know the Saddam supported the actions on 9/11. That's pretty much why Saddam is associated with the 9/11 tragedy. He’s pro-terrorists, which is what Bush said he was going to take action against right after 9/11.

Saddam is looked at a much bigger threat for 2 reason I believe, one it’s personal. Bush’s father was the president in the Gulf War. There was much unsettled business that he feels he needs to finish. Second is the fact that they have weapons of mass destruction, which they are not allowed to have. UN codes restrict him from having any type of nuclear or chemical weapons. He still has them, that’s why there’s a big deal about Saddam now. Bush’s mistake is that he’s trying to push this into war, even when he doesn’t have UN support. Your right it’s misguided anger.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 02-28-2003 at 10:33 AM]

[SLY]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
After we went looking from Bin Laden and tracked his AL-Quida Group, we found that many of his representatives were found in Iraq. So we naturally know Saddam was housing terrorists. Their is quite a pile of evidence that supports this, we also know the Saddam supported the actions on 9/11. That's pretty much why Saddam is associated with the 9/11 tragedy. He’s pro-terrorists, which is what Bush said he was going to take action against right after 9/11.


Dude, I realy can't understand how are they trying to link Saddam to fundamentalism terrorists like Bin Laden ... It's so silly , they're both have EXTREMELY different ideology , and each has his own agenda that also EXTREMELY contradict with the other ... Saddam is somehow a communist kinda leader , Bin Laden dubbed communist leaders in his last tape (he pointed that Saddam is the most communist leader in the region) as "Non-Believers" & enemies , this realy shows that how do they relate to each other.
They just can't be alies , it's absurd to claim that.

Also finding out that some terrorists are living or escaped to Iraq doesn't necessarily mean that Saddam's regiem is involved in housing & supporting them ... Al Qaeda guys have been found in many countries like Germany,Belgium,France,Spain,Morroco,Yemen,UK,US,etc .

Also I don't recall the US asking Iraq to co-operate to find those terrorists and brig them to prosecution.

I'm not saying that Saddam is good for not being involved with Bin Laden , cuz he's already involved with many evil things other than terrorism , but I'm almost dead sure that Saddam & Bin Laden can never get together someday.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by kingdavid
Originally posted by Raskolnikov
...even though the consequences for not meeting the UN obligations have ALWAYS been invasion and regime change?...[/B]
Really,Rask?
I must have missed the news.You tell me.Besides the Taliban,what other regime has the US toppled?When was this?What were the circumstances?
I really would like to know,coz I haven't heard of this before.I mean,you're using the words "...consequences...have always been invasion and regime change..."
I've never heard about that.
Start looking up UN resolutions regarding Iraq, the stipulations ending the Gulf War are pretty clear. And what does the Taliban have to do with Iraq's weapons programs? To me that's a seperate issue.
About what America cares(or doesn't care about):
I think you've largely missed my point.It wasn't Saddam who bombed you.
I never said it was. This whole issue is (to me anyway) about following through with the terms ending the Gulf War. If the world community stands together and says "disarm or we remove you from power" to a dictator, they better follow through with it. But in the 12 years since the world community did just that, opinions have softened. 1). Allowing a deplorable human being with no business running a country to continue running a country and not only that, but continue plans to EXPAND his country via armed invaision and 2). Sending a message to other dictators in the world that the world community is and the UN has no spine and will not enforce it's resolutions.
My raising the question of what America cares about rose from my observation from your arguments that Saddam's a bad regime that should be removed,on the one hand,while on the other hand showing open support(not your arguments,Bush)for a similar ruler.
...A similar ruler who (to the best of my knowledge - I won't pretend to be an expert on Kenya) has never invaded another nation. Saddam has long established agressive plans to expand Iraq.
And just because I've never visited America does not necessarily mean I can't develop some understanding of America.Actions often speak louder than words.If America cared about people oppressed by bad regimes,then Bush wouldn't call our former president a good and strong leader of Kenya.If I was Bush,we wouldn't even have diplomatic relations.
That was my point.
You know, you're absolutely right. I should judge every nation in the world by it's most senior politicians.[/sarcasm]
If actions speak louder than words to you, how come you're ignoring that no other nation in the world gives more human, financial, and logistical support to charities that benefit nations such as Kenya than America? What nation is footing most of the bill to fight AIDS, even though it's own AIDS 'epidemic' is relatively small? Does that count for nothing to you?
My point is that you know just as much about the real America as I know about the real Kenya... which ain't much. You can only know such things by being there.
About parole,you're never sent back to jail on suspicion of having broken your parole conditions.You're sent back to jail on the strength of hard and conclusive evidence.If you ask me,frrom Blix's report,you can't use the words hard and conclusive evidence.
Iraq's statement after Colin Powel's presentation to the UN security council a few weeks ago was clear; they said they have NO prescribed weapons.
Hans Blix' has recently been very clear that the Al Samoud 2 missle violates the range restrictions placed on Iraq and therefore is a prescribed weapon (just like Colin Powel said).
Bagdahd's reaction to Blix' order to destroy the missles: It was "unjust" and "abusive," and that they will destroy them, but they don't know how to, so they're asking for a UN technical team to advise them.
Pah-lease.
Give me two rednecks, four kegs of beer ands some gasoline, an open patch of desert and I'll destroy those missles. It's not complicated.
Saddam Hussein is buying time.

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 02-28-2003 at 06:54 PM]

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
Originally posted by noticingthemistake
After we went looking from Bin Laden and tracked his AL-Quida Group, we found that many of his representatives were found in Iraq. So we naturally know Saddam was housing terrorists. Their is quite a pile of evidence that supports this, we also know the Saddam supported the actions on 9/11. That's pretty much why Saddam is associated with the 9/11 tragedy. He?s pro-terrorists, which is what Bush said he was going to take action against right after 9/11.


Dude, I realy can't understand how are they trying to link Saddam to fundamentalism terrorists like Bin Laden ... It's so silly , they're both have EXTREMELY different ideology , and each has his own agenda that also EXTREMELY contradict with the other
The ideological background of the Maffia is strictly anti-drug, but the Mafia ended up pushing drugs anyway. I doubt very much that Osama bin Laden wants anything to with Saddam Hussein, but that doesn't mean that people on Al Quaeda's fringe wouldn't be willing to work with the Iraqis and that the Iraqis wouldn't be willing to work with them. You have to admit that the both have a few mutal enemies and a lot to offer eachother.
Also I don't recall the US asking Iraq to co-operate to find those terrorists and brig them to prosecution.
Bush asked EVERY nation in the world to do just that almost immediately after 9/11. Infact, it was the same speach in which he coined "the Axis of Evil" phraze.
I thought you were paying attention to this stuff?

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
The ideological background of the Maffia is strictly anti-drug, but the Mafia ended up pushing drugs anyway. I doubt very much that Osama bin Laden wants anything to with Saddam Hussein, but that doesn't mean that people on Al Quaeda's fringe wouldn't be willing to work with the Iraqis and that the Iraqis wouldn't be willing to work with them. You have to admit that the both have a few mutal enemies and a lot to offer eachother.

Well , I can tell you how would an Iraqi guy take words in Bin Laden's latest tape more than anybopdy else here , and I'll try to find an equivalent words for you to understand.
He dubbed Saddam as a "Non-Believer" , I know that to an american the word sounds funny , but if you want to feel it , it's like the Jaques Shirak (spell?) dubbing Bush as the "anti-christ" or may be harder too. (I hope you get it right now)
That's why it's absurd to assume that Saddam would work with Bin Laden for anything in the world ... Don't forget Saddam's ego too , which realy counts here.


Bush asked EVERY nation in the world to do just that almost immediately after 9/11. Infact, it was the same speach in which he coined "the Axis of Evil" phraze.
I thought you were paying attention to this stuff?

Yeah , but he didn't ask Iraq in particular to know what would be their reaction , on the contrary , he made the "Axis of Evil" statement , which proves that he don't know sh*t about diplomacy or how to deal with international issues.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
But in the 12 years since the world community did just that, opinions have softened. 1). Allowing a deplorable human being with no business running a country to continue running a country and not only that, but continue plans to EXPAND his country via armed invaision and 2). Sending a message to other dictators in the world that the world community is and the UN has no spine and will not enforce it's resolutions.

Expand his country ??? I realy doubt that even a stupid butthole like Saddam would repeat his mistake of a LIFETIME again.


Hans Blix' has recently been very clear that the Al Samoud 2 missle violates the range restrictions placed on Iraq and therefore is a prescribed weapon (just like Colin Powel said).
Bagdahd's reaction to Blix' order to destroy the missles: It was "unjust" and "abusive," and that they will destroy them, but they don't know how to, so they're asking for a UN technical team to advise them.
Pah-lease.
Give me two rednecks, four kegs of beer ands some gasoline, an open patch of desert and I'll destroy those missles. It's not complicated.
Saddam Hussein is buying time.

Ok , so do you think that a few km range violation is a good reason to start a WAR , regarding that they complied and agreed to destroy them as you said?
If Saddam was buying time , you surely mean time to prepare for the battle , yeah ? How does he prepare for a battle while having his strategic (Al Samoud 2) missles destroyed and WMD inspectors all over his country , even in his own palace ?

Dude, to start a war they need much more than that ... I mean like finding a nuke head or something & they refuse to destroy it.

Obviously , Bush is determined on war , even before the (new) inspections started , and he's like waiting for the smallest mistake from Iraq to launch it ... That's why , I don't trust any reasons he gives.

[noticingthemistake]

SLY and Rask, You both have very good arguements on both your opinions. SLY, the quote you posted at the beginning of page 6, I was just clarifying how they were once related. Saddam and Laden connected in the events of 9/11 is far from the reason things are happening now. Although I have to agree with Rask that they can and probably will unite to fight a common enemy, The US, if war broke out.

Why Saddam is targeted by US is primarily what Rask said, he's neglects to follow the terms of the peace signing after the Gulf War. What I don't like is the fact is it's taken 12 yrs for anyone to act against Saddam. I also don't like how Bush is approaching the problem which I've clearly stated my reasons in previous posts. It's something that must be done, but he's going about it the wrong way.

I do believe Saddam should be taken out of office for many reasons but it isn't worth going to war for. That's my opinion. Right now Saddam is practically harmless, starting a war is going to p*ss off even more people. Especially people around the middle east, like SLY. It's just not worth it.

[SLY]

noticingthemistake - yeah dude , that's what I was trying to say ... Saddam is evil but harmless since the gulf war ended ... he should have been removed 12 years ago .
But starting a war NOW for that reason is realy senseless.

[Azrael]

In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed.

The terrorists killed workers of 50 countries in NYC and DC, in the name of Good against Evil. And in the name of Good against Evil President Bush has promised vengeance: "We will eliminate Evil from the world", he announced.

Eliminate Evil? What would Good be without Evil? It's not just religious fanatics who need enemies to justify their insanity. The arms industry and the gigantic war machine of the US also needs enemies to justify its existence. Good and evil, evil and good: the actors change masks, the heroes become monsters and the monsters heroes, in accord with the demands of the theatre's playwrights.

This is nothing new. The German scientist Werner von Braun was evil when he invented the V-2 bombers that Hitler used against London, but became good when he used his talents in the service of the US. Stalin was good during World War Two and evil afterwards, when he became the leader of the Evil Empire. In the cold war years John Steinbeck wrote: "Maybe the whole world needs Russians. I suppose that even in Russia they need Russians. Maybe Russia's Russians are called Americans." Even the Russians became good afterwards. Today, Putin can add his voice to say: "Evil must be punished."

Saddam Hussein was good, and so were the chemical weapons he used against the Iranians and the Kurds. Afterwards, he became evil. They were calling him Satan Hussein when the US finished up their invasion of Panama to invade Iraq because Iraq invaded Kuwait. Father Bush that particular war against Evil upon himself. With the humanitarian and compassionate spirit that characterizes his family, he killed more than 100 000 Iraqis, the vast majority of them civilians.

Satan Hussein stayed where he was, but this number one enemy of humanity had to step aside and accept becoming number two enemy of humanity. The bane of the world is now called Osama bin Laden. The CIA taught him everything he knows about terrorism: bin Laden, loved and armed by the US government, was one of the principal 'freedom fighters' against Communism in Afghanistan. Father Bush occupied the Vice Presidency when President Reagan called these heroes 'the moral equivalents of the Founding Fathers.' Hollywood agreed. They filmed Rambo 3: Afghani Muslims were the good guys. Now, in the time of Son Bush, they are the worst of the bad guys.

Henry Kissinger was one of the first to react to the recent tragedy. "Those who provide support, financing, and inspiration to terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves," he intoned, words that Son Bush would repeat hours later.

If that's how it is, the urgent need right now is to bomb Kissinger. He is guilty of many more crimes than bin Laden or any terrorist in the world. And in many more countries. He provided 'support, financing, and inspiration" to state terror in Indonesia, Cambodia, Iran, South Africa, Bangladesh, and all the South American countries that suffered the dirty war of Plan Condor.

On September 11 1973, exactly 28 years before the fires of the WTC, the Presidential Palace in Chile was stormed. Kissinger had written the epitaph of Allende and Chilean democracy long before when he commented on the results of the elections: "I don't see why we have to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."

A contempt for the people is one of many things shared by state and private terror. For example, the ETA, an organization that kills people in the name of independence in Basque Country, says through one of its spokespeople: 'Rights have nothing to do with majorities or minorities.'

There is much common ground between low- and high- tech terrorism, between the terrorism of religious fanatics and that of market fanatics, that of the hopeless and that of the powerful, that of the psychopath on the loose and that of the cold-blooded uniformed professional. They all share the disrespect for human life: the killers of the 5500 citizens under the Twin Towers that fell like castles of dry sand-- and the killers of 200 000 Guatemalans, the majority of whom were indigenous, exterminated without television or the newspapers of the world paying any attention. Those Guatemalans were not sacrificed by any Muslim fanatic, but by terrorist squads who received 'support, financing, and inspiration' from successive US governments.

All these worshipers of death are in agreement as well on the need to reduce social, cultural, and national differences to military terms. In the name of Good against Evil, in the name of the One Truth, they resolve everything by killing first and asking questions later. And by this method, they strengthen the enemy they fight. It was the atrocities of the Sendero Luminoso that gave President Fujimori the popular support he sought to unleash a regime of terror and sell Peru for the price of a banana. It was the atrocities of the US in the Middle East that prepared the ground for the holy war of terrorism of Allah.

Although the leader of the Civilized World is pushing a new Crusade, Allah is innocent of the crimes committed in his name. At the end of the day, God did not order the Holocaust against the followers of Jehovah, nor did Jehovah order the massacres of Sabrah and Shatila or the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Aren't Allah, God and Jehovah are, after all, three names for the same divinity?

A tragedy of errors: nobody knows any more who is who. The smoke of the explosions forms part of the much larger curtain of smoke that prevents all of us from seeing clearly. From revenge to revenge, terrorism obliges us to walk to our graves. I saw a photo, recently published, of graffiti on a wall in NYC:

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

The spiral of violence creates violence and also confusion: pain, fear, intolerance, hatred, insanity. In Porto Alegre, at the beginning of this year, Ahmed Ben Bella warned: 'This system, that has already made mad cows, is making mad people too." And these mad people, mad from hate, act as the power that created them. Eduardo Galeano - http://www.zmag.org

[noticingthemistake]

The thing to ask is who is the judge of what/whom is evil or what/whom is good? In the present dilema, it's whose side you support. The terrorist, and those who support them, think that we're evil and they're good based on their beliefs and the actions they take. They all thought they were saviors for what they did. Same thing with those who oppose it, they're evil for killing innocents but it's good when we do the same thing bombing villages. Like you said Azreal. I think everyone has evil and good inside them, and every action has a evil side and a good side. Depending on which you choose to view based on what you think is evil and good. As its panning out now, I can see nothing but evil. War is not a good thing no matter which side you look at it. You can't fight evil with evil for it only creates more evil and more terror amongst those who are good.

Taking it to the extremes and the bible, many things that even god does could be considered evil. Now if jesus was gods son, isn't it evil to let your son suffer the way he did?? Yet he was able to save Noah and many others according to the text. But then again it depends on how you look it. A christian might say, "he let him die because it was meant to be and he wanted him to come home." An Athesist might say, "well I would never let my son die that way without doing anything." It all depends on how you look at things and what your beliefs are.

Now without confusion, I believe that terrorists are evil and they should be punished severely for what they have done. That's my belief and yeah it's out of anger. Would I be doing good by doing such a thing?? I don't think so. That's the trap the world is in right now, a struggle of those with different beliefs on good and evil. Which is a trick cause it's all evil. Until we find a way to fight it without enforcing more evil...

[Azrael]

Of course terrorists are evil - ALL terrorists - even those who claim to be doing it to fight Terrorism. however - the problem is that we have to see where it all comes from - we have to solve the problems at their roots. You can kill a million moskitos, but there will be 2 million to take their place even more agressive - you have to dry out the swamp where they breed - and in our case the swamp is a political one!
There is no such man who wakes up in the morning and says to himself "today i will blow myself up in a disco in tel aviv". Such decisions grow inside a human beeing over YEARS ans YEARS.

What we are about to do is to breed even more such people by killing the innocent, and there WILL BE a lot of innocent deaths! There will be no Marshall Plan like after WW2 - this is a completely different, scattered nation - not like germany.

Its an illusion, that when Iraqi soldiers and civilians, with bombs raining down on Baghdad, suddenly scratch their heads and say to themselves: "These bombs aren't really meant to kill me and my family, they are meant to free us from an evil dictator!" At that point, they thank Uncle Sam, lower their weapons, abandon their posts, and rise up against Saddam Hussein...are you realy dumb enough to believe that? (general statement - not directed towards a specific person - so no offense!)

how many of us are aware that america has been at war against Iraq for more than twelve years? We are told that Iraq is a threat because it has weapons of mass destruction. How many of us remember that in 1991 the United States pulversied Iraq, destroying not just military targets, but water treatment and sanitation plants, bridges and electrical stations?

This, combined with twelve years of punishing sanctions have led even according to the most conservative United Nations estimates to more than a million deaths. When US Secretary State Madeleine Albright was asked a few years ago if she thought half a million deaths was a price worth paying for the policy towards Iraq, she did not challenge the number. She simply said "we think it's worth it." Most of the victims have been Iraqi children under five, the elderly and the sick. Now we are contemplating an even more devastating attack against a greatly weakened population.

I call that terrorism too - and if Bush is man enough to go by his attitude "all terrorists have to be punished", then he should start bombing washington instead.

[noticingthemistake]

Azreal, I agree with everything your saying. When you think about the bombing in '91, of course our action was cruel. We later offered to help the Iraqi families who were effected, but Saddam refused. He later gave in, and we did go in and help. Not that this makes it any better but we accepted our mistakes. This is one of the reason why I am against it again, we have not learned from that mistake. We need to do something, but not at the expense of the innocent. If Bush thinks this is the only way, he should be made to join the front line of attack. I hate this about politicans, they have the power to send people to their death while they sit pretty in an office. I think if Bush had to personally walk on Iraqi soil, he would quickly change his mind.

All weapons of mass destruction should be destroyed, US and Iraqi. Why are only a certain number of countries allowed weapons?? Why even have such weapons that can destroy mankind, is there a point?? If you use them we all die?? If world leaders have a problem they should be the ones to work it out, not the people of there represented countries. Where's the freedom for those people?? Especially those who don't want war and don't want to die so some stupid retards personal vendetta.

The citizens of these nations are only numbers to be played with in the game of global dominantion. Heartless...

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 03-03-2003 at 12:01 PM]

[PonyOne]

Sorry I haven't posted lately, it's been a busy week.

I don't really know where to jump in, so I'll just do it here.... personally I am a hell of a lot more worried about North Korea than Iraq. Arab nations don't have a great track record against Western nations when it comes to war, and Saddam knows this all too well sinc we kicked the snot out of him in 1991. Twelve, ten, six, four years ago, he wouldn't be doing things like destroying missiles or anything like that becuase he knew that under Clinton, we were to busy being the US to fight a full-blown war. With Bush at the wheel, we've been steadily steering toward him since 2000 and now we're hitting the gas; he's just looking for a way out.

At this point Saddam would give up anything short of his regime to keep out of war because I think he knows that if we go in again, this time, he's done for.

Kim Jong Il has a considerably different view from where he's sitting. Although North Korea didn't win the war, they managed to make it a stalemate. Did anyone else hear about how the other day they test launched a missile into the Sea of Japan? Or how their nuclear reactor is back online? Them's no good.

If you were a cop and there was a guy in shorts who was screaming "PIG" at you, and then there was another guy with an armored vest shooting off a shotgun into the air saying "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU" who would you go for?

PS i know someone said something pertaining to Saddam/Bin Laden being monsters of our (West's) own creating.... I agree with this; it is pointless to argue that we didn't give these men any power. But at what point does that stop being our problem? Is it wrong for us to try to stop them? If someone goes out and kills a hundred people in a horrible fashion, and it comes out that they were the proverbial victim of society, does society have to live with that and let that person out on the streets to harm more people?

Imagine if such a person was out walking around, killing people, and destroying peoples' livelihoods. Say he was in the process of shooting up a cafe. If you had a firearm and could stop him from killing those people, but someone grabbed your gun away and said "sorry, friend, but he's society's problem" how would you react?

[Azrael]

Originally posted by PonyOne
Sorry I haven't posted lately, it's been a busy week.
Saddam knows this all too well sinc we kicked the snot out of him in 1991.

Out of HIM? or out of the innocent population?

PS i know someone said something pertaining to Saddam/Bin Laden being monsters of our (West's) own creating.... I agree with this; it is pointless to argue that we didn't give these men any power. But at what point does that stop being our problem? Is it wrong for us to try to stop them?


Of course not! but if this is done with counter-terrorstrikes it wont solve the problem! it will make it even worse. What about Mr. Bush and some others going out in public and saying "Ok folks - it was all our fault. we have done great evil to millions of people. We want to stop this now. We have enough money to help every nation - letz do it! we understand why you are pissed at us. we deeply regret what we did"... Now THAT would be a step in the right direction, instead of screaming "kill em all"

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Azrael
Of course terrorists are evil - ALL terrorists - even those who claim to be doing it to fight Terrorism. however - the problem is that we have to see where it all comes from - we have to solve the problems at their roots. You can kill a million moskitos, but there will be 2 million to take their place even more agressive - you have to dry out the swamp where they breed - and in our case the swamp is a political one!

Conversely, if you dry up the swamp, but leave the Mosquitos unmolested, the Mosquitos just fly to another swamp.

You're half right, Bush is half right.

[Azrael]

what about trying to answer to a whole post instead of a small fragment which you think comes handy to twist it around the other way?

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Conversely, if you dry up the swamp, but leave the Mosquitos unmolested, the Mosquitos just fly to another swamp.

It would take a sick man to try to molest a mosquito. Hehe. Sorry, no offense I just thought it was funny terminolgy.

About getting Bush to drop his case. I wouldn't hold my breathe on that one Azreal, the UN has failed along with the most of the US population.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Azrael
what about trying to answer to a whole post instead of a small fragment which you think comes handy to twist it around the other way?
Because for now I've got 15 minute breaks in which to post. That's not nearly enough time to respond to everything fully. I'll do that after work. But my post does get to the heart of the issue of your post; you expect half the solution to work, Bush expects the other half of the solution to work. In either case, doing a job half-assed doesn't really fix the problem.
That's the curse of looking at a problem through polarized lenses.

Come to think of it, you've never actually disproven or adequately rebutted a single thing I've said. I guess we both have some research to do.

[Azrael]

of course we both do for we are only 2 numbers in a large crowd that has to swallow what they feed us.
But its a question of how we put it all into context.
so it is highly doubtable that anyone of us here knows the full truth.
the only thing that undoubtably remains is that war is crap and that a nation ike america HAS the power to solve problems peacefully - an i say as loud as i can "WAR? NOT IN MY NAME!"

[Edited by Azrael on 03-04-2003 at 01:42 AM]

[noticingthemistake]

Rask, why would you look for someone to rebutt someone else post?? To me this thread is opinion oriented, each one of voicing our opinions on what is going. The facts are there just to support our opinions, at least this is what I see. Hopefully this isnt another war based on who knows more about the war that might end up out there. Chill guys.

Here's the bottom line for me...Clearly most of the world population doesn't want a war, then by god there shouldn't be a war. Or even signs of aggression, but the bad thing is that the world powers have their difference. So instead of listening to the people they represent, they're letting their greet or petty differences evoke this aggression. It's wrong for everyone who has to act or is effected by their decisions. When they don't even support it????

[Raskolnikov]

So if most of the people in a neighborhood don't want a man turned in for beating his wife, he shouldn't be arrested for it?
Or because most of the Southern states were fine with slavery (and then later segregation), the Northern states shouldn't have interveined?

I think in this instance the sum of the facts show that most of the world is wrong. If I am indeed wrong, I think my case should be easy enough to rebut, and trust me, I want to be wrong about this.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Azrael
so it is highly doubtable that anyone of us here knows the full truth.
Absolutely true.
the only thing that undoubtably remains is that war is crap and that a nation ike america HAS the power to solve problems peacefully
Your right... but only if the person at the other side of the table wants peace too. Our choices here are 1). Let Saddam have his way (short term "peace," long term strife) or 2). remove him from power. Unfortunately, that's only likely to happen via war because the security around Saddam very effectively prevents assassinations, and let's face it, the man doesn't give up. Ever.

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
So if most of the people in a neighborhood don't want a man turned in for beating his wife, he shouldn't be arrested for it?

That's the wife's choice, no one can make that choice for her. Even if a nieghbor was to report it, if she doesn't press charges. Nothing can be done. That's the law.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Or because most of the Southern states were fine with slavery (and then later segregation), the Northern states shouldn't have interveined?

Look how many people dies over this and even after the northern states won, the slaves were not truely free. They were still persecuted in the south for another 100 years. Also the southern states broke away from the northern states, that was their decision.

I am in no way supported that this is right. Even if you look at what the consequences of starting a war now are, it won't solve anything. Yeah we may be able to get rid of Saddam but his supports will grow more ticked off at us, and well just be creating more Bin Ladens. There are other ways to approach this besides war. War should always be the last option, clearly this is not the case if we're already talking about bombing Iraq when the inspectors are still inspect Iraq. They have even complied to help us destroy the weapons, so why is war still waging forth????

[noticingthemistake]

I think your right Rask, but dropping a few hundred bombs over baghdad isnt going to change Saddam's mind. It didn't work 10 yrs ago, it won't work now. If Saddam is the tyrant we say he is, do you think he cares about his people. And who do you think is going to die when we drop bombs?? The innocents Iraqis, which have done NOTHING to us. Our actions are much sicker than Saddam's!!! WE ARE THE TYRANTS WITH THESE ACTIONS, THE WORLD IS RIGHT!!!

[Lordathestrings]

tsk, tsk.... I could'a sworn I started this thread about the largely ignored threat of war between India and Pakistan!....

So now that everyone has had a chance to re-state all of the same circular, emotion-based factoids that do not refute my position, or Raskolnikov's, I thought I would just drop in long enough to point out that this discussion has very clearly demonstrated that most of the so-called 'leaders' of the world have devolved into the squishy, pink, gutless shams that the Saddams of the world have always depended on for their survival. The unloved Mr. Hussein has played the heartstrings of public opinion like a harp.

'Popular Opinion' is not inherently correct. It is simply a position embraced by many people. People who may all be getting their guidance from various branches of the same source. People who instinctively prefer to belive tales that fit teir notions of how things should be. The only protection available to an individual who wishes to avoid being overwhelmed by propoganda, is the skill of clear, analytical thought.

The world is not right; it is merely very vocal about being wrong.

[hogar]

http://www.brain-terminal.com/articles/video/peace-protest.html

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Originally posted by Raskolnikov
So if most of the people in a neighborhood don't want a man turned in for beating his wife, he shouldn't be arrested for it?

That's the wife's choice, no one can make that choice for her. Even if a nieghbor was to report it, if she doesn't press charges. Nothing can be done. That's the law.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Or because most of the Southern states were fine with slavery (and then later segregation), the Northern states shouldn't have interveined?

Look how many people dies over this and even after the northern states won, the slaves were not truely free. They were still persecuted in the south for another 100 years. Also the southern states broke away from the northern states, that was their decision.
Well, atleast you're consistant.

[hogar]

That's the wife's choice, no one can make that choice for her. Even if a nieghbor was to report it, if she doesn't press charges. Nothing can be done. That's the law.

Guess that depends on where you live. In most US states domestic abuse (male or female) that show's any visible signs (bruise, small cut, red mark, anything) means an automatic trip to jail whether the person wants to press charges or not :).

Just thought I would clarify that! :P

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
I think your right Rask, but dropping a few hundred bombs over baghdad isnt going to change Saddam's mind.
Of course it isn't going to change his mind. It's going to remove him from power. After that, what's on his mind doesn't matter.
If Saddam is the tyrant we say he is, do you think he cares about his people.
Of course he doesn't care about his people. He's been using his people's suffering and natural human empathy abroad for leverage in acheiving his goals for the past decade. I've said many times that if Saddam cared about his people over half a million of them wouldn't have starved under UN sanctions these past 12 years. If he cared he would have disarmed years ago, proven it via inspections and this would have been done and over with by the mid 90s.
And who do you think is going to die when we drop bombs?? The innocents Iraqis, which have done NOTHING to us.
Many, many more innocent people are likely to die if we do nothing, but that's OK because starvation's quiet, right?

Outside of Iraq's Ba'ath party (a minority group within a minority group), Saddam doesn't have supporters. bin Laden's supporters point to the plight of Iraqi civillians starving under sanctions and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia (stationed there since Iraq invaded Kuwait to keep Saddam in line) as some of their key greivances. How does removing Saddam from power make any of those problems worse?

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 03-06-2003 at 12:53 PM]

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
'Popular Opinion' is not inherently correct. It is simply a position embraced by many people. People who may all be getting their guidance from various branches of the same source. People who instinctively prefer to belive tales that fit teir notions of how things should be. The only protection available to an individual who wishes to avoid being overwhelmed by propoganda, is the skill of clear, analytical thought.

The world is not right; it is merely very vocal about being wrong.

I agree it’s an opinion, I clearly stated this in my previous posts. Why go in circles with this?? Ok now if the world says that bombing Iraq is wrong, it’s the same as saying it’s WRONG to kill innocent people. So if your saying that the world is not right, wouldn’t you be saying that it is OK for the world to believe in killing innocent people??? I hope I’m wrong. When I say world, I mean the majority population of the world. You could say the same thing about a lot of similar incidents, take the concentration camps of WWII. In your opinion where they right or wrong by killing those people?? Same thing with 9/11, we’re the actions of the terrorists right or wrong?? You don’t need guidance, a source, tales, or propaganda to make a decision. Yeah it is an opinion, and most of the world shares the same opinion. My post stats in my opinion (along with the world), it is wrong!

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
I think your right Rask, but dropping a few hundred bombs over baghdad isnt going to change Saddam's mind.

Of course it isn't going to change his mind. It's going to remove him from power. After that, what's on his mind doesn't matter.

How?? By killing off the entire population of Iraq, so he would have no country left?? Yeah that's humane.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

And who do you think is going to die when we drop bombs?? The innocents Iraqis, which have done NOTHING to us.

Many, many more innocent people are likely to die if we do nothing, but that's OK because starvation's quiet, right?

No it’s not right, but its not our fight. I know we wish to do something about it and that is all good. But killing doesn’t make killing ok. Another point, do you remember the incident in Somalia in 1992. Would you like that to happen again?? Same circumstance. We’re going into a hostile country, with a starving population but they also doesn’t want us there, to remove a leader from office. If you don’t understand, watch the movie Black Hawk Down. I think you’ll soon change your mind. Pressing forth the actions we have been threatening on taking is walking into the same crisis. Is our government brain-dead???

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

Outside of Iraq's Ba'ath party (a minority group within a minority group), Saddam doesn't have supporters. bin Laden's supporters point to the plight of Iraqi civillians starving under sanctions and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia (stationed there since Iraq invaded Kuwait to keep Saddam in line) as some of their key greivances.

I personally believe Saddam has a lot more supporters than we know about. The way we are approaching this situation makes me believe this. Here’s why, Iraq by itself is not a true threat even with the weapons they were making. They have had 12 years to destroy the weapons but it wasn’t a big deal until recently, why??? Why do we still push for war when the very reason for war is being taken care of??Why is Iraq such a focus point when they’re are more formidable enemies out there? Take the Bin Laden and guys like that, they hurt us. The Iraqis haven’t done crap, so why has bin laden been taken off the majority radar and been replaced by Saddam. Plus, our government is willing to put forth billions of dollars to support these actions when our own economy is in a slump. There is a lot of things that just don’t add up. A very common quote I follow on this is, “believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.” I believe we only know half the truth, and until someone gives me a DARN GOOD REASON, I believe these actions are wrong.

On the point that Bin Laden and Saddam could never be allies. That’s naive, I’m sorry but it is. Take the WWII again, the nazis and the Japanese. Both countries ideals contradict each others but yet they were still able to forge an alliance. You don’t think it can happen again?? They both could benefit very well from a coalition and they both share a hatred for the US. Why is that so hard to believe?? Is it because we now trust the words of BIN LADEN?? Open your eyes...

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

How does removing Saddam from power make any of those problems worse?

A lot of ways such as your relationship with the UN. If we go against the UN support and attack Iraq, I’m sure that’s going tick some people off in the UN. The UN is a big part of our position and power in the world, such actions are not going to benefit our relations with the UN (countries against these actions).

Second, your ticking off a lot of people in the middle east. They don’t want us there, yet we stick our nose in at every chance we get. Look at Vietnam and the Korean war, it’s the same actions that started those wars and what did we accomplish??

Third, the majority of the people of our nation DO NOT support it. War is not a good thing for any nation for it crunches the economy. With our economy suffering as it is, it’s not a good idea to flush a couple of billion dollars to a war. We need that money more here than there. There are a few other reasons how it will hurt our mainland.

There are many more but this post is long enough...

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 03-06-2003 at 05:43 PM]

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
tsk, tsk.... I could'a sworn I started this thread about the largely ignored threat of war between India and Pakistan!...
But look how you put it:
"While the 'civilized world' looked elsewhere"
And this was the Monday(?)after the weekend when there were anti war demos around the world.
People were bound to mention Iraq.
I suspect half of your brain's RAM at the time you started this thread was filled with Saddam.
...So now that everyone has had a chance to re-state all of the same circular, emotion-based factoids that do not refute my position, or Raskolnikov's...
Your position,and Rask's is to a large extent emotion based factoids:
"Saddam is hell bent on expanding his nation"
Yeah,yeah.He tried that in '91.Look what happened.
"Meanwhile,several million people(the entire population of Israel)have been wiped off the map"
I won't even say yeah yeah.
Rask says the result of not following thro' on UN resolution has always been invasion and regime change.I ask for examples(if you ask me,a lack of such examples is a rebuttal).He says to look up UN resolutions on Iraq.Is that an example?I was hoping(silly me) for something like: 1973,Canada invaded Argentina,UN said to get the **** out,Canada said **** you,and Kaboom!!!!the allies came in,toppled the govt.,blah blah blah.
Your basic argument is that Saddam signed an agreement to end the gulf war.And he hasn't fulfilled the terms of that agreement.So technically we should revive the gulf war.
The argument is fine.
Someone mentioned that Britain still owes america money given sometime after the WW2.If America was to start to ask for that money now(in as much as they have a right to it)I'm bound to wonder why now?
Same thing with Iraq.
I first heard on CNN this whole war issue being raised after 911,sometime during the Afghan war(is it being called that?).
And I'm bound to ask,why now?Since the end of the gulf war,how many appeals(like the one Powell made the other day)have been made to the UN,asking it to pass a resolution for the removal of Saddam?Was there a time limit?When did it expire?You know,if Powell saying"Iraq was given until November 2002 to disarm,at which point if he won't have disarmed,then the allied forces will move back in,and this time they are to topple him..."or something along those lines,I wouldn't wonder.But now I wonder.
If the UN(America is a pivotal member,right?)didn't find it necessary to remove Saddam from power in '91,why is it necessary now?Or would America have preffered to remove Saddam back then,only the rest of the foolish world(I feel sorry for America for having to live on a planet inhabited by such fools)(sarcasm)didn't agree?
Is Saddam more dangerous now than he was in '91?
Note that it's not Saddam I'm for.I'm against the precedent this is going to set.And don't ignore the power of precedent(how many times does someone tell you not to do X,then you ask if Joe is doing it,why can't I?Or look at the legal fraternity.You'll see the power of precedent).
It's also been argued that Saddam is buying time.
For what?
Even if Saddam had an arsenal the size of America,believe you me,it wouldn't mean ****,coz if say today,just coz America is a superpower,if you were to start invading countries and ****,the rest of the world would stand up against you,and your imperialism wouldn't help you.It's one thing for Saddam to have ideas in his head.It's another to try and work them out on the ground.
About America having sponsored folks who end up becoming terrorists(which may not even be her fault-I mean,you won't blame America for Oklahoma '95 just coz the guy that did it was once a soldier):
The problem is not "fixing" such deviants.The problem is why America would use such deviants in the first place.


[Edited by kingdavid on 03-07-2003 at 03:18 AM]

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Originally posted by Lordathestrings
[B] 'Popular Opinion' is not inherently correct. It is simply a position embraced by many people. People who may all be getting their guidance from various branches of the same source. People who instinctively prefer to belive tales that fit teir notions of how things should be. The only protection available to an individual who wishes to avoid being overwhelmed by propoganda, is the skill of clear, analytical thought.

The world is not right; it is merely very vocal about being wrong.

I agree it?s an opinion, I clearly stated this in my previous posts. Why go in circles with this?? Ok now if the world says that bombing Iraq is wrong, it?s the same as saying it?s WRONG to kill innocent people. So if your saying that the world is not right, wouldn?t you be saying that it is OK for the world to believe in killing innocent people??? I hope I?m wrong. When I say world, I mean the majority population of the world. You could say the same thing about a lot of similar incidents, take the concentration camps of WWII. In your opinion where they right or wrong by killing those people?? Same thing with 9/11, we?re the actions of the terrorists right or wrong?? You don?t need guidance, a source, tales, or propaganda to make a decision. Yeah it is an opinion, and most of the world shares the same opinion. My post stats in my opinion (along with the world), it is wrong!

Yet you support a position that the evidence idicates is more likely to kill a higher number of innocent people in the long run? Do you mean to tell us that a violent death is worse than a starvation death? Or that you honestly expect Saddam Hussein to just give up his plans after all these years (bearing in mind his well noted ego and public statements that giving in is "dishonorable") and that we can simply lift the sanctions with any kind of assurance that weapons production in Iraq won't go back into full production?

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
I think your right Rask, but dropping a few hundred bombs over baghdad isnt going to change Saddam's mind.

Of course it isn't going to change his mind. It's going to remove him from power. After that, what's on his mind doesn't matter.

How?? By killing off the entire population of Iraq, so he would have no country left?? Yeah that's humane.
Who's talking about killing off the entire population of Iraq? I wouldn't want to be a member of Iraq's military right now, but anybody who's not near a military target is going to be relatively safe. The only place that there's likely to be excessive civilian casualties is in Bagdad itself and only because the Republican Guard is digging in there and trying to create as much of a humanitarian chrisis as possible. From NPR News today: Iraq has purchased a large number of replicas of US and British military uniforms and insignias. I wonder what they plan to use them for...

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

And who do you think is going to die when we drop bombs?? The innocents Iraqis, which have done NOTHING to us.

Many, many more innocent people are likely to die if we do nothing, but that's OK because starvation's quiet, right?

No it?s not right, but its not our fight. I know we wish to do something about it and that is all good. But killing doesn?t make killing ok. Another point, do you remember the incident in Somalia in 1992. Would you like that to happen again?? Same circumstance. We?re going into a hostile country, with a starving population but they also doesn?t want us there, to remove a leader from office. If you don?t understand, watch the movie Black Hawk Down. I think you?ll soon change your mind. Pressing forth the actions we have been threatening on taking is walking into the same crisis. Is our government brain-dead???
It's been our fight since the Gulf War and we (including all UN member states) demanded that Iraq disarm. I've seen Black Hawk Down, and I remember the actual news from the time, and I'm personally disgusted that we gave in so easily. We're not talking about an overwhelming majority of Somalis not wanting us there, we're talking about a few warlords who want to keep their share of power in what's essentially a country in anarchy. Also, Iraqi defectors/refugees are some of the strongest advocates for removing Saddam from power and by force if neccessary.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

Outside of Iraq's Ba'ath party (a minority group within a minority group), Saddam doesn't have supporters. bin Laden's supporters point to the plight of Iraqi civillians starving under sanctions and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia (stationed there since Iraq invaded Kuwait to keep Saddam in line) as some of their key greivances.

I personally believe Saddam has a lot more supporters than we know about.
Why?
The way we are approaching this situation makes me believe this. Here?s why, Iraq by itself is not a true threat even with the weapons they were making.
Illegal arms purchases are sent into Iraq all the time, how difficult can it be to smuggle some out? Especially in the small quantities that can be used in a terrorist-style attack, or assembled in a sympathetic nation then shipped in a simple cargo container to agents in the US who deliver the weapon to it's target.
They have had 12 years to destroy the weapons but it wasn?t a big deal until recently, why???
There hasn't been the political will until now. Do you think Bill Clinton was about to toss his (and Hillary and Al Gore's) political careers down the toilet by going to war over Iraq?
Why is Iraq such a focus point when they?re are more formidable enemies out there? Take the Bin Laden and guys like that, they hurt us.
We just got bin Laden's third in command. Osama bin Laden will not be found by brute military force. If he's found at all, it will be an accident of some kind or somebody close to him will turn him in.
The Iraqis haven?t done crap, so why has bin laden been taken off the majority radar and been replaced by Saddam.
See the above.
Plus, our government is willing to put forth billions of dollars to support these actions when our own economy is in a slump. There is a lot of things that just don?t add up.
Unless the administration really beleives that Saddam is a threat atleast to his own region.
On the point that Bin Laden and Saddam could never be allies. That?s naive, I?m sorry but it is. Take the WWII again, the nazis and the Japanese. Both countries ideals contradict each others but yet they were still able to forge an alliance. You don?t think it can happen again?? They both could benefit very well from a coalition and they both share a hatred for the US. Why is that so hard to believe?? Is it because we now trust the words of BIN LADEN?? Open your eyes...
Wait.... "Why do we still push for war when the very reason for war is being taken care of??"
You don't trust Osama bin Laden's integrity, but you trust Saddam Husseins? The inspections process will only work if Iraq's government allows it to. Indicators show that Saddam is holding back A LOT of materials he isn't allowed to have anymore and the "progress" that's being made is purely stall-tactics. Also, you think that they might be working together, but somehow Iraq isn't a threat? Make up your mind.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

How does removing Saddam from power make any of those problems worse?
A lot of ways such as your relationship with the UN. If we go against the UN support and attack Iraq, I?m sure that?s going tick some people off in the UN. The UN is a big part of our position and power in the world, such actions are not going to benefit our relations with the UN (countries against these actions).[/quote]
If the UN is unwilling to act it's powerless and useless. And like it or not, America is powerful to the point that the rest of the world really needs us - that is probably 90% of the world's reservations regarding the US right there.
Second, your ticking off a lot of people in the middle east. They don?t want us there, yet we stick our nose in at every chance we get. Look at Vietnam and the Korean war, it?s the same actions that started those wars and what did we accomplish??
People in the Middle East are ticked off at us anyway. Once Saddam is out of power we can leave Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Quatar entirely because our troops are only there because of Saddam's government. Next, when Iraq is on it's own two feet, we can leave Iraq too. I see that as positive steps towards getting our nose out of the Middle East.
And some corrections:
In Korean War we (and several other nations) were asked by the South Korean government to help repel the Northern communist invaders. While not a total success, you should note that South Korea still exists today.
In Vietnam, we were not only asked to intervine by the South Vietnamese government, but by France too. In Vietnam we have a war that could easily have been won, but was lost due to political reasons, not military.
Third, the majority of the people of our nation DO NOT support it. War is not a good thing for any nation for it crunches the economy. With our economy suffering as it is, it?s not a good idea to flush a couple of billion dollars to a war. We need that money more here than there.
In all likelyhood, postponing war in Iraq now means going to war in Iraq later (more costly in lives and money) - or turning our backs on slaughter (just plain wrong). Just look at what ignoring post-WWI Germany did for the world. You want to make the same mistake again?

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by kingdavid
[B]Your position,and Rask's is to a large extent emotion based factoids:
"Saddam is hell bent on expanding his nation"
Yeah,yeah.He tried that in '91.Look what happened.
A). One Arab nation is a key point of the Ba'athist platform. B). There are HUGE holes in Iraq's claims to have disarmed, they've been caught lieing numerous times even since inspections have resumed, and you still take Saddam's word that he has no hostile intentions? Weapons, especially WMDs are intended to be threats, that's true of any nation. Now take a good look at Saddam Hussein himself, and his government; if he had good intentions this chrisis could have been over a decade ago. Give Saddam or whichever of his sons succeeds him five to ten years with no sanctions to rebuild their strength and see what happens.
"Meanwhile,several million people(the entire population of Israel)have been wiped off the map"
I won't even say yeah yeah.
Huh?
Rask says the result of not following thro' on UN resolution has always been invasion and regime change.I ask for examples(if you ask me,a lack of such examples is a rebuttal).He says to look up UN resolutions on Iraq.Is that an example?I was hoping(silly me)...
Here's one. (gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/undocs/scd/scouncil/s91/4%09+Text/plain) Since those resolutions are so easily atainable I figured it would be obnoxious (and unnecesarily verbose) to quote them. If you really want, I can comb through it and quote specific texts that apply here, but again, that's a lot of words to say some very simple things... Lawyers!
Your basic argument is that Saddam signed an agreement to end the gulf war.
On Mar 3, 1991...
And he hasn't fulfilled the terms of that agreement.So technically we should revive the gulf war.
The argument is fine.
Thank you.
And don't ignore the power of precedent(how many times does someone tell you not to do X,then you ask if Joe is doing it,why can't I?Or look at the legal fraternity.You'll see the power of precedent).
So allowing Saddam Hussein to get his will sets a good precedent?
How can the UN expect to have any authority or credibility with the next dictator it decides to challenge if it doesn't carry through with Iraq?

The problem is why America would use such deviants in the first place.
In the case of Osama bin Laden, he was taught to use his faith as a weapon against the Soviets then taught a lot of guerilla tactics. I think we can all agree that those are reasonable measures for resistance fighters to take against an invading army. What then happened is that bin Laden applied those tactics against civillian populations - THAT is crossing the line in my book.

As to your other 'whys,' I'm pretty sure I've answered most of them in the last post.

[noticingthemistake]

Rask, man. We’re saying the samething but with different views on how to accomplish it. Everything your arguing over, I have said in support a few times in previous reports. Sorry I didn’t rewrite every post before into the new post. Now I’ll reply to your last post.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Yet you support a position that the evidence idicates is more likely to kill a higher number of innocent people in the long run? Do you mean to tell us that a violent death is worse than a starvation death? Or that you honestly expect Saddam Hussein to just give up his plans after all these years (bearing in mind his well noted ego and public statements that giving in is "dishonorable") and that we can simply lift the sanctions with any kind of assurance that weapons production in Iraq won't go back into full production?

No, I don’t support the death of innocent people by any means, I thought I stated that at least a couple of times in previous posts. No, any death is bad BUT it’s no better to inflict death by dropping bombs on a populated city. So explain to me how this is right? Don’t bother giving me the explanation “for getting rid of Hussein” cause we both know. Not a single one is going to get him or any of his associates, just innocent people. But I guess it’s ok for the US to kill people with bombs opposed to killing them by starving or torturing them? What's the difference??? Killing people is wrong, and you justifying it by saying we’re saving them death by starving by blowing them up. What part of it is RIGHT???

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

Who's talking about killing off the entire population of Iraq? I wouldn't want to be a member of Iraq's military right now, but anybody who's not near a military target is going to be relatively safe. The only place that there's likely to be excessive civilian casualties is in Bagdad itself and only because the Republican Guard is digging in there and trying to create as much of a humanitarian chrisis as possible. From NPR News today: Iraq has purchased a large number of replicas of US and British military uniforms and insignias. I wonder what they plan to use them for...

Well with Bush and Powells Neanderthal intelligence, “ahh we’ll just bomb that crap out of Iraq and pray Saddam will withdraw from power once he sees what we have done”. Now we both agreed that Saddam doesn’t care much for his people or military (ego or whatever). So what is the bombing of Iraq going to do??? Tried it 12 years ago and it didn’t work, so why now?? We just going to keep bombing until he gives up?? With his “ego” I find that might take awhile and the cost of many innocent lives. But it’s for the great good of the Iraqi people?? So with that opinion, you could also say 9/11 was good for us. Al-Quida saw us as evil like we see Saddam as evil, so bombing civilians in their buildings is the same as flying planes into our buildings? In the end is OK for us to do it, but not them. Please don’t tell me that you are in support of this.

I’ll give them this, if your going to bomb somewhere make sure it’s a military base, preferably not the one that is also the most populated city in Iraq. If we’re so humane don’t your think we would look for a better place to bomb. Again it was horrible when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, but it’s OK if we bomb Iraq. Yeah, and we’re so against terrorist but it’s OK if we tell the Iraqi people that “we’re going to bomb the crap out of you and your family one night and there's nothing they can do about it, but we‘re fighting terrorism”.

About Iraq purchasing replicas of our stuff, were you thinking they were just going to let us bomb them and not do anything??? Of course they’re going to fight back, but if we weren’t threatening them with military action, they probably wouldn’t be buying that stuff. War is war, we are also vulnerable.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

It's been our fight since the Gulf War and we (including all UN member states) demanded that Iraq disarm. I've seen Black Hawk Down, and I remember the actual news from the time, and I'm personally disgusted that we gave in so easily. We're not talking about an overwhelming majority of Somalis not wanting us there, we're talking about a few warlords who want to keep their share of power in what's essentially a country in anarchy. Also, Iraqi defectors/refugees are some of the strongest advocates for removing Saddam from power and by force if neccessary.

No it wasn’t. The Gulf War was a fight between Iraq and Kuwait, we were only there to protect Kuwait. Now Somalia had only one warlord and just one small city that didn’t want us there. In the middle east, we’re talking about ENTIRE COUNTRIES, it’s not only Iraq that doesn’t want us there. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and so on. Bin Laden’s whole reason for hating us is the fact that we are in Saudi Arabia. He’s just one man from one country, we would be generally facing the entire Middle East. We have supporters yes, but those numbers are far less than those who oppose us. These people are suicidal too, that is the worst enemy to face in war. A “SMALL” fleet of Japanese kamikaze pilots nearly destroyed our entire navy fleet in WWII, imagine millions of kamikazes. Still think attacking Iraq and in the process ticking off the middle east is going to be a walk in the park?? Do the math.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

You don't trust Osama bin Laden's integrity, but you trust Saddam Husseins? The inspections process will only work if Iraq's government allows it to. Indicators show that Saddam is holding back A LOT of materials he isn't allowed to have anymore and the "progress" that's being made is purely stall-tactics. Also, you think that they might be working together, but somehow Iraq isn't a threat? Make up your mind.

When did I say that??? No I don’t trust Saddam, I think I cleared that in one of my first posts. Maybe not, but I know what your saying. He’s disarming the weapons which was the point that started this cold war, so how are we justifying our threats now? Yeah, I do believe he does have more and he is distrustful, but I also think war is what he wants. And I said that Iraq alone isn’t a threat, but starting a war in the middle east is a threat because there are many other terrorists (including Bin Laden and other terrorist organizations) there too. If us just being there ticks him off, imagine what starting a war there is going to do. Iraq alone isn’t such a threat, we could easily defeat them. If you reflect on the Gulf war, the nations in the area remained neutral. Now they have clearly demonstrated otherwise, and the entire middle east is a threat. If you can’t see that, you are blind.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

If the UN is unwilling to act it's powerless and useless. And like it or not, America is powerful to the point that the rest of the world really needs us - that is probably 90% of the world's reservations regarding the US right there.

I think the UN is aware of the threat that may occur if war breaks out. That is why they are unwilling to act in War, they have chosen to act politically first which I believe is the right decision. Yeah we are powerful, but not invincible like you may think. And who asked for our help in this situation???? We are the aggressors in this situation, no one asked for help. Why do you think the UN is against it, they are peace-keepers not enforcers. I think the UN is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The agreement after the Gulf war was that inspectors would be allowed to inspect Iraq not bomb it. Peace Treaty????

When you look at just Iraq, easy target but what if they possess nuclear technology or have access to it. Believe me it can come to this, does the world need us to start a nuclear war?? Korea has nuclear technology and they’re not too happy with us either cause we’re already messing with them. Our government blinded by “PRIDE OF BEING THE MOST POWERFUL NATION” is bend on a World War with nuclear technology. Call me crazy but this is where I see this ending up.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

People in the Middle East are ticked off at us anyway. Once Saddam is out of power we can leave Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Quatar entirely because our troops are only there because of Saddam's government. Next, when Iraq is on it's own two feet, we can leave Iraq too. I see that as positive steps towards getting our nose out of the Middle East.

Yeah and starting a war couldn’t possibly push that tension over the edge. The problem is you only see Iraq, and you seem to think if we just war with Iraq everyone else will be cool with it. If Castro started dropping bombs in Canada, do you think we would be cool with it?? To the people in the middle east, we are Tyrants so they will rise up and try to fight us. I don’t see them just sitting back and watching war unfold in their backyard.

In all likelyhood, postponing war in Iraq now means going to war in Iraq later (more costly in lives and money) - or turning our backs on slaughter (just plain wrong). Just look at what ignoring post-WWI Germany did for the world. You want to make the same mistake again?

Yeah I agree, the stuff going on with Iraq and the middle east is wrong. But in fairness it is they’re war, no one has asked for our help. I’m afraid we are making the same mistake that lead to Hitler by persecuting Iraq with war. It has some differences but a lot of striking similarities. Hitler rose up because after WWI we crippled Germany economically, which infuriated the Germans. Hitler capitalized on the circumstances for Germany after WWI. Same thing with the circumstances after the Gulf War, along with a dictator to manifest an entire country to rise up and take control of the world. Saddam has indicated the same intentions and also has grown in supporters in the middle east. Without writing the entire history which lead to WWII, there are a lot of similarities if you would check yourself.

I don’t want to make the mistake again and I’m afraid that this mistake is going to be even more destructive than ANY war in history. I am not an avid believer in psychic abilities but Nostradamus wrote, “mankind will nearly destroy itself and the bringer will be from the middle east“. Think about it. ??? We now have the technology to accomplish such destruction and he has be rather accurate before. I don’t fully believe in it but it is very striking. A lot more could happen from these events that I don’t think a lot of people see or want to see.

Now with your corrections. I didn’t write my post based on what you said, but I will use only one statement to show your something interesting in your corrections. Here it is..

Both those cases, we were ASKED to intervene but we are not being asked now. The only asking I hear is Bush asked for UN support in war with Iraq.

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by kingdavid
Originally posted by Lordathestrings
tsk, tsk.... I could'a sworn I started this thread about the largely ignored threat of war between India and Pakistan!...
But look how you put it:
"While the 'civilized world' looked elsewhere"
And this was the Monday(?)after the weekend when there were anti war demos around the world.
People were bound to mention Iraq.
I suspect half of your brain's RAM at the time you started this thread was filled with Saddam.

My point was, and is, that the Euro-centric media has focused on Iraq (due to the potential threat to oil supplies?), while ignoring developments in the Kashmir.

Originally posted by kingdavid
Originally posted by Lordathestrings
...So now that everyone has had a chance to re-state all of the same circular, emotion-based factoids that do not refute my position, or Raskolnikov's...Your position,and Rask's is to a large extent emotion based factoids:
"Saddam is hell bent on expanding his nation"
Yeah,yeah.He tried that in '91.Look what happened.
"Meanwhile,several million people(the entire population of Israel)have been wiped off the map" I won't even say yeah yeah. Your quotes are taken from Rask's replies, so I can only give you my interpretation of them: The casualties (admittedly just estimates) for the war with Iran, and the subsequent genocide against the Kurds, plus the invasion of Kuwait, add up to well over a million, by the most conservative estimates. And the events of '91 don't seem to have curbed his ambition. He's just gotten better at manipulating opinion to cover his actions.


Originally posted by kingdavid
Someone mentioned that Britain still owes america money given sometime after the WW2. If America was to start to ask for that money now(in as much as they have a right to it)I'm bound to wonder why now?

Same thing with Iraq. I first heard on CNN this whole war issue being raised after 911,sometime during the Afghan war(is it being called that?).

And I'm bound to ask,why now?Since the end of the gulf war,how many appeals (like the one Powell made the other day) have been made to the UN,asking it to pass a resolution for the removal of Saddam? Was there a time limit? When did it expire? You know,if Powell saying "Iraq was given until November 2002 to disarm, at which point if he won't have disarmed,then the allied forces will move back in, and this time they are to topple him..."or something along those lines,I wouldn't wonder. But now I wonder. As I said back on pg 10 of "a moral dilema..." 2003/01/29 12:28 PM:

"...Put aside the notion that control of Iraq's oilfields is at the heart of this crisis. Return to the 'war against terror' idea for a while, and see how this fits.

Iraq has had twelve years in which to prove that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in place. Say what you will about the presence, or absence, of UN inspectors, the bottom line is that the conditions Saddam Hussein agreed to at the end of the Gulf War have not been met. Even by the standards of the UN, there is justification for military action...."

"... I suggest that Bush has studied the history of his nation enough to understand the situation at present much better than ohters give him credit for. Iraq must be dealt with before it becomes a bio-nuclear-armed menace."


Originally posted by kingdavid
If the UN (America is a pivotal member,right?) didn't find it necessary to remove Saddam from power in '91, why is it necessary now? Or would America have preffered to remove Saddam back then, only the rest of the foolish world(I feel sorry for America for having to live on a planet inhabited by such fools)(sarcasm)didn't agree?from the same post:

"It is no coincidence that (Iraq's) main target is the only democratic government in the region. For all its faults, Israel is the only country in the area that is not ruled by some form of dictatorship. This is at the root of much of the fear and hatred directed at it by the surrounding regimes.

Now, what happens when the US, with or without an international coalition, removes Saddam Hussein from power, and supports the kind of transition to democracy that was fostered in post-war Japan? The economic sanctons are lifted, the oilfields go back into production. Iraq may or may not join OPEC. Either way, the wealth produced from oil exports reaches more of the people because it is no longer being diverted to support a totalitarian police state. People discover a kind of personal freedom and responsibility that is unknown in any other part of the Arab world. And that causes great nightmares for the House of Saud, the Syrians, the Jordanians, and the regimes in Oman, Yemen, and the UAE!

It is useful to remember that most of the terrorist hijackers who took part in the attacks of 11 September 2001 were Saudis. Osama Bin Laden is Saudi. The Wahibi form of Islam that foments violent destruction of the decadent West is Saudi in origin. Contemplate the future of such evils in a democraticly governed Arab society. At the moment, they are useful to the ruling Suadis as a distracton from their own abuse of power."


from my post on page 12 of "a moral dilema..." 2003/01/31:

"You seem to have forgotten that the US is already at war... has been since the destruction of the World Trade Centre.

Afhganistan was the first round, Iraq is next. The goal is not to kill Saddam Hussein, any more than the goal in Afghanistan was to kill Osama Bin Laden. If it happens, good. The main goal is to change the form of government.

As I described earlier, that is expected to set off a series of internaly-driven regime changes in the Arab world, with democracy replacing the current dictatorship/theocracies. It is much more difficult for terrorist organisations to get state support for their activities when government programs are subject to public debate...."


Originally posted by kingdavid
Is Saddam more dangerous now than he was in '91?
Note that it's not Saddam I'm for. I'm against the precedent this is going to set... About America having sponsored folks who end up becoming terrorists(which may not even be her fault-I mean,you won't blame America for Oklahoma '95 just coz the guy that did it was once a soldier):
The problem is not "fixing" such deviants.The problem is why America would use such deviants in the first place.from the same post:

"It is a common reaction to claim that someone we don't like is stupid. In truth, the Americans have often done things that tend to support that assessment. On the issue of terrorism, though, I think they have a better understanding than most of the international community (gives them credit for). Bush has made it clear that state support of terrorism will be considered an act of war against the US. The only acceptable responses are to lead, follow, or get out of the way!"



By "circular" I mean arguments that lead back to the same place. I submit that the fact I am able to answer your queries with points I made a month ago illustrates the concept.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Rask, man. We?re saying the samething but with different views on how to accomplish it. Everything your arguing over, I have said in support a few times in previous reports. Sorry I didn?t rewrite every post before into the new post. Now I?ll reply to your last post.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Yet you support a position that the evidence idicates is more likely to kill a higher number of innocent people in the long run? Do you mean to tell us that a violent death is worse than a starvation death? Or that you honestly expect Saddam Hussein to just give up his plans after all these years (bearing in mind his well noted ego and public statements that giving in is "dishonorable") and that we can simply lift the sanctions with any kind of assurance that weapons production in Iraq won't go back into full production?

No, I don?t support the death of innocent people by any means, I thought I stated that at least a couple of times in previous posts. No, any death is bad BUT it?s no better to inflict death by dropping bombs on a populated city. So explain to me how this is right? Don?t bother giving me the explanation ?for getting rid of Hussein? cause we both know. Not a single one is going to get him or any of his associates, just innocent people. But I guess it?s ok for the US to kill people with bombs opposed to killing them by starving or torturing them? What's the difference??? Killing people is wrong, and you justifying it by saying we?re saving them death by starving by blowing them up. What part of it is RIGHT???
45,000 people starve in Iraq in just one year due to sanctions that are questionably able to keep Saddam contained. That's considerably less than most estimates of Gulf War civillian casualties. What's "right" about this is that removing Saddam now saves more lives in the long run. We're not talking about indescriminate bombing here, we're talking about precision strikes against military targets. Civillians living near by certainly will take casualties, but those who live a good distance from military targets will be mostly unaffected except in the case of very errant bombs. Most analysts expect Bagdad to be under coalition control in under three weeks, after that point civillian casualties virtually drop to zero.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Who's talking about killing off the entire population of Iraq? I wouldn't want to be a member of Iraq's military right now, but anybody who's not near a military target is going to be relatively safe. The only place that there's likely to be excessive civilian casualties is in Bagdad itself and only because the Republican Guard is digging in there and trying to create as much of a humanitarian chrisis as possible. From NPR News today: Iraq has purchased a large number of replicas of US and British military uniforms and insignias. I wonder what they plan to use them for...

Well with Bush and Powells Neanderthal intelligence, ?ahh we?ll just bomb that crap out of Iraq and pray Saddam will withdraw from power once he sees what we have done?...
Here is the critical flaw in your argument. This isn't going to be just bombing like was seen in the Gulf War and in years since. Airstrikes will coincide with the invasion (we actually have troops in Kurdish areas of Iraq now), and coalition forces will quickly move to take control of the country, essentially picking Saddam up by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out of power. He may get away, but he will no longer be in control of the country, hence he will no longer matter.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
It's been our fight since the Gulf War and we (including all UN member states) demanded that Iraq disarm. I've seen Black Hawk Down, and I remember the actual news from the time, and I'm personally disgusted that we gave in so easily. We're not talking about an overwhelming majority of Somalis not wanting us there, we're talking about a few warlords who want to keep their share of power in what's essentially a country in anarchy. Also, Iraqi defectors/refugees are some of the strongest advocates [b]for removing Saddam from power and by force if neccessary.

No it wasn?t. The Gulf War was a fight between Iraq and Kuwait, we were only there to protect Kuwait. Now Somalia had only one warlord and just one small city that didn?t want us there. In the middle east, we?re talking about ENTIRE COUNTRIES, it?s not only Iraq that doesn?t want us there. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and so on. Bin Laden?s whole reason for hating us is the fact that we are in Saudi Arabia. He?s just one man from one country, we would be generally facing the entire Middle East. We have supporters yes, but those numbers are far less than those who oppose us. These people are suicidal too, that is the worst enemy to face in war. A ?SMALL? fleet of Japanese kamikaze pilots nearly destroyed our entire navy fleet in WWII, imagine millions of kamikazes. Still think attacking Iraq and in the process ticking off the middle east is going to be a walk in the park?? Do the math.
First off, you're blowing the Kamikaze's effectiveness WAY out of proportion, and by your portrayal of Middle Easterners Israel should be cinders by now. If I was Arab, I'd actually be offended by that remark.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
You don't trust Osama bin Laden's integrity, but you trust Saddam Husseins? The inspections process will only work if Iraq's government allows it to. Indicators show that Saddam is holding back A LOT of materials he isn't allowed to have anymore and the "progress" that's being made is purely stall-tactics. Also, you think that they might be working together, but somehow Iraq isn't a threat? Make up your mind.

When did I say that??? No I don?t trust Saddam, I think I cleared that in one of my first posts. Maybe not, but I know what your saying. He?s disarming the weapons which was the point that started this cold war, so how are we justifying our threats now? Yeah, I do believe he does have more and he is distrustful, but I also think war is what he wants. And I said that Iraq alone isn?t a threat, but starting a war in the middle east is a threat because there are many other terrorists (including Bin Laden and other terrorist organizations) there too. If us just being there ticks him off, imagine what starting a war there is going to do. Iraq alone isn?t such a threat, we could easily defeat them. If you reflect on the Gulf war, the nations in the area remained neutral. Now they have clearly demonstrated otherwise, and the entire middle east is a threat. If you can?t see that, you are blind.
If Saddam wanted war, he could have started one at any point very easily. What he wants is sanctions lifted so he can go about business as usual and rebuild his weapons programs to the point where he can wave a big ugly nuclear stick at his neigbors and the world with which to take anything he wants.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
If the UN is unwilling to act it's powerless and useless. And like it or not, America is powerful to the point that the rest of the world really needs us - that is probably 90% of the world's reservations regarding the US right there.

I think the UN is aware of the threat that may occur if war breaks out. That is why they are unwilling to act in War, they have chosen to act politically first which I believe is the right decision. Yeah we are powerful, but not invincible like you may think.
Nobody/nothing is invincible. Diplomacy has to come first, but after 12 uneffective years it's time to say "enough is enough." The world/UN cannot make demands it's not willing to enforce and expect to be listened to.
And who asked for our help in this situation???
A lot of Iraqi exiles for one.
We are the aggressors in this situation, no one asked for help. Why do you think the UN is against it, they are peace-keepers not enforcers. I think the UN is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The agreement after the Gulf war was that inspectors would be allowed to inspect Iraq not bomb it.
The UN is a political organization designed to preserve peace and human rights, but is currently being used to preserve a few nations political and financial interests at the expense of the Iraqi people. That's repulsive. And the agreement at the end of the Gulf War was that if disarmament didn't happen, Saddam would be removed from power. Inspections were the means to prove this, and inspections have failed miserably.
When you look at just Iraq, easy target but what if they possess nuclear technology or have access to it. Believe me it can come to this, does the world need us to start a nuclear war?? Korea has nuclear technology and they?re not too happy with us either cause we?re already messing with them.
North Korea is looking for food, financial aid, and assurances that we won't try regime change with them. It's been the same story for forty years now.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
People in the Middle East are ticked off at us anyway. Once Saddam is out of power we can leave Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Quatar entirely because our troops are only there because of Saddam's government. Next, when Iraq is on it's own two feet, we can leave Iraq too. I see that as positive steps towards getting our nose out of the Middle East.
Yeah and starting a war couldn?t possibly push that tension over the edge. The problem is you only see Iraq, and you seem to think if we just war with Iraq everyone else will be cool with it. If Castro started dropping bombs in Canada, do you think we would be cool with it?? To the people in the middle east, we are Tyrants so they will rise up and try to fight us. I don?t see them just sitting back and watching war unfold in their backyard.
Just like in Afghanistan?

In all likelyhood, postponing war in Iraq now means going to war in Iraq later (more costly in lives and money) - or turning our backs on slaughter (just plain wrong). Just look at what ignoring post-WWI Germany did for the world. You want to make the same mistake again?

Yeah I agree, the stuff going on with Iraq and the middle east is wrong. But in fairness it is they?re war, no one has asked for our help. I?m afraid we are making the same mistake that lead to Hitler by persecuting Iraq with war. It has some differences but a lot of striking similarities. Hitler rose up because after WWI we crippled Germany economically, which infuriated the Germans. Hitler capitalized on the circumstances for Germany after WWI. Same thing with the circumstances after the Gulf War, along with a dictator to manifest an entire country to rise up and take control of the world. Saddam has indicated the same intentions and also has grown in supporters in the middle east. Without writing the entire history which lead to WWII, there are a lot of similarities if you would check yourself.
The mistakes allowing Hitler to come to power were numerous, but most boiled down to international negligence; As bad as the Great Depression was in the US, it was worse in Germany - and not rebuilding Germany after WWI made the situation that much more desperate. Next, Hitler's re-armament of Germany flew completely in the face of all the accords and treeties ending WWI. But you'll notice that plans for Iraq aren't "knock it down, root out Saddam, then leave," they're "go in, get Saddam out, rebuild the nation, and leave it with a freely elected Democratic government." That's much more like the Marshall plan after WWII that rebuilt Germany and Japan than the end of WWI which left both nations out in the cold, albeit for different reasons.

I don?t want to make the mistake again and I?m afraid that this mistake is going to be even more destructive than ANY war in history. I am not an avid believer in psychic abilities but Nostradamus wrote, ?mankind will nearly destroy itself and the bringer will be from the middle east?. Think about it. ??? We now have the technology to accomplish such destruction and he has be rather accurate before. I don?t fully believe in it but it is very striking. A lot more could happen from these events that I don?t think a lot of people see or want to see.
Nostradomus has been "accurate" via being very vauge. The same verses in the Bible that led Christians in years past to beleive the world was flat in the past are now pointed to as predictions that the world is round. Frankly, they could mean either, and I can come up with example upon example of this just from the Bible. Nostradomus isn't much different. Negligence led to World War II, and negligence is what the world is showing towards Iraq today. You's have to be crazy to beleive that the Iraqi people aren't/won't be bitter at the world if nothing isn't done about Saddam. As one Iraqi Kurd now living in New York City interviewed on NPR just this morning put it, "Without justice there can be no peace, and as long as Saddam is ruling Iraq there will be no justice."

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
45,000 people starve in Iraq in just one year due to sanctions that are questionably able to keep Saddam contained. That's considerably less than most estimates of Gulf War civillian casualties. What's "right" about this is that removing Saddam now saves more lives in the long run. We're not talking about indescriminate bombing here, we're talking about precision strikes against military targets. Civillians living near by certainly will take casualties, but those who live a good distance from military targets will be mostly unaffected except in the case of very errant bombs. Most analysts expect Bagdad to be under coalition control in under three weeks, after that point civillian casualties virtually drop to zero.

Thousands more starve in African and South American countries due to leadering bodies, but we’re not going to war with them. Second, many less Iraqis died before the Gulf War so most Iraqis will point to us as the cause rather than Saddam. Although this would be false, it is what the Middle Eastern people are directly pointing to, which is any easy thing to do out of anger. Like the Germans blamed the world for it’s suffering after World War I, not it’s governing body which failed during and after the war.

Again, is it absolutely necessarily to attack Bagdad so viciously? We accomplished nothing last time, why is it going to work this time?? Also I hope the analysts are right, because history tells us that war never goes as planned. Our involvement in the Vietnam war was only supposed to last a couple of months. The last attack on Bagdad was supposed to end Saddam then and there. Who knows maybe we’ll get lucky.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Here is the critical flaw in your argument. This isn't going to be just bombing like was seen in the Gulf War and in years since. Airstrikes will coincide with the invasion (we actually have troops in Kurdish areas of Iraq now), and coalition forces will quickly move to take control of the country, essentially picking Saddam up by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out of power. He may get away, but he will no longer be in control of the country, hence he will no longer matter.

I must ask you before anything. How do you know? Unless your the president himself, you really don’t know. You’ve seen this on the news, I can tell cause the majority of your information comes it. But it is preposterous to think they we can actually get away with broadcasting what we’re going to do ahead of time and get away with it. As an example, we announced on the news we were going to bomb Bagdad. Did we succeed it getting Saddam?? No. Even as a military strike, it was a semi-success. Another thing that is quite humorous is the fact that our military thinks we’re just going to walk in and take Saddam that easily. Just as well as we have in Iraq, I’m sure Saddam is ready to leave Bagdad at any sign of trouble. If he did get away, I doubt he is just going to “give up” after we take Bagdad. He would still be a threat, just like Bin Laden is. He may even find a way to exploit it given 12 yrs to think up a plan.

We all hope that this invasion will go as smoothly as you have explained, I am hesitant to rest my head with everything resting on PRIDE. No military strike like this has ever gone as planned, and it’s very naive to think this one will. I don’t see this war as a jolly walk in the park, that’s just my opinion. You can base your facts on what Larry King tells you or what happened in ‘91, but I feel I am opening my mind to more possibilities. I am looking and seeing farther down the road.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
First off, you're blowing the Kamikaze's effectiveness WAY out of proportion, and by your portrayal of Middle Easterners Israel should be cinders by now. If I was Arab, I'd actually be offended by that remark.

Am I? How? Where’s the lion's den?? The Middle East. 13 middle-easterners (most were from the middle east) flew 4 jet planes and killed around 175000 people in a matter of a couple of hours. The ratio speaks for itself and these are the people we are at war with. At least once a week for the last 25 years or so, you have heard about people dying because of a suicidal bomber on a Israeli bus or something. I meant no disrespect to any Arabic person, I thought I clearly showed that I was talking about the terrorists. I’m sorry I didn’t write a few more sentences to indefinitely clear that up. By the way, how is Israel doing these days?? They’ve been at war for what 60+ years?? Don’t bother bringing up the treaty, cause we both know they’re still at war whether they’re government wants to acknowledge it or not. It is a miracle that they are not in cinders now, but they are not winning either.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
If Saddam wanted war, he could have started one at any point very easily. What he wants is sanctions lifted so he can go about business as usual and rebuild his weapons programs to the point where he can wave a big ugly nuclear stick at his neighbors and the world with which to take anything he wants.

Could he have?? For 12 years he has had the UN and it’s inspectors so far up his brown hole, the chances of any war attempt would have been extremely slim. Even if he succeeded, he would have the entire UN stomping down on him in a second. In this position, he isn’t a threat to a housefly. But waiting for the US to attack him first will lift off the UN sanctions and also divide the UN, which has been his biggest slap in the face for the last 12 yrs. Divide and conquer. It’s perfect from his side, cause the weapons he has not destroyed he can now use in defensive manner. After the Gulf War, it was estimated that Saddam would acquire chemical and nuclear technology within a year. It’s been 12, has he shown the destruction of any such weapons? Also, it is proven that he had secret installations, which we know have not all been found, where such science is run. So where are they??? Just take some time to actually think about it. An easy way to get the sanctions lifted is for US to go to war, why do you think he’s been so cocky towards Bush?? Arrogance or Intelligence?? I hope its arrogance, for this and even more deadly outcomes are easily played out from this situation.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Nobody/nothing is invincible. Diplomacy has to come first, but after 12 uneffective years it's time to say "enough is enough." The world/UN cannot make demands it's not willing to enforce and expect to be listened to.

I agree. The UN should act more strictly than it has in the past. Saddam may be getting away lightly by having 12 yrs to destroy all weapons, but he also has to think of his country. The middle east is a very hostile region of the world, it isn’t exactly smart to disarm yourself completely and expect to stay in power. I think he also knew that if he destroyed all his weapons he would have no leverage over the UN. We all know without any threat, he would soon be thrown out of office or invaded. Especially when he was at war with Iran in the very early 80’s. Their is still tension and Iran is also developing weapons of mass destruction (as you can see where not up their buttocks). Saddam is in a rut, a very big one, but he has complied with the UN as much as he can. They are doing their job and that job is maintaining him as a minimal threat. He may be a threat to the Middle east but not the US so I still feel this is not our game. The UN has kept Saddam unthreatening for 12 yrs, there is no need for an active war. Especially with the consequences that may follow.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
A lot of Iraqi exiles for one.

Yeah well a lot of Cuban exiles have asked for our help in the last 30 yrs. We’re not planning on invading Cuba at the moment. Why? Go back and look at the Bay of Pigs, and you’ll see why. Could it happen with Iraq?? I also don’t believe that any of these Iraqis are friendly. Remember these are the countrymen that burn our flag like it’s a holiday. Now there our friends?? Please, don’t be stupid. I would not trust a single one of them, they are more likely to be anything but our friends. I remember hearing that after we captured Iraqi attackers in The Gulf War they begged and pleaded to us that Saddam was evil so we would let them go. Well, maybe they just didn’t want to die. If they were friendly, they wouldn’t have declined to offer any information about Saddam whereabouts.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
The UN is a political organization designed to preserve peace and human rights, but is currently being used to preserve a few nations political and financial interests at the expense of the Iraqi people. That's repulsive. And the agreement at the end of the Gulf War was that if disarmament didn't happen, Saddam would be removed from power. Inspections were the means to prove this, and inspections have failed miserably.

Exactly man, that’s what it is and all it is. It’s not a united war party. And yeah it is messed up that Iraqi people are dying, and the UN can’t do as much as we would all like. I totally feel where your coming from on this, and if it wasn’t for the aftermath I can see from war. I’d be a supporter of using military action to remove Saddam. I’m not trying to defend Iraq but it deserves the right to protect itself and I doubt it will use that right wrongfully since the UN is constantly breathing down it’s neck. Iraq truly isn’t a threat in it’s current situation, but allow it to fight a war and you have now given them the right to use those weapons. I still believe the UN is doing there job by keeping Saddam under supervision.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Just like in Afghanistan?

I’m not exactly sure why you brought that up. The whole reason we went into Afghanistan is because there were terrorist training camps there, and that's the last place we encountered Bin Laden. Besides helping the Afghanistan government fight a small group of terrorist militia, there was no political reason to be there. We were also in a relatively friendly neighborhood, we don’t really have many enemies over there. Although any consequences (which I think will be minimal) that will come from this won’t be clear for years. What we did there was pretty much the same thing we did when the Russians tried to invade.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
The mistakes allowing Hitler to come to power were numerous, but most boiled down to international negligence; As bad as the Great Depression was in the US, it was worse in Germany - and not rebuilding Germany after WWI made the situation that much more desperate. Next, Hitler's re-armament of Germany flew completely in the face of all the accords and treeties ending WWI. But you'll notice that plans for Iraq aren't "knock it down, root out Saddam, then leave," they're "go in, get Saddam out, rebuild the nation, and leave it with a freely elected Democratic government." That's much more like the Marshall plan after WWII that rebuilt Germany and Japan than the end of WWI which left both nations out in the cold, albeit for different reasons.

What I notice about the plans for Iraq is that they should probably be the other way around. If the Iraqis only want Saddam out, we should leave them to re-elect a new government. It’s there country and they should be allowed to have the government they chose. Replacing it with a democratic government enforced by military action sounds like a dictatorship in disguise to me. Sounds kind of unpatriotic but it isn‘t democracy at work. Invertingly what were saying by this is, "we'll help you but you’ve got to accept our democratic party”. So all we’re doing is taking out a leader(government) that we don’t approve of and replacing it with one we do, based on our opinion. It sounds like a dictator whether you believe it is right or not, democracy says you have the freedom to choose what body you will be governed by. The Iraqi people never said they wanted a democratic government. Saddam may be right, “we are trying to enslave the Iraqi people”. It would just be a political move, something like Vietnam.

Now if you look at the other democratic nation in the middle east and look how they are treated amongst the other nations. I doubt the Iraqi people would want to be a democratic nation. In the longer run, more Iraqi people will probably die in protest or neighboring nations fighting against the new democratic government. Just like the Israelis. So by forcing democracy into Iraq, we will create even more hostility in the middle-east, then ensued by more hatred for the US.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
You's have to be crazy to beleive that the Iraqi people aren't/won't be bitter at the world if nothing isn't done about Saddam. As one Iraqi Kurd now living in New York City interviewed on NPR just this morning put it, "Without justice there can be no peace, and as long as Saddam is ruling Iraq there will be no justice."

As for the Iraqi living in New York City. It's the same stories over and over on the news, which is only one side of the story. So he is no more equipped to answer in that interview than a white guy from NYC that moved to Canada. This is why I am so open-minded on this subject cause I am not easily brainwashed by propaganda. You can clearly see that the only thing we hear in the news is how bad Saddam is and those who support action. You will never hear from a Iraqi that detests America or any statistics that show negativity in our part. It’s easy to wash out anything that the media doesn’t want the public to see. So as you can see I don’t stamp down the crap I hear on the news in my posts, so yeah I am stating opinions on the matter. I think that's just keeping an open mind and so far no one has given me a reason to think otherwise. I do wish someone would cause what I see spells out an ominous future for the world.

Looking at it for both ends, it really is a double-edged sword. There are risks on both sides whether you support military action or not. Of course, starting a war in the hornets nest called the middle east has many complications that arise other than Iraq and the US/UN. But an over-all look at world order and the possibility of another war world. On the other hand, trusting the UN as it stands does show the UN as a rather weak organization if it doesn’t act on Saddam and his regime. Which indeed leaves a not-so good impression on the rest of the world. But I think the true choice is to follow peace, especially for Americans. To me the UN is following that path regardless of how weak and unnecessary it seems. Post, Pre, or acting war is not peace. That’s the bottom line.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 03-11-2003 at 12:38 AM]

[SLY]

The reasons for the war against Iraq now are :


1) Hidden WMDs which are already dealt with inspections , and I can't believe that Saddam can be hiding "a lot more" as some people claim since he hasn't blown Kuwait or Israel off the map back in '91 .
Also , IN CASE he hides a lot more , wouldn't such a war be the best occasion for Saddam to play with these toys ??! :confused:
In other words , by war you're giving him a chance to use his WMDS (If there realy exist WMDs in Iraq) instead of letting the UN inspectors do their job which has been succesfull so far (Destruction of Al Somod 2 , inspections everywhere in Iraq including presedential sites , almost confirmed that Iraq is nuke free,U2 flights , etc.).


2) Removing Saddam from Power , which is a good goal although it's illegal .
So why doesn't the U.S. come up with a new resolution and pass it to the UN for voting about establishing democracy in Iraq , like UN supervised elections (starting with the parliament) and so ... Instead of this meaningless ARROGANT insistance on war no matter what the UN or the rest of the world wants.


3) Iraq isn't complying with the UN resolutions ... Bullsh*t , see the end of pt 1 .
Also , the US is the one who seems to neglect or ignore the UN resolution ... If 3 out of 5 permanent members in the security council are AGAINST the war (refusing a resolution only needs one permanent member against it) , and most other members are aginst war too , so why do you go on violating the international law ,destroy the UNs authority and credibility ??
The UN was meant to be for international democracy and that means it serves the interests of the majority of the world , not the US ONLY , this can't be justice or democracy ! :mad:


4) Sanctions are killing Iraqi citizens ... Also bullsh*t , what makes you so sure that multiples of this numbers aren't going to suffer to death in case of war.
What I know (you may not know this btw) ,Saddam is preparing 7 million civilian Iraqies millitarily not only in Bagdad , but across the whole country ...You can't assume that all or most of those are against Saddam .
I can tell you that 90% of them are poor, ignorant and don't know sh*t about politics or what's going on the rest of the world unless from their poor media , I've seen their satalite TV channel couple of times and it's very funny and full of sh*t and mythologies about the mighty Saddam ... They even call him there "Saddam the hero" :rolleyes: ,so I won't be surprised if some people there worship him.
Regarding other soldiers in the army , civilian casualties (which can be much more than we can count in case the US used WMDs or nukes as Bush said) .
So the number of innocent people deaths (in case of war) can never be determined or controled.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Originally posted by Raskolnikov
First off, you're blowing the Kamikaze's effectiveness WAY out of proportion, and by your portrayal of Middle Easterners Israel should be cinders by now. If I was Arab, I'd actually be offended by that remark.

Am I? How? Where?s the lion's den?? The Middle East. 13 middle-easterners (most were from the middle east) flew 4 jet planes and killed around 175000 people in a matter of a couple of hours.
175,000 killed in the 9/11 hijackings? Try around 3,000. Your number is 58 times too large. So who is it that's buying propoganda now? (PS: it was 19 hijackers on the planes, not 13).

Sorry, but when I make a point, it's backed up by multiple sources; you're spewing a lot of exadurations (this is a prime example), and a great deal of information that is simply out of context.

Now, as to the Kamikaze attacks; Initially effective because they came completely as a suprise, but ultimately became inconsequential as 1). it wasn't a suprise any more and so were shot down a lot more easily, and 2). the quality of pilots trying to make Kamikaze attacks deteriorated rapidly, again making them much easier to shoot down before they could attack their targets. As a specific example, in the battle of Leyte Gulf - the first mass Kamikaze attack of the war - only five ships were sunk. Considering the US fleet consisted of several hundred ships at this point in the war, trying to say Kamikaze attacks sunk anything resembling "most" of the Pacific Fleet is totally innacurate.

I also fail to understand how Iraqi refugees living in the US who left to escape Saddam and still talk to relatives in Iraq are more prone to propoganda than the rest of us who've never even been there.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
The reasons for the war against Iraq now are :

1) Hidden WMDs which are already dealt with inspections , and I can't believe that Saddam can be hiding "a lot more" as some people claim since he hasn't blown Kuwait or Israel off the map back in '91 .
Also , IN CASE he hides a lot more , wouldn't such a war be the best occasion for Saddam to play with these toys ??! :confused:
In other words , by war you're giving him a chance to use his WMDS (If there realy exist WMDs in Iraq) instead of letting the UN inspectors do their job which has been succesfull so far (Destruction of Al Somod 2 , inspections everywhere in Iraq including presedential sites , almost confirmed that Iraq is nuke free,U2 flights , etc.).

2) Removing Saddam from Power , which is a good goal although it's illegal .
So why doesn't the U.S. come up with a new resolution and pass it to the UN for voting about establishing democracy in Iraq , like UN supervised elections (starting with the parliament) and so ... Instead of this meaningless ARROGANT insistance on war no matter what the UN or the rest of the world wants.

3) Iraq isn't complying with the UN resolutions ... Bullsh*t , see the end of pt 1 .
Also , the US is the one who seems to neglect or ignore the UN resolution ... If 3 out of 5 permanent members in the security council are AGAINST the war (refusing a resolution only needs one permanent member against it) , and most other members are aginst war too , so why do you go on violating the international law ,destroy the UNs authority and credibility ??
The UN was meant to be for international democracy and that means it serves the interests of the majority of the world , not the US ONLY , this can't be justice or democracy ! :mad:

4) Sanctions are killing Iraqi citizens ... Also bullsh*t , what makes you so sure that multiples of this numbers aren't going to suffer to death in case of war.
What I know (you may not know this btw) ,Saddam is preparing 7 million civilian Iraqies millitarily not only in Bagdad , but across the whole country ...You can't assume that all or most of those are against Saddam .
I can tell you that 90% of them are poor, ignorant and don't know sh*t about politics or what's going on the rest of the world unless from their poor media , I've seen their satalite TV channel couple of times and it's very funny and full of sh*t and mythologies about the mighty Saddam ... They even call him there "Saddam the hero" :rolleyes: ,so I won't be surprised if some people there worship him.
Regarding other soldiers in the army , civilian casualties (which can be much more than we can count in case the US used WMDs or nukes as Bush said) .
So the number of innocent people deaths (in case of war) can never be determined or controled.

Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.

It's pretty naive to beleive that weapons and weapons production can't be hidden and hidden easily inside a nation the size of Iraq isn't possible. The best experts available, Saddam's own escaped weapons scientists consistantly say just that and that they doubt his plans for WMD development have changed at all. Saddam's strategy is simple - give up a little bit here and there, hide the rest, wait for the world to give up. Yeah, Al Somod 2s are being destroyed, but at a very slow pace, and we have know way of knowing how many were actually produced, so there could be considerbly more quietly hidden in a secluded location. Next, Iraq still has produced no evidence at all that they've destroyed tons and tons and TONS of Anthrax and other biological/chemical agents that we know they had as late as 1998.

Also, after 12 years of inspections you define the limited steps in the right direction taken so far and taken with A LOT of kicking and screaming from Saddam "success," you have a much looser definition of the word than I do. Well, unless you're talking from Saddam's perspective. I'm sure he's tickled with the results so far.

Though dated, I think this commentary by one of Saddam's former advisors and a weapons scientist responds to your other points most effectively:

Hiding Arms Is Easy
by Khidhir Hamza
New York Times
December 17, 2001

President Bush's recent demand that Saddam Hussein allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, as required by the United Nations, looked like a continuation of Bill Clinton's Iraq policy. But Mr. Bush's angry statement that Mr. Hussein "will find out" the price he will have to pay if he does not agree to inspections may indicate a hardening line. Unfortunately, even resumed inspections would have little effect other than to increase the international legitimacy of Mr. Hussein's dictatorship.

The two top American inspectors in the last Iraq inspection effort the United Nations Special Commission, known as Unscom were Charles Duelfer, deputy chairman and chief American representative, and Richard Spertzel, director of Unscom's biological weapons unit. Both have expressed skepticism about any inspection system in Iraq under present conditions. For inspection to be meaningful, Iraq needs a strong incentive to comply. The only incentive that might move Mr. Hussein is the prospect that the United States would agree to a lifting of United Nations economic sanctions. But that will not happen, and even Mr. Hussein gave up hope on it long ago. The United States will never agree to a full lifting of sanctions because it knows that this move would lead Mr. Hussein to accelerate his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

If President Bush were to put some teeth in his threat and a serious military strike against the Iraqi regime became imminent, Mr. Hussein might relent and allow inspectors, as he did in November 1997. But even then, it is almost certain that he would do whatever he could to keep up the weapons programs in secret.

Inspections would probably be less fruitful now than in the past. Research and development no longer take place only at fixed factory sites. Even before I left Iraq, the government was spreading its weapons-development sites across the country" in mobile units, in military barracks and well- camouflaged buildings both to evade inspections and to reduce exposure to air attacks. Suppose inspectors were to find one of these locations. According to the inspectors I talked to in the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission formed to replace Unscom and still awaiting an invitation to Baghdad the new protocols do not allow inspectors to demand immediate access after finding a site. They would report their findings to their New York headquarters, which would pass them on to the Security Council. Then, a few days later, permission could be granted by Baghdad to inspect the site by which time the site would have been sanitized.

The inspectors would then, of course, report that they found nothing, and Mr. Hussein's allies Russia, France and most Arab countries would have their opportunity to demand, as Russia has before, that sanctions be lifted. This pattern was repeated daily in Security Council meetings just before Mr. Hussein stopped inspections altogether in 1998.

The environment in which Unscom was effective no longer exists. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait won very strong backing for inspections from the United Nations and Iraq's neighbors. But over time, Iraq's recovery from the war and the desire of France and Russia to reopen military trade with Baghdad combined to undermine Unscom. Now the new, far weaker inspection commission has to negotiate its way into a set of inspection conditions agreeable to Iraq. Whatever Mr. Bush decides to do about Saddam Hussein, weapons inspections will, in the end, have little effect.

Almost prophetic, ain't it?

[noticingthemistake]

As I have been saying in previous post when some have argued that this could never happen. Our government is now saying that there is prove that Bin Laden and Hussein are working together. Whether this is fact or another attempt at growing support for war...

[noticingthemistake]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
175,000 killed in the 9/11 hijackings? Try around 3,000. Your number is 58 times too large. So who is it that's buying propoganda now? (PS: it was 19 hijackers on the planes, not 13).

Haha. Yeah I guess I did make a mistake, and not to make excuses but I wrote that at 3 am in the morning. I was wrong but the numbers isn’t the point I am trying to make. The point is the ratio of dead from each side, 3000 to 19 is still something you can not ignore. BTW I didn’t get that from propaganda, so you can’t say I’m buying anything. Sorry my bad on the numbers.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Sorry, but when I make a point, it's backed up by multiple sources; you're spewing a lot of exadurations (this is a prime example), and a great deal of information that is simply out of context.

That’s great you cleared that up after I stated that in the post before. I know your posts are taken from what you hear in the news, I don’t disagree. I, on the other hand, don’t believe everything I hear. So what I’m saying might be exaggerations to most, but before you take action you should always look at the consequences also. Especially in war, and those my friend are NOT IN THE NEWS!! I’m thinking not just listening. This is what I see coming out of this military aggression on Iraq. In all fairness, everything that you have posted supporting war only shows the positive side of going to war. This so clearly shows pride or ignorance. Is it that our government thinks their is no negative side to war? And there is no way we can lose or make things worse?? Now of course they’re not going to show the negatives to the public, because they are trying to get support from the people. This is all the more reason not to believe everything, or I should say not to strictly believe everything. “oh yeah we’re going to bomb bagdad, throw Saddam out of power, and turn their government in a democracy, it’s just that easy”. YEAH RIGHT!!!! You can believe that if you want, but I am open to more possibilities. I am not making my theory based on what the news says, I am aware of that. I’m just trying to show you that that there are others things that could happen besides such an easy and perfect victory. Everything I say is taken from what is actually going on and how the enemy is responding to what is going on. They’re actions in the past, and what their tactics and resources are now. If your going to try to rebut what I am saying give me a solid reason why such things can not happen. You know why you can’t?? Cause anything can happen in War, and that should always be taken into consideration before you start one.

What is out of context?? Is it my examples?? I put examples to show the results from similar incidents in the past, so you can see their potential effectiveness now. I only use incidents that are clear possibilities of this war. Kamikazes, well they may be called suicide bombers now. I am illustrating the similarities and effectiveness of such attacks which are a type of military attack in the middle east today. If it is my views of the future, if war broke out. Yeah, these are my theories based on play by play after an attack. Based souly on the conditions and views of the middle east, along with pretty much everyone involved. So how am I out of context???

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Now, as to the Kamikaze attacks; Initially effective because they came completely as a suprise, but ultimately became inconsequential as 1). it wasn't a suprise any more and so were shot down a lot more easily, and 2). the quality of pilots trying to make Kamikaze attacks deteriorated rapidly, again making them much easier to shoot down before they could attack their targets. As a specific example, in the battle of Leyte Gulf - the first mass Kamikaze attack of the war - only five ships were sunk. Considering the US fleet consisted of several hundred ships at this point in the war, trying to say Kamikaze attacks sunk anything resembling "most" of the Pacific Fleet is totally innacurate.

I know about the kamikaze pilots, but I don’t think they failed if you look at it‘s effectiveness. Yeah we were able to shoot down the majority of them and invade Japan, but when you ratio the numbers. Around a few hundred kamikazes died while nearly a thousand marines and navy men died (56 ships). That’s a pretty lob sided victory in terms of casualties. We can’t claim victory by saying that we shot those pilots down, cause they were planning on dying anyways. Our victory relied on the fact that there were so few kamikazes in WWII, there just wasn’t enough to be victorious. But now we are facing many more, and much more devious ways of carrying out a suicidal attack.

I can not believe you are discounting this, considering the amount of attacks from these people in these ways. This is how these guys fight, so unless you can point out a way to stop it (when no one else can). I think you should take this into consideration cause as of right now there is not much of a defense or offense for something like this.

But let me take the fact that after 9/11, we placed maximum security in airports. Once war starts, security will go down to minimum again. So I guess it’s more important to fight a war over in Iraq than to protect our own people here in America.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
I also fail to understand how Iraqi refugees living in the US who left to escape Saddam and still talk to relatives in Iraq are more prone to propoganda than the rest of us who've never even been there.

Frankly, it would be the same if an American left the US to live in Jamaica. Then told everyone how he hated the area he lived in, and he likes Jamaica much better. There are a lot of people who complain about their situations, and once they get away, they tell you how horrible it was. Take a job you once had and hated. It’s not much different, except the conditions of course we’re much worse for Iraq. I’m not saying Iraq is a paradise. But if you are talking to a friend about jobs and his worst job came up, he’s sure as heck is not going to tell you the good points. It’s the same if a news reporter asking a Iraqi about Iraq, and of course he’s going to talk about the bad conditions. Guess what, since we’re trying to go to war with Iraq. What part of the story is going to be played on the news. This is just another way for the government to gain support. The period after war became an option, everything on the news was mostly anti-war related, now it’s mostly everything supporting war. Even when the reasons for us enforcing war are being settled or have been settled. You don’t hear much about the first reasons for war, I wonder why?? Now it’s just propaganda about how messed up Iraq is. To me it’s a weak and feeble attempt for support of war.

The bottom line is war with Iraq is unnecessary. We have many more problems to deal with than a piece of crap like Saddam. I ask anyone who supports war, why can’t our government swallow it’s pride (and Bush’s revenge for his father) and focus it’s concerns on the American people?? Saddam is not a threat, he can talk all he wants but the UN is not planning on lifting the sanctions that keep him strung like a puppet. So why is it so necessary to go to war with Iraq??

War is what Saddam wants. It’s the only way he can get free from the sanctions of the UN. Right now he can not make weapons or at least use them and expect victory, but if he is attacked the UN can not keep him from defending himself. The UN has stated this when Bush first showed signs of aggression towards Iraq. So please, let us fall right into whatever trap Saddam has planned for the world. If you’re looking for reinsurance in the Gulf War. I’m pretty sure Saddam knows that too and if he’s half as intelligent as the we say he is, he knows not to insinuate a war which he thinks he can not win.

I will support war if the Un lifts it sanctions or if Saddam attacks. That’s pretty much it, but I leave myself open to unforeseen possibilities.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.

Take this statistic closer to home. US citizens who are often illiterate are often most adapt to being street smart. This is a different intelligence, you can not rate all intelligence on the fact of reading. Humans have been on this planet for 3 million yrs, yet reading and writing in only 3000 yrs old. Our survival is based on the ability to adapt in the environment, in fact all creatures are. I’m sure these Iraqis are well able to adapt better in Iraq than any American who went to college for 8 yrs.

Now take the idea of no Loyalty toward Saddam and relate it to criminals in the United States. If a criminal is arrested with association to a much bigger criminal, and is also threatened or maybe not. Either way, do you think that the smaller criminal is going to admit he was involved with the bigger criminal? I highly doubt it in either situation. You can’t trust these people, even if they are friendly. It’s war and as far as we know these guys are enemies. If an Iraq guy came up to a soldier, and the soldier thought he was alright and asked him if he was one of Saddam’s men. Now if the man says “no”, would you invite him to check out our military facilities?? I hope not, for this sort of scenario would be like taken a cobra into a nursery.

About the “pot = terrorism“, that’s our governments propaganda to try to get the public to stop smoking weed, right?? Yet you still base your beliefs on these events by the same propaganda, written by our government to get support for a war?? Sounds kind of funny. Our government also does the same thing as Saddam to get support, believe it or not.

On the second and third paragraph on your latest post, I would have to agree for the most part. Saddam is most definitely still producing weapons, I will not contest to this. But as the UN stands, if he was to use any of those weapons on another country. The UN would crush him in a second. It wouldn’t just a be a coalition of the US and other supporters, but the entire UN attacking him in retaliation. This is a far worse outcome for Saddam than if we were to attack him first, and splitting the UN in half. By the way, most the of UN is against the war so most of the nations would be against us. Our part of the treaty says we will not attack Iraq just as much as Iraq says they can’t use weapons of mass destruction. It really is a game of who will break the rules first. However, letting the UN continue to keeps this threat supervised leaves us with a stalemate. Having the US attack first just lets the whole thing go. Nations against nations will be the outcome. I don’t know how to put this in any other way.

My response to the documentation you quoted. I only believe half of it and there are many reasons. One is why did this guy become a traitor?? You should never trust a traitor, even if it’s in your own benefit. They’re are very unloyal and they have less dignity. They could easily be betraying us just as they betrayed Saddam, or he could be a spy dressed in the disguise of loyalty towards us. He said a lot of things that suggests insincerity.

Taken what he said into account, I would say and have believed since 98 that the inspection should be much more strict. He is getting away with a lot, and as the inspection process declines. He will get away with more, which is just as worse as going to war. Our focus on this situation should be to this end, not war because Bush doesn’t get what he wants. Playing the game like this would also let us concentrate on other problems facing our nation.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.

When I said "Ignorant" I wasn't refering to "Illitteracy" , 70% Litteracy rate is just the rate of grown ups (above 15 or 18 , not sure) who can JUST read and write ... You haven't seen their media , you don't know how are they living , so you CAN'T compare them to someone like YOU.
You can see an ad or something on TV and disbelieve it's credibility or whatever , cuz you've got thousands of other TV & radio stations , magazines, papers , etc.
On the other hand , Iraqies got nothing to base their knowledge on other than the Baath party controled media ... i.e. They don't know anything the government there doesn't want them to know , so they are partialy IGNORANT ... From a strict point of view , you can say they are totaly ignorant politicaly.

I also remember that I've read something about banning dishes (satelite recievers) , and internet in Iraq .... Anyway , even if there exist satelite recievers & internet there , I realy doubt how many are going to be able to have these considering how realy poor is most of the people there.


It's pretty naive to beleive that weapons and weapons production can't be hidden and hidden easily inside a nation the size of Iraq isn't possible. The best experts available, Saddam's own escaped weapons scientists consistantly say just that and that they doubt his plans for WMD development have changed at all. Saddam's strategy is simple - give up a little bit here and there, hide the rest, wait for the world to give up.

Ok , but you can't be so sure of the credibility of information you get from escaped scientists , or even if you trus & depend on them and take their words to be true , these ain't solid proves or evidence ... We're talking about war here , probably millions of innocents are gonna die for some suspections .... Gimme something that's hard and solid plz .
I don't mean that you can trust the credibility of Saddam instead , but it's all about proves , SOLID PROVES not SUSPECTIONS.
The U.S. can always claim that Iraq is hiding something , but I'm NEVER going to believe untill they give some real proves or find some nuke heads out there.


Yeah, Al Somod 2s are being destroyed, but at a very slow pace, and we have know way of knowing how many were actually produced, so there could be considerbly more quietly hidden in a secluded location. Next, Iraq still has produced no evidence at all that they've destroyed tons and tons and TONS of Anthrax and other biological/chemical agents that we know they had as late as 1998.

Iraq has reported some sites for inspectors to check out and calculate the amounts of destroyed bio/chem agents , and the pre-investigations tends to lean towards Bagdad's side.
You haven't been following the news lately , yeah ?



P.S.
====

Plz , don't reply to this post before covering the left points in my previous one .
Thanx. ;)

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
[Plz , don't reply to this post before covering the left points in my previous one .
Thanx. ;)
I have several times already.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
[Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.
When I said "Ignorant" I wasn't refering to "Illitteracy" , 70% Litteracy rate is just the rate of grown ups (above 15 or 18 , not sure) who can JUST read and write ... You haven't seen their media , you don't know how are they living , so you CAN'T compare them to someone like YOU.
You can see an ad or something on TV and disbelieve it's credibility or whatever , cuz you've got thousands of other TV & radio stations , magazines, papers , etc.
On the other hand , Iraqies got nothing to base their knowledge on other than the Baath party controled media ... i.e. They don't know anything the government there doesn't want them to know , so they are partialy IGNORANT ... From a strict point of view , you can say they are totaly ignorant politicaly.[/quote]
I have seen some translations from Iraqi television - pretty rediculous stuff. I honestly don't see how anyone can take it credibly. How is propoganda supposed to curb word on the street? It can't. Especially when people know people who've disapeared into Government custody and have never come back. One journalist talked about asking a cab driver about the people's support for Saddam (as indicated by the government propoganda) and the cab driver rolled his eyes. If you see 100% support for propoganda on camera and nearly 0% support off camera people aren't buying. They're covering their asses so they don't end up dead. No information source other than Iraq's own media support your conclusion here - I've never heard a single expatrioted Iraqi say that their family who's remaining in the country buys it, they say that they've simple given up on hope.

It's pretty naive to beleive that weapons and weapons production can't be hidden and hidden easily inside a nation the size of Iraq isn't possible. The best experts available, Saddam's own escaped weapons scientists consistantly say just that and that they doubt his plans for WMD development have changed at all. Saddam's strategy is simple - give up a little bit here and there, hide the rest, wait for the world to give up.
Ok , but you can't be so sure of the credibility of information you get from escaped scientists , or even if you trus & depend on them and take their words to be true , these ain't solid proves or evidence ... We're talking about war here , probably millions of innocents are gonna die for some suspections .... Gimme something that's hard and solid plz .
I don't mean that you can trust the credibility of Saddam instead , but it's all about proves , SOLID PROVES not SUSPECTIONS.
12 years ago the burden of proof was put upon Saddam Hussein, the ball's been in his park for quite some time and he's done nothing with it. As to hard and solid statistics, the highest vaugely credible estimates for Gulf War civillian fatalities is around 100,000. That's a number that a US Government Agency (I can't remember the acronym at this paticular moment) chose that didn't look too high or too low. The fact is, there's no way of knowing how many civillians died in the Gulf War, but what we do know is that casualties were comparitively light. It is clear, (and this information comes from Guitar Tricks' own educatedfilm, Anesty International and a lot of other human rights organizations, NOT the US government (though Colin Powell has cited these sources) that well over 500,000 Iraqi civllians have died from malnutrition or the inavailability of weapons as a direct consequence of UN sanctions since the end of the Gulf War. That's an average of 45,000 a year, 120 people a day. How many more have to die under sanctions? And do you honestly beleive for a second that Saddam Hussein isn't going to exploit the lifting of sanctions to it's fullest?

The U.S. can always claim that Iraq is hiding something , but I'm NEVER going to believe untill they give some real proves or find some nuke heads out there.
The problem is that nothing is being found, UNSCOM can still account for very little of Iraq's KNOWN arsenal and no new information is really coming forward.

Yeah, Al Somod 2s are being destroyed, but at a very slow pace, and we have know way of knowing how many were actually produced, so there could be considerbly more quietly hidden in a secluded location. Next, Iraq still has produced no evidence at all that they've destroyed tons and tons and TONS of Anthrax and other biological/chemical agents that we know they had as late as 1998.
Iraq has reported some sites for inspectors to check out and calculate the amounts of destroyed bio/chem agents , and the pre-investigations tends to lean towards Bagdad's side.
You haven't been following the news lately , yeah ?
Actually, I have. They've recovered some chemical and biological agent filled bombs from a few sights, but the problem is the sites are a decade old. I'm am talking about stockpiles UNSCOM knew for a fact to exist in 1998 and HAVE NOT been accounted for as of Hans Blix' last report. That is a BIG problem.

[kingdavid]

I should have done this post days back,but out server has been acting up,so ...
Rask
You asked some pages back,why,when I raised the question of Bush's open approval of our former president(a bad muther****er)while at the same time baying for Saddam's(another bad mother****er) blood,why I was ignoring the fact that the US gives a lot of money in aid to countries like Kenya.Here's the answer:
The aid doesn't matter to all the political dissidents(and their families-dissidents killed,not entire families,I'm avoiding a misunderstanding)killed under Moi's rule.The aid doesn't matter to the thousands murdered(and thousands more displaced-imagine being a refugee in your own country) during state-sponsored "tribal clashes" for living in regions that were percieved as anti-govt.(there was very little real support for govt. anywhere.In some places,famine relief food was used as leverage.A starving man has very little thought about democracy and ****).The aid doesn't matter to the millions of us who have to live in abject poverty and in very harsh economic conditions,in no small part due to the economic sabotage this man wrought on this country.
Simply put,the fact that Saddam is a SOAB is not a reason Bush can give to your average Kenyan as reason for going to war.I'll go circular and mention this again:
Last year around October,Bush(perhaps it was one of his famous gaffes?I doubt he's that ignorant) referred to Moi as a "...good and strong leader...".
If you'd like a small glimpse of the kind of man Moi was,just go to google,and in the search engine type in "wagalla massacres."
Then you'll understand why when Bush(and you too,you keep raising this question)raises the question of the wretched of Iraq,my face can't help crease up.
Btw,I'm not blaming the US for what we went through.Not at all.I'm just pointing out my frame of mind when you go "so and so is such an evil man,who should be removed from power blah blah blah...."
And as Lordatherings(this is your new name,Mr.Circles:).I am creative,huh?)pointed out(in reference to how resources are diverted in a totalitarian police state-and for a while we were that)just because you give aid doesn't necessarily mean it reaches where you thought it was meant to go.
Seeing as I'm anti Moi,I'm not expected to mention his good points.The truth is,the man had none.His sychophants were praising him for handing over power to the election winner peacefully.WTF?!?That is standard procedure!It's nothing to thank a guy for.And if that's the only "good" thing his cronies see,it should give you an idea of what was good about him then.
And would I have wanted America to intervene and depose Moi for us?
HELL ****ING NO!!
We'll deal with it.
And we dealt with it.(Can you hear the opera music rising?)
OK.
Back to the main issue.
You tell me(us in general,me in particular,since I raised the question)that the reason we haven't heard a lot of talk about deposing Saddam all these years(years which,you contend,he's always been in violation of the agreement ending the war,an agreement which you also state stated that his penalty for vilation is his removal from power-does it say what was to be done after that?)is because there was no political will.That Clinton wasn't going to throw away his career away just to make sure Saddam,as big a threat as you say he is,was out of power,for violationg that said agreement.Not to mention Hillary's and Gore's careers.
I wonder how saving the world from such a disaster as Saddam is(or will become,if,according to you,we give him more time)would destroy a man's political career.I'm not an expert on American politics,so I'd need your insights on that one.Other than that,I can't help wonder whether if doing it was going destroy a man's career,then wouldn't doing it make another man's career?Just wondering(need enlightment,I already SOS'd you).As in more than anthing else,it's a career move,forget about the issues.
I'm going to read that thing you gave a link to.Closely.Then I'll come back.
And while we're on the agreement,it seems to me the agreement never dealt with te details of what would and what wouldn't comprise a violation.Coz what I'm mostly reading is weapons that have not been accounted for.If both parties(the UN and Iraq)are agreed that at point X in time,Iraq had Y such and such missiles,and then P were destroyed,meaning Iraq still has Y-P missiles,but can only account for M missiles,where M is a lot less than Y-P,what is so hard about asking them directly?What is so hard?They did sign the agreement,so at least we're still on talking terms,right?
Generally speaking,this thing looks to me like you have this guy on parole.Then a cop is sent to his house to see if he has weapons(a parole violation).The cop isn't saying anything conclusively concrete(three barretas in the bedroom,a magnum in the basement,blah blah).But the chief back at the precints is yelling "...bring him in!bring him in!i know he's in violtion and is going to go on shooting spree and murder his neighbours....we better deal with before it's too late..."
Suppose the convict had seven barretas and two magnums before arrest.Then when he was released,he handed over two barretas and a magnum to the cops.So,he still has a question or two to answer.True,Rask and co.,true.But a judge wouldn't put him back in for that.The prosecution would have to provide concrete evidence of his parole violation.He isn't guilty until he proves himself innocent.He's innocent until the prosecution proves him guilty.That should be the state of affairs to justify a war.
Lordatherings
I've put the notion of war for oil out of the head.And looked at it from a war on terror perspective.Here's what I see:
Everyone understood Afghanistan.For a very simple reason.They were shielding one Osama bin Laden.And in case you didn't know,Osama was(still is,as far as I know)the prime suspect behind the WTC bombings.And again in case you didn't know,WTC was the largest attack on American soil(so large it's funny to call it terrorism,war would be the word)since the WW2.Perfect sense to me.
No one complained.No one.
So,when did this "...Afghanistan was first,Iraq is next..." business begin?And if that is so,tell me about tha terrorist training camps Saddam is funding.Tell me how many wanted suspected terrorists(note that suspicion isn't necessarily guilt,but often it is)Saddam has given assylum.And so on and so forth.if it's war against terror,if you give a case as you had against the Taliban(or nearest offer),I'm with you all the way.
And if then this is war on terror,what's the connection with that war and Iraq not having complied with the agreement ending the Gulf war?And this is not sacarsm or rebuttal,it's an honest question.Coz even if I may have no effect on the grand scheme of things,I wanna know wussup.So when my grandkids ask me about it(like I ask my grandma about WW2)I'll be able to answer.
About the Ba'ath party wanting one united Arab nation?So what.Organizations with all sorts of ideologies walk this planet.I hear the nazi party is still there somewhere.
And if Saddam was to have,in Rask's words,"...an ugly nuclear stick to wave at her neighbours and have whatever he wants...",he knows,you know,I know,that if Saddam was to even report to have dreamt of having an idea about attacking anyone,that would be the end of him.
In my opinion(as flawed,biased,circular:) as it may be)Saddam isn't going to engage in any form of "acreage enhancement",commonly known as gobbling smaller neighbours.

[Edited by kingdavid on 03-13-2003 at 05:26 AM]

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Originally posted by SLY
[Plz , don't reply to this post before covering the left points in my previous one .
Thanx. ;)
I have several times already.


Not everything , or at least not the main points that I'd like you to cover.


The point of WMDs isn't very convincing to most people , since none were found ... And the U.S. can claim there are many hidden to infinity , that's ok with me , so let the inspections go on and stop talking about war.
And in case of war , and in case the WMDs thing is for real , when the hell do you think Saddam going to use these , after he's out of power ?
If he realy got WMDs , the U.S. shouldn't go to war against him not to let him use these weapons (like the case with N.Korea) ... That's why I'm not buying the claims of U.S. officials about this issue these days.
In other words , if the U.S. isn't sure that Saddam is harmless , they wouldn't never get their butts involved in war with him , unless they are totaly dumb ... So how do they claim he's got dangerous WMDs ?
Pretty logical , yeah ?

In the same manner you should look to a co-alition between him and Bin Laden ... This is only going to be possible in case of total war , although I realy realy doubt that those two buttholes can come along for any reason on this earth , their Ideologies are hell lot more than contradictions.



If the U.S. is so determined on removing Saddam's goddamn,evil,totalitarian regiem , why does it have to be through a total war ???
For God's sake , I posted out ONE peacefull solution (see page 11) , I know it looks naive and dreamfull , but I'm dead sure that there are hell of international law prodigies and experts in the WHITE HOUSE and they can say hell lot better than a normal person like me ... But that's if they realy wanted a peacefull solution.
Therefore , it's not a good excuse for war.



About the Iraqies population , I've seen , met ,etc. Iraqi people many times .... Lot's of them , or let's say most of them are absolutely against Saddam (btw, they are also against the war) but that's only cuz they know how realy bad is he since they can see the real image from outside.
But other Iraqies believe that he was a victim & a hero!!
Although they see from outside too, but these are the naive or ignorant people I was talking about , and I'm sure that the majority of Iraqi population inside Iraq are like that.
They say that the U.S. persuaded him to invade Kuwait , and other bullsh*t about international conspiracy against him and against Iraqi people in general ... And I'm DEADSURE that these are the crap the he's feeding his own people through the media (which is controled by one of his sons).
That's why I can imagine the amount of support he has from his poor people.
Do you know that in the latest elections (that was few months ago) , he got a 100% ?!
Of course it was fake , even GOD himself wouldn't get such support in a decent elections or survey among religious guys ... But I strongly believe that in a decent elections , Saddam isn't going to have less than 80% or a similar result.
And as I said in a previous post, he's preparing 7 million civilians (I don't doubt that number pretty much) militarily for the expected war , and of course he would never forget the psychological preparation .
Personaly I count all of these as innocent, poor, igonrant people , and I'm sure that you agree with me about that ... The question is how many of those have to be killed beside other soldiers in the army (who are not evil or bad too) and other civilian casualties in a TOTAL war?? Half of them , 70% , or even all of them ??!



Finaly , about international justice and democracy ... Why is the U.S. claiming that the UN has become useless ?? It wasn't established just to serve the U.S. interests in first place , it was established to serve the majority of the world's interests (primaty rule of democracy) , right?
And since most of the world are against the war , then the U.S. should comply as a good country , instead of destroying the UN's authority and credibility.
Am I wrong ?


For all of the above reasons (and many others of course) , the optimum solution for Iraq is through the UN and peacefully, unless Iraq starts aggression like in gulf war 2 (which is not likely to happen again ever).



Anybody else here got the feeling that posts in this thread are becoming too long and very boring to read ? ;)

[Edited by SLY on 03-13-2003 at 10:26 AM]

[chris mood]

It is a real shame what the U.S. and Great Britian are doing to the U.N. A global political unit is going to be the key for survival of the human race and planet earth for thousands of more years to come.
On the other hand every time U.N. military power is used it is 90% funded and operated by U.S. & G.B.. Still I feel a dissinagration of this type of political system would be detrimental to humanity.

[kingdavid]

I forgot to say this:
It's the pinnacle of undemocracy to impose democracy on an undemocratic nation.
It's no different from the way the former USSR used force to force communism on it's neighbours.
It's no different.
That notion about "...I know this is gonna hurt,but it's good for you,I'm doing it for your own benefit..." only works with your parents telling you what to do and not what to do,irrespective of how you feel about it.
It doesn't work in international situations.

[Incidents Happen]

It has been roughly 6 months since the last post on this ever-so-popular topic, and I'd like to know how everyone's opinion has (or hasn't) changed.

I'd also like to know what everyone thinks about the new bombing (United States Embassy bombing in Baghdad, killing 20, injuring 80), and your general feelings on all of this.

I just finished re-reading the entire thread, and it seems like we are all quicker to bash something than to praise it. Someone mentioned the fact that the United States is the leader in humanitarian aid, something I never even thought of before. Do you find this to be true, false, neither (meaning that we are quicker to blame/hate, than we are to praise/love?) I'd like your thoughts. Thanks.

~Incidents

[Christoph]

I can't believe you actually spent the time to read through the wonderful piece of literature known as this thread.

Whatever anyone thinks, Rask's post on the first page (about the dissidents) still has to be one of the most classic things ever posted on this forum.

[noticingthemistake]

Yeah really. I was pretty suprised to see email saying that someone has replied to this thread. I thought it was dead gone, but yeah I do wonder what other's thoughts are after. I don't feel like having another arguement about it, but I can only say one thing. I told you so, and stuff like the enbassy bombing has been continuing since the war ended like I said it would. Not everything I said has come true but give it some time, and it will continue to unfold. I'm not trying to play Nostradamus here as most who don't agree with me are probably thinking, I just knew it wasn't going to play out all pretty like the government wanted us to think. Heck they didn't even have proof of WMD when they went to war, they found out that they made it up, BTW where are those WMD's??

Sorry if that was alittle too passionate, but I don't like the feeling of the world crumbling underneath my feet and not being about to do anything about it. So when I'm asked I'm going to say my thoughts.

[Incidents Happen]

The whole "Terrorists killing terrorists" idea, and the "Who is good? who is evil?" idea, really sparked my imagination. After all, aren't we the ones who gave Saddamm Hussein the WMDs that they can't find? And aren't we the ones that gave Osama Bin Laden the SCUD missiles to use against the communists?

I still don't really understand why we went into Iraq. After all the 14 pages of posts, to me there was still no real evidence of a needed war. If someone could say "We went to war with Iraq to....." and answer that, I'd greatly appreciate it, because this American thinks that the war was pointless.

~Incidents

[Pantallica1]

As long as there is different races of people with different beliefs and people with power, there will always be war.

Power corrupts. (and money too)

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Yeah really. I was pretty suprised to see email saying that someone has replied to this thread. I thought it was dead gone, but yeah I do wonder what other's thoughts are after. I don't feel like having another arguement about it, but I can only say one thing. I told you so, and stuff like the enbassy bombing has been continuing since the war ended like I said it would. Not everything I said has come true but give it some time, and it will continue to unfold. I'm not trying to play Nostradamus here as most who don't agree with me are probably thinking, I just knew it wasn't going to play out all pretty like the government wanted us to think. Heck they didn't even have proof of WMD when they went to war, they found out that they made it up, BTW where are those WMD's??

Sorry if that was alittle too passionate, but I don't like the feeling of the world crumbling underneath my feet and not being about to do anything about it. So when I'm asked I'm going to say my thoughts.
A friend of mine came across a really interesting article recently, I wish I had the link for it. The writer essentially suggested that Saddam might have been trying to make the US think he had WMDs so as to discourage an invasion. If that was his intention, it obviously backfired. I won't say that's necessarily the case, but it is an interesting theory.

Anyway, this is what I know: More people are alive than would have been, Saddam may have disarmed so as to get the UN off his back (I still won't be suprised to see caches of Biological or Chemical weapons dug up at some point), but it's pretty easy to see that Saddam's long term plans were NOT peaceful. So I'm glad to see him gone, I still think it was the right thing to do, and if it helps get rid of GW, then that's cool by me too.

Right now I'm much more concerned with rebuilding Iraq than anything. Unfortunately, it does seem that Saddam was a bit prophetic when he said "you can't take the blood" to the US; some very minor harassment of troops it seems is enough to turn popular opinion to withdrawing and giving up on the country - probably the worst thing we could do at this point.


And no, the world is not crumbling. It's gone through far worse before and will survive worse things in the future.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
The whole "Terrorists killing terrorists" idea, and the "Who is good? who is evil?" idea, really sparked my imagination. After all, aren't we the ones who gave Saddamm Hussein the WMDs that they can't find? And aren't we the ones that gave Osama Bin Laden the SCUD missiles to use against the communists?

I still don't really understand why we went into Iraq. After all the 14 pages of posts, to me there was still no real evidence of a needed war. If someone could say "We went to war with Iraq to....." and answer that, I'd greatly appreciate it, because this American thinks that the war was pointless.

~Incidents
You're missing a lot of details.

1). The US did give a lot of military aide to Iraq durring the Iran/Iraq war, including some biological and chemical agents that Saddam used as the basis for his weapons research. But so did a lot of other countries including Russia, France and Germany. In a lot of respects, US aide to Iraq was minor in comparison, and stopped at the end of the Iran/Iraq War. Russian and French (extra especially Russian) weapons sales to Iraq never really stopped almost until we invaded.

2). Osama bin Laden never had access to SCUD missles. Infact, the SCUD missle is a Soviet (Communist) Russian system. I don't think he'd even want SCUD missles as they require large launcher trucks and a lot of infrastructure to support. bin Laden is interested in small, portable systems that can be more easily hidden. We did though give training to bin Laden when he was fighting the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, well before his anti-US feelings ever surfaced.

[Incidents Happen]

Rask-
One thing that I don't understand about your opinion is when you mentioned sadamm hussein's plans..."They were not peaceful". How do you know? Maybe he's like another Fidel Castro.

And what is never mentioned is the fact that the "Iraq Invading Kuwait" thing, is the fact that Kuwait was drilling oil on Iraqi land, and Iraq kept threatening Kuwait to leave. They asked the United States about this, who said "We have no interest in border disputes". This kept happening for like 3 months, until Iraq started the invasion. Now, I'm not defending Iraq, but it seems to me that the full story is never told in our media.

I don't want to express my political agenda and make this a big shout fest, I just want an understanding, proper reasoning for war, if you will.

I look at it, and say

"They didn't declare war on us...They didn't bomb us...They didn't attack us in any way...They didn't attack another nation (for 12 years), they don't have nuclear weapons..."

Note that the 'probation terms' were given by the United Nations, and not the United States. If Iraq breaks United Nations' terms, shouldn't the United Nations deal with it?

I see where, yes, Sadamm's regime was an eyesore to the Arab world, but it seemed like a pointless war to me.

~Incidents

[Azrael]

Found on zmag.org:

Iraq Collapse (http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4076&sectionID=40) (by Elliot Fisk)
Preventive War 'the Supreme Crime'
(http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4030&sectionID=40) (By Noam Chomsky)

[Edited by Azrael on 08-25-2003 at 12:48 AM]

[Incidents Happen]

Very nice, Azrael!!!

One question:

Why does Blair (or any British Prime Minister) agree with everything an American president says? I've always been curious, my guess is because America has a foothold in Europe, and Britain because they have America to protect them in case of war. Is that a good guess?

~Incidents

[Azrael]

there is a hell of alot info on this and other things on zmag.org - a VERY interresting a nd valuable site, if you ask me

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

This is obvious but it comes down to money and power.Unfortunatley this motive is deadly.Why did we go to war with Irag?Not for saddam or WOMD.We went for oil...a pretty false objective since research into alternatives to fossil fuels has been purposley ignored and they're fundings revoked.North korea has nothing we need as of yet so we turn a blind eye.This is off the subject(far off).How many of you have heard of Dupont?They make some great synthetic materials.Ever hear of the marijuana law tax act headed by Harry Anslinger?Around the mid 30's farmers had a new machine that could harvest hemp well enough to mass produce materials.Well Dupont and other company's(RX company's)would stand for this super material/medicine to muck things up for them.At the same time a man named Harry Ansliger who hated black jazz musicians and the mexican movment in the south drove a campain of disinformation and ultimatley prohibition of cannabis.Mexicans were seeking jobs in the south,which Harry(and other justice powers and officials)didnt care for.To scare people they associated cannabis directly to the mexicans and blacks,with the spanish word we all know...Marijuana.Then came reefer madness,the largest disinformation act in the history of mankind.Well they failed to eliminate the minority progress in america,but they managed to illegalize cannabis...forcing us to rely on fossil fuels,synthetic materials/medicines e.c.t.(just an interesting note,the Bush family has large amounts of stock in RX medicine companys).There keeping the disinformation strong still in schools and the general public,but more and more people are hearing the truth.Did you know Cannabis has never killed anyone in the 5000 years of recorded history?Did you know ASPIRIN kills 10,000 people a year?All for the sake of money!You all remember the recent space shuttle tradgety right?Not long ago,the companys that build the space shuttle and its parts urged NASA to stop the funding and research for more efficient and safer space craft and transport.The companys make money from the space shuttle launches because the launches are so costly.There deep pockets cost the lives of that space shuttle crew.As long as theres a monetery system,there will be war and ultimatley our demise as the human race.Spread and advocate the truth.

[Azrael]

!!!AMEN!!!

[PonyOne]

Bin Laden never had SCUDs. as rask pointed out, SCUD is a Soviet-made missile system; it also takes a pretty good staging ground. It is either launched from a complex, or from a specialized truck; in any case it's a pretty obvious thing. That's why Iraq didn't have any of them left for round 2: we blew them all up ten years ago.

With large-scale missile defense systems, tanks, etc, the US gov't didn't help Bin Laden out: most of the few tanks, helicopters, etc he had were stolen from the USSR during the war.
The US Gov't helped him out in giving him the money to buy stuff black market; they also helped broker AK-47, RPK's, RPG's, SPIRAL anti-air missiles, and a host of other soviet weapons that had flooded the international market. These things were easily available in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. If you want to talk about plans backfiring... the USSR had provided these weapons for next to nothing to banana republics, Communist sympathizers, anti-Western/anti-capitlaist terrorists and the like. The intention was that they would destroy the US/UK/Europe by supplying their enemies with the weapons to crush them. Well by the 80's most of these nations werew so strapped for cash that if Reagan himself had shown up with the checkbook they would have thanked him...

In any case I don't think we should have gone into Iraq, at the very least not in the fashion we did, and I never really had much faith in the WMD thing. Know why we haven't found any WMD's yet? May have something to do with the fact they probably don't exist... we probably blew them into oblivion last round...

[PonyOne]

....and personally I don't rally get into the LEGALIZE IT thing, if nothing else, because so many of the people who get into the whole cause pisss me off so much.

[Incidents Happen]

Chuck-
That was the greatest post I've ever read here on GuitarTricks. You summed up everything about American Propaganda, political tactics, everything. Like Azrael said, "AHMEN!"

~Incidents

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Rask-
One thing that I don't understand about your opinion is when you mentioned sadamm hussein's plans..."They were not peaceful". How do you know? Maybe he's like another Fidel Castro.
The Ba'athist doctrine is one Arab nation and it's no secret that Saddam saw himself as the man who would bring it about, and if he couldn't, his sons would be the ones who did it for him. Now we all know that this would never happen peacefully.

Next, while no active WMD plants nor WMDs have been found as of yet, much of that infrastructure was still very much intact and very much unknown and unreported to the UN Insectors. So basicly, if the UN had stumbled across some of those camoflaged plants, Iraq could say "sorry, we forgot about this one, but look, we're not producing anything" but in reality Saddam was hoping to keep as much of his programs secret so they'd be more difficult to monitor after inspectors left Iraq. The problem with biological and chemical weapons is that they're very easy to produce once you know how to, and the equipment can be used for benine chemical and biological production and research. In other words, the second the UN is not looking any more, production can begin anew and stock piles can be quickly rebuilt.

Now how do I know these aren't regular old chemical plants? Regular chemical plants are not highly camoflaged and maintained by a garrison of soldiers commanded by a General. For a government that claimed to have nothing to hide, it was hiding A LOT.

And what is never mentioned is the fact that the "Iraq Invading Kuwait" thing, is the fact that Kuwait was drilling oil on Iraqi land, and Iraq kept threatening Kuwait to leave. They asked the United States about this, who said "We have no interest in border disputes". This kept happening for like 3 months, until Iraq started the invasion. Now, I'm not defending Iraq, but it seems to me that the full story is never told in our media.
A). I've never seen proof that Kuwait was drilling for oil in Iraq (and the accusation was not that the wells were on Iraqi land, but that they were angling the pipes so as to reach into Iraqi oil reserves - a very shakey accusation). I do know that Saddam made the accusation that Kuwait was drilling only days before he invaded and that immediately the US government told him NOT to invade under any circumstance.

B). It is a fact however that Iraq's monetary reserves were depleted from the Iran/Iraq War and that Kuwait not only represented more oil revenu, but also some much needed deep water ports. Remember, Iraq only has one deep water port which greatly imeads its economic growth.

C). Criticising the US for taking action in this situation but making excuses for Iraq's invaison of Kuwait is a bit hypocritical, don't you think? Especially when you compare the way Saddam conducted wars in comparison with the US and other coalition partners conduct war, especially in regards to Civilian populations.

I don't want to express my political agenda and make this a big shout fest, I just want an understanding, proper reasoning for war, if you will.

I look at it, and say

"They didn't declare war on us...They didn't bomb us...They didn't attack us in any way...They didn't attack another nation (for 12 years), they don't have nuclear weapons..."

Note that the 'probation terms' were given by the United Nations, and not the United States. If Iraq breaks United Nations' terms, shouldn't the United Nations deal with it?
Getting the UN to take action of that magnitude would be nearly impossible. Two nations with veto power had very keen interest in keeping Saddam in power. Saddam was smart enough not to do anything too drastic, but had no intention of behaving any longer than it took to get the UN off his back.

I see where, yes, Sadamm's regime was an eyesore to the Arab world, but it seemed like a pointless war to me.
An eyesore? Saddam is responsible for 1.5 - 2 million deaths, displacing around 6 million Iraqis and allowed sanctions to kill thousands of Iraqis every year. I have to look up the numbers again, but to allow sanctions to continue to their conclusion would have cost another few hundred thousand Iraqi civillians their lives and would have probably only delayed the war Saddam was planning, costing even more lives 10-20 years down the road.

At the war's peak, the Iraqi Information Minister was claming less casualties than UN sanctions were already killing in one month. And we know 1). his interest in excadurating civillian deaths, and 2). just how reliable his information was.

We can be certain if of nothing else that the war saved more innocent lives than it cost, even before you include the possibility of future Iraqi attacks on other nations. That's what I care about. I truely beleive that Saddam would have been content to leave the US alone so long as we didn't interfere with his plans, but I personally hold your life in no more regard than I do of an Iraqi, a Kuwaiti, a Saudi, a Canadian, or an Austrailian, or anybody else. We're all human, we're all equal.

I don't beleive that it's morally OK to allow innocent people to die by the hundreds of thousands and to be subjugative by the millions by an oppressive regime just because those people aren't my fellow citizens of my paticular nation or because they don't look like me or talk the same language. Taking the "diplomatic" route asked us to do just that. We're all human and we all have a responsibility to look out for and if neccessary defend our fellow man.

What I am concerned with today is making sure that Iraq is rebuilt and that we leave the country with a viable Democratic government in power.

[Incidents Happen]

Once again, I admit that I am not the most knowledgable person on this topic, i was four years old when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Had the Bush administration said initially, "This is an oppressive government, and by taking out this dictatorship will improve human rights...." or something to do with human rights, I might've said "hm...okay". But by saying he has WMD's, instilling fear into American Ignorants, and putting on hold any change in the government (Note that the republicans took everything in 2002, largely because George Bush went to most states and urged them to vote for the republican).

Think about it; If this was a humanitarian mission, American people wouuldn't have been afraid to sleep at night (some were, trust me); What's better, putting fear into your own citizens, or putting hope? Obviously, if you plan on invading a nation, putting fear into your own citizens is essential. "Fear leads to anger....anger leads to hate....hate leads to suffering" as I believe Master Yoda once said, it is very true!

Fear, that the government put into its people about another nation/person, leads to anger about that nation/person; if given the proper amount of time, hate will surface. Don't you think this is how Arab radicals began hating us? They feared us, and our western ways, that turned to anger, and then turned to hate. Makes sense to me.

~Incidents

[Gainer]

This is a great tread. I'm glad that some people somewhere in the world can have an intelligent conversation about political issues.

[The Other One]

ok to me Bush and all those other ****heads in the government are stupid*** ***** ****ing w***es....Bush doesnt give **** about no ****ing people he just wants revenge on him and **** like that to "improve' upon his stupid**** ego that he has....its sad that he's off killing millions of innocent people while he won't even let gay people get married or stuff like that...he has no regard for the well-being of society or the nourishment of mankind nor does anybody else in his bull**** republican party...

and for that i say F**K YOU PRESIDENT BUSH!F**K YOU AND YOUR STUPID BULL**** EXCUSE FOR A GOVERNMENT! F**K YOU ALL! (of course by all i mean the the government not u guys...:))

o and BTW i luv that Pearl Jam song 'Bu$hleaguer' just cuz of the content of its lyrics...(plus im a big fan of pearl jam)

[The Other One]

sorry if i didn't explain that well i just need to let out some anger....:)

[Pantallica1]

Dude, the posts get censored and no one can read a damn thing that you're saying.

Calm down, take deep breaths, find your ritalin, and then post.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by The Other One
ok to me Bush and all those other ****heads in the government are stupid*** ***** ****ing w***es....Bush doesnt give **** about no ****ing people he just wants revenge on him and **** like that to "improve' upon his stupid**** ego that he has....its sad that he's off killing millions of innocent people while he won't even let gay people get married or stuff like that...he has no regard for the well-being of society or the nourishment of mankind nor does anybody else in his bull**** republican party...

and for that i say F**K YOU PRESIDENT BUSH!F**K YOU AND YOUR STUPID BULL**** EXCUSE FOR A GOVERNMENT! F**K YOU ALL! (of course by all i mean the the government not u guys...:))

o and BTW i luv that Pearl Jam song 'Bu$hleaguer' just cuz of the content of its lyrics...(plus im a big fan of pearl jam)
5,000 Iraqi civilians died because of the US war in Iraq.

Approximately 150,000 - 200,000 Iraqi civillians would have starved to death under UN sanctions, if Iraq was totally cooperative thoughout the rest of the inspections process. Iraq has never been totally cooperative with UN inspectors

How do you get around that?

And really -- if you have to exadurate/lie to make your point, you're no better than Bush.


EDIT: You're crapping on the pollitical party that abolished slavery and segregation. Think you maybe aught to tone down the rhetoric a might?

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 08-26-2003 at 12:17 AM]

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Once again, I admit that I am not the most knowledgable person on this topic, i was four years old when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Had the Bush administration said initially, "This is an oppressive government, and by taking out this dictatorship will improve human rights...." or something to do with human rights, I might've said "hm...okay". But by saying he has WMD's, instilling fear into American Ignorants, and putting on hold any change in the government (Note that the republicans took everything in 2002, largely because George Bush went to most states and urged them to vote for the republican).
He did say that. He also said we think he as WMDs (his key assertion) and it looks like he's supporting terrorism. Realisticly speaking, neither the terrorism nor WMD allegations have been disproven yet. Terrorist links have been established, and it's easy to hide a few shells or documentation or enough biological samples to rebuild chemical and biological weapons programs in the Iraqi desert. Let's face it; there's A LOT of it. There's no way for the UN to monitor all of it.

If Saddam did disarm, it was only to get the UN monitoring and inspections overwith so he could go back to rebuilding his military. It's not because he had a change of heart and decided to be a good global citizen. He's a lot like a man who beats his wife, but acts reformed at parole hearings so he can go back to doing what he's always done. He wasn't reformed, he was (one way or another) playing possom.

[Azrael]

i think we can easily be manipulated with all those numbers because noone of us was there counting and noone of us is into this topic deep enough to know what was realy going on.
also i dont see some pro-US users here reply to the fact that the US has hardly ever done anything for the sake of humanity exclusively - they always used it as a cover for other goals. however - i thought that in the eye of law someone is inocent untill proven guilty, and not guilty untill proven innocent. but what you just said, rask, is the complete oposite. basically what the US did was accusing the Iraq of certain things WITHOUT having a reasonable proof, tellin the US population that Saddam is the Devil and is even threatening the whole world blah blah etc etc, and then doing what they ca ndo best - destroy.
i´m not saying saddam is good nore am i defending him. what i say is, that the attitude of the US is as filthy as the attitude of nations like Iraq. and it is absolutely SHOCKING to see how government brainwashing works. it works so well that peeps will fight for things they dont fully comprehend nore haven been fully informed about and even give their lives for it.
if this is where the developement of our civilisation goes, than i´m ashamed of beeing a human

[PonyOne]

In terms of the political landscape, I think of my self as being a moderate; I probably lean toward the left, but I still try and look at both sides of the argument and get some of the facts before I form an opinion.

One of the things that I will definitely say that the right wing has over the left is that the left wing is too reactionary. The left is quick to shout something, and slow to learn the politics behind their statement. It also has an all-or-nothing attitude that means that so many of the good things the left could do get left in the dust because there's too much bickering withing the society.

The right wing is willing to compromise their short term goals in the pursuit of (what the percieve being) a better future. Case in point: republicans who may have personally found Bush atrocious would vote for him anyway becuase they knew that his lack of moral and ethical stature would mean that he would pull out all ethical constraints in getting a 100% republican house/legislature/etc in power. Leftists screamed "GUSH OR BORE!" and voted for Nader even though they knew he wouldn't win or even get the green party recognized as valid, simply to make a point. Then when Bush moved his chess pieces and it looked like he was gonig to win, they all screamed "NO!!!" and wished they'd voted for that wood-headed, boring politician Gore.

It's sh!t like that that galvanized me against being a part of a political party (i'm registered independent): the side that has its heads on straight don't stand for the things i stand for. I find that the Right stands too much for squelching the American way of life as it should be out, and that the Left stands too much for burning it up for being unjust. I prefer to just look at the pros and cons and let the chips fall where they do. I'm pro-choice (left) but anti-Palestinian Statehood/Pro-IDF (right). I'm anti-death penalty (left) but pro-firearm (right).

Incidents, I think that you proved my point about leftism with your Saddam-Castro remark... reading up on the histories of both dictatorships should clear up any fog... there is a massive world of difference. Part of the reason no one's actively trying to kill Castro or even thinking of waging war with Cuba is that Castro isn't doing anything that is worthy of warmongering. No mass slaughterings of his populace, no allowing his sons to abduct & rape women.

One thing that the left has lost sight of in this situation is that although the Iraqis may not want America running the show, they wanted Saddam running the show less so. Don't take two unconnected bads to make an evil.

And BTW, recent studies show marijuana to be physically addictive (anyone could have told you that anyway, i been saying it for years!!!!), smoking marijuana trumps most of its medicinal value (THC is best administered when highly concentrated in a pill) and marijuana is worse than a regular filtered Marb for your lungs (it's just that it's hard to smoke as many joints as it is cigarettes), and the future of fuels lies in synthetic diesel and petrol alternatives that are derived from corn and soy which are already 100% viable, but, we have to wait another 25 years for a massive oil crisis for the oil companies (who funded the research) to release the stuff.

You may notice that, while gas is $2.15 (in LA it's as high as $2.30 for regular), diesel is still about $1.60...part of the reason is that most companies now dilute the fossil diesel with soy diesel, which also burns cleaner and lasts longer than regular diesel. Yippie... maybe I should get a Jetta TDI or an old Mercedes...

So yes war sucks, politics suck, and I wish people would just come out and admit they want to get smashed instead of trying to pass it off as some Mahatma-like cause.

[PonyOne]

Azrael, my government disgusts me due in part to the fact that "my" government is not mine... but you must admit that there is something to the fact that my country dishes out more humanitarian aid than the rest of the world combined. I just wish that there was a bigger portion of my nation's GNP dedicated to easing our ills and helping starving nations, and less going straight into rich mens' pockets. But that's the EU's and Asia's fault just as much as it is the US'.

[Azrael]

Originally posted by PonyOne
but you must admit that there is something to the fact that my country dishes out more humanitarian aid than the rest of the world combined

that is very true - but does that justify the not-so-humanitarian actions? sounds to me like someone is doing some bookkeeping of "good vs evil" actions as if one good action eliminates a bad action.

i mean.. al capone also did give alot of money to the poor - but does that make him less criminal?

that somehow reminds me of the pictore of the baby-kissing politicians

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Azrael
i think we can easily be manipulated with all those numbers because noone of us was there counting and noone of us is into this topic deep enough to know what was realy going on.
Every single humanitarian group I know of reported Iraqi civillian deaths under UN sanctions in the thousands per month. The lowest number I've seen was 500,000 for the first decade of sanctions.

also i dont see some pro-US users here reply to the fact that the US has hardly ever done anything for the sake of humanity exclusively - they always used it as a cover for other goals
Name one nation that gives more foreign aid than the United States of America.

however - i thought that in the eye of law someone is inocent untill proven guilty, and not guilty untill proven innocent. but what you just said, rask, is the complete oposite. basically what the US did was accusing the Iraq of certain things WITHOUT having a reasonable proof,
It's already been prooven that he had those things, he's been put on probation, the standard of proof is lower. But no matter how you look at it, UN inspections would have taken at least another two years to wrap up. That would have cost several tens of thousands (at the very least) of Iraqi civillians their lives.

tellin the US population that Saddam is the Devil
::cough::
1.5 - 2 million innocents dead at his own hands, and you don't think he needs to go?

and is even threatening the whole world blah blah etc etc, and then doing what they ca ndo best - destroy.
The US dropped more tonnage of bombs on Iraq than has ever been droped on a nation before and only around 5,000 Civillians died in the process. Why? Because almost all of that tonnage landed on military targets. Much more accurately than ANY nation in the world today could do. Yes, the US can destroy, but we have the ability to destroy legitamate military targets - the same people who gassed the Kurds and raped Kuwaiti women as well as oppressed their own people - facts which NOBODY denies, with a minimum of collateral damage. You're as guilty of skewing facts as any Bush administration press release when you say the word "destroy" so indescriminantly.

i´m not saying saddam is good nore am i defending him.
No, you're making excuses for him. I have to ask, where was your voice of opposition when Iraqis were only starving to death by the tens of thousands every year? Were you standing in protests then?
NO.


Did you ever get into the streets to protest Saddam's torture of prisoners or assassinations of political rivals?
NO.

But a war that saved more lives than it took... Well, now there's something that's gotta be stopped! Let's protest!

what i say is, that the attitude of the US is as filthy as the attitude of nations like Iraq. and it is absolutely SHOCKING to see how government brainwashing works. it works so well that peeps will fight for things they dont fully comprehend nore haven been fully informed about and even give their lives for it.
if this is where the developement of our civilisation goes, than i´m ashamed of beeing a human
First off, as has been said before, I've held my opinion on Saddam Hussein and Iraq much longer than President Bush has been in power. Second, the US government is as much in control of the US media as I am of my mother's cat. I can tell it anything I want, but the little bastard ain't listening. If you actually bother to pay attention to it, it will be immediately obvious. The US media cares about one thing: Ratings. It will do anything it can to get them, which basicly means it forcuses in on hot topic (currently Kobe Bryant), and doesn't let go until a new "crisis" pops up. Annoying? Yes. Uninformative? Yes. Under goverment control? Not hardly.

But hey, I think a war that has been proven to cost less lives than it saved is good, so I must be brainwashed, right? Somewhere (I think in this thread) I once figured the statistics (fairly accurately) and it came out to something like 20:1 in favor of a war in Iraq compared to the long term deaths directly associated to UN sanctions. That's equating a violent death with a starvation death. Obviously you feel that one person dying because of an errant bomb is worse than 20 starving slowly under sanctions.

Sarcasm aside, I'm ashmed that you're willing to say "well, people are dying by the hundreds of thousands, it sucks, but the guy responsible isn't after me, so I can't do anything about it."

But that's me.

[Azrael]

Every day now, in the United States, the all-pervasive media tell Americans that their bloodletting in Iraq is well under way, although the true scale of the attacks is almost certainly concealed. Soon, more soldiers will have been killed since the "liberation" than during the invasion. Sustaining the myth of "mission" is becoming difficult, as in Vietnam. This is not to doubt the real achievement of the invaders' propaganda, which was the suppression of the truth that most Iraqis opposed both the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Anglo-American assault on their homeland. One reason the BBC's Andrew Gilligan angered Downing Street was that he reported that, for many Iraqis, the bloody invasion and occupation were at least as bad as the fallen dictatorship. But This is unmentionable in America. The tens of thousands of Iraqi dead and maimed do not exist.

As for the great human catastrophe in Iraq, the bereft hospitals, the children dying from thirst and gastroenteritis at a rate greater than before the invasion, with almost 8 per cent of infants suffering extreme malnutrition, says Unicef; as for a crisis in agriculture which, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation, is on the verge of collapse: these do not exist. Like the American-driven, medieval-type siege that destroyed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives over 12 years, there is no knowledge of this in America: therefore it did not happen. The Iraqis are, at best, unpeople; at worst, tainted, to be hunted. "For every GI killed," said a letter given prominence in the New York Daily News late last month, "20 Iraqis must be executed." Task Force 20, an "elite" American unit charged with hunting evildoers, murdered at least five people as they drove down a street in Baghdad, and that was typical.

Thanks to the freest press on earth, most Americans, according to a national poll, believe Iraq was behind the 11 September attacks. "We have been the victims of the biggest cover-up manoeuvre of all time," says Jane Harman, a rare voice in Congress. But that, too, is an illusion.

Americans, says Time magazine, live in "an eternal present". The point is, they have no choice. The "mainstream" media are now dominated by Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network, which had a good war. The Federal Communications Commission, run by Colin Powell's son Michael, is finally to deregulate television so that Fox and four other conglomerates control 90 per cent of the terrestrial and cable audience. Moreover, the leading 20 internet sites are now owned by the likes of Fox, Disney, AOL Time Warner and a clutch of other giants. Just 14 companies attract 60 per cent of the time all American web-users spend online.
The director of Le Monde Diplomatique, Ignacio Ramonet, summed this up well: "To justify a preventive war that the United Nations and global public opinion did not want, a machine for propaganda and mystification, organised by the doctrinaire sect around George Bush, produced state-sponsored lies with a determination characteristic of the worst regimes of the 20th century."
excerpts from znet

*shakes head*

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

PonyOne...
It would be wise for you to do some serious research into cannabis before you challenge me to the fact game.Cannabis is the most versitile substance in the world.As for it being physically addictive,I would like to know the study that fact was derived from.One study I recall suffocated monkeys "proving" cannabis smoke could kill...needless to say that doctor resigned and announced his studys meaningless.I would also like the chemical/s named responsible for the addiction.Corn oils and other substances cant come close to the ease and purity of production of Cannabis.Cannabis uses around 3x less pesticide than cotton for example.As for the "its worse then cigarettes for you" argument,you at least acknowleged that nobody smokes a pack or more joints a day,But the problem can be avoided all together by ingesting it.This method is not safe since chances are your local street dealers supply isnt sanitary.This is prohibitions fault,not cannabis's.comparing Cannnabis to tobbaco is insane anyway considering the enormous body count tobacco holds.If your wondering why I find prohibition personally a problem,you should know that I dont smoke.I cant smoke cannabis because it triggers panic attacks.Theres a strain with which it dosnt occur with and infact helps.Its called sativa.Unfortunatley do to PROHIBITION I couldnt get that strain often and if I could it most certainly wouldnt be medicinal grade and would be far to exspensive to take on a regimine.Instead I'm on three SYNTHETIC medicines for the panic attacks and sever depression it has brought.I am now ADDICTED to these medicines and they have caused me side affects like Gyncomastia(development of breast tissue or large nipples),zero sex drive,lack of appetite,weight loss,decreased night vision(I now see a purple tint at night)jitters,fatigue,moodswings,occasional naseua among some other lesser effects.I cant get quality medicine(cannabis) because the RX companys have 100+ billion dollar market as long as cannabis is illegal and the public is misinformed.I now cant get off of the medicines becuase of severe withdrawls.You could see why I(and another few billion people)find the prohibition of cannabis very personal since it is for others personal gain(like ive said in another post,the Bush family has large amounts of stock in RX companys).I cant change your mind about cannabis and I wouldnt(I couldnt if I wanted to.You cant reverse a lifetime of disinformation with one post.)Do your own research for the truth or rest on your opinion(Which i respect).Just stand for truth...the lack of it has ruined a good portion of my life.

[PonyOne]

First of all I didn't call you out or anything. I know your facts to be wrong, you know mine to be wrong... I think that because of the extremes we go to in our like or dislike of the subject, our research is going to be different and thus our ultimate conclusions will be different. A lot of my opinion comes from seeing what weed does to people who get into it. I don't care enough about it to know that much about its chemical composition and elements, nor do I care enough to know about what each of those components do. I care enough that I read every article on the net when the study was released. I don't care enough to bookmark them so don't ask. And something tells me that the publications you get your info from probably didn't report the finding, and that if they did, it was probably about how Bush fudged the results somehow. People will derive from the situation (whatever it may be) whatever it is they want to be derived, true or untrue.

I have delved deeply into my opinions on these matters here in the past. You're right, you can't change my opinion in one post, my opinions were formed of years of personal experience I don't really care to delve into again. I don't think that I can sway your opinion either.

I used to have more emotional problems than you could shake a fourth year psych book at, and I went through the whole med thing, and after my experience with the wonders of medical science a doctor could tell me that he had a pill that would make me perform better in bed, make me stop sweating so badly, kill some calories and jump 25 i.q. points and i wouldn't take it. How'd I get past it? Well it took the better part of 4 years so it isn't really worth getting into it now... it has nothing to do with Jesus, weed or yoga, though, that much I will tell you...

Water is a much more usable substance than cannabis, i'd say... as i touched on in my last post, soy is another wonderful thing, being used for a variety of medicines, foods, and also, a clean-burning, renewable fuel source, it doesn't require very fertile land to grow and when used in polluted soil, it tends to suck up and neutralize toxins.

I challenged you to no fact game, I think you just can't stand seeing someone knock something you have made such a big part of your life (you said that at least I acknowledged that very few people smoke as many joints a day as the average tobacco smoker smokes in one day, and then one sentence later, fail to acknowledge the fact that I said the exact same thing as you did in that THC is best administered in an orally ingetsed manner). Sorry. You can tell me how Nissan Skyline GTR's suck if you want to. I never compared cannabis to tobacco.

I've done my own research, and i have come to my own conclusions, I'm sorry they differ from yours but i accept that sometimes people do research into israel and palestine and come out on the palestinian side (poor suckers) and to paraphrase/adjust your last statement... the lack of an ability for people to deal with their own problems and instead focus on temporary fixes and falsities to create a utopia based on one thing has ruined a good portion of my life.

Now I remember why I quit posting in this thread, lol.

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

posted by PonyOne: "and marijuana is worse than a regular filtered Marb for your lungs (it's just that it's hard to smoke as many joints as it is cigarettes)"

You indeed did compare cannabis to tobacco...

Anyway,sorry if my post came of as an "I accept your challenge" kinda thing.Worded that wrong.And you did say somthing about a concentrated pill so hats off to that too.

Just a strange fact:cannabis seed has one of the highest protien content in the world...even higher than soy.

I know I'm draging this on,but I really am curious as to why you(and others)possibly "dislike"(that may be the wrong word)cannabis.I dont base my life around it in ANY way,and have never been a pot head.I simply found out that everything that my D.A.R.E officer,teachers,parents,friends parents and other authority ever told me about cannabis was a lie(it will kill you,ruin your life e.c.t).The government for the past 60 years has turned its back on the plant for profit.Its insane.Is it a substance that when abused like any other material in our life can lead to bad things/events?Of course.I could eat to much candy and rot my teeth out and have a belly ach,but its consumed with common sense among responsible people...and abused by others.When cannabis comes to mind people dont think of buisness men in suits,lawyers,doctors and other people generally respected in life.They think of low lifes,losers,drug addicts and other bottom of the barrel persons in society.Its the way we all were raised(with some phenominal exeptions)to associate materials,events,spiritualistic,and almost all tangible things with different internal biases towards humankind.There are many buisness men and high profile employees that use cannabis...but they dont come to mind often.Another strange fact:somthing like 3 out of 5 dentists use cannabis...think about the next time your getting your teeth cleaned.Anyway...

In the end,the only bad thing about cannabis i have found is...its illegal.Makes me laugh when I hear "land of the free".At least canada is moving in the right direction.

This post isnt completley TARGETED at you PonyOne...its simply a reply.I agree with you about the water.I think if americans drank the 10 ounces of water a day recommended,it would be a thinner,healthier country.

LATER! \m/

[SLY]

It's very common in history, a western country invade some poor eastern country for ordinary colonial reasons :

- increasing their power & domination.
- controling economical natural resources (fossils,minerals,agricultural,etc.) , and strategic geographical positions.
- spreading good ideologies against the evil ones (oh yeah, su*k my di*k!)
- protecting foreigner interests against local ones.
- religious doctrine, mythologies , and general crap (crusades ,,,,,hmm....errr.... israel !).
- etc.etc.etc.

Then they scream "BARBARIANS , UNCIVILISED, TERRORISTS" .... WTF , what do you expect from people under foreign occupation , flowers & greetings ??!
Why can't you imagine yourself in their place for just a moment?


The U.S. gov can easily speak of spreading democracy and making iraq a better place , and they can still say that oil wasn't the reason , but why don't they prove their good intentions , which is a lot easier and more reasonable job to do compared to (iraq having to prove not having WMDs) !!

About the WMDs , did someone just say that Saddam was trying to make an impression on the U.S. that he possesses WMDs ?? You mean he tricked the U.S. by giving them the fake excuse to blow him away ?
I know people who can creat manipulated funny stories like that forever , but what's the point ? We were all following all kinds of media , and we know this isn't true.


Why don't you learn how to live with people instead of living on them ?

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

Media="Blah,blah,blah pass it down"...filter,rearrange,typo..."did you hear?Blah,blah,blah pass it down"...typo,delete,revise...and so on.

\m/

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

OH PonyOne!
Just another fact that I think would help you(after reading one of your other posts).
Cannabis has some of the most powerful anti-spasmatic/anti-seiziure properties know to mankind.Justa thought.I have a cousin(4th or 5th cousin or somthing)that had seiziures real bad,fell down the stairs and such.Cannabis helped him out immensley from what my uncle told me.

[Incidents Happen]

I believe in medicinal marijuana; Although I love the Grateful Dead, that doesn't make me a pothead, or a hippie (stereotypes, people), that makes me a music-lover. I have only smoked marijuana a handful of times, and really only got 'high' once. The other 4 times were just to relax my nerves before my first four gigs; each of those four times, i just smoked a very little, just enough to calm down, before I overcame stage fright.

My grandfather died of cancer in March; You know what they give people to help against the pain? Morphine. Yeah, thats right, Morphine; You may say "well, what's wrong with morphine?"; Let me tell you that Morphine is much worse for your body than marijuana, while the benefits are much less. Morphine makes you sleep constantly (he could only go a few hours awake at a time), reduces your appetite, makes you see hallucinations, can cause seizures, you can become addicted to it, etc. Not just that, but the price; Morphine is expensive, derived from opium, etc.

Now, I want to make this extremely clear that I have reasons for believing medicinal marijuana should be legalized, and it's not some idiotic left-wing protest for nothing. Why not legalize medicinal marijuana? Would you want to make Aspirin illegal because it can kill? No, I bet that you wouldn't. Why, then, would you want to take away a possible cure/pain reliever from these people (and I'm not making people up; i've seen it, face to face)? If marijuana is getting heat for what it does, then Alcohol and Cigarettes should get more. Cigarettes are starting to become 'uncool', but what about alcohol? I live in Wisconsin, there are more taverns here than in any other state; We drink it up (i don't drink, by the way...don't like the taste) Why is it that alcohol/cigarettes can remain legal, yet marijuana can't? Follow the money trail, boys.

PonyOne- Marijuana has no 'addictive' chemical. THC is the active chemical, but you can't get addicted to it. What can happen, and there is a difference, is become "dependant" on it. This is much less severe than addiction, however; You both are right/wrong in that category.

Here's a good laugh;

Page 16, Gainer says (which was a very nice comment, too) how much he appreciated the fact that we could have an intellectual conversation without really harping on each other, and keeping it all clean. The next post.....

Well, just go and read it for yourselves (this isn't a bash, and don't respond with bashes, I just thought this segment was very funny).

~Incidents

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
It's very common in history, a western country invade some poor eastern country for ordinary colonial reasons :

- increasing their power & domination.
- controling economical natural resources (fossils,minerals,agricultural,etc.) , and strategic geographical positions.
- spreading good ideologies against the evil ones (oh yeah, su*k my di*k!)
- protecting foreigner interests against local ones.
- religious doctrine, mythologies , and general crap (crusades ,,,,,hmm....errr.... israel !).
- etc.etc.etc.
There is an equally long history of Arab (and other Eastern) nations invading other countries for exactly those reasons.

Should we all continue to live in the past, or shall we just accept that people are people and try to make a better future?

[Number of the Beast]

Listen, Lord of the strings (cool name by the way), I'll be the first to be there if there's left bashing going on, but you should check the subject of this website first. It's a GUITAR forum not a political forum.

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by Number of the Beast
... you should check the subject of this website first. It's a GUITAR forum not a political forum. We've had discussions like this one a time or two before this, (please learn to use the search button at the top of the page), but I'll briefly summarise the salient points:

- This section of the Forum is called Open Discussion. I shouldn't have to explain the unlimited nature of that category.

- as musicians, we are the kind of people who have a strong need to express ourselves. That isn't limited to just playing music.

- life, at any level that involves more than one person, has some political element to it.

- where else are you going to be able to debate important issues with fellow string-slingers from all over the world?

- no one's forcing you to either read, or add to, this thread.

[Number of the Beast]

Ok, you win...but if that's the case...can we bash protesters again?

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by Number of the Beast
...can we bash protesters again? I think Raskolnikov made the most eloquent possible statement along that line, back on the first page. Unfortunately, the second picture, (showing an adult and a baby Kurd huddled in death after one of Saddam Hussein's poison gas attacks), doesn't show up any more.

We live in a world where the 'known facts' are shaded and distorted to the point that people in the Canadian province of Ontario feel that their discomfort at not having air conditioning available for their homes, during the recent electrical power blackout, is equivalent to the grief endured by residents of another Canadian province (British Columbia) who have no homes, because of a huge, out-of-control forest fire!

Given the magnitude of that schism over a distance of 2500 miles, it becomes apparent that we need to have this kind of discussion if there's to be any hope of assessing the global picture. I started this thread to point out that we may be at risk of missing something very important in the Kashmir because too much of our attention was focused on Iraq. It turns out the situation was not as dire as I feared, or maybe it was, and we just didn't hear about it.

These days, it looks like the same cretins who were brutalizing the Iraqi people are now sabotaging the efforts being made to rebuild that sad country. Or maybe a noble band of Freedom Fighters is bravely struggling to rid their land of foreign invaders. :confused:

[Azrael]

thats exactly what i meant. we have to face the fact that our picture of the world is mainly based on the informations we get trough history books, school and mass media. very little of it comes from own experience.

think about it - if there was no TV, no Newpaper ,no radio, etc - you wouldnt even know about whats goin on in your neighbour town.

now start thinking - in a world where like 90% of your knowledge is based on information other peeps give you, how likely is it, that the information is incorrect? there are ALOT of reasons why such info can be incorrect. Maybe someone wants you to think everything is ok while it isnt. maybe someone said something and it has been misinterpreted by another one (and that "another one" is in charge to write a newspaper article in a million-selling news company). the list is endless.

So we can conclude that is is very likely that a more or less big ammount of our view of the world is tinted by false info that we believe is the truth. That is the weak point of the masses and it is naive to think that those who have the power to decide whats broadcasted on media dont know about that. Media is IMO the most powerfull tool there is to controll the masses - even more powerfull than war and dictatorship or punishments. Why? because you can broadcast a specific picture of the world directly into the brains fo the masses and (if broadcasted in an appealing way) they will even stand up and fight for those ideals.
You have no idea how EXTREMELY easy it is to manipulate someone. and you will be surprised how passionately that certain someone will stand up and fight as soonn as someone tells him that he´s wrong.

There are so many examples in history that show how even history itself has been rewritten by the powerfull to fit it to their needs. just take hitler as an example. he has tried to rewrite history and teach it at school so that it fits the german picture as the rulers of the world. lets assume for a second that hitler has won.. our history books and ideals would be totally different. but we would believe that it is the truth and when someone claims that history is false, what would we do? we would bash him of course.

and the moral of this story? to put it simple.. we should be carefull with what we say and what we defend. we shoul dbe more openminded. we should maybe waste a second to think about "could i be wrong?"

i know so many folks who absolutely believe in the system "why should they lie to us? thats all paranoic chitchat from conspiracy-theoreticians"

i wish that there was a world where i can absolutely rely on our leaders and think of them as persons of integrity and honor. unfortunately ther isnt.




[Edited by Azrael on 08-27-2003 at 02:16 AM]

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Originally posted by SLY
It's very common in history, a western country invade some poor eastern country for ordinary colonial reasons :

- increasing their power & domination.
- controling economical natural resources (fossils,minerals,agricultural,etc.) , and strategic geographical positions.
- spreading good ideologies against the evil ones (oh yeah, su*k my di*k!)
- protecting foreigner interests against local ones.
- religious doctrine, mythologies , and general crap (crusades ,,,,,hmm....errr.... israel !).
- etc.etc.etc.
There is an equally long history of Arab (and other Eastern) nations invading other countries for exactly those reasons.

Should we all continue to live in the past, or shall we just accept that people are people and try to make a better future?


Exactly what I meant , so why can't the west quit their old conquering habbits ?


BTW , 99.9% of all wars fought by arab countries were self defense and fought on their own land (including all wars with Israel).

[Number of the Beast]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
Originally posted by Number of the Beast
...can we bash protesters again? I think Raskolnikov made the most eloquent possible statement along that line, back on the first page. Unfortunately, the second picture, (showing an adult and a baby Kurd huddled in death after one of Saddam Hussein's poison gas attacks), doesn't show up any more.


yeah...well, at least that cute chick still shows up.

[chris mood]

Yo

[PonyOne]

Originally posted by SLY
[QUOTE]
Exactly what I meant , so why can't the west quit their old conquering habbits ?

BTW , 99.9% of all wars fought by arab countries were self defense [i]and fought on their own land (including all wars with Israel).

Well, if the Arab world were currently in the same industrial/commercial/political situation as the west, do you think they'd be so pious they'd do things any different? Probably not...

And in regards to intra-Arab Peninsula combat... what about the wars where one Arab nation attacked another? Oh, that's different, right? And fortunately most nations around Israel have learned their lesson and knocked it the hell off... I hope that Hizbollah takes some cues from Egypt and Saudi Arabia soon before they get themselves into a whole heap of trouble... look where fighting has gotten the Palestinans.

[SLY]

Originally posted by PonyOne
Well, if the Arab world were currently in the same industrial/commercial/political situation as the west, do you think they'd be so pious they'd do things any different? Probably not...

The answer to this wether yes or no will be Hypothetical , that doesn't count.

I can understand now how did they come up with the "preemtive strikes" idea in the whitehouse. :rolleyes:

And in regards to intra-Arab Peninsula combat... what about the wars where one Arab nation attacked another? Oh, that's different, right?

Sure that's very different ... Should I mention the civil war in the U.S. , wars between France & England , England & U.S. , etc. ?
Also put in mind that the biggest & the most brutal 2 wars in history were a direct result from western civilizations clashing into each other !!

Should I mention centuries of western (europian) occupation to most of the world ? Do you know that every single nation in the middle east suffered from the brutality of western occupation?
I can give you examples for that more than you can count.

And fortunately most nations around Israel have learned their lesson and knocked it the hell off... I hope that Hizbollah takes some cues from Egypt and Saudi Arabia soon before they get themselves into a whole heap of trouble... look where fighting has gotten the Palestinans.

First off , palestinians are where they are now because of the establishment of Israel on a division of their lands , then Israel occupying the rest of it along with parts from egypt,syria,lebanon & jordan in '67 , turning most Palestinians into refugees till this very day !!!

In the '67 war , was Israel attacked first?
No , they basicaly launched this war to expand their country based on some couple of thousands years old religious doctrine that says their methological counrty's border should be from Egypt in the west to Iraq in the East .

Also Israel has shown hostility to Egypt and their intentions to expand in '56 , by taking part in the British/French lead war to take over the Suez Canal and Sinai peninsula for Israel (to get closer to the mythological border) !


Now I hope that Israel and the Jewish communities everywhere :
- learns that it's impossible to occupy all of these territories without having to kill everything in the area .
- give palestenians and syrians back their lands (according to the UN resolution that lead into the establishment of Israel) .
- try to achieve peace & satisfaction on that small piece of land the British Illeagally gave to them after the end of their occupation to arabian lands.
- Deep Religion , and trying to apply our mythologies and crap on each other will only leads into .... NOWHERE !

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by SLY
... In the '67 war , was Israel attacked first?
No , they basicaly launched this war to expand their country based on some couple of thousands years old religious doctrine that says their methological counrty's border should be from Egypt in the west to Iraq in the East .... Uh, you may want to take some time to research that one...

[Number of the Beast]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
Originally posted by SLY
... In the '67 war , was Israel attacked first?
No , they basicaly launched this war to expand their country based on some couple of thousands years old religious doctrine that says their methological counrty's border should be from Egypt in the west to Iraq in the East .... Uh, you may want to take some time to research that one...

Yeah...SLY you're clearly getting, as our pres. (whom I love) would say, "misleading information."

[Incidents Happen]

Yeah, Israel was surprise-attacked on that one, as far as my information goes.

~Incidents

[SLY]

No dudes , Israel was surprise-attacked only once , in '73 , and it was gonna be a total defeat if it weren't for the U.S. (according to Kessinger himself !).

In '67 , the only agressive action against Israel was banning their ships from sailing in the red sea due to some tensions , and that was TWO months before the war.

Give me a break , surpris-attacked by 5 countries from all directions , defeat them all and invade multiples of Israel's land at the time in SIX days .... WOW , even God can't do that , even if the enemy fought with bare hands !! :rolleyes:

Your problem is that you guys only get info from your local media , which usualy tells one side of the story , that's why you can't see the whole picture .

Fortunately , in the last few years , big western media channels (namely CNN & BBC) are becoming more fair when covering middle-east events ... So hopefully , we may reach perfect balance in media a decade from now.

[Incidents Happen]

I believe we gave them the ****in bomb, right?

Israel has the 2nd strongest army on earth, that doesn't suprise me whatsoever.

~Incidents

[PonyOne]

...they also have what is probably THE strongest air force, at least, the best trained and the most versatile.

The '67 war is a tricky one. Technically speaking, yes, Israel fired the first shot. But in reality, i dunno, something about a massive troop buildup on the borders for 3 months, the leaders of the nations saying in the media that they were going to "attack israel very soon" and more posturing about wiping them off the face of the earth, push into the sea, etc etc etc. Also something about making sure no goods got into Israel. I dunno, it sounds to me like if someone with a knife is following you around going "i'm gonna kill you boy," "yeah give me five minutes and you are so totally dead" and then you pull out a knife and slash the guy before he gets a chance to do it.

They had the reason, they had the means, they had the words... it was a war of defense because there were armies on all sides waiting to attack; it was preemptive. I mean there was a reason there was a massive buildup of soldiers on the borders with tanks, guns, etc to be killed/destroyed in the first place. According to the UN, land cannot be taken a war of aggression, but it can be taken in a war of defense. The UN ruled that the '67 war was a war of defense, and that the Arabs were the aggressors.

The Palestinians messed it up for themselves, or at leas their leaders did. And they keep messing it up for themselves! They bomb an articulated bus filled with children coming back from the West Wall, and they don't see that it's so bad... then they fire a missile that blows up a car driven by the guy who organized that and a dozen other murders and they scream injustice. I hope that someday the Palestinians can look at their actions of the people they let lead them in the correct context, and see how their actions got them there.

And I know you harp on us getting poor media attention... dude, we're all netheads, we all read the BBC and CNN and anyone of a host of other online newspapers... I get my news from pretty much everywhere and I can admit Israel has committed war crimes that deserve to be punished. I don't think Israel is the infallible state many people seem to think, but I also know that there is a good portion of the Arab world who hears about a guy running into a cafe and shooting a bunch of Jewish college students is an act of "protest," and shooting that same guy is a "murder."

[PonyOne]

case in point....

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/08/29/mideast.violence/index.html

okay, now what were they trying to achieve by ambushing a couple in their car...?

[Incidents Happen]

I happen to agree with PonyOne on this one; I did some research on the '67 war (which happened twenty years before i was even born), and Israel attacking the Arabs has much much more justification than our attacking Iraq.

Personally, I think we should have not gone after Iraq; I think we should have gone after North Korea instead. You know why we didn't? Follow the path of least resistance. We would have had to drop some mega ****in' bombs on North Korea, to kill that Million Man Army; Nuclear, maybe. But now, North Korea will be declared a Nuclear Power, and we can't do **** against them. Great Job, Bush.

~Incidents

[SLY]

Originally posted by PonyOne
Technically speaking, yes, Israel fired the first shot.

Cool , that's what I wanted to hear !

But in reality, i dunno, something about a massive troop buildup on the borders for 3 months

So that makes it legal for Pakistan to takeover India (if they could do it) or vice versa , yeah ?

The Palestinians messed it up for themselves, or at leas their leaders did. And they keep messing it up for themselves! They bomb an articulated bus filled with children coming back from the West Wall, and they don't see that it's so bad... then they fire a missile that blows up a car driven by the guy who organized that and a dozen other murders and they scream injustice. I hope that someday the Palestinians can look at their actions of the people they let lead them in the correct context, and see how their actions got them there.

First , I want to state that I never agreed with the idea of suicide bombing , or military actions against civilians by all means .
But , in the palestinian case , what they do is the RE-action not the action ... And the action was Israel destroying their homes , killing civilians (their families) , turning the rest into refugees (accepting only a few of them as citizens , not to affect the demography of Israel ... Racism ?).

And when Israel blow a car driven by some Hamas member or so , it's usualy a political leader ... Are you saying that it's ok to blow enemy's political or military leaders ? Cool , then the palestinians should know too that it's ok to blow Sharone's butt , along with his fellow military leaders.

And I know you harp on us getting poor media attention...

It wasn't directed at you man . :)

I don't think Israel is the infallible state many people seem to think, but I also know that there is a good portion of the Arab world who hears about a guy running into a cafe and shooting a bunch of Jewish college students is an act of "protest," and shooting that same guy is a "murder."

Don't try to make us look that bad , I don't even know how do they justify to themselves killing civilians or suicide bombing , but it's usualy a poor guy who's big brother was killed by the military for no reason , or his father has been in jail before he was born and just trying to have revenge in a similar way ... I'm not trying to jusitfy this either , but I think of suicide bombers as mentaly ill persons ,because of what Israel did to them and/or their families .

What a portion of the arab world may take as a heroic action , act of protest , occupation resistance , or whatever is actions against Israel military , like Hezbollah ... I don't know on what basis do they blame them for terrorism , cuz it's military actions against military targets .

[SLY]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I believe we gave them the ****in bomb, right?

Israel has the 2nd strongest army on earth, that doesn't suprise me whatsoever.


2nd strongest ??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :confused:

Where did you get this from dude ? As I recall, they only spend like 8 billions on the millitary annualy ... I think I can name 10 different countries with military budgets that are multiples of that.


Also, why then were they surprised to death in '73 when they were attacked by a bunch of Megs ?
It was going in one direction, till the U.S. military aids arrived ... I heard that U.S. soldiers fought in this war too , and that Israel wanted to use nukes , but fortunately :rolleyes: the U.S. didn't allow them.

[PonyOne]

They only spend 8 billion.... on a very very tiny nation, we're not talking a country with a population of 300 million, you know... plus, their military is borne of necessity much more so than most other nations'.

So what if the US helps Israel out? We're allies...

Israel doesn't call Hizbollah terrorists that much, that's more a Bush thing. At the very least, Lebanon's people have somewhat of a direction that doesn't have the obliteration of Israel as part of it's charter, so they're not the worst of Israel's concerns right now. But to be quite frank, Hizbollah is lucky that there is this thing going on between Israel and Palestine, becuase if there wasn't anything like that going on, then what with the Wazzani, and the shelling towns every now and then, their ass would be kicked hard.

Most of the nations in the middle east don't like Israel that much. Why aren't they trying to attack them? Could have something to do with the fact that they'll get the snot blasted out of them again. In regards to India/Pakistan, if one nation started screaming "we're gonna kill you tomorrow!!" and preparing for an assault, so a few hours later the other party waged a preemptive strike, and the side that was the aggressor lost some land... yeah, that's just. If the US attacked Canada, and by some miracle, in the ensuing battle Canada took over Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, etc then that would be their land, because we were the ones that started it. Israel was content to sit there, and then in '67 everyone decided they'd band together and try and finish them off... then they lost the war that they started, and got all huffy, and tried again... oops again... they lost... the Arab world seems to have a serious issue with this. The only reason things are as bad as they are for the Palestinians is their own actions, and the actions of the Arab world's leaders. Israel is defending itself.

Honestly I wouldn't really care if Sharon died, whether by assassin or by ill health, I think that there should be a leader in power with a better track record in terms of ethics. It's his fault that the Palestinians started the 2nd intifada, because he played on their discontent to get them fighting so he could get in office; thereby I don't support him, it also is pathetic that the Palestinians, who calim to be so much higher and more enlightened than Israel, took the bait.

If a political leader was ordering soldiers to go into schools and start shooting, or ordering helicopters to target busses, then no I wouldn't feel that bad. I think it's good, it fills me with a certain sick sense of joy, when i hear some bastard who is responsible for blowing up my people's children, is driving around doing his normal, everyday thing, you know, making some calls, ordering some fertilizer, planning some attacks, talking to his wife about dinner, whatever, and then his car gets nailed by an ASM and he's blown to little tiny burning chunks. These assholes are not political leaders so much as they are murderers and terrorists, and the fact that so many people mourn them like martyrs disgusts me.

I hope someday they can knock it the hell off, so that they can return to a normal standard of living, maybe even get along with Israel. I think it's a tragedy, and I think that it's a tragedy that the Palestinians have to let their leaders put them through such hell. If the Israelis are really so evil then why don't the Palestinians just stop fighting, then if Israel is truly so evil and bullish there will be no more dispute as to who's to blame and the world will rally against Israel? Could be something to do with the fact that if they stop, then Israel will too, and it'll prove who was really at fault?

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I believe we gave them the ****in bomb, right?
No.

But it's highly likely that they stole the technology and fissable materials from us.

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Personally, I think we should have not gone after Iraq; I think we should have gone after North Korea instead. You know why we didn't? Follow the path of least resistance. We would have had to drop some mega ****in' bombs on North Korea, to kill that Million Man Army; Nuclear, maybe. But now, North Korea will be declared a Nuclear Power, and we can't do **** against them. Great Job, Bush.
First off, there are currently no treaties or UN resolutions that say "if North Korea develops nuclear weapons, they get invaded." Therefore no matter how flaky the legal case for invading Iraq may have been, it was infinately more legal than invading North Korea (so long as North Korea did not attempt to invade another country).

Next, no matter how brash North Korea's rhetoric may be, they're only interested in self preservation. They do this every few years to get assurances that they will not be overthrown and/or get some food too because their population is starving. This current "crisis" is really nothing new.

The biggest thing though is that China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan all are united with us, and China has been doing some very intense arm twisting. North Korea really can be delt with diplomaticly because it's government's goals are totally different than Saddam Hussein's.

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 09-01-2003 at 03:55 PM]

[Incidents Happen]

Military Budget doesn't mean "Better Army". You yourself even said about the '67 six-day war, that not even god could have done that. Face it, the Israeli Army kicks ass.

I had heard that in 1975, we gave them one nuclear Bomb to use as intimidation for any nation that wants to invade, which would be a reason why no nation has invaded Israel since '73 (to my knowledge). I thought that Kissinger or somebody important like that had suggested it, and we actually did that. Hm......

In no way are the Palestinians right and the Israeli's wrong. If the Israeli's are wrong, then everyone's wrong.
The Palestinians aren't doing any justice by blowing up bus-loads of people, and until that is realized, there will be no progress. You can say

"That's just because they are killing our militants...."- Yeah and these militants/leaders were behind the attacks of _____(insert whatever one) suicide bombing.

The Israeli's, for the most part, seem to be going after the leaders of these suicide attacks. The Palestinians seem to be doing suicide attacks because they knew a person that died because of the killing of a militant. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

~Incidents

[SLY]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Military Budget doesn't mean "Better Army". You yourself even said about the '67 six-day war, that not even god could have done that. Face it, the Israeli Army kicks ass

When I said even god couldn't have done that , I was refering to someone who was surprise-attacked by 5 countries in different directions , to prove my point that this war was previously & intentionaly very well planned by Israel.


If they realy kicked that much ass , why couldn't they survive without the U.S. only 6 years later ... They were mostly attacked by one country (Egypt) only.

[SLY]

Originally posted by PonyOne
Most of the nations in the middle east don't like Israel that much.

True ,but did you even bother to ask "why" ?

Why aren't they trying to attack them? Could have something to do with the fact that they'll get the snot blasted out of them again.

Yeah sure , everybody learned since '73 that fighting Israel = fighting U.S. !

In regards to India/Pakistan, if one nation started screaming "we're gonna kill you tomorrow!!" and preparing for an assault, so a few hours later the other party waged a preemptive strike, and the side that was the aggressor lost some land... yeah, that's just.

So you're saying that mouth agression is the same as millitary agression ?!
I always thought that the agressor is the guy who fires the first bullet. :confused:

The only reason things are as bad as they are for the Palestinians is their own actions, and the actions of the Arab world's leaders. Israel is defending itself.

Palestine , like most arab nations in the first half of the 20th century , was a poor British-occupied nation ... It was all very calm and peace till the British decided to giveaway a division of their land (which later turned out to be all of their land) to establish Israel , and so , most of the turned into refugees wether they still live there or immigrated to some other place.

On the other hand , Israeli's before going to Israel were just jewish people who were natives of different countries , also living in peace , facing small racial problems in some spots of the world ,and major problems from the Nazi's (which also ended before establishing Israel) ... Then they decided they should takeover Palestine to fulfill some religious myth , and of course no european country could say a word after all the suffering they caused to the jews.

All Israeli's got their homes where they came from , and Palestinians got their homes where they are and they got no where else to go !

So , who is defending himself ?

I think it's a tragedy, and I think that it's a tragedy that the Palestinians have to let their leaders put them through such hell.

Who's leaders put everybody through hell ?! Do you remember the early 90's , the days of Rabin & Arafat ? It seemed like the problem was realy getting to an end ... It all got messy again when some jewish extremist killed Rabin.
Now they put the blame for everything on Arafat , and it's funny that the U.S. supports these nonsense claims.
How could you blame a Nobel prize for peace winner (Arafat) for the current violence , while we have a war crime suspect (Sharone) on the other side ???!!!!

If the Israelis are really so evil then why don't the Palestinians just stop fighting, then if Israel is truly so evil and bullish there will be no more dispute as to who's to blame and the world will rally against Israel? Could be something to do with the fact that if they stop, then Israel will too, and it'll prove who was really at fault?

They did .... Many times !!!
Do you remember when Sharone called for a week of absolutely no violence , then he raised it to 3 weeks and so .... He had them all , but he always end it by blowing a refugee camp or something cuz he doesn't want the world to see the truth , and the violence starts all over again !

How about more recent facts, The Road Map Seize Fire ? Everybody agreed to that , including Hamas and everybody else ... Then Israel assasins one of their political leaders (his name was abo shanab , I think) , so Hamas declares the end of Seize Fire .
Who's fault was that ?!

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by SLY
Originally posted by PonyOne If the Israelis are really so evil then why don't the Palestinians just stop fighting, then if Israel is truly so evil and bullish there will be no more dispute as to who's to blame and the world will rally against Israel? Could be something to do with the fact that if they stop, then Israel will too, and it'll prove who was really at fault?

They did .... Many times !!!
...

How about more recent facts, The Road Map Seize Fire ? Everybody agreed to that , including Hamas and everybody else ... Then Israel assasins one of their political leaders (his name was abo shanab , I think) , so Hamas declares the end of Seize Fire .
Who's fault was that ?! [/B]
You're omitting the suicide bombing a day or so before the assassination.

Until the Palistinians start taking cues from Ghandi, they're not going to get anywhere.

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov ...You're omitting the suicide bombing a day or so before the assassination... What the world outside the Middle East sees is Palestinian madmen blowing themselves up in crowds of civilians, followed by the IDF selectively killing the 'leaders' who send these demented fools to their doom.

The deliberate targeting of civilians by suicide bombers completely wipes out any sympathy that might otherwise be earned for their plight. It's stupid. It turns potential friends away in horror.

Ghandi was able to win against the might of the British Empire by showing the world what evil things they were willing to do against unarmed, non-violent protesters. The consciences of the British people, and world opinion, freed the people of India.

The 'leaders' of the Palestinians have become accustomed to sending children out to attack Israeli tanks with stones. And the Israelis inside those tanks have become accustomed to replying with machine gun fire. If those kids were carrying signs instead of stones, the world would soon turn against the Israelis.

But that might involve a loss of power among those Palestinian leaders, and they won't allow that to happen.

[PonyOne]

The Israelis probably did have advance warning in regards to an attack... could have something to do with a few hundred thousand Arab soldiers, armed and ready to kill, built up on Israel's borders... and the governments of respective nations RELEASING THEIR PLANS in the media...

Small ethnic crimes????? Dude, have you ever read the history of the Jews? I mean, a history that wasn't written by a Mullah, or someone who graduated in Middle Eastern history from a Middle Eastern unviersity? Up until about three years ago even the latter would acknowledge the hell that the Jews were put through if nothing else to show hypocrisy... let's see... kicked out of Iraq & Iran, treated as third-class citizens in nearly all of the Middle East, Europe and Eurasia... and that's only the past 75 of 5000 years... seriously, if you spend 20 minutes reading you'll realize these "relatively minor" crimes included murders, arsonist attacks, essentially legalized rape... things that go beyond a rock through a synagogue window here & there...

[Zeppelin]

SLY: i suggest you learn some history before you start talking about the 1973 war.
Israel was mainly attacked by 2 countries: syria and egypt and not only egypt as you said.
We won this war not because of the usa (even though they did help us), but because our regular army soilders were able to stop the syrian attack in the north for 3 days untill reinforcements arravided.
Stoping syrians in the north, allowed israel to move most of their troops to the south where egypt (which was surprised by its fast progress and success of its attacks)
stoped the attacks for a few days.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Until the Palistinians start taking cues from Ghandi, they're not going to get anywhere.

Possibly yes ... or may be the rest of the remains of their lands will turn into Israeli jewish settlements before delivering their message !

[SLY]

Originally posted by Zeppelin
SLY: i suggest you learn some history before you start talking about the 1973 war.
Israel was mainly attacked by 2 countries: syria and egypt and not only egypt as you said.
We won this war not because of the usa (even though they did help us), but because our regular army soilders were able to stop the syrian attack in the north for 3 days untill reinforcements arravided.
Stoping syrians in the north, allowed israel to move most of their troops to the south where egypt (which was surprised by its fast progress and success of its attacks)
stoped the attacks for a few days.


I know what I'm talking about !!

Syria attacked from the north , but they didn't make it any far that's good enough , that's why I haven't stressed on that.
But from the egyptian side , they crossed the suez canal , destroyed the two defense walls , and swept into the Sinai peninsula , while the Israeli airforce weren't able to fight back , cuz of the major casualties , and the anti-aircraft missile defense system (built by russians) .

Israel didn't wake up from the first shock untill the U.S. aids arrived , and that was very obvious.

I haven't got all my info from media , I've actually talked to people who were in this war .
One of my relatives was in London at that time , and he tells me that media there was of course saying that Israel was on top of everything for the first few days , after that, it was so hard to hide all of the truth.


I know that missleading information are even taught in schools of Israel ... They teach children that Palestine was no bodies (empty) land , till the Jews settled there , then the arabs cried "that's our land" ... Yeah , empty land , so where the hell 5 million palestinians came from , dropped by parachutes from hell ?!

[SLY]

Originally posted by PonyOne
Small ethnic crimes?????

Sorry, I may have missed the expression ... I didn't mean that when they were thrown out of England , slayed in France and Spain was a minor crimes , not at all.

But generally , Jews , at given time periods , were best living in arab nations , and no one can deny that.

[Incidents Happen]

So what?

Look; All around Israel/Palestine are Arab countries. The Israelites have a right to live too, you know.

I don't see why the Palestinians don't just move into one of the other Arab nations. The Israeli's can't, because they'll be screwed, in that the Arabs hate the Jews already. Then again, I don't see why a Jew has to live in Israel; Big deal, it's holy land. It's also bombing land. I wouldn't have my kids living there, not in a million years. Considering that I'm not religious, don't blast that remark in my face; It's just how I feel, that's all.

~Incidents

[Pantallica1]

Speaking of Israel:

Abbas Resigns; Israel Bombs Gaza City

http://webcenters.compuserve.com/gatewaynet/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/story/0001/20030906/171514117.htm&sc=1107

[SLY]

Incidents Happen - Dude , I also don't see why don't Jews just keep living where they came from , just like every body else.
Personally , I'm not religious at all too , but I know very deeply religious muslims , and I've never heard any of them mentioning that he/she wants to move into Mecca !

Also bear in mind that it's a holy land to palestinians too , plus it's their home , they inherited it from their grand parents (whom probably might have been jews ,christians or whatever in the past) ... So why do you ask them to move into another arab nation , while they already have their own .
How would you feel if we asked you to leave USA and move into Canada , cuz New York is a holy city , and we want to establish a new religious country over there.

On the other hands , Non-Palestinian Israelies already have their homes in the countries where they came from , and the fact that it's a holy land to them doesn't give them the right to occupy it by force ... It's like Buddists in the U.S. for instance , taking over Tibet cuz of it's holiness ... Or a muslim nation invading Saudi Arabia to take over Mecca for it's holiness too...
For sure it's more complicated when it comes to palestine cuz it's different religions , but it still doesn't make sense , does it ?

Why don't everybody just live where they came from , and separate religion and spiritualism from politics and relationships with other people.

Finally , the fact that most arabs don't like Israel , doesn't mean that it's the same for Jews in general ... Have you ever heard of a Palestinian suicide attack on Jews anywhere else other than Israel ?
I'm just saying , that even palestinians don't hate Jews in general , but it's natural for them to hate people who are occupying their land by force , right ?

[Incidents Happen]

I wouldn't mind living in Canada.

Beats the hell out of getting blown up.

~Incidents

[PonyOne]

They haven't been blown up... but they've been beaten up a whole load. In some areas of Paris Arab attacks on Jews have been really bad in the last couple years. There have also been numerous assaults at universities (UMASS, UC Berkley, Yale, University of Montreal, plenty of UK schools) perpetrated by Arabs against Jews. Then, also, there was/is the British academic boycott of Israeli scientific advances, even if they are medical, and can help save lives... as Blair said, these boycotts are antisemetic in their outcome if not their intent. A pair of non-Israeli Jews were fired from an academic journal in the UK because the woman in charge of the department didn't agree with Israel's treatment of Palestine. There was also an Israeli student who applied for a science program at Oxford (i believe it was), who was turned down by the teacher, and recieved an email saying that he would not allow an Israeli to learn in has classroom becuase of the whole situation.

To most people Jews and Israel are synonymous and it's no real surprise why... to me they are synonymous, or at least, related. I have heard plenty of Arab and Muslim people (PERSONALLY, not just via the media) say horrible things about Jews, not Israel. I had a manager who was Lebanese, who would, whenever there was an attack against Israel, laugh, and tell me things like "see? this is how it is. until you all leave you all will be killed. it is not your land", "jews are stupid, why don't you just leave before we kill you all", "even baby jews are evil, i don't think it is so bad if they die too" and then when there was an attack against Palestine, he would fly into a rage, tell me to go home, or clean the floors and toilets (which he loved).

I walked by an Islamic center on the way to work right after the 2nd intifada started and had boos, jeers, profanities yelled at me, i also had two youths threaten to mess me up if i didn't run. I didn't. They were too freaked out to do anything. I had a middle eastern guy on the subway threaten to stab me when I got off. After 9/11 I had a group of guys tell me it was my fault that Afghanistan was being bombed, because we perpetrated the attacks to pin it on innocent Muslims. There was a girl at the mortgage lender I work at part time who is a Lebanese Christian, who would always try to call me out on being Jewish and how my people tried to destroy hers. FUnny thing was she ended up falling in love with me... there is also a Palestinian there who is a pretty nice guy, he never tries to get into debates, and, having grown up there, says "neither side is good or innocent."

When was the last time you heard about a group of Jews outside Israel/Palestine giving Arab Muslims hell?

[Incidents Happen]

Pony: 1 Trillion
Sly: Zippo

That was a nice political ass-kicking, Pony.

~Incidents

[SLY]

One of my relatives , who's american (he lives in alabama as I can remember) , was fired from his job right after 9/11 just cuz he's muslim ... He still can't find a job by the way , and one time he was asked to bring the CV of each one of his relatives who are living in egypt ... Can you give me one good reason , or a method to do this ?
His son who's a couple of years older than me got lots of threats that he was afraid to go out of his home , cuz he's muslim too !
I've heard that some people were severly injured , and others were killed after recieving similar threats .
Sorry that I don't have much personal stories to tell , as I don't live in the U.S. , but I'm sure you can dig for more if you want.

Anyways, it's very hard for me to believe that Jews are getting a more hard-time living in America & Europe than arabs , specifically muslims.


I've also heard Jewish people IN THE MEDIA , saying horrible stuff about muslims in general , refering to them as "Snakes" , "Bunch of killers" , "Breeding like ants", etc.

As for the expression "antisemetic" , it has been extremely overused ,and it is usually used to terrify anybody who bitches about Israel ... It works well for western societies , whom have been brutal to jews over centuries , but when were the arabs anti-judaism ??


Back to my main question that you avoided... Why do you leave your country , travel over seas , just to fight some people over their homes , which happens to be nearby places you find to be holy ? Won't it be satisfying and more peacefull if you just visited your holy places time to time like everybody else ?

[SLY]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I wouldn't mind living in Canada.

Beats the hell out of getting blown up.

~Incidents


From what you've just said , I can figure out that you don't have the feeling that you realy belong to the U.S. ... Ask the same question to any patriotic american , and get me the answer I wanted to hear .

[Jolly McJollyson]

Israel is not the Palestinians' "Inherited Land." Before this whole controversy, the Palestinians were a nomadic tribe. They're just being pansies for no real reason. Israel has a right to that land. Besides, no matter what we do, Israel will always belong to the Jews.

[Incidents Happen]

Originally posted by SLY
Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I wouldn't mind living in Canada.

Beats the hell out of getting blown up.

~Incidents


From what you've just said , I can figure out that you don't have the feeling that you realy belong to the U.S. ... Ask the same question to any patriotic american , and get me the answer I wanted to hear .

No, I belong to the United States of America; I don't belong to a country where towel-heads blow up people because of their religion, everyday. If the United States were the size of Israel, and my people were being blown up, you can bet your ass that i'd get the hell out of there, and that the average "Patriot" would do the same. Look, when you go to work with fear every morning that your child might get blown up on a hijacked school bus, because some Arab decides he wants to make a difference, that's where it draws the line. Americans put family ahead of patriotism, and right now, Americans aren't very patriotic; partially due to the fact that our leader is a warmongering idiot.

~Incidents

[PonyOne]

To answer your question...

No. I think everyone has a right to live anywhere (I am American, after all). If an Arab, African, Jewish, Latin, Asian, Aboriginal, Indian, Native American or whatever family wants to move in next to me that's cool. Doesn't really bother me, even if they have totally different political viewpoints, even political viewpoints that I find abhorrent.

If the only way a group of Native Americans can regain ownership of sacred land that was taken from them is by buying the buildings it is built on, then evicting everyone, and tearing the places down, building a medicine lodge, and then putting up a big fence around the area and only allowing in people they feel won't desecrate the site, then that's their decision. They own it.

Most of the pre-67 land in Israel was LEGALLY PURCHASED from Palestinians. While Palestinians weren't quite exactly nomads, much of their land was unused, much of it was unusable for that matter. For a pretty long time thins went okay. There is a single incident that happened in Jarusalem in the 20's that many people think of as the original catalyst for Israeli-Palestinian tensions...and it was perpetrated by Palestinians. A minority political group of Palestinians, who managed to mess things to where they are now... much like today, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The more I read your posts the more it becomes evident that

a) you may not have gotten your news from the media, but you have gotten it word-of-mouth from people who got it from the media somewhere down the line

b) you know little about middle eastern history

c) you know next to nothing about Jews

For isntance, you said something to the effect of "why can't they just go back to their homes?" This is such a blatantly uninformed question... here. Let's look at the levels of reason as to not wanting to "return home."

After the holocaust (which really was set in motion in the mid 30's, but didn't reach full swing until 1940-45), you had more than half of the Jewish populace ERADICATED. Instances of people who had previously been friendly neighbors with Jewish families instead turned in their neighbors to Nazis; in some towns in dominated nations, Jews would be rounded up and executed for German commanders to prove loyalty to the Nazi regime, to spare themselves.

Usually after the Jews in an area were rounded up and killed or sent to a concentration camp, there was a house with belongings in it left behind. Since the place no longer had a legal owner, the townspeople would often just go and loot the place, and someone else would move in. So, consequently, people who managed to survive their entire families being murdered would go back to THEIR HOMES, only to have a stranger open up the door and threaten to kill them if they left. Nevermind the fact that many Jews couldn't face returning to a village where former friends sold them out and their wives/husbands/children/parents/cousins were thrown into incinerators and burnt alive after being months of forced labor in the cold with no clothing and no rations, and the times that those same townspeople ran them back out of town.

The war may have ended but the attitude that got the war going was still alive, and even though the collective guns of the US, UK and USSR were pointed at Central Europe's collective head, it couldn't phase deep-seeded hatreds.

So where do you go? In the case of my girlfriend's family, they were Palestinian. They moved to Poland in the 1880's, and sent a couple kids to the US. The remainder stayed in Poland until WW2. 3/4 of her family died in camps; the other quarter returned to Israel. Considering they were one generation away, it's not like it was horrible.

You note the fact that there are 5 million Palestinians... there sure are... that's about as many people as live in Seattle. It's really not that many. Besides, back in the 40's, there were fewer... it's not like they've been in stasis for 65 years. You also fail to note the fact that more than half of the Israeli Jews are at least 75% Arab. Why? Because after we got out of Auschwitz, there were about as many Ashkenazi (European) Jews as there were Sephardic (Arab) Jews. And a good many Ashkenazi moved to the US. So, your argument is flawed. The Jews have been there in some capacity for the better part of 5,000 years, and we never left. A good number of us, after being slaughtered by the Romans, moved up north, but more stayed than moved. As we moved up north and intermarried, a large group of Jews who were caucasian emerged... but yeah, the Holocaust, you know... kind of obliterated them....

The way I think of it is like a couple neighbors coexisting, then, the one guy helps his cousin from up north get a house on the block, so the other gets hissy, and tries to sign a petition to forceably remove him... only to discover that half the people on the block are related to him as well. So it starts a long, heated dispute, because one dumbass had to open his stupid mouth.

But don't get worried... you still out number us 50,000 to 1 in terms of ethnicity, and you still out number us something like 25m to 1 in terms of religion. Sure, we fight better, but there are more of you... so eventually we'll both have to compromise. And I think that's great.

[chucklivesoninmyheart]

Its should be noted that 90%+ of American citizins are NOT American...Its a melting pot thats been out on the stove too long and has lost its original ingredients as a result.The majority of chinese citizins are...you guessed it..chinese!Wow!A country's citizins that can claim heritage to the soil.Unless I was native American I cant find anything to be patriotic about besides protecting myself,family,friends and posessions(notice I put myself before my family).I'm Scotish and Italian(I'm a mut).I can trace my Italian side right back to Italy...mabey I'll move some da...eh..I'm to much of a lazy American.

[SLY]

Originally posted by PonyOne
No. I think everyone has a right to live anywhere (I am American, after all). If an Arab, African, Jewish, Latin, Asian, Aboriginal, Indian, Native American or whatever family wants to move in next to me that's cool. Doesn't really bother me, even if they have totally different political viewpoints, even political viewpoints that I find abhorrent.

That wasn't my question ... What I meant was , how would you react if some people decided to takeover your place , and they tried to remove you from there via massacres (Deer Yassin) and spreading terror among your people , so that they all leave.

I agree with you that everyone has a right to live anywhere ... But if that's how you think , why can't Palestinian refugees live where they came from?

The more I read your posts the more it becomes evident that

a) you may not have gotten your news from the media, but you have gotten it word-of-mouth from people who got it from the media somewhere down the line

b) you know little about middle eastern history

c) you know next to nothing about Jews

a) and you get the news from God cuz you're the chosen people, right ? ;) LOL

b) I know little about middle eastern history ??
No, it's you who knows wrong , cuz you don't live there , and you nevr get the chance to know the real thing ... Same about Islam .

c) Can't argue about that with you , but I think I know what I need to know .
Also , you said stuff about 5000 years ago and so , what makes you so sure that these are true ?!

For isntance, you said something to the effect of "why can't they just go back to their homes?" This is such a blatantly uninformed question... here. Let's look at the levels of reason as to not wanting to "return home."

After the holocaust (which really was set in motion in the mid 30's, but didn't reach full swing until 1940-45), you had more than half of the Jewish populace ERADICATED. Instances of people who had previously been friendly neighbors with Jewish families instead turned in their neighbors to Nazis; in some towns in dominated nations, Jews would be rounded up and executed for German commanders to prove loyalty to the Nazi regime, to spare themselves.

Usually after the Jews in an area were rounded up and killed or sent to a concentration camp, there was a house with belongings in it left behind. Since the place no longer had a legal owner, the townspeople would often just go and loot the place, and someone else would move in. So, consequently, people who managed to survive their entire families being murdered would go back to THEIR HOMES, only to have a stranger open up the door and threaten to kill them if they left. Nevermind the fact that many Jews couldn't face returning to a village where former friends sold them out and their wives/husbands/children/parents/cousins were thrown into incinerators and burnt alive after being months of forced labor in the cold with no clothing and no rations, and the times that those same townspeople ran them back out of town.

The war may have ended but the attitude that got the war going was still alive, and even though the collective guns of the US, UK and USSR were pointed at Central Europe's collective head, it couldn't phase deep-seeded hatreds.

So where do you go? In the case of my girlfriend's family, they were Palestinian. They moved to Poland in the 1880's, and sent a couple kids to the US. The remainder stayed in Poland until WW2. 3/4 of her family died in camps; the other quarter returned to Israel. Considering they were one generation away, it's not like it was horrible.

I think I mentioned what you've just said before ... Because Jews were brutally treated in europe , they took their revenge from Palestinians , with a pretty much of a religious myth in their minds .
The question here is , what did the Palestinians do bad to the Jews ... Before the Jews occupied their country ?
Why do the Palestinians have to pay for the crimes commited by europeans against the Jews ?

If someone who's realy big , kicks the crap outa you , this wouldn't be an excuse for you to kick crap outa anybody who's smaller than you.
What kinda sick ideology is that !

You note the fact that there are 5 million Palestinians... there sure are... that's about as many people as live in Seattle. It's really not that many. Besides, back in the 40's, there were fewer... it's not like they've been in stasis for 65 years. You also fail to note the fact that more than half of the Israeli Jews are at least 75% Arab. Why? Because after we got out of Auschwitz, there were about as many Ashkenazi (European) Jews as there were Sephardic (Arab) Jews.

5 million palestinians are may be a few number , but you fail to understand that they are ALL ... I don't see your point of stressing out that , cuz they are few , you disrespect their right to live where they came from ,so you can kick them out of their place, and tell them to go live by their neighbours ?

Same sick way of thinking !


Or if you mean democracy & serving the interests of the majority , I think you mentioned something below that shows in which direction Justice should flow.

The Jews have been there in some capacity for the better part of 5,000 years, and we never left. A good number of us, after being slaughtered by the Romans, moved up north, but more stayed than moved. As we moved up north and intermarried, a large group of Jews who were caucasian emerged... but yeah, the Holocaust, you know... kind of obliterated them....

What about people somewhere who were athiest or whatever and turned jewsish, do they also count ?

Even if they're one tribe or so , moved north cuz of the romans ... What did the Palestinians do wrong to them throughout these centuries ?

Also , how can you let people who claim that they've left that territory some thousands years ago go back , while at the same time not allowing Palestinian refugees who lived their decades ago to come back ... Religious based discrimination?

[SLY]

Originally posted by Jolly McJollyson
Israel is not the Palestinians' "Inherited Land." Before this whole controversy, the Palestinians were a nomadic tribe.

If so , from where did the expression "Palestine" came from ... Even if they were nomadic , live in caves or whatever , it's still their place.

They're just being pansies for no real reason.

You came from everywhere on earth to fight in this piece of land for a some thousand years old religious myth , while they're where they came from fighting for existance ... Who are being pansies for no real reason ?

[Incidents Happen]

SLY-

If palestine wants away from Israel, they can start by not being dumbasses and blowing up busloads of jewish people. Simple as that; you can point your finger all you want, it's not getting you anywhere, and the points you've made seem to be based around word-of-mouth, and not factual information, like PonyOne is using. There is no excuse for blowing up civilians.

I dare you to defend that; I dare you to defend the bomber who kills 5 young children on the way to school, on the way to learn and have fun and be a child. I dare you to defend the Towel-Head that walks into a mall filled with teenage girls and their mothers, and blows himself up right next to a large crowd of people.

~Incidents

[Raskolnikov]

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I dare you to defend the Towel-Head that walks into a mall filled with teenage girls and their mothers, and blows himself up right next to a large crowd of people.
Can you really think of nothing better to use than "Towl-Head" here?

Have I really over-estimated your intelligence from the time you started posting to now?

[Zeppelin]

Originally posted by SLY
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Zeppelin
[B]


I know that missleading information are even taught in schools of Israel ... They teach children that Palestine was no bodies (empty) land , till the Jews settled there , then the arabs cried "that's our land" ... Yeah , empty land , so where the hell 5 million palestinians came from , dropped by parachutes from hell ?!

Umm actually no, they teach us all the stuff in schools, including stuff some people here would rather forget.
They do teach us that there were like 1,000,000 palestinians here before the 1948 war and they do teach israel kicked some of them out..

[Incidents Happen]

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I dare you to defend the Towel-Head that walks into a mall filled with teenage girls and their mothers, and blows himself up right next to a large crowd of people.
Can you really think of nothing better to use than "Towl-Head" here?

Have I really over-estimated your intelligence from the time you started posting to now?

I used "Towel-Head" because I knew someone would cry about me using it; It's a stereotype, yeah I know. If you want to be politically correct, why don't you or one of the other moderators edit my post so it says "Person of Different Religion". Go ahead, I don't care.

I really don't give a damn what you believe or not believe about my intelligence, or lack there of, that's not what this discussion is about.

-------------

On a different topic;

Why is it that they can't simply share power?

[Jon Broderick]

I think we have said enough about this topic. Let's go play guitar or something.