Originally posted by Dr_simon
There are dangerous, evil and corrupt regimes all over the world, why are they not facing invasion ? As for all the abuses of human rights, well look at amnesty international if you want a list, I do not think Iraq is the worst or only offender !

You're absolutely right. I have however read Amnesty's report on Iraq and it's littered with political assassinations and torture of political opponents, mass killings of innocent civilians, war crimes, and virtually every earmark of a regime that should not be allowed to stay in power. Just this morning NPR news featured a story about atheletes in Iraq's Olympic program (run by one of Saddam's sons) being tortured for poor performance. Iraq is uniqe in that the terms ending the Gulf War were contingant upon Iraq disarming and submitting to weapons inspections. Saddam Hussien has had over a decade to meet those terms and has failed miserably. He doesn't care that his people are starving and impoverished due to the sanctions that are also linked to Iraq's disarmament. It keeps his enemys weak and gives him propoganda leverage.

Originally posted by PonyOne
I don't have anything against fighting for what I believe in, and that is why if the Palestinians and Lebanese ever stage a full-on, massive all out combat assault on Israel to try and eradicate it, I will go over and enlist.

One of Saddam Hussien's top targets is Israel.

Originally posted by Azrael
I - and probably most of the non americal world too - will never understand why the US thinks thinks of itself as the worlds peacebringer. they stir **** everywhere on this planet.

I appreciate where you're coming from and am well aware of much of my nation's disasterous foreign policy, but when we do nothing we're accused of being "isolationists." Not helping out Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew ultimately helped the Taliban come to power, encouraged Heroin production, and gave Osama bin Laden a base of operations - costing lots of lives. Not getting involved with World War II when it first broke out nearly allowed the Nazis enough of a headstart to win the war - costing millions of lives.
"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

Originally posted by aiwass
Then came North Korea, who, unlike Iraq and their pewny little biological weapons, had actual NOCLEAR WEAPONS, and a history of aggression and hostility against the West FAR WORSE than that of Iraq. How does Bush stop them? Hm... His troops are all in Iraq!

A Small Pox outbreak can very easily kill many more people than a single nuclear detonation and will do so slowly and painfully. At last count, Saddam's biological and chemical stockpile was enough to kill the world's population three times over. North Korea's government is also much more concerned with self defense and self preservation than anything else. Aggression and hostility towards the West? Communist North Koreans tried to take over South Korea, the South Koreans asked the US to help out, and we did. The rest is forty years of posturing aimed at getting food and financial aid from the West. Saddam Hussein on the other hand is concerned with conquest. There are some very big differences between North Korea and Iraq today, why shouldn't the be delt with differently?

Originally posted by Dejan Sajinovic
Well said Azrael. I swear US pople in future won´t even know a sh*it about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they will think they we´re doing right thing in Vietnam while watching all those boring and patriotic Hollywood war movies. With another word they´ll be brainwashed.

US gov. in my opinion are the leading terorist right now. I´m truly sorry for all death´s on 11-sept. but it´s sad that when someone say terorist, they directly think about islam and 11 sept and acts like Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Vietnam and bombing of Yugoslavia during in the late 90-s wich are all acts commited by USA are forgotten.

Rewind to 1943-45 for a second. Japanese soldiers were fighting to the death to defend every single island between Hawaii and Japan. There were virtually no prisoners of war as very, very few Japanese soldiers were surrendering despite being cut off from their supplies and very clearly losing the war. This links into the Bushido Code and the Japanese sense of honor at the time which made it a great discrace to surrender. Japanese civillians on Okinowa jumped off cliffs rather than live with the humiliation of seeing the island taken by US Marines. This all came at very heavy cost to the lives of American soldiers as well. The atomic bomb was seen as a way to force the Japanese to the table to surrender, and it worked. All tolled, dropping the bombs certainly saved American lives and probably saved a great deal of Japanese lives too.
Also, before attempting to make the Japanese into martyrs, please do some research into their horrible treetment of Chinese and other civillians in the areas they conquered, their total disregard for the Geneva Convention (both again tieing into the Bushido Code which makes it a disgrace to be defeated or to surrender), and into Comfort Women as well.
You should also remember that the air strikes against Yugoslavia were to defend Muslims (Kosivar Albanians) from a corrupt, racist dictator who was generally bad for the entire nation and is currently on trial in an international court for his war crimes.

I don't like war, I don't like fighting, and I hate to see people suffer. However, let's look at our options with Iraq:
1). Leave things as are. Maybe contain Saddam Hussein to Iraq, maybe not. Definately see a lot more Iraqis on the street suffer and die under sanctions.
2). Lift sanctions with Saddam Hussein still in power and pretend his past never happened. Face a nuclear, chemically, and biologically armed dictator with eyes on domination of the entire region (Israel included) within a few years.
3). Remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Now excluding the US government, let's look at the people supporting option 3 - Most former UN weapons inspectors, a generally very liberal and dove-ish Tony Blaire, Iraqi defectors... and especially FORMER IRAQI WEAPONS SCIENTISTS who tell us that most of the Iraqi population doesn't like Saddam's regime at all, but is too afraid to say or do anything about it. Think back to the mass surrender of Iraqi troops in the Gulf War - back in the days when the Iraqi people were fairly well off.

Now the major parties against war with Iraq are the French, German, and Russian governments who do a lot of very profitable business with Saddam Hussein (oil/arms sales), a lot of autocratic governments with numerous human rights "hiccups" they might conceivably have to answer for, Islamic Fundamentalists (who are against the US no matter what (yes, I do agree that [u]we[/u] are responsible for making them so acutely aware of us)), and a lot of organizations who are opposed to war of any kind on any circumstance.

I think the Iraqi people and the world deserve better than options 1 and 2. I just wish that option 3 had never been placed into Bush's inept hands. It should have been taken care of atleast four years ago.

I also wish that the United States wasn't virtually alone in choosing this path. I may well be one of the ones who pay the price for that.

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 01-22-2003 at 06:36 PM]