Three more young Americans die for Bush Reelection Campaign

[shemp]

3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030921_329.html)

Three American soldiers were killed and 13 injured in a mortar attack and a bombing in the volatile region of central Iraq, the U.S. military reported Sunday. The deaths followed an assassination attempt against a member of Iraq's Governing Council.

Two soldiers from the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade were killed when mortars hit a U.S. base near the Abu Ghraib prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad about 10 p.m. Saturday. Thirteen other soldiers were injured in the attack. No prisoners were injured.

Shortly before the Abu Ghraib shelling, a soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was killed when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb near Ramadi, about 60 miles west of the capital, the military said.

The deaths brought to 165 the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since May 1 when President Bush declared major fighting was over. During the heavy fighting before then 138 soldiers died. The latest deaths brought to 302 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Three more young Americans dead. I wonder if they ever got a chance to vote. I wonder if they voted for Dubya.

I wonder how many more will die before the Bush Reelection Campaign gets the bad news from the American people next November, namely that the Bush Reelection War has failed to produce its designed goal and that the people have thrown him out on his fat sorry a$$.

[originalgagster]

The current situation in Iraq is very sad, but was also entirely predictable. Sure, the Iraqi people detested Saddam Hussein, but did that mean they wanted to be invaded and occupied by the USA? I think not.

The longer troops stay there, the more hated they will become, and the more the rebels will grow in numbers, training and confidence.

Of course Bush can't pull out now, as there is no guarantee he will be left with a government in Iraq which is amenable to US economic interests.

The only way he can relieve the situation is to hope US allies will relieve the pressure by supplying some of the cannon fodder.

[Shinytop]

I somehow doubt the three brave young men who died yesterday wanted their death trivialized by shemp's use as a political tool against the president. I think the policies in Iraq are right or wrong without taking each death of a brave fighting man and trumpeting it as a case against the policy. Your use of their individual deaths is contemptible.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by Shinytop
I somehow doubt the three brave young men who died yesterday wanted their death trivialized by shemp's use as a political tool against the president. I think the policies in Iraq are right or wrong without taking each death of a brave fighting man and trumpeting it as a case against the policy. Your use of their individual deaths is contemptible.
I see. Do have any contempt to spare for Bush's lying to make a case for this war? The politics runs both ways.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Shinytop
I somehow doubt the three brave young men who died yesterday wanted their death trivialized by shemp's use as a political tool against the president. I think the policies in Iraq are right or wrong without taking each death of a brave fighting man and trumpeting it as a case against the policy. Your use of their individual deaths is contemptible.

That way, you could also argue not to put a murderer for trial because doning so would use the death of the victim to harm the murderer.


No, I don´t call Mr. Bush a murderer - though he caused all these deaths by...is there a specific word for it...knowing what he did would kill people and not give a damn about it, so he just let them die.

[clk]

Originally posted by originalgagster


The only way he can relieve the situation is to hope US allies will relieve the pressure by supplying some of the cannon fodder.

And I doubt that will happen, since Bush called the UN "irrelevant". Heck, who could blame them? Bush decided that he didn't need anyone's help, so he rudely shrugged off their criticisms and went to war anyways. And now he wants their help? I wouldn't give any help if he asked me.

[Shinytop]

I think Bush should be removed from office for his contemptuous treatment of Americans in his lying about the reasons for going to war. That in no way justifies chortling about dead American fighting men in political rants.

The following is extracted from a post I made in another forum entitled "The Other Cost of Iraqi Freedom". It pretty much sums up my views then. My current views remain much the same with the addition of complete disappointment with the way Bush and company have handled the peace.

War brings on many tragedies. The obvious tragedies of lives lost and families destroyed come to mind. But I am afraid there will be a hidden tragedy come out of the war just ended. No, I am not talking about the long term health effects of soldiers and non combatants from the waste of the battlefield. I am talking about the trivializing of the lives of our soldiers.

Oh, yes, we honor them with parades, with guest appearances on the news and with all too many military funerals. But we all talk about and most agree that war should only be undertaken in the most grave of circumstances; when a threat exists to our country, our interests, the lives of our citizens. And we can also pursue war for noble purposes; we can make war to free the oppressed, to free slaves, to liberate a country; noble reasons and often worth the human cost.

But what just transpired was a travesty. We did a good deed and I am glad we did it. But how did it come about? We found Weapons of Mass Destruction. We found tons and tons. We found enough with solid enough evidence to take the most drastic action one nation can take against another, we had enough evidence to go to war. Our leader told the people of this country, trust us, we have solid evidence. And many trusted him, after all, how could a god fearing president, one who wields his religion like a shield of honor, lie to the people looking to him for leadership and guidance. We have evidence, trust me. And he parades his Secretary of State before the world, a man who has served his country in war with honor, and he also has him swear to the leaders of the world, swear before the United Nations, we have the evidence, trust us. He takes his country’s most erstwhile ally and convinces him to join us in this quest, this crusade to rid the world of a madman with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Can you hear the deep ringing gongs echo as those words are uttered, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? You know evil lurks in the world, we have been told.

Now we are over a month past the end of the war to rid the world of Saddam and his {gong} Weapons of Mass Destruction {gong}. And what have we found? Where are the tons of weapons? Where is the evidence? Certainly we did not go to war over WMD’s and not monitor these tons we knew were there? Our cameras that can read newspapers from space did not lose them, did they? One hundred thousand men on the ground in Iraq could not also miss them?

So we have freed an oppressed people. And we have fought a very successful war, a war that showed the world that they better not screw with America. And for the freedom of the Iraqi people, and for the lesson that cheap, third rate dictators should not spit on Superman’s cape. And for those reasons I am glad we invaded Iraq and for many reasons I am bursting with pride in our armed forces.

So where is the travesty, the tragedy beyond the obvious deaths and shattered lives? What our president has done is squandered the good will of his office and our country. The next time he says we must do so and so to fix such and such I will be one citizen a whole lot more skeptical. And when he says. “trust me”, I will grab my wallet and hold onto it with both hands. And when we have a truly just cause and we send the Secretary of State around to convince Spain, Italy, and England of the justness of our cause, of the very necessity of it happening, will they be a quick to join us? Or will they wink and say the phrase the honorable leader could not remember, “Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on thee.”

And then we consider the other coin of war, the trust of the armed forces. Oh, they signed up to defend our country and to be used as instruments of our foreign policy. They will respond. But when you announce one reason for a war and then scramble for other reasons even the most honorable must wonder what they are being used for. When you spiel reasons for war like a huckster selling the latest miracle cure you sully the service of these honorable men, you tarnish the luster their service should bear. And when you break trust with the very men who protect that freedom you start down a very steep road. War and expenditure of the lives of our armed forces should always be ventured into with honor, not with lies reminiscent of the man selling me ocean front property in Arizona.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by clk
And I doubt that will happen, since Bush called the UN "irrelevant". Heck, who could blame them? Bush decided that he didn't need anyone's help, so he rudely shrugged off their criticisms and went to war anyways. And now he wants their help? I wouldn't give any help if he asked me.

Evidently petty squabbles are more important to you than actually helping people out. The US isn't ultimately who needs the help, it's the Iraqi people who need it. But hey, why not spite them just to get even with Bush?

As far as security, the UN really is irrelevant. They can't provide security to anyone. One of the biggest civilian masacres in the Balkan conflict happened in a UN-protected safe area, and the UN troops did virtually nothing to stop it. They should play no role in security unless we want a repeat of that kind of disaster. But they can, and should, play a role in reconstruction effort. But perhaps the rest of the UN is just as petty and vindictive as you are. And it's Iraq that will really suffer for that, not the US. Of course, the UN never really cared about the Iraqi people, so no surprise if that happens.

[Chaos]

Sorry, to have to bash you twice in a row, Ziggurat, but this needs and answer.

As for how much the U.S. cared about the Iraqi people, refer to my latest post in the "Canary in a Mine" thread.

As for the irrelevance of the U.N.:
I do not know the specifics of the incident you refer to, - the Srebrenica massacre, isn´t it - so I will not comment that. Do not consider that as depreciatory or playing this down, just as me not discussing something I have no info about.
Generally, however, much of the ineffectiveness of the U.N. comes from the ability of the permanent of the Security Council to veto decisions. Historically, the most prolific vetoer has been the U.S., whenever anything was against their interest. You might say that the U.S. Administration knows best about the U.N. being ineffective because they made them so.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Chaos

As for the irrelevance of the U.N.:
I do not know the specifics of the incident you refer to, - the Srebrenica massacre, isn´t it - so I will not comment that.


It's a sad tale indeed. The basic lesson is that the UN cannot handle direct command of peacekeeping forces.


Historically, the most prolific vetoer has been the U.S., whenever anything was against their interest.

I'm afraid you're factually incorrect. The USSR was the number one vetoer, and not by a narrow margin either. Almost half of the US vetos have been regarding Israel - I'm sure you'll interpret the meaning of that differently than I will. The second part of that sentence is also rather meaningless, since vetoing resolutions against their interest is what all the permanent members did.

[Chaos]

Almost half of the US vetos have been regarding Israel - I'm sure you'll interpret the meaning of that differently than I will.

I interpret that in the way that they wanted to protect their only ally in the middle east against having to do what the majority of the Council members (and probably, U.N. members) wanted them to do, regardless of it being justified or not (which is not meant as saying it was always justified).

And how about your interpretation?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Chaos

I interpret that in the way that they wanted to protect their only ally in the middle east against having to do what the majority of the Council members (and probably, U.N. members) wanted them to do, regardless of it being justified or not (which is not meant as saying it was always justified).

And how about your interpretation?

I interpret it as also being a result of a widespread anti-Israel sentiment throughout Europe and the middle east. I interpret it as the arab world scapegoating their problems, and Europe willingly tagging along because they don't much care for Israel or the background problems that lead to the scapegoating. I interpret it as the US also sticking up for its best ally in the region and the only democracy in the middle east. And I interpret the overall veto numbers as a sign that in most world affairs the US really isn't the lone cowboy it's often made out to be.

[shemp]

Originally posted by Shinytop
I think Bush should be removed from office for his contemptuous treatment of Americans in his lying about the reasons for going to war. That in no way justifies chortling about dead American fighting men in political rants.

CHORTLING??? CHORTLING??? WHO THE HELL IS CHORTLING???

302 brave young Americans have died in Iraq so far, not to protect America, not to protect the world from a tyrant who didn't actually have the WMDs Bush claimed he did, not for freedom, but instead TO SATISFY THE REELECTION DESIRES OF A MADMAN!

Bush knew that Saddam had no WMDs, that Saddam had no provable ties to bin Laden, that the story about buying uranium from Niger was a hoax, that Saddam was no threat to the American people. So why did he start this war? For two reasons: he wanted to avenge his daddy's embarassment, and HE BELIEVED THAT THIS WAR WOULD BOOST HIS CHANCES OF REELECTION.

He knowingly sent Americans to their deaths in Iraq for political reasons. He is the one who has politicized their deaths.

It is one thing to go after a man (bin Laden) and an organization (al-Qaeda) that attacked America. I am all for full punishment for them. But it is another thing entirely to lie to your own nation about the reasons for sending their sons and daughters off to die, and to expect that when confronted with the truth, that the people should just bend over and ask you to ram it to them again! And worst of all, HE LIED TO THOSE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN ABOUT WHY HE WAS ORDERING THEM TO RISK, AND ULTIMATELY GIVE, THEIR LIVES.

Bush deserves to be impeached for his lies. He deserves to be convicted for his lies. And he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for his lies.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by shemp

Bush knew that Saddam had no WMDs, that Saddam had no provable ties to bin Laden, that the story about buying uranium from Niger was a hoax, that Saddam was no threat to the American people.

Shemp, you're an ignorant troll. You can't even get your criticism of Bush straight. His state of the union address was not specific to Niger, the fact that this one document was a hoax doesn't actually say anything about the broader claim that was ACTUALLY made. But you don't care. It doesn't matter to you that there are more serious problems with the alluminum tubes they claimed were for centrifuges, you just go with what the ignorant press thinks is the scandal of the day, as long as it's anti-Bush.

[corplinx]

SHEMP is turning into the democrat version of Jedi Knight

[Luke T.]

Bush didn't need a war in Iraq to get reelected. I think it is bordering on the paranormal to claim to know those were his true motives for starting the war.

[crackmonkey]

Is there *any* evidence that Bush lied about going to war against Saddam? Lied, as opposed to believing intelligence that turned out to be faulty...
Is there a tape of him admitting that there were no WMDs, a memo from his desk describing how Saddam had no ties to terrorists but to make it look that way?
Or are you merely beating him up for acting on incorrect intelligence for your own political purposes?
I think the answer is pretty evident.

[Shinytop]

Either Bush lied or led an totally incompetent effort. Facts are that the WMD's were chosen after pollsters found that the American public would back that reason. There may have been some wishful thinking but it had to be lies when they described the tons of weapons and even that the Iraqi Army had supplies moved to the front for 45 minute release. No, I cannot believe we lost track of such important items or that tons just disappeared. Bush lied.

[ssibal]

Originally posted by Shinytop
Either Bush lied or led an totally incompetent effort. Facts are that the WMD's were chosen after pollsters found that the American public would back that reason. There may have been some wishful thinking but it had to be lies when they described the tons of weapons and even that the Iraqi Army had supplies moved to the front for 45 minute release. No, I cannot believe we lost track of such important items or that tons just disappeared. Bush lied.

How is it that Bush is the liar when it was Powell who presented the claim of tons of weapons an estimate and when it was the UK that made the claim about the 45 minute launch?

[Shinytop]

Originally posted by ssibal


How is it that Bush is the liar when it was Powell who presented the claim of tons of weapons an estimate and when it was the UK that made the claim about the 45 minute launch?

This link says Bush described the threat as imminent on October 7, 2002.

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/10/08102002135121.asp


This site analyzes the Bush Administration's assertion that Iraq is an imminent threat:
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/PDF/WarTruth-3.pdf

This analysis of the State of the Union address says that Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat:
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/iraqimminent.html

Besides the above you must remember that a leader is responsible for his administration. If Bush did not support Powell's remarks he could have dismissed Powell and announced he did not back it. You are trying to excuse the man based on nit picking, not reality.

[ssibal]

Originally posted by Shinytop


This link says Bush described the threat as imminent on October 7, 2002.

»www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/10/081..[?]

This site analyzes the Bush Administration's assertion that Iraq is an imminent threat:
»www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/PDF/WarTru..[?]

This analysis of the State of the Union address says that Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat:
»www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/iraqimminen..[?]

Besides the above you must remember that a leader is responsible for his administration. If Bush did not support Powell's remarks he could have dismissed Powell and announced he did not back it. You are trying to excuse the man based on nit picking, not reality.

Your links not working aside, are you suggesting that Bush knew that Iraq was not an imminent threat and claimed that Iraq was? Do you have some evidence to support this claim? As for Powell's remarks, do you have evidence that Bush knew that Powell's estimate was wrong yet allowed him to go ahead with presenting it anyway? Being wrong does not equal lying.

[Shinytop]

My assertion that Bush lied is my opinion, I do not know how you could have missed that. My assertion is based on the ability of our CIA and other sources to know what is going on. If he had said they had some WMD and left it at that I might be inclined to consider it a mistake. But he claimed tons of it and that it was an imminent threat. If he had evidence to that effect I believe he would have shown his hand by now.

So quit your asking for proof. It may or not appear. But to accept that he was just misled is considering him and many others as complete fools. I give them more credit that that. They made assertions with no proof. Regardless of their hopes I consider it lies. They said they had the proof. Where is it?

And oh, I fixed the links.

[clk]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Evidently petty squabbles are more important to you than actually helping people out. The US isn't ultimately who needs the help, it's the Iraqi people who need it. But hey, why not spite them just to get even with Bush?

As far as security, the UN really is irrelevant.

It's not about "petty squabbles". It's about diplomacy. You can't insult other nations and then expect them to help you out when you get into a pile of *****. Bush did not have to call the UN "irrelevant". It doesn't matter whether they are irrelevant or not, it is not good diplomacy to insult them. The other nations know that if they don't help, then the US will have to keep troops in Iraq and spend alot of money. To them, their refusal to get involved in Iraq is sort of an "I told you so" to the US.
The same goes for North Korea...when Bush put them into the Axis of Evil category, it freaked them out, and now they are preparing for war by starting a nuclear weapons program. I don't understand why Bush finds it necessary to insult or intimidate other nations when it is not necessary. No good can come out of it, IMO.

[Zep]

clk: I don't understand why Bush finds it necessary to insult or intimidate other nations when it is not necessary. And you might add long-time allies such as Australia to that list as well. While Australia was the third contibutor to the "Coalition of the Willing" earlier this year, it has now decided not to contribute ground forces to the occupation of Iraq at US request. Even our waggy-tail puppy-dog suck-up leader has seen the light...

[Jon_in_london]

Did they kill any Tigers?

[clk]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


the UN never really cared about the Iraqi people

And I suppose Bush started this war just to free the Iraqi people, from the goodness of his heart? :rolleyes:

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by corplinx
SHEMP is turning into the democrat version of Jedi Knight

Unfortunately, there are many others vying for that position, as well...

[shemp]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Did they kill any Tigers?

Perhaps they should have put these Tigers (http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp?c_id=det) out of their misery.

[crackmonkey]

To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.

Well, lets see whats more likely... US and UK intelligence services cant tell their ********* from their earholes or Bush and Bliar and liars? Hmmmm.... I wonder....

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Chaos

No, I don´t call Mr. Bush a murderer - though he caused all these deaths by...is there a specific word for it...knowing what he did would kill people and not give a damn about it, so he just let them die. Depraved indifference?

(okay, that's two words, but it's the term the use on Law & Order. My appologies to all law students for reference source.)

[Shinytop]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.

But you left out any response to my reasons. You left out that I am capable of thinking, not just accepting whatever trash is put out. You should try it sometime.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by clk

The same goes for North Korea...when Bush put them into the Axis of Evil category, it freaked them out, and now they are preparing for war by starting a nuclear weapons program. I don't understand why Bush finds it necessary to insult or intimidate other nations when it is not necessary. No good can come out of it, IMO.

Is that seriously your understanding of the situation? If so, you're WAY off base. North Korea started their current nuclear program a long time ago, well before Bush was even a candidate for president. They wanted nukes regardless of what we did. I'm surprised that anyone would think otherwise.

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Is that seriously your understanding of the situation? If so, you're WAY off base. North Korea started their current nuclear program a long time ago, well before Bush was even a candidate for president. They wanted nukes regardless of what we did. I'm surprised that anyone would think otherwise.

Yes, and when exactly is the invasion of North Korea happening? Their zest for weapons of mass destruction must be challenged, should it not?
I'm surprised Bush hasn't gone in already.
Does the freedom of the world not depend on it?

[clk]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Is that seriously your understanding of the situation? If so, you're WAY off base. North Korea started their current nuclear program a long time ago, well before Bush was even a candidate for president. They wanted nukes regardless of what we did. I'm surprised that anyone would think otherwise.

I wasn't trying to say that Bush directly started the situation and it's his fault. However, I think that putting NK in the Axis of Evil category was not a smart thing to do. I think NK took that as "hey, we're coming after you when we are done with Iraq" so they had another reason to build nukes and to build them as fast as possible.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.
Where were you during the month of denials, blame assignment and parsing? If you want to go with the parsing, you could claim tha Bush 'passed on info that our intelligence agencies got from the British, but our intelligence agencies doubted it's accuracy and passed that doubt on to adminsitration officials, but somehow the inclusion of a statement in Bush's state of the union address got "overlooked"'. As for myself, I don't care for the parsing and it's much simpler to say that Bush lied.

[Luke T.]

Thank God George Bush isn't as fainthearted or ignorant as some of the nervous nellies here.

It kind of reminds of the days when Reagan wanted to move missles into Western Europe, and the nervous nellies cried, "Don't piss off the Russians! Don't piss off the Russians!"

Things are going fabulously well in Iraq. Most (90%, I think) of the cities, towns and villages have established civil government, governed by Iraqis. Water and power have been restored. A national government is taking shape, comprised of a wide coalition.

There are 25 million Iraqis. If they didn't want us there, don't you think they would throw us out?

There are certain Islamic factions that don't want us there. And the surrounding countries are scared to death to have a democracy established in the Middle East.

There are people from Iran and Syria and god knows where else who are behind the killings of our soldiers. And those of you who are decrying the deaths of these soldiers as some sort of slap at Bush are playing right into the hands of the very religious extremists you claim to hate so much.

They are counting on your swooning and desire to run away at the first sight of blood.

As a long-time military man, I would have been extremely pissed to know that if I was killed, America would turn white and run away from accomplishing something great.

Get over yourselves and wake up.

[Garrette]

I won’t address the allegations about motivation for the invasion, as I am in uniform still, and it is therefore not my place.

I will, however, some points:

Originally posted by Shemp

Three more young Americans die for Bush Reelection Campaign

It is unlikely that they considered this the reason they served, and therefore unlikely they considered it the reason for dying. I know of no soldiers who look for death over here, and I know plenty who dislike President Bush and believe that the President misled regarding the reasons for going to war, but I know of no soldiers who feel they are not providing a service or that the ouster of Saddam was not necessary.

Originally posted by Shemp

Three more young Americans dead. I wonder if they ever got a chance to vote. I wonder if they voted for Dubya.

If they were old enough to join the military, then they got a chance to vote.

I wonder how many soldiers in WWII voted for FDR. I wonder how many people who must pay a tax hike voted for the Senators and Congresspeople who represent them.

I wonder how many Iraqis voted for Saddam. Scratch that; I don’t wonder about that at all. I’ve met many of the Peshmerga who voted actively against him. I’ve had dinner in the restaurant in Dohuk Province in a cave that served as a hospital when Saddam was systematically destroying Kurdish villages before the no-fly zone was put in place.

Today I gave a tour of the CPA palace in Baghdad to 65 teachers from around Iraq. (If it interests you, I am the senior military representative within the CPA side of the Ministry of Education; it has been my job to focus efforts on re-establishing the education system, K-12). They are here for a five day workshop on teaching methodologies. None of them, including the few from Baghdad itself, have ever been within a half mile of the palace. When they saw the four giant busts of Saddam atop the palace, they made faces. One woman wrapped in black had to be coaxed to cross the threshold into the palace because she feared, still, what might happen to her. By the end of the tour she was laughing and having her picture taken in what is alternately called the ballroom and the Jerusalem room. On one wall of this room is a mural of the Dome of the Rock, with the implication that Saddam is its protector. On the domed ceiling is a mural of a ‘heavenly Jerusalem’ with horses galloping on the clouds. On the opposite wall is a mural of missiles, painted with the Iraqi flag, coursing through the air enroute to Israel. In front of the missiles is a very gaudy and cheaply made chair, painted in gold and upholstered in gold. Every Iraqi who comes to the palace believes it was Saddam’s throne. It was not; there are dozens of similar chairs throughout the palace and in storage, but they like to believe it and to have their picture taken in it. Then they cover their mouths and giggle with fear and embarrassment because they cannot believe what they have just done and what they have seen.

The CPA Palace has three sections. The central section is the original and is fairly impressive, particularly the large central dome, but it was built before Saddam’s time. The two wings, on which sit the four busts, were built in the 90s—partly before the sanctions but mostly during the sanctions. I met the engineer who built one of the wings. It is loaded with imported granite and Italian marble. The palaces around Tikrit were built during the sanctions, too. I estimate 20 – 30 palaces there, sitting on the bluffs above the lakes Saddam had made by re-routing the Tigris. They are not as large as the CPA Palace, but they are just as opulent if not more so.

Back to the busts of Saddam. Five different people asked me, not gently, why I (as a representative of the Coalition Forces and CPA) have not taken the busts down. “They are horrible.” “They are bad.”
There are two answers: (1) The engineers are trying to figure out how to get them down without damaging the building, which apparently is not an easy task (2) The building and the busts belong to Iraq. At some point, the Governing Council will resume control of the building and must decide for itself what to do with the busts. But these answers do not suffice. “You have our permission. Take them down now.” They are insistent.

But I digress. You surely do not object to the need to remove Saddam. You simply object to the stated reason. I cannot argue with you over reasons, but I will argue forever over the feelings of soldiers who are here. Soldiers are quite adept at separating feelings for their leader from feelings for their mission.

Those soldiers didn’t die to re-elect Bush. They took the risk of dying because they felt the system worth fighting for and the Iraqis worth helping.
Originally posted by Originalgagster
The current situation in Iraq is very sad, but was also entirely predictable. Sure, the Iraqi people detested Saddam Hussein, but did that mean they wanted to be invaded and occupied by the USA? I think not.

The longer troops stay there, the more hated they will become, and the more the rebels will grow in numbers, training and confidence.

Of course Bush can't pull out now, as there is no guarantee he will be left with a government in Iraq which is amenable to US economic interests.

The only way he can relieve the situation is to hope US allies will relieve the pressure by supplying some of the cannon fodder.
What, exactly, is the current situation in Iraq? What bits I see in the media are overblown. It is dangerous here for the military, but far less so than made out to be. Those who make it dangerous are not the average Iraqi. Extrapolating from my experiences, I’d say the majority of Iraqis are damned glad Saddam is gone, unrealistically hopeful about the US’s ability to ‘flip a switch’ and solve all the problems of Iraq, grateful for Coalition and CPA efforts to rebuild the nation, frustrated that it’s a bumpy road, and expectant of the day when all foreign forces will be gone so they can run their own country. They are also cognizant of the fact that they cannot yet do it alone.

Do you know who clamors for harder and harsher behavior from the military whenever there is a bombing or looting or crime? The Iraqis. “You cannot be nice; they do not understand being nice; they understand force; they respect force.” What restraint there is comes from the restraint built into western militaries.

Have the media talked about de-Baathification? It refers to the removal of former Baath party members, at least the top four levels of party membership. CPA put out an order on May 16th directing the immediate removal of people of those four levels from any governmental position. Ministry of Education was temporarily exempted from removing the fourth level due to the devastation it would have wreaked on the Ministry. We are working on implementation now. Meantime, we have stacks of appeals from the parents of students, from teachers, from neighborhood advisory councils (the same councils that coalition military forces, not CPA, initiated by getting neighborhoods to get involved and without dictating membership; Baghdad has councils in all of its 80+ neighborhoods, plus four District councils and one City council). These appeals invariably request the immediate removal of teacher or headmaster so-and-so because he/she is a Baathist. They don’t like Baathists. The Baathists charge for grades; we’ve had a few arrested for extorting money just to allow students to take an exam.

The longer we stay, the more likely it is there will be pressure from the Iraqi government and populace for us to pull out; given that the major problems are fixed. Hate will not grow unless we act in such a fashion as to engender it. We’ve made some mistakes along those lines, but the general course is a different one.

And please include areas outside the Sunni Triangle in your assessments. The Shiites don’t like us, but recognize our necessity. They’re ready for us to leave, but don’t hate us. The Kurds don’t want us to leave. Ever. The Minister of Education and the Deputy Prime Minister of Dohuk/Arbil Provinces are both former Peshmerga. We get on extremely well. I have very few souvenirs from Kurdistan because when I expressed any interest in any item, it was immediately purchased for me; I was not allowed to spend any of my own money. So I stopped expressing interest in purchasable items.

There will never be a guarantee that the Iraqi government will be amenable to US economic interests. Does Bush hope that it will be? I imagine so. I hope so, too. But in practice, the Iraqi’s are feeling things out for themselves and making decisions, not always to the liking of the US or CPA. Our own new Minister (appointed by the Governing Council and, in my opinion, focused on the right things) has made at least two significant decisions regarding running of the Ministry with which I wholeheartedly disagree. But it is his Ministry, and his country’s Ministry. The decision is not illegal or immoral. I will support it.

Please tell me what situation needs relieving. It’s not a popular uprising here.

Disagree with Bush if you like. Disagree with the reasons for war. Disagree with war at all, if you like, but do not presume to ascribe feelings where you have no basis to do so, and do not make the mistake of accepting the media representation as wholly accurate.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.
From Bush's State of the Union address (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext_012803.html)
Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons...

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs.

From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves.

All of this without a shred of proof, and that's just what he said in one speech!. Sorry, Crack, but that is lying.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by KelvinG


Yes, and when exactly is the invasion of North Korea happening? Their zest for weapons of mass destruction must be challenged, should it not?
I'm surprised Bush hasn't gone in already.
Does the freedom of the world not depend on it?

Yes, North Korea must be challenged. But it's not an equivalent situation. Among other things, we have leverage against North Korea that never existed, and never could exist, against Iraq. North Korea depends on the west for its very survival. Without foreign aid they will implode, invasion or not. We had no such leverage against Iraq. You are indeed correct that something must be done about North Korea, and I'm nervous about what's going to happen there as well. But it is a different situation, there's no reason to expect, or even want, the U.S. to handle North Korea exactly the same as Iraq.

[Luke T.]

Thanks for your post, Garrette. Good stuff.

[Luke T.]

Garrette, is there any chance you could post some photos of these murals you were talking about?

[Garrette]

I'm not a techie, but if you PM me your e-mail I can try sending a few to you to post them. Howzzat for a copout?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Garrette
I'm not a techie, but if you PM me your e-mail I can try sending a few to you to post them. Howzzat for a copout?

Done. Check your PM in box. Thanks.

[Ion]

I agree with this:
Originally posted by Tricky


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by crackmonkey
To sum up the answer to my question... no, you have no proof that Bush lied, and no reasonable evidence whatsoever. As I thought.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Bush's State of the Union address

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...

All of this without a shred of proof, and that's just what he said in one speech!. Sorry, Crack, but that is lying.
...

Bush lied referring to starting a war in Iraq based on:

"...Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons...".

Right there.

And many other times.

Thus people from U.S. and Iraq died because Bush lied.

In 2004, Bush should be kicked out of the U.S. presidency office, and later on he should go to jail.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.


That's not a lie. You infer a lie from that, perhaps because you think it's only a threat if they have a nuclear weapon at the moment. Bush never said that, and I for one never thought that. But Saddam wanted a nuclear weapon, and so do a few other "rouge" countries. That poses a threat. You may disagree with the threat assesment, but there's no lying involved in that.

Did Bush ever lie regarding Iraq? Sort of, though it was mostly other administration figures that made problematic statements, and you can play semantic games about what exactly qualifies as a lie until the cows come home. Most of the press doesn't understand where the true problems are anyways (hint: it's got nothing to do with Niger). But the basic message, that Iraq was a threat, was correct, though the immediacy of it was certainly exagerated.

[Shinytop]

In response to LukeT:

Who should get over thereself? Just because I am convinced Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq does not mean I think it a bad thing. There were many reasons I would have backed the operation for. My objection is to the leader of my country deliberately taking my nation to war over lies. My objection is to his disregard for the electorate. My objection is to his squandering of American good will for the lies of WMD.

I am glad we went into Iraq. I am speechless at the lack of preparation the administration made for victory. Bush has used up his do-over's. We must remove him in the next election.

[Ion]

Ziggy,

Bush lied referring to starting a war in Iraq based on:

"...Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons...".

According to the U.N., Hussein was not seeking nor possessing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

According to the U.N., Hussein was being contained by the U.N..

Bush said otherwise in that quote.

Bush is also responsible about what Powell, others from his administration, U.K. claims (like the Niger link to Hussein in nuclear) which Bush quoted, are lying about.

Today:

.) Bush is wrong, a liar and a criminal;

.) U.N. is right.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Ion
"...Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons...".


Yes I agree! the greatest danger facing the US and the world IS regimes just like the Bush admin!

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
Ziggy,
According to the U.N., Hussein was not seeking nor possessing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

According to the U.N., Hussein was being contained by the U.N..


Why should we trust their opinion? The IAEA also thought Saddam had no nuclear weapons program before the first gulf war. They were wrong. The UN also admitted that Saddam never fully complied with its resolutions regarding those weapons programs, so I'm not sure how you can claim that the UN said that Saddam was not seeking nukes. Every piece of evidence points to Saddam wanting nuclear weapons very badly. And many members of the UN were working to undo the limited containment that was in place, so it doesn't matter if Saddam was contained today if that containment was oing to vanish. Not to mention the cost of containing Saddam on Iraq as a whole was worse than our invasion.


Bush is also responsible about what Powell, others from his administration, U.K. false claims (like the Niger link to Hussein in nuclear) which Bush quoted, are saying.


Bush never said Niger (certainly not in the state of the union address, can you point to something else?). There are some serious problems with the details of the case he made for war, although you evidently don't understand what the real problems were (again, Niger wasn't the problem). But Saddam was a long-term threat, if you can't understand that then you have your head in the sand.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Why should we trust their opinion?
...

Because they are right.

You still haven't learned that?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Because they are right.

You still haven't learned that?

Right in what sense? Right that Iraq was not a threat? No, that's not correct, and I'm not even sure that they ever said that. Right that sanctions and inspections could ever get Saddam to comply with their own resolutions, or that their sanctions could even stop Saddam from smuggling massive amounts of oil through Syria? No, they weren't right about that, after more than a decade. Right that the no-fly zones were unnecessary to protect the Kurds and the Shia? Nope, not right about that either. Right that an invasion would be a disaster for Iraq, or might destabilize the entire region? Nope, didn't get that right either.

The UN is incompetent and corrupt. I see no reason to follow their lead, or to believe their assurances. Just ask the people the UN promised to protect in Srebrenica how far trusting the UN got them.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Right in what sense? Right that Iraq was not a threat? No, that's not correct,...
...

It is correct that U.N. was right in the sense that Iraq being contained by U.N. was not a threat to any country.

So "...Right that Iraq was not a threat? No, that's not correct,..." is incorrect.

You still haven't learned this?

Bush lied that Iraq was a threat, and killed because he wants to loot Iraq's oil.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Shinytop
My objection is to his squandering of American good will for the lies of WMD.


I've seen people make that statement before (that America 'squandered' or 'wasted' goodwill for 9/11 over its desire to invade Iraq).

What exactly does that mean though? I've never heard of anyone giving any example of lasting concrete benefits that such goodwill had (other than pity, but words of sympathy from countries such as Syria and Libya aren't exactly that useful).

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

It is correct that U.N. was right in the sense that Iraq being contained by U.N. was not a threat to any country.

So "...Right that Iraq was not a threat? No, that's not correct,..." is incorrect.

You still haven't learned this?


How can you argue that the UN said Saddam was not a threat BECAUSE he was contained, when much of the UN was working to undo that containment? That just does not make any sense to me. And again, the IAEA was wrong before when they thought Saddam didn't have a weapons program, what assurances do we have that they couldn't be mistaken in the future, especially considering the amount of smuggling going on through Syria? Saddam was also a threat to his own people - did the UN deny that too?


Bush lied that Iraq was a threat, and killed because he wants to loot Iraq's oil.


You forgot [/end leftist paranoid conspiracy rant]. You know who really looted Iraqi oil? Saddam, with help from the Russians, the French, Syria, and even the UN, in the form of its corrupt oil for food program which gave illegal kickbacks to Saddam. Under Saddam, the Iraqi people never saw any benefit from oil revenues. The US is going to change that for the first time, and you're claiming that WE are looting? :rolleyes:

[Ion]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


I've seen people make that statement before (that America 'squandered' or 'wasted' goodwill for 9/11 over its desire to invade Iraq).

What exactly does that mean though? I've never heard of anyone giving any example of lasting concrete benefits that such goodwill had (other than pity, but words of sympathy from countries such as Syria and Libya aren't exactly that useful).
It means that more than 100 U.N. countries don't like U.S. attack on Iraq based on Bush linking Iraq with terror in U.S.:

Bush is a liar about this, worldwide.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Shinytop
In response to LukeT:

Who should get over thereself? Just because I am convinced Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq does not mean I think it a bad thing. There were many reasons I would have backed the operation for. My objection is to the leader of my country deliberately taking my nation to war over lies. My objection is to his disregard for the electorate. My objection is to his squandering of American good will for the lies of WMD.

I am glad we went into Iraq. I am speechless at the lack of preparation the administration made for victory. Bush has used up his do-over's. We must remove him in the next election.

I have not yet seen evidence of a lie on Bush's part.

Prior to the war starting, I expressed my own doubts about WMD in Iraq, and stated I would be watching very closely for evidence of same. So far, not much.

What makes you think we haven't acheived victory? Things are going well, as I said. There is still a ways to go. I, myself, figured we would occupy Iraq for at least five years. But we may end up departing well before then. It has only been, what, six months so far?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

How can you argue that the UN said Saddam was not a threat BECAUSE he was contained, when much of the UN was working to undo that containment? That just does not make any sense to me.
...

The sense that it makes is to not kill 8,000 Iraqi civilians for Iraq's oil.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion
According to the U.N., Hussein was being contained by the U.N..

Bush said otherwise in that quote.


How, exactly, was Hussein being contained by the U.N.? :confused:

They left Iraq in 1998. After their inspectors were continually thwarted by Hussein. This is containment?

Does anyone remember Hussein's move to invade Kuwait again in 1994?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I have not yet seen evidence of a lie on Bush's part.
...

Yes you have.

In this thread.

Highlighted.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.


How, exactly, was Hussein being contained by the U.N.? :confused:
...

With pleasure.

Compared to Bush's oil for blood.

[Tony]

According to the U.N., Hussein was being contained by the U.N..


:dl:

According to the bible, the bible is true. Ion represents a new form of fundamentalism, that which bows at the alter of the U.N.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


I've seen people make that statement before (that America 'squandered' or 'wasted' goodwill for 9/11 over its desire to invade Iraq).

What exactly does that mean though? I've never heard of anyone giving any example of lasting concrete benefits that such goodwill had (other than pity, but words of sympathy from countries such as Syria and Libya aren't exactly that useful).
A real good example would be Afghanistan. Quite a number of countries supported our actions there because it could be shown that the ones we were attacking were quite definately tied to the attacks not only on our country, but other countries. The peace-keeping forces in Afghanistan are still multinational.

Had the US restricted its actions to attacking the Taliban and Al Qaeda (assuming that there was no possible diplomatic solution and that was the only thing we could do), then we would not have used up our "goodwill" so quickly. Had we continued the job in Afghanistan rather than allowing the Taliban to creep back in, we would have kept the respect longer. However, admittedly, the "goodwill" was only a temporary thing anyway. It should have been a lot less temporary.

[Ion]

According to Baloney from Texas, this is true:
Originally posted by Tony

According to the bible, the bible is true. Ion represents a new form of fundamentalism, that which bows at the alter of the U.N.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

It means that more than 100 U.N. countries don't like U.S. attack on Iraq based on Bush linking Iraq with terror in U.S.:

Bush is a liar about this, worldwide.

The UN is a dictator's club. They have no moral high ground. Tally up as many dictators as you like, it doesn't make them right. Remember, this is the same UN that dropped the ball on Rwanda, refusing to label it genocide because that would actually oblige them to do something about the situation. And we wouldn't want the UN to have to get off its rear end and do something like save hundreds of thousands of civilians now, would we? That's the precious UN you seem to hold in such high esteem. Remember Rwanda next time you think about claiming the UN has any moral authority.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


The UN is a dictator's club. They have no moral high ground.
...

Bush is worse.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion

With pleasure.

Compared to Bush's oil for blood.

Ion, I would like to see you show me where the U.N. said they had Hussein contained. Especially in the face of their November 8, 2002 Resolution. (http://www.un.org/News/dh/iraq/iraq-blue-e-110702-1198.pdf)


Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,

Bush lied, eh?


Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore
international peace and security in the area,

Bold is my emphasis.

France, Germany, Russia and China all signed off on this. Later, when it came time to follow through, they wimped out.

[edited to add:]

Further recalling that its resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for achievement of its stated objective of restoring international
peace and security in the area,

[Luke T.]

From the same resolution:


Deploring the absence, since December 1998, in Iraq of international monitoring, inspection, and verification, as required by relevant resolutions, of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, in spite of the Council’s repeated
demands that Iraq provide immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), established in resolution 1284 (1999) as the successor organization to UNSCOM,
and the IAEA, and regretting the consequent prolonging of the crisis in the region and the suffering of the Iraqi people,

Again: This is containment?

And Bush lied?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Bush is worse.

Unsupported assertion. Bush didn't sit idle while genocide took place. Unlike the French, Bush didn't prop up a genocidal regime or help the perpetrators of the genocide escape justice (hell, France hadn't even appologized for their complicity last time I checked). Bush is not worse than the UN. I don't like Bush much myself, but you've become blinded by ideolody if you really think he's the biggest threat to world security, or that he has less moral authority than the worthless UN.

So are your arguments going to devolve again into foolish accusations like "we're killing Iraqis for their oil", or do you actually have anything substantive to say beyond such conspiracy theories and pointless assertions?

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Tricky

A real good example would be Afghanistan. Quite a number of countries supported our actions there because it could be shown that the ones we were attacking were quite definately tied to the attacks not only on our country, but other countries. The peace-keeping forces in Afghanistan are still multinational.


But the peace keepers are still there. Even countries that did not support the Iraqi invasion still have peace keepers there. (Heck, Canada has actually increased its presense there, despite our country sitting out the Iraq war.

Other countries are helping out in Afghanistan, probably because they think its right, rather than out of sympathy to the US.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

So are your arguments going to devolve again into foolish accusations like "we're killing Iraqis for their oil", or do you actually have anything substantive to say beyond such conspiracy theories and pointless assertions?

Ziggurat (and Luke T, and others...)...

I suggest you don't waste your time trying to respond to Ion or engage in any sort of debate. In all the time I've seen him post, I think he's only made one contribution where he posted actual content worthy of comment. All the rest of his posts are bascially variations of "Bush lied", "UN is right", blah blah. (He never makes any effort to respond to specific points you will bring up, nor does he do much to support his own assertions.)

Edited to add: You're much better off spending your time and effort debating with people like Tricky, Crossbow, etc., whom you may disagree with, but at least can carry on a resonable amount of intellectual discussion.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


I've seen people make that statement before (that America 'squandered' or 'wasted' goodwill for 9/11 over its desire to invade Iraq).

What exactly does that mean though? I've never heard of anyone giving any example of lasting concrete benefits that such goodwill had (other than pity, but words of sympathy from countries such as Syria and Libya aren't exactly that useful).

Also, have we seen any effects of this so called "squandering"???

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

The sense that it makes is to not kill 8,000 Iraqi civilians for Iraq's oil.

Evidence, please of the needless slaughter of 8000 Iraqi civilians in an oil grab by coalition forces.


I thought not...

[Ladewig]

Bush knew that Saddam had no WMDs, that Saddam had no provable ties to bin Laden, that the story about buying uranium from Niger was a hoax, that Saddam was no threat to the American people. So why did he start this war? For two reasons: he wanted to avenge his daddy's embarassment, and HE BELIEVED THAT THIS WAR WOULD BOOST HIS CHANCES OF REELECTION.

I cannot agree that these are the two primary reasons for Bush's going to war. On the other hand, I would put "freeing the oppressed Iraqi people" pretty low on the list of real reasons.

I think the questions posed included:

How do we get out of Saudi Arabia and still maintain a strong military presence in the Middle East?
How can we end the sanctions in such a way as to help American interests?
How can we save face in our dealings with Hussein?
How can we cover our asses now that the CIA has released a report speculating that the Afganistan invasion has forced Al Queda operatives to spread out even further?
What is the likelihood of WMD being stored and prepared for use?

At that point, the idea of a liberation came up and initial cost and casualty estimates were produced. Then, there was disagreement as to how accurate these figures might be and the higher ups (Rumsfeld ?) revised the figures to be lower. The administration then ignored its own P.R. ("The world is now different") and predicted that this Iraqi invasion would be as easy as the last one. The invasion took place and not enough people, weapons, or supplies were available to secure the entire country.

The more cynical might introduce Halliburton as another variable in the equation. There might also have been a bit of wag-the-dog to distract the U.S. from some other issue.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Evidence, please of the needless slaughter of 8000 Iraqi civilians in an oil grab by coalition forces.


I thought not...
See newspapers about U.S. oil contracts and 8,000 Iraqi civilians killed.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion


See newspapers about U.S. oil contracts and 8,000 Iraqi civilians killed.

That's not how things are done here. You make the claim, you provide the links.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Unsupported assertion.
...

"Bush is worse." is supported by Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq, killing Iraqis and looting oil.

Sweden for example didn't do what Bush does.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ladewig


At that point, the idea of a liberation came up and initial cost and casualty estimates were produced. Then, there was disagreement as to how accurate these figures might be and the higher ups (Rumsfeld ?) revised the figures to be lower. The administration then ignored its own P.R. ("The world is now different") and predicted that this Iraqi invasion would be as easy as the last one. The invasion took place and not enough people, weapons, or supplies were available to secure the entire country.

Casualties have been very low. And after many wars, there are small skirmishes for some time afterwards.

There might also have been a bit of wag-the-dog to distract the U.S. from some other issue.

This is very unspecific. Wishful speculation, sounds like.

[Shinytop]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I have not yet seen evidence of a lie on Bush's part.

Prior to the war starting, I expressed my own doubts about WMD in Iraq, and stated I would be watching very closely for evidence of same. So far, not much.

What makes you think we haven't acheived victory? Things are going well, as I said. There is still a ways to go. I, myself, figured we would occupy Iraq for at least five years. But we may end up departing well before then. It has only been, what, six months so far?

Butyou have seen evidence. You may not believe it, that is your choice. But evidence, circumstantial as it may be, has been presented. You don't help your cause denying its presentation.

I am not surprised either by 5 years of occupation. How does that account for no tranlaters ready to train police forces? How does that account for failure to secure the museums? The adminstration was not ready for victory or the rebuilding. Elementary planning was not done or done very badly. It cost and is continuing to cost American lives.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.


That's not how things are done here. You make the claim, you provide the links.
You got the link about Bush lying in his speech in Congress, right?

It's in this thread.

Did you see it?

It's big.

Also, it's spoon feeding you, since this is common news in papers, and you are expected to debate at least at the level of the news from the papers, and provide links only for extra news.

Right?

For example, the links that you gave about U.N. Resolutions, none spells U.N. force, and 678 was based on a U.N. coalition defending Kuwait which is not the case in 2003.

Mixing facts, Luke?

[Luke T.]

Ladewig, you might find this topic (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16430) interesting reading.

Doubt posted a link to a US Army web site that predicted huge casualties during the urban warfare fighting.

From his link:


Is successful MOUT in Iraq possible? It is, but this depends on the way the population responds to the presence of US or coalition troops. If the population turns against Hussein, anything is possible and MOUT becomes feasible. If they do not, US or coalition forces will be confronted with the worst kind of city fighting, that of not only the armed forces but also the people of Iraq. In a city such as Baghdad, where the population density is in the range of 17,000 people per square mile, it will not be possible to separate the good guys from the bad guys, and any invasion will most likely meet with little success. A recent (17 December) report from the London Times indicates that things might not be all that bad for US forces in Iraq. In a survey conducted by the International Crisis Group (ICG), it was reported that Iraqis would largely welcome a US-led attack and want stability, and political change.

And Doubt said:


All in all a good site. The comments on how civilians will determine the outcome of an urban battle in Baghdad are of great importance right now.

My own thinking is that we should lay siege in Baghdad and fight the smaller urban battles only. The cost and risk of a battle in Baghdad is to high. It is foolish to let our chances hang on the fickle notions of the Iraqi civilian population.

subgenius' response:


Awesome link. Think Dubya's read it? LOL.

Like I said, thank God George Bush isn't as fainthearted or ignorant as some nervous nellies around here.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


Ziggurat (and Luke T, and others...)...

I suggest you don't waste your time trying to respond to Ion or engage in any sort of debate. In all the time I've seen him post, I think he's only made one contribution where he posted actual content worthy of comment. All the rest of his posts are bascially variations of "Bush lied", "UN is right", blah blah. (He never makes any effort to respond to specific points you will bring up, nor does he do much to support his own assertions.)

Edited to add: You're much better off spending your time and effort debating with people like Tricky, Crossbow, etc., whom you may disagree with, but at least can carry on a resonable amount of intellectual discussion.
Being short in arguments Segno?

How is your support to Israel going?

Biased by your ethnic background, but short in arguments?

[Luke T.]

More interesting casualty predictions on the forum before the war. (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15353)


tedly: Last Monday I listened to Mr Dyer at the local U. His prediction was for war in 14 days. That's on the 17th.
He pointed out that Hussein will be holed up in a bunker in Bagdhad and the Republican Guards are not going to let the population leave. That means that the invading armies are going to fight an urban battle in a city of 5M, something no-one has been silly enough to do for over 50 years. Cities chew up armies. It's no wonder the Army leadership is not keen on this battle. He predicted that US casualties could easily hit the thousands. He thought the army might go full bore and take the casualties quickly so the battle would end before public sentiment stops the war.

Segnosaur did a pretty good job of foreseeing:

If the war isn't all over quickly, I doubt it will consist of urban guerilla warfare. Its too easy for the US to target them and starve them out. Its more likely that any Iraqis loyal to Saddam will head for remote areas, and stage attacks from there. (Like in Afghanistan, where the main cities fell, but Al Quaeda stayed in the hills.)

[Ion]

Anyway,

to summarize what took place in this thread, it is established that:

.) Bush lied;

.) people die because of it.

[Ion]

Segno didn't forsee much when writing the dumb:

"...Its more likely that any Iraqis loyal to Saddam...".

What is forseeing is to write that Bush lying and killing alienate the world, not just a few "...Iraqis loyal to Saddam...".

And Luke, you didn't address my take that you brought in U.N. Resolution 687, dealing with Iraq invading Kuwait in 1990, when the issue here is Bush's reasons for war in 2003 not related to any Kuwait.

Any news about you mixing facts?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

"Bush is worse." is supported by Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq, killing Iraqis and looting oil.

Sweden for example didn't do what Bush does.

You keep saying Bush is looting oil. I see no evidence for that - provide some evidence beyond just "it's in the papers". A lot of stuff is in the papers, and much of it isn't true. Give me a link, a citation, and I can evaluate it, but as it stands now your accusation is completely unsupported. You've said Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction, but the only example you provided isn't even a real example (Bush never said anything about Niger in the state of the Union address), you're apparently unaware of the more substantive problems with what the administration said, so I see nothing in your posts that indicates you know anything about the reality of the situation.

Were Iraqis killed in the invasion? Yes, unfortunately that is true. Iraqis were also dying under Saddam without the invasion. Which was worse? Ask someone who actually knows what most Iraqis think, and you'll find that they're quite happy to be rid of Saddam, even at the cost of having their country invaded. But that doesn't matter to you, since Bush is bad and is supposedly looting Iraqi oil. Better to leave that job to an Iraqi, I suppose? Would that make it all better?

[Ladewig]

Luke T.
Casualties have been very low. And after many wars, there are small skirmishes for some time afterwards.

Yes, they are lower than they could have been and they are not so high that we should pull out before ensuring that the rule of law can stand. But I wonder about having so few rifles issued to U.S. forces that they are using salvaged AK-47s. I wonder if having more front-line soldiers and support soldiers would make central Iraq safer for U.S. forces.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ladewig- There might also have been a bit of wag-the-dog to distract the U.S. from some other issue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Luke T.
This is very unspecific. Wishful speculation, sounds like.

Yes. It is pure speculation, but not wishful speculation. I don't want the administration to hide some issue that is so big, they thought a war was a better option.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


You keep saying Bush is looting oil. I see no evidence for that - provide some evidence beyond just "it's in the papers".
...

There was another thread where you were in and somebody brought the Reuters link of a paper article I mentioned.

You were in.

Short memory?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion
Segno didn't forsee much when writing the dumb:

"...Its more likely that any Iraqis loyal to Saddam...".

What is forseeing is to write that Bush lying and killing alienate the world, not just a few "...Iraqis loyal to Saddam...".

And Like, you didn't address my take that you brought in U.N. Resolution 687, dealing with Iraq invading Kuwait in 1990, when the issue here is Bush's reasons for war in 2003 not related to any Kuwait.

Any news about you mixing facts?

Mixing facts? The resolution I posted/linked was from November 2002. Only four months before the current invasion.

Did you read it?

[Ion]

Sidetracking aside, this mainstream focus stands:
Originally posted by Ion
Anyway,

to summarize what took place in this thread, it is established that:

.) Bush lied;

.) people die because of it.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Ladewig

Yes, they are lower than they could have been and they are not so high that we should pull out before ensuring that the rule of law can stand. But I wonder about having so few rifles issued to U.S. forces that they are using salvaged AK-47s.

I could be wrong about this, but from what I understand, the AK-47s are often used by people who normally operate tanks. Because of limited space, they usually don't carry M16s.

Originally posted by Ladewig

I wonder if having more front-line soldiers and support soldiers would make central Iraq safer for U.S. forces.

Hey, I've stated before; The American military is probably the best one out there for winning wars, but they aren't the best peace keepers. Why? Because, so much of their military uses things like B52s, heavy tanks, etc. (Other countries with smaller militaries often don't have the same armaments, and thus make more effective peace keepers.)

[Ion]

Luke, 678 is from 1990 and 687 is from 1991.

They deal with Iraq and Kuwait.

They don't deal with Iraq in 2003 and Bush lying about WMDs.

1440 from November 2002 doesn't spell attacking Iraq.

The one who broke with U.N. in 2003 is Bush, not Hussein.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion
See newspapers about oil contracts and 8,000.

No, Sorry. Not quite good enough.

I do read newspapers, and a dozen other news resources, and none of that has anything to do with the fact that I asked that you provide any sort of evidence to back up such a wild claim and you have so far provided none.

What was the name of the mission? When did it occur? Which coalition units were involved? How much oil was taken? Where is the oil now?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ladewig


Yes, they are lower than they could have been and they are not so high that we should pull out before ensuring that the rule of law can stand. But I wonder about having so few rifles issued to U.S. forces that they are using salvaged AK-47s. I wonder if having more front-line soldiers and support soldiers would make central Iraq safer for U.S. forces.

We don't need more soldiers in Iraq.

And it was a fact of life during my time in the military that budget cuts forced us to cannibalize frequently. During and between wars. Something to think about. My troops often paid for spare electronic parts out of their own pocket. Bought them at Radio Shack. Totally unauthorized, but when you are between a rock and a hard place, whatya gonna do?

Yes. It is pure speculation, but not wishful speculation. I don't want the administration to hide some issue that is so big, they thought a war was a better option.

The U.S. was carrying the lion's share of the load during the "containment" of Iraq. Enforcing the no-fly zone, responding and preventing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1994, etc. The U.N. walked away in 1998. We didn't. How long were we supposed to do this? How many more unenforced U.N. resolutions were we supposed to put up with?

Even the U.N. admitted Hussein was a threat and was probably developing WMD. It is right there in the resolution I linked. But they wouldn't back their words up with deeds. At least the U.S. did.

What is the "issue that is so big" to which you keep referring? Wag the dog? What are you talking about?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak


No, Sorry. Not quite good enough.
...

You were in that thread with the Reuters link.

Go for it.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

There was another thread where you were in and somebody brought the Reuters link of a paper article I mentioned.

You were in.

Short memory?

I guess I have a short memory as well since I have yet to see conclusive proof that it was all about oil.

You can scream that at top of your lungs all you want but that is just not true. If we simply wanted oil, we could have done what the French wanted to do and try to lift sanctions while getting an exclusive contract from Saddam Hussein.

[Ion]

What's all this nonsense going on here?
Originally posted by Luke T.


We don't need more soldiers in Iraq.
...

.) Bush lied about Iraq.

.) people die because of Bush lies.

These facts are supported in this thread.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron


I guess I have a short memory as well since I have yet to see conclusive proof that it was all about oil.
...

I know you do have short memory.

See a specialist.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

I know you do have short memory.

See a specialist.

Yes as usual 0 facts in your posts keep it up.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.

...
Even the U.N. admitted Hussein was a threat and was probably developing WMD.
...

U.N. didn't kill 8,000 to find no WMDs.

U.S. did kill 8,000 to find no WMDs.

[ZeeGerman]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Also, have we seen any effects of this so called "squandering"???

Depends on where you look I guess. Germany and other nations are still present in Afghanistan just out of sympathy about 9/11. An increase of the activity there is just being discussed over here and will probably take place.

Sending German soldiers to Iraq to help getting the country under control OTOH is something that will probably not happen. And one of the reasons for that is the malicious tongue of Rumsfeld & Co. in the preface of the war.

But then, I guess those guys actually wanted to provoke just to get the opportunity to show that the US can handle it alone. If that's the case they certainly didn't sqander anything, they spat on it.

Just my 5 pence,

Zee

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

There was another thread where you were in and somebody brought the Reuters link of a paper article I mentioned.

You were in.

Short memory?

I recall an article about awarding reconstruction contracts to American companies. Is that unfair to other countries? Maybe, but oh well, tough luck. Is that unfair to Iraq? No, not really. They don't have the resources to rebuild their own oil industry infrastructure, they need outside help. I don't recall anything about oil being looted. Come one, post some evidence, make an actual argument for once. Or are wild accusations the best you can come up with?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Yes as usual 0 facts in your posts keep it up.
It's 0 facts for the short memory only.

Not a reference, you know?

[Ion]

There we go.

We start talking honestly now:
Originally posted by Ziggurat


I recall an article about awarding reconstruction contracts to American companies. Is that unfair to other countries? Maybe, but oh well, tough luck. Is that unfair to Iraq? No, not really.
...

It is unfair to other countries like France, because Bush speaks about free enterprise and France got their contracts with Iraq without war, while Bush kills in order to get his contracts.

I say 8,000 civilians in Iraq killed because Bush lies and kills, that's unfair to Iraq.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by ZeeGerman


Depends on where you look I guess. Germany and other nations are still present in Afghanistan just out of sympathy about 9/11. An increase of the activity there is just being discussed over here and will probably take place.



What proof do you have that they're in Afghanistan just out of sympathy for 9/11? (As opposed to being there because they think its the right thing to do.)

Hey, maybe some countries are there out of sympathy. But, I'm in Canada, which has a rather large contingent there (relative to the size of our armed forces), and the government has never said it was done for any other reason than helping Afghanistan.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion
There we go.

We start talking honestly now:

It is unfair to other countries like France, because Bush speaks about free enterprise and France got their contracts with Iraq without war, while Bush kills in order to get his contracts.

I say 8,000 civilians in Iraq killed because Bush lies and kills, that's unfair to Iraq.

France makes a deal with a brutal dictator who slaughters his own people and that makes them a good country. US deposes the dictator, tries to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq they are evil...So how is the weather like in bizzaro land?

[Ion]

Bush is.

I swear it's Bush.

He killed 8,000 for oil and lies about it:

talk about another (than Hussein) brutal dictator, right here.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

It is unfair to other countries like France, because Bush speaks about free enterprise and France got their contracts with Iraq without war, while Bush kills in order to get his contracts.

I say 8,000 civilians in Iraq killed because Bush lies and kills, that's unfair to Iraq.

It's unfair to Iraq for France to sign oil contracts with Saddam, who killed a lot more than 8,000 people to keep HIS grip on that oil. It's unfair for France to oppose the invasion because overthrowing Saddam would hurt their profitable deals with a tyrant. France can bite me, I don't care if we were unfair to France. They're a corrupt country with no real concern for human rights (again, need I bring up Rwanda, where they aided and abbetted genocide?). We have no obligation to be fair to France. The Iraqi people don't either - why should they be fair to a country that opposed their liberation? I also see that you provide no evidence for looting oil. Are you backing down on that silly conspiracy theory?

[Ion]

Ziggy,

you must remember the thread where I calculated that since 1991, Hussein killed less than Bush killed since September 11, 2001.

You asked me questions about my calculation.

So, yeah, to the Iraqis killed by Bush and to the Iraqis who see Bush killing, what Bush does, that's unfair.

[Luke T.]

Doing Ion's work for him.

Estimated casualties in Iraq from anti-war site at iraqbodycount.net. (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm)

According to that site, minimum number of deaths is 6131, maximum 7849. They start they count on Jan 1 of this year.

Estimated casualties from another organization here. (http://www.comw.org/pda/0305iraqcasualtydata.html)


A survey of Baghdad hospital records suggesting at least 1,101 civilian deaths and another 1,255 possible civilian deaths; reports from Basra Teaching Hospital of as many as 400 dead, "the majority civilians"; a report from a hospital in Hilla indicating 250 dead, both military and civilian; reports from hospitals in Najaf showing 378 dead, most of them civilians; and a report from a hospital in Nasiriyah suggesting 250 civilian deaths;

A report from Najaf Cemetery -- the principal burial place for devout Shiites in Iraq -- suggesting 2,000 excess burials during the course of the war;

Accounts of 37 individual incidents of war-time collateral civilian casualties suggesting at least 650 civilian deaths;

Reports (mostly from northern Iraq) of more than another 200 killed during the first month of liberation by unexploded ordnance, including land mines, and

Reports of 34 civilians killed by US troops during post-war protests and civil disturbances.

What's that add up to?

How does this compare to the slaughter of Iraqi's under Hussein's regime?

[Ion]

Look for the thread were I calculated how much Hussein killed since 1991, against how much Bush killed since 2001.

There is no match.

Bush kills more.

The way I see it, is that two dictators -the small and pathetic Hussein, and the big power but unintelligent Bush- they fight it out at the expense of 8,000 Iraqi civilians, 21,000 Iraqi soldiers with no choice and 300 U.S. soldiers who were fooled.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
Ziggy,

you must remember the thread where I calculated that since 1991, Hussein killed less than Bush killed since September 11, 2001.

So, yeah, to the Iraqis killed by Bush and to the Iraqis who see Bush killing, what Bush does, that's unfair.

Yeah, and I remember that it was a bogus calculation, and you were becoming a Saddam appologist. Did you count all the Iraqis who died from insufficient medical care because Saddam starved his own populace with his abuse of the oil for food program? No, you didn't. Come back when you know what the hell you're talking about, or actually care about Iraqi suffering rather than just a death toll that you can pin on Bush.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion
Ziggy,

you must remember the thread where I calculated that since 1991, Hussein killed less than Bush killed since September 11, 2001.

You asked me questions about my calculation.

So, yeah, to the Iraqis killed by Bush and to the Iraqis who see Bush killing, what Bush does, that's unfair.

You must be joking.

From here: (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/kurds/mylroie.htm)


Evidence of atrocities was everywhere. To suppress the Kurdish rebellion during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein depopulated the countryside, destroying nearly 4,000 of the 5,000 Kurdish villages. Piles of rubble where villages once stood testify to Baghdad's barbarous campaign.


And this from here: (http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/silenced/)


Iraqi dissidents are tortured or killed or they disappear in order to deter other Iraqi citizens from speaking out against the government or demanding change. A system of collective punishment tortures entire families or ethnic groups for the acts of one dissident. Women are raped and often videotaped during rape to blackmail their families. Citizens are publicly beheaded, and their families are required to display the heads of the deceased as a warning to others who might question the politics of this regime. Saddam Hussein was also the first leader to use chemical weapons against his own population, silencing more than 60 villages and 30,000 citizens with poisonous gas.

A PBS report in 1996: (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/september96/iraq_9-2.html)


Saddam Hussein is once again flouting the United States and the rest of the world. Iraqui troops have surrounded a Kurd safe zone, and President Clinton must now weigh his response options carefully.

Another page on the same site: (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/september96/kurds_9-6.html)


Many of us are aware that an Iraqi military incursion into a UN designated Kurdish "safe haven" in northern Iraq last weekend, caused President Clinton to order missile attacks this week on Iraqi military installations in Southern Iraq, to teach Saddam Hussein "a lesson". The "safe havens" had been set up the last time the Kurds had entered the Western consciousness, following the Gulf War in 1991, when Iraq crushed a Kurdish uprising, killing thousands, and creating 2 million refugees.

You seem to be the only person on the Left or Right, Ion, who think Hussein was a nicer guy than Bush.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Ion
Ziggy,

you must remember the thread where I calculated that since 1991, Hussein killed less than Bush killed since September 11, 2001.

You asked me questions about my calculation.

So, yeah, to the Iraqis killed by Bush and to the Iraqis who see Bush killing, what Bush does, that's unfair.

:D :D :D

I love you Ion,...your well thought out posts are both equal and opposite to what one normally expects from Jedi Knight.

Will you be holding forth on the nature of gravity soon!!??

:wink8:

[Shinytop]

Bush lied to get us into the war with Iraq. He has done an abysmal job in conducting the peace. Neither of which means we should not have gone into Iraq.

Iraq plotted to kill a president of the United States.
Iraq was shooting at American planes in the no fly zone.
Iraq had not complied with provisions of the UN resolutions.

Ion, the invasion needed doing. Far fewer died in the war than in your asinine assertions about deaths attributed to Hussein. The end result should make us all proud as long as we keep the goal in mind of a peaceful Iraq as a member of the world community.

I feel that goal can best be reached with a leader other than George W. Bush. That does not invalidate everything he has done.

[Luke T.]

Poor Hussein. Had to cut back on all his killing since 1991. I wonder why? What a mystery!

Here he was, all set to massacre some more Kurds in 1996, and he didn't, for some reason. Poor fellow. I wonder why he changed his mind?

There he was, ready to invade Kuwait again in 1994, and he didn't.

Was it the U.N. that made him change his mind you think?

That Hussein. What a guy. The Great, Benevolent, Sweet, Sweet Ruler.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Shinytop
Bush lied to get us into the war with Iraq.

I have yet to see a single scrap or shred to backup this assertion.

Hello? Has anyone read the U.N. resolution I have linked and quoted?

Bush didn't say anything that resolution didn't say. And the U.N. signed it. So if it was all a lie, then every signatory of the resolution lied, too. That includes France, Germany, Russia and China.

[ZeeGerman]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


What proof do you have that they're in Afghanistan just out of sympathy for 9/11? (As opposed to being there because they think its the right thing to do.)

Hey, maybe some countries are there out of sympathy. But, I'm in Canada, which has a rather large contingent there (relative to the size of our armed forces), and the government has never said it was done for any other reason than helping Afghanistan.

How is being there out of sympathy opposed to doing the right thing? Is there anything wrong or irrational with sympathy?

And in the times of poll driven politicians the sympathy of the people has a LOT to do with political decisions like it or not (I don't).

Zee

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Yeah, and I remember that it was a bogus calculation, and you were becoming a Saddam appologist.
...

In that calculation, you had no argument:

calculation, that's numbers.

Your post here, is all sentiment (i.e.: "...Saddam apologist..."), but no calculation.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I have yet to see a single scrap or shred to backup this assertion.

Hello? Has anyone read the U.N. resolution I have linked and quoted?
...

You saw Bush lying speech in Congress.

In this thread.

Regarding the U.N. 1440, I told you -and I have patience in your special case for a few thousands repeats- that 1440 doesn't call for war but calls for assessment by the U.N..

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Your post here, is all sentiment (i.e.: "...Saddam apologist..."), but no calculation.

So whose numbers do you want to use? Iraq said that over 1.5 million people died because of sanctions. I don't believe that number, but I've seen more independent estimates in the hundreds of thousands of people. And I pin the blame completely on Saddam.

So you argue that we shouldn't invade because Saddam was held in check, mostly by sanctions, yet the US was wrong to invade because we killed so many Iraqis because of our invasion, even though many fewer died in the invasion than under sanctions. Again, you really don't care about the Iraqi people, you don't really want what's best for Iraq, you just don't like Bush. Get over it. Neither do I. But I recognize a real dictator when I see one.

[Ion]

That's the way to go:
Originally posted by Luke T.
Poor Hussein. Had to cut back on all his killing since 1991.
...

If Bush was honestly accepting the U.N. scrutiny, that's the way he would have approached Iraq.

But gee, U.N. wouldn't have allowed Bush to loot Iraq's oil at any human life price, just like now U.N. doesn't want Bush to loot Iraq's oil when rebuilding Iraq, would it?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


So whose numbers do you want to use? Iraq said that over 1.5 million people died because of sanctions. I don't believe that number, but I've seen more independent estimates in the hundreds of thousands of people. And I pin the blame completely on Saddam.
...

I want to use numbers accepted by U.N..

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion

You saw Bush lying speech in Congress.

In this thread.

In this thread, by way of saying Bush lied, all I have seen is Bush's assertion that some regimes were attempting to acquire and possess WMD. This is not a lie.

Regarding the U.N. 1440, I told you -and I have patience in your special case for a few thousands repeats- that 1440 doesn't call for war but calls for assessment by the U.N..

It was not a call for an assessment. You obviously haven't read it. There were demands made of Iraq, which required compliance. Iraq chose not to comply. And 1440 stated 678 still applied. To wit:


Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore
international peace and security in the area,

At the time Resolution 1440 was signed, there was no question, by any nation that signed it, that war was the consequence if Iraq chose not to comply.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.

In this thread, by way of saying Bush lied, all I have seen is Bush's assertion that some regimes were attempting to acquire and possess WMD. This is not a lie.
...

It's a lie because in 2003 Iraq didn't possess or attempt to possess WMDs.

So:

that's a Bush lie.
Originally posted by Luke T.

...
It was not a call for an assessment. You obviously haven't read it. There were demands made of Iraq, which required compliance. Iraq chose not to comply. And 1440 stated 678 still applied.
...

Hussein complied with 678:

1.) no threat to Kuwait;

2.) U.N. assesses that weapons inspections in Iraq were progressing.
Hans Blix, says so, and that there is no need to war.
In yesterday's San Diego Union Tribune, Blix is quoted again.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

I want to use numbers accepted by U.N..

I don't think the UN has a number on this. Unicef does have an estimate of 500,000 children, perhaps that'll be sufficient for you (warning: pdf file):

http://www.unicef.org/reseval/pdfs/irqu5est.pdf

[DanishDynamite]

Luke T.At the time Resolution 1440 was signed, there was no question, by any nation that signed it, that war was the consequence if Iraq chose not to comply. Yes there was.

Firstly, I believe you are thinking of resolution 1441, not 1440. Secondly, you haven't quoted the relevant bits:
4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and or 12 below;

....

11. Directs the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director General of the IAEA to report immediately to the Council any interference by Iraq with inspection activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, including its obligations regarding inspections under this resolution;

12. Decides to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;
The "serious consequences" is not the phrase the UN uses for war.

Really, Luke, why do you think the US attempted to get a new resolution and that the invasion of Iraq wasn't a UN operation? Obviously, because it wasn't sanctioned by the UN.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by ZeeGerman

How is being there out of sympathy opposed to doing the right thing? Is there anything wrong or irrational with sympathy?


Think there may be a problem with interpretaton here....

There is nothing wrong with sympathy. And there is nothing that says that you can't be sympathetic and do the right thing at the time.

However, you implied that countries had deployed peace keepers in Afghanistan only because of sympathy for the US (as opposed to deploying peace keepers simply because the country sending them things its the right thing to do.) I think the countries that are in Afghanistan are there because they want to help the Afghanis, because they think it will improve their own country, and because they want to be seen as 'helping'.

The fact that it happens to coincide the country feeling 'sympathy' for the US is a non-factor. Simply put, corelation does not imply causation.

Doing things because of sympathy would involve the leaders (or the population) saying "We really don't think we should be in Afghanistan, but we'll do it anyways because we feel bad for the US."

Originally posted by ZeeGerman
And in the times of poll driven politicians the sympathy of the people has a LOT to do with political decisions like it or not (I don't).

Sorry, but given the fact that Afghanistan is, to put it mildly, irrelevant in so many people's lives, I doubt very much whether there is any great push by the public of any country to deploy people in Afghanistan in peace keeping forces. (And, given the fact that its still a dangerous place, I doubt any leader will risk having its soldiers come back in body bags because polls tell him that some people feel bad for the US.)

Of course, maybe things are different there in Germany.

[LucyR]

Originally posted by Grammatron


France makes a deal with a brutal dictator who slaughters his own people and that makes them a good country. US deposes the dictator, tries to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq they are evil...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Saddam once enjoy the support of the US?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

2.) U.N. assesses that weapons inspections in Iraq were progressing.
Hans Blix, says so, and that there is no need to war.
In yesterday's San Diego Union Tribune, Blix is quoted again.


Progressing isn't good enough. They had over a decade to come into full compliance, and they never did. Hans Blix never said otherwise. But why on earth should Blix be the one to decide whether or not we needed to invade? In fact, he's got a really bad record when it comes to Iraq's nuclear weapons program:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/hanstimid.htm

It was under Blix's watch that Iraq built its clandestine program, which remained successfully hidden from the IAEA until after the first gulf war. It was under Blix's watch that nuclear material that could have been turned into a bomb was monitored only every six months, giving Iraq the opportunity to start their crash program which was fortunately headed off by the first gulf war. Blix is incompetent. We should not trust him, and I don't know why anyone who actually knows about Iraq's nuclear program ever would. But then, you probably don't know much about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. For you, it's "all hail the UN" and "down with Bush", so that's close enough.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


I don't think the UN has a number on this. Unicef does have an estimate of 500,000 children, perhaps that'll be sufficient for you (warning: pdf file):

http://www.unicef.org/reseval/pdfs/irqu5est.pdf
The way I see the U.N. sanctions working in Iraq, is the way they work in Lybia.

There is no question that Bush didn't give a damn about sanctions or not, about liberation or not, but gives a damn about Iraq's oil.

[LucyR]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


I don't like Bush much myself, but you've become blinded by ideolody if you really think he's the biggest threat to world security, or that he has less moral authority than the worthless UN.



Worthless? I thought the US administration was now asking for their help.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by LucyR

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Saddam once enjoy the support of the US?

Yeah, we did support him against Iran. But unlike the French, we managed to wise up to that mistake.

[Ion]

Good point:
Originally posted by LucyR

Worthless? I thought the US administration was now asking for their help.
In April, Bush deemed U.N. "...irrelevant...".

And now the idiot is begging for help.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by LucyR

Worthless? I thought the US administration was now asking for their help.

Not to provide security. We shouldn't ever ask the UN to provide any security, because they are manifestly unable to do so. Not unless we want another Rwanda or Srebrenica.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Progressing isn't good enough.
...

I think progressing is good enough to spare 8,000 dead.

Is good enough also to hold Bush responsible for disregarding U.N..

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Not to provide security. We shouldn't ever ask the UN to provide any security, because they are manifestly unable to do so. Not unless we want another Rwanda or Srebrenica.
A coalition of forces under a U.N. mandate, has the military power and the U.N. legitimacy.

But Bush and his oil is the problem to this.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

The way I see the U.N. sanctions working in Iraq, is the way they work in Lybia.

There is no question that Bush didn't give a damn about sanctions or not, about liberation or not, but gives a damn about Iraq's oil.

Give me a break. Saddam was never going to bow to sanctions. Why should he, when he could smuggle plenty of oil out through Syria and STILL get much of the UN clamoring for lifting sanctions? You're a fool to believe sanctions were ever going to have an effect on Saddam.

As for Bush giving a damn about Iraqi freedom, frankly I don't care. It doesn't matter to me whether or not Bush cares about Iraqi freedom, because the fact of the matter is that he gave them freedom. That's what matters the most. You would keep them rotting under Saddam. Seems to me like you're the one who doesn't really care about Iraqi freedom. Oh, but you don't care about oil, so somehow you feel superior about wanting Iraqis to rot under Saddam.

[LucyR]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


Yeah, we did support him against Iran. But unlike the French, we managed to wise up to that mistake.

Right, and at the time it may have been reasonable. It just seemed to me that Grammatron was attempting to claim an undeserved moral high ground.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

I think progressing is good enough to spare 8,000 dead.

Is good enough also to hold Bush responsible for disregarding U.N..

Back to ignoring the half million Iraqis who died from the sanctions needed to keep Saddam in check, I see.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Give me a break. Saddam was never going to bow to sanctions.
...

He did bow.

No WMDs.

Remember the WMDs he had, and doesn't have?

[ZeeGerman]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


Think there may be a problem with interpretaton here....



I guess you are right. :D

Initially I was just trying an answer to Kodiak's question whether there is any recognizable effect of the US having squandered the goodwill of other nations. I think there is, because sympathy does play an important role in political decisions.

I did not mean to say that it's the ONLY reason (I know that it sounded like that, but hey, english is not my first language and I already had two beers).

Besides, I do think that sympathy was a major factor for the support the US got when they went into Afghanistan in the first place.

Had Osama sent the planes into a Highrise in - say- Indonesia to punish them for their blasphemic interpretation of the Islam, do you really think anybody would have cared to remove the Taliban?

Zee

[Ion]

Originally posted by LucyR

...
It just seemed to me that Grammatron was attempting to claim an undeserved moral high ground.
He does that, indeed.

He also makes believe that he doesn't remember what was established in other threads, like U.S. getting oil from Iraq, and wants people to work again at establishing things that are established.

Gramma, is a form of trolling.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Back to ignoring the half million Iraqis who died from the sanctions needed to keep Saddam in check, I see.
Did Bush start a war in Iraq because of this?

He didn't say so, and he didn't show it, ever.

[DanishDynamite]

Ziggurat:Not to provide security. We shouldn't ever ask the UN to provide any security, because they are manifestly unable to do so. Not unless we want another Rwanda or Srebrenica. Yeah, and no one should ask the US to provide security unless they want another Somalia or Vietnam.

Seriously, I am still confounded by some American's view of the UN. The UN is not some independent mercenary army which decides on its own where to send its army. It is an organization where countries of the world can meet to consider international issues concerning (among other things) war and peace. Members have (in principle) an equal say, except on the Security Council where some members are more equal than others. If a decision is made that a situation requires the use of force, member states are asked to provide forces to make this possible. That is all.

This anthropomorphic approach of attributing certain motives to the UN other than what is stated in the organization's charter, is silly and unfounded.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

He did bow.


Remember the UN resolutions he complied with? Oh, that's right, he didn't comply with them! He never gave a full accounting of his weapons programs. He kept plans and parts for his nuclear weapons program hidden till the end. How, exactly, does that translate into Saddam bowing to sanctions? Did sanctions get inspectors back in after they left in '98? Nope, only the threat of US military action did that. Did sanctions keep Saddam from shooting at US planes patrolling the no-fly zone? Nope, didn't do that either. Did sanctions get Saddam to stop funding Hamas suicide bombers? I'm afraid not. They kept him from rebuilding his weapons programs in the short term, but they were slipping, and they never got compliance out of him.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Luke T. Yes there was.

Firstly, I believe you are thinking of resolution 1441, not 1440.

Yes. It occurred to me later that it was 1441.

Secondly, you haven't quoted the relevant bits:

The "serious consequences" is not the phrase the UN uses for war.

I guess "serious consequences" in UN-speak means yet another piece of resolution in a series of resolutions. Makes the word meaningless. Resolute.


Really, Luke, why do you think the US attempted to get a new resolution and that the invasion of Iraq wasn't a UN operation? Obviously, because it wasn't sanctioned by the UN.

The war was blocked from UN involvement by countries who had interests in Iraq and in keeping Hussein in power.

They'll sign resolutions all the live long day, but won't follow through, all the while giving Hussein the nod and wink. Not exactly an incentive for Hussein to comply.

The U.S. was taking the brunt of the effort to keep Hussein in his borders and in compliance with the resolutions while others did their best to keep his evil regime in power and the money flowing into their pockets.

You want to talk about oil? You want to talk about lies? Take a look at those who tried to stop us from booting Hussein.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by LucyR


Right, and at the time it may have been reasonable. It just seemed to me that Grammatron was attempting to claim an undeserved moral high ground.

I did no such thing. It's just like Ziggurat said that we wised up. I'm not talking about Frances deal with Iraq in the 80's I'm talking about their deals in 2000 and on and how they tried really hard to lift the sanctions so they can get that oil flowing to them. Oh yeah, US is the evil one here :rolleyes:

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by LucyR


Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Saddam once enjoy the support of the US?

You're right... The US was a big Saddam supporter.

In fact, prior to the Gulf war, the US supplied a massive 1% of Iraq's Military equipment. :eek:

(see: http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html)

That puts them right behind such military supliers as Denmark and Brasil.

Seriously, the US was an 'ally' for a period in the 80s, but assistance was minimal. (Russia was still the bigger supplier.) And, you have to put things in context.... Iran had just become a fundamentalist state, and the US probably thought they were the bigger danger. (Maybe the US made a mistake supporting Iraq over Iran, but had Iran won that war, we would have had 2 fundamentalist dictatorships to deal with.)

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion

It's a lie because in 2003 Iraq didn't possess or attempt to possess WMDs.

So:

that's a Bush lie.

If it is a lie, it is a UN lie. Not Bush.


Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,

UN, Ion. UN.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

He does that, indeed.

He also makes believe that he doesn't remember what was established in other threads, like U.S. getting oil from Iraq, and wants people to work again at establishing things that are established.

Gramma, is a form of trolling.

Ion, with the amount of incomprehensible verbal diarrhea you spew on this forum and refuse to back anything up with facts aside from an occasional and vague ("Look for where I said it was true"), I don't know how you can sit there and call me a troll.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron

...
I'm not talking about Frances deal with Iraq in the 80's I'm talking about their deals in 2000 and on and how they tried really hard to lift the sanctions so they can get that oil flowing to them. Oh yeah, US is the evil one here :rolleyes:
Yeah, "...US is the evil one here...":

all it wants, is oil.

With or without Hussein.

It makes no difference to Bush.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Ion, with the amount of incomprehensible verbal diarrhea you spew on this forum and refuse to back anything up with facts aside from an occasional and vague ("Look for where I said it was true"), I don't know how you can sit there and call me a troll.
You mean that you found WMDs justifying the war in Iraq?

You?

Gramma?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

Yeah, "...US is the evil one here...":

all it wants, is oil.

With or without Hussein.

It makes no difference to Bush.

Oh really, well perhaps you can indulge us using your superior intellect why US -- like France wanted to do-- didn’t just make a deal with Hussein which would have been cheaper, faster and provided more secure access to oil?

[DanishDynamite]

Luke T.:I guess "serious consequences" in UN-speak means yet another piece of resolution in a series of resolutions. Makes the word meaningless. Resolute.No, it isn't meaningless. Different expressions are used for different meanings. The expression used when war is "allowed" is (I believe) "all possible means". This was used for operation Desert Storm in 1991, for example.

The thing is Luke, that if a majority aren't convinced war should be waged, they won't vote for a resolution sanctioning it.
The war was blocked from UN involvement by countries who had interests in Iraq and in keeping Hussein in power. *sigh*

Please tell me again if the US has ever used its veto power.
They'll sign resolutions all the live long day, but won't follow through, all the while giving Hussein the nod and wink. Not exactly an incentive for Hussein to comply.They weren't convinced that the reasons given were good enough for a pre-emptive. So far, they have been right.
The U.S. was taking the brunt of the effort to keep Hussein in his borders and in compliance with the resolutions while others did their best to keep his evil regime in power and the money flowing into their pockets.Sorry, Luke, but this requires a :rolleyes: .
You want to talk about oil? You want to talk about lies? Take a look at those who tried to stop us from booting Hussein. You want to talk about WMD? You want to talk about implied links to Al-Queda? You want to talk about the complete absence of evidence?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Ziggurat:Yeah, and no one should ask the US to provide security unless they want another Somalia or Vietnam.


Two things of note here: first, this is not Vietnam. The US should not ever again try to provide military support to a corrupt government against a popular uprising. That's the lesson for Vietnam. But that's rather irrelevant in Iraq now, isn't it? Second, we learned the entirely wrong lesson from Somalia, and taught the entirely wrong lesson to our enemies. We told the world that a major western power could be easily scared off by killing a few of its soldiers. So in Rwanda, when they wanted to commit genocide, what do they do? First scare off the UN peacekeepers by killing a few of them. And it worked. The US is showing it can learn from its mistakes, but the UN hasn't shown any such capability yet. In fact, it was just about one year after the Rwanda disaster that the UN demonstrated this failure to learn in Srebrenica.


If a decision is made that a situation requires the use of force, member states are asked to provide forces to make this possible. That is all.


That isn't all. There are a whole number of other issues involved, such as what rules of engagement they operate under, as well as the sort of support they can expect from their chain of command if things go down the crapper. In Rwanda, for example, peacekeepers were pulled out at the first sign of trouble. The perpetrators of genocide got several thousand troops to pull out just by killing about a dozen of them. And the consequences were disastrous. If the UN had any serious intestinal fortitude, they would have sent reinforcements and an expanded mandate, rather than pulling troops out.


This anthropomorphic approach of attributing certain motives to the UN other than what is stated in the organization's charter, is silly and unfounded.

Perhaps you don't understand what I meant. First off, the UN is far from monolithic, so it doesn't even really have its own motives as such most of the time. Second, I think it should be manifestly obvious that the UN often acts contrary to its charter. Thirdly, I never said that the UN was trying to cause such attrocities, merely that it has a demonstrated inability to prevent them. The structure of the UN is not set up to handle command of combat forces, even indirectly.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.

If it is a lie, it is a UN lie. Not Bush.
...

Bush lied in Congress about WMDs in Iraq, not U.N., and he went to war.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Oh really, well perhaps you can indulge us using your superior intellect why US -- like France wanted to do-- didn’t just make a deal with Hussein which would have been cheaper, faster and provided more secure access to oil?
Ask Bush Jr..

Like why Hussein didn't want to deal oil with Bush Jr.?

[Ion]

When Bush is out of the office of presidency and in a prison, I will believe this:
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
The US is showing it can learn from its mistakes,...
...

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Seriously, I am still confounded by some American's view of the UN......
It is an organization where countries of the world can meet to consider international issues concerning (among other things) war and peace. Members have (in principle) an equal say, except on the Security Council where some members are more equal than others.

Although I agree with your description, I think it is fair to point out that many of the problems that the UN have are derived from its setup:
- Members have equal say; however, not all countries have the same population. Is it fair that India (population near 1 billion) has the same number of votes as, say, Canada (population 30 million)?
- Many members that 'get their say' at the UN are dictatorships. Perhaps the UN would be more deserving of respect if the countries involved extended the same rights to their citizens that they expect from the UN.

There are many problems with the UN... It is expensive, and doesn't really do much more than various ad-hoc organizations and coaltions couldn't do. (The danger is when people defer major problems to the UN, when the UN itself doesn't have a proper moral compass.)

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
This anthropomorphic approach of attributing certain motives to the UN other than what is stated in the organization's charter, is silly and unfounded.

Have you seen the charter? There are all sorts of statements about how countries will respect human rights, etc. Many countries happily sign up for the UN, then promptly ignore those same provisions.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Segnosaur

...
Have you seen the charter? There are all sorts of statements about how countries will respect human rights, etc. Many countries happily sign up for the UN, then promptly ignore those same provisions.
In "Many countries happily sign up for the UN, and the promptly ignore those same provisions.", 'Many' means also U.S. and your Canada.

Iraq was a good opportunity to enforce the U.N. standards.

Bush's U.S. disregarded the U.N. standards, and went almost alone for Iraq's oil.

So Bush degraded U.N..

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Luke T.:No, it isn't meaningless. Different expressions are used for different meanings. The expression used when war is "allowed" is (I believe) "all possible means". This was used for operation Desert Storm in 1991, for example.

So what, exactly, was the plan when (not if) Hussein failed to comply with the latest and greatest November 8, 2002 resolution?

The thing is Luke, that if a majority aren't convinced war should be waged, they won't vote for a resolution sanctioning it.
*sigh*

Do you actually believe Hussein was disarming? *sigh*

Please tell me again if the US has ever used its veto power.

Yes, it has. Many times. Mostly against the USSR.

They weren't convinced that the reasons given were good enough for a pre-emptive. So far, they have been right.

Let's see. A vicious dictator overthrown. Oppression of the Kurds stopped. The beginnings of democracy established. Freedom for the first time in over 35 years.

Not good enough for ya?

You want to talk about WMD? You want to talk about implied links to Al-Queda? You want to talk about the complete absence of evidence?

Tell it to the UN. They signed off on the WMD theory.

[crackmonkey]

Ion -
It won't become true, regardless of how many times you say it...

Your insistence that Bush 'lied' is just silly. I suppose you could say that he 'lied' in the same sense that Clinton 'lied' when he said that the pahrmaceutical plant was producing WMD material, or that war opponents 'lied' when they said that thousands upon thousands of US troops would be coming home in body bags, or the way the anti-war types 'lied' when they said that no Iraqis would welcome American troops...
and so on. You are dangerously close to descending into parody.

[Luke T.]

Heritage Foundation report on who was benefitting from Hussein's regime here. (http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm217.cfm)

Somebody say something about oil?


FranceÂ’s largest oil company, Total Fina Elf, has negotiated extensive oil contracts to develop the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq. Both the Majnoon and Nahr Umar fields are estimated to contain as much as 25 percent of the countryÂ’s oil reserves. The two fields purportedly contain an estimated 26 billion barrels of oil.[4] In 2002, the non-war price per barrel of oil was $25. Based on that average these two fields have the potential to provide a gross return near $650 billion.


RussiaÂ’s LUKoil negotiated a $4 billion, 23-year contract in 1997 to rehabilitate the 15 billion-barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq. Work on the oil field was expected to commence upon cancellation of U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

Was Hussein disarming?


The former Soviet Union was the premier supplier of Iraqi arms. From 1981 to 2001, Russia supplied Iraq with 50 percent of its arms.[25]

Soviet-era debt of $7 billion through $8 billion was generated by arms sales to Iraq during the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq war.

Three Russian firms are suspected of selling electronic jamming equipment, antitank missiles and thousands of night-vision goggles to Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions.[26] Two of the companies identified are Aviaconversiya and KBP Tula.


According to a report from SIPRI, from 1981 to 2001, China was the second largest supplier of weapons and arms to Iraq, supplying over 18 percent of IraqÂ’s weapons imports.


The top three (arms) suppliers, from 1981 to 2001, were Russia, China and France respectively.

[LucyR]

Originally posted by Grammatron


I did no such thing.



Well, it sounded a bit like that.




Oh yeah, US is the evil one here :rolleyes:


I was not suggesting that is. Rather, that arguments based on morals have little merit in these sorts of situations except as a way to justify your policies to your people.

[Ion]

Originally posted by crackmonkey

...
Your insistence that Bush 'lied' is just silly.
...

Well, Bush lied in Congress about why warring in Iraq.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.
Heritage Foundation report on who was benefitting from Hussein's regime
...
Somebody say something about oil?
...
Was Hussein disarming?
...

So?

Hussein wanted to do business with France and not with Bush.

That's free enterprise, you know?

Bush went to war in order to overtake Iraq's oil.

So much for Bush's 'free enterprise'.

As for Hussein disarming:

yes, there are no WMDs in Iraq, right?

Looks like things were going well between EU and Iraq, and Bush wanted to jump in for his share not for "...500,000 children..." or for his 'liberation' type of claims.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.

So what, exactly, was the plan when (not if) Hussein failed to comply with the latest and greatest November 8, 2002 resolution?
...
Do you actually believe Hussein was disarming? *sigh*
...

Looks to me that Hussein complied with 1441:

no WMDs, right?
Originally posted by Luke T.

...
Let's see. A vicious dictator overthrown. Oppression of the Kurds stopped. The beginnings of democracy established. Freedom for the first time in over 35 years.

Not good enough for ya?
...
Tell it to the UN. They signed off on the WMD theory.
Nah, not good for me:

Iraq is being oppressed by U.S., now.

U.S. idiots signed "...on the WMD theory." not U.N., remember?

[crackmonkey]

How exactly do you define the term 'lie', Ion? Most of us who speak English define it as an untruth told with the full knowledge that it was an untruth.
An assertion based on incorrect information isn't a lie. An assertion based on a real suspicion without sufficient evidence to provide certainty is not a lie.
A lie is a deliberate deception.
Please provide a shred of evidence that Bush lied - that he deliberately told an untruth with the full knowledge that it was fiction.
I dare you. I double-dog dare you.

[Ion]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
How exactly do you define the term 'lie', Ion?
...

Like Bush stating in Congress that he wants a war against Iraq based on pursuing countries that he knows that they possess or seek to possess WMDs.

Today, with no WMDs in Iraq that Bush knew about when he spoke, Bush lied.

[crackmonkey]

SO - you;re saying that Bush knew full well that Iraq had no WMD, but stated that he thought they did (and trotted out plenty of intelligence supporting his lies, knowing that the intel was false). Apparently a great number of other countries thought he had WMD as well - were they lying, too, or merely mistaken? Many countries that were against the war ( as well as many war critics in this country) admitted that he had WMD, but this wasn't sufficient evidence to go to war. All liars?
And finally, where is your proof that Bush knew Saddam had no WMD?
Don't be a simpleton and parrot the line that the WMD wasn't found - I need proof that Bush knew beforehand that there was none in Iraq.
You don't have a leg to stand on, do you?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Looks like things were going well between EU and Iraq, and Bush wanted to jump in for his share not for "...500,000 children..." or for his 'liberation' type of claims.

How many times do I have to spell it out for you: you need to have your own reasons for supporting or opposing the war. It's a complete copout to say the war was unjustified because you don't agree with what you THINK Bush's motives are. The question is, and always has been, will the world be a better place if we invade Iraq? I strongly believe that the answer is yes, and I think events on the ground bear this out. You haven't argued no, you've just argued that Bush is a bad man. That's simpy not adequate. That's not good a good enough reason to let Saddam stay in power.

You claim "Iraq is being oppressed by U.S., now." without any evidence. We're not oppressing Iraq. We're giving them freedom, the first freedom they've had since before Saddam came to power. Iraq now has a free press, the only one in the entire arab world. How the hell can you actually say with a straight face that WE are oppressing Iraq? We're the only ones who have actually done anything to LIFT oppression from the Iraqi people. Your precious UN sure as hell wasn't doing anything along those lines, and why would they, when so many member states are dictatorships themselves? You're turning into a Saddam appologist.

[crackmonkey]

I figured Ion would run away from this one.

[DanishDynamite]

Ziggurat:Two things of note here: first, this is not Vietnam. The US should not ever again try to provide military support to a corrupt government against a popular uprising. That's the lesson for Vietnam. But that's rather irrelevant in Iraq now, isn't it? Second, we learned the entirely wrong lesson from Somalia, and taught the entirely wrong lesson to our enemies. We told the world that a major western power could be easily scared off by killing a few of its soldiers. My point, as you well know, was that the US has made military screwups, just as the UN is accused of. This fact doesn't mean that the US or the UN will always screw up.
So in Rwanda, when they wanted to commit genocide, what do they do? First scare off the UN peacekeepers by killing a few of them. And it worked. You don't seem to understand the term "peacekeepers". The mandate of peacekeepers isn't the mandate of peacemakers. The type of mandate is the result of a vote by the members of the Security Council. Don't blame the forces on the ground for only following their mandate. Blame the members who made the ill conceived decision.
The US is showing it can learn from its mistakes, but the UN hasn't shown any such capability yet. In fact, it was just about one year after the Rwanda disaster that the UN demonstrated this failure to learn in Srebrenica.Again, you refer to the UN as an entity upon itself. You might as well blame the US Congress of an inability to learn.
That isn't all. There are a whole number of other issues involved, such as what rules of engagement they operate under, as well as the sort of support they can expect from their chain of command if things go down the crapper. In Rwanda, for example, peacekeepers were pulled out at the first sign of trouble. The perpetrators of genocide got several thousand troops to pull out just by killing about a dozen of them. And the consequences were disastrous. If the UN had any serious intestinal fortitude, they would have sent reinforcements and an expanded mandate, rather than pulling troops out."If the US Congress had any intestinal fortitude, they would have sent reinforcements to Somalia".
Perhaps you don't understand what I meant. First off, the UN is far from monolithic, so it doesn't even really have its own motives as such most of the time. If you understand this point, why do you continously act as if you don't?
Second, I think it should be manifestly obvious that the UN often acts contrary to its charter. How?
Thirdly, I never said that the UN was trying to cause such attrocities, merely that it has a demonstrated inability to prevent them. The structure of the UN is not set up to handle command of combat forces, even indirectly. You may (finally) have a point. I'm not a member of the brass, so I can't evaluate your claim. Perhaps you would like to enlighten me on the problems with the structure.

[DanishDynamite]

Segnosaur:Although I agree with your description, I think it is fair to point out that many of the problems that the UN have are derived from its setup:
- Members have equal say; however, not all countries have the same population. Is it fair that India (population near 1 billion) has the same number of votes as, say, Canada (population 30 million)?No, not really. However, this is also the case for the US Senate.
- Many members that 'get their say' at the UN are dictatorships. Perhaps the UN would be more deserving of respect if the countries involved extended the same rights to their citizens that they expect from the UN.You must address the world as it is. Making the UN an exclusive club which only allowed members consistent with your viewpoint of a proper system of government, would just make it an extension of G7 and trully remove any moral authority.
There are many problems with the UN... It is expensive, and doesn't really do much more than various ad-hoc organizations and coaltions couldn't do. (The danger is when people defer major problems to the UN, when the UN itself doesn't have a proper moral compass.)Sure, there are lots of problems with the UN. That is in the nature of an organization meant to span the pluralities of the world's countries, government types, cultures, etc.
Have you seen the charter? There are all sorts of statements about how countries will respect human rights, etc. Many countries happily sign up for the UN, then promptly ignore those same provisions. Could you point out the relevant paragraphs and how non-compliance should be handled? Thanks.

[DanishDynamite]

Luke T.So what, exactly, was the plan when (not if) Hussein failed to comply with the latest and greatest November 8, 2002 resolution?That the Security Council would evaluate whether the transgression was clear enough that "all neccessary means" could be authorized.
Do you actually believe Hussein was disarming? *sigh*Ask Hans Blix. Oh, and check the latest list of MWD found so far.
Yes, it has. Many times. Mostly against the USSR.In which case you shouldn't have a problem with other countries using this power.
Let's see. A vicious dictator overthrown. Oppression of the Kurds stopped. The beginnings of democracy established. Freedom for the first time in over 35 years.

Not good enough for ya?No, it is not good enough. If a pre-emptive invasion of another country has no other justification than imposing your version of a proper government on said country, then you must likewise accept the invasion by the USSR of other countries, for the same purpose.

BTW, have you seen the latest speech by Anan on this pre-emptive, "the-end-justifies-the-means" business?
Tell it to the UN. They signed off on the WMD theory. Huh? They signed off on the weapons-inspectors. Given the lack of WMD, it seems these inspections were working.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite

You may (finally) have a point. I'm not a member of the brass, so I can't evaluate your claim. Perhaps you would like to enlighten me on the problems with the structure.

The basic problem is not military, it's political. There is no real accountability for incompetence or mistakes in the UN. When bad stuff starts going down, the UN would much rather protect its own troops than the people it's supposed to be watching over, because they're deathly afraid of being responsible for either their troops getting killed or the troops killing people unnecessarily. That's a mistake they're much more afraid of than of sitting idly while genocide occurs. As you mentioned, Congress has the same problem. But we have a single person at the top who is accountable, the UN has no such person. We can say Bill Clinton is to blame for America staying out of Rwanda, because he was to blame. Who do you blame at the UN? Everyone? Well, yes, but that doesn't help much, nobody is going to do things differently next time around just because they share the blame with everyone else. You need to focus accountability for this kind of military task, and that simply will not happen within the structure of the UN.

[Ion]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
SO - you;re saying that Bush knew full well that Iraq had no WMD, but stated that he thought they did (and trotted out plenty of intelligence supporting his lies, knowing that the intel was false).
...

What I am saying is that Bush claimed he knew of WMDs in Iraq, but he knew that he didn't know of WMDs in Iraq.

Thus, Bush lied.

What if I claim that I know Microsoft Visual Studio C++ 6.0, but I know that I don't know it?

That's lying.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
No, it is not good enough. If a pre-emptive invasion of another country has no other justification than imposing your version of a proper government on said country, then you must likewise accept the invasion by the USSR of other countries, for the same purpose.


If the USSR had ever actually invaded another country to STOP human rights abuses, overthrow a despot, and to provide a democratic government, I would never have had a problem with it. But they never did that, and weren't ever going to since they weren't a democracy themselves. Democracy isn't simply "our" version of proper government. Some form of democracy is the ONLY legitimate kind of government, and we need not play games of moral equivalency about that. The details can vary quite a bit, and we're not going to try to make Iraq the same as us. If they want socialism, that's fine, as long as that's what they vote for. If they want an Islamic state, that's actually OK too, as long as they vote for it. But I think we need make NO appology for imposing democracy on another country that was ruled by a despot. Dictators have no inherent right to their sovereignty.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
The question is, and always has been, will the world be a better place if we invade Iraq? I strongly believe that the answer is yes, and I think events on the ground bear this out. You haven't argued no, you've just argued that Bush is a bad man.
...

I argue 'no' now, and I did argue 'no' before.

War is the last resort, against Hitler and Stalin, but not against Hussein.

Hussein is a small time local (not international) tyrant, having oil.

Every problem in Iraq should have been solved without killing 8,000 civilians and without maiming thousands, peacefully under U.N..

If Iraq wanted to do business free-enterprise style with France and not with Bush, so be it.

Bush had to line up in U.N., under U.N. scrutiny for his questionable honesty, and cast his vote on matters of world affairs like any other democratic country.

Like Sweden, for example.

How come that what happens to Bush now in U.N. (today he is going to beg to his "...irrelevant..." U.N., for help), doesn't happen to Sweden?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


If the USSR had ever actually invaded another country to STOP human rights abuses, overthrow a despot, and to provide a democratic government, I would never have had a problem with it.
...

That's what USSR claimed in 1980 when invading Afghanistan.

Like US in Iraq, now.

The world doesn't believe either one.

[DanishDynamite]

Ziggurat:The basic problem is not military, it's political. There is no real accountability for incompetence or mistakes in the UN. When bad stuff starts going down, the UN would much rather protect its own troops than the people it's supposed to be watching over, because they're deathly afraid of being responsible for either their troops getting killed or the troops killing people unnecessarily. Everyone who sends troops into harms way are (hopefully) afraid that said troops are killed or perform actions not in line with their mandate (not least, war crimes). However, I'm not sure having a commander-in-chief who is responsible, solves the problem. Witness Vietnam.
That's a mistake they're much more afraid of than of sitting idly while genocide occurs. Indeed. BTW, I don't recall seeing any great pressure from the US to intervene in Rwanda.
As you mentioned, Congress has the same problem. But we have a single person at the top who is accountable, the UN has no such person. We can say Bill Clinton is to blame for America staying out of Rwanda, because he was to blame. Who do you blame at the UN? Everyone? Well, yes, but that doesn't help much, nobody is going to do things differently next time around just because they share the blame with everyone else. You need to focus accountability for this kind of military task, and that simply will not happen within the structure of the UN. And giving Clinton the blame was helpful in what way?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Ziggurat:Everyone who sends troops into harms way are (hopefully) afraid that said troops are killed or perform actions not in line with their mandate (not least, war crimes). However, I'm not sure having a commander-in-chief who is responsible, solves the problem. Witness Vietnam.


Having a single point of accountability does not in itself solve the problem, but it's pretty much a requirement for solving the problem. It is not sufficient, but it is necessary.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

That's what USSR claimed in 1980 when invading Afghanistan.

Like US in Iraq, now.

The world doesn't believe either one.

Oh boy, you've really gone off the deep end if you're comparing our invasion of Iraq to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was their equivalent of Vietnam. But Iraq is not like Vietnam, for a whole host of reasons, and if you're too stupid to figure out why, I'm not going to bother explaining it to you. But here's a hint: read the link in my signature.

[DanishDynamite]

(Sorry, I'm having problems with my connection. I keep getting the following message: "Warning: Too many connections in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/vbulletin/admin/db_mysql.php on line 38")

Ziggurat:If the USSR had ever actually invaded another country to STOP human rights abuses, overthrow a despot, and to provide a democratic government, I would never have had a problem with it. Of course not, as you support these things. What does that have to do with the fact that allowing a given country to pre-emptively invade a country to install their type of government, is not a a priori an acceptable reason?
But they never did that, and weren't ever going to since they weren't a democracy themselves. Democracy isn't simply "our" version of proper government. Some form of democracy is the ONLY legitimate kind of government, and we need not play games of moral equivalency about that. Of course we do! The Danish type of democracy isn't the same as the US. When can we expect a "perfectly justified" pre-emptive invasion to correct this mistake?
The details can vary quite a bit, and we're not going to try to make Iraq the same as us. If they want socialism, that's fine, as long as that's what they vote for. If they want an Islamic state, that's actually OK too, as long as they vote for it. But I think we need make NO appology for imposing democracy on another country that was ruled by a despot. Dictators have no inherent right to their sovereignty. Again, you miss the point. You argue for the preeminence of your type of government. I'm sure I could get some Cubans or North Koreans to argue likewise for theirs. The fact that all parties feel they are in the right is no justification for any of them to invade a country and impose their view of what is right.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Every problem in Iraq should have been solved without killing 8,000 civilians and without maiming thousands, peacefully under U.N..


"Should have" is irrelevant without "could have". You have yet to suggest ANY possible means of removing Saddam from power without invading. And as long as Saddam was in power, there was no possibility of solving Iraq's problems.


If Iraq wanted to do business free-enterprise style with France and not with Bush, so be it.


Saddam wasn't doing buisiness free-enterprise style, he was doing it mafia style. But you didn't know that because you don't actually know much at all about what was really happening.


How come that what happens to Bush now in U.N. (today he is going to beg to his "...irrelevant..." U.N., for help), doesn't happen to Sweden?

Why do you keep bringing up Sweden? There's no basis for comparison. Sweden is not a world power. It does not have the ability or the responsibility to affect the world that the US has.

I'm also rather ammused by the misinterpretation of current events by people such as yourself. Bush always wanted the UN to help out. He spent a lot of time trying to get the UN to do the right thing and actually enforce its own decisions. They refused, so he went ahead and did the right thing (remove Saddam from power) without their help. He has not changed his mind about anything, he's offering the UN another chance for THEM to do the right thing and actually help the people of Iraq. There hasn't been any flip-flop here at all on the part of Bush. Iraq has been a mess for decades, it's Saddam's mess that Bush is asking for help to clean up.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite

Of course we do! The Danish type of democracy isn't the same as the US. When can we expect a "perfectly justified" pre-emptive invasion to correct this mistake?


This is a complete strawman, and has nothing at all to do with the basic points under discussion. And it fails utterly to acknowlege the basic fact that we are NOT going to reproduce an identical democratic structure in Iraq. We don't need to, we don't want to, we never have in the past (Philipines, for example, doesn't have the US structure), and ultimately it's not going to be our decision anyways. So you're not making any relevant point here at all. The question was never about the particular form of democracy, but about SOME form (be it dutch, english, whatever) vs. despotic dictatorships. Are you just arguing because you can't let yourself agree with anything I say?


Again, you miss the point. You argue for the preeminence of your type of government. I'm sure I could get some Cubans or North Koreans to argue likewise for theirs.


It's not the economic system that matters. I don't care whether they adopt socialism, or hell even communism, as long as they get to vote freely on whatever the hell they want to adopt. Cuba and North Korea can't do that right now. And if you actually gave Cubans and North Koreans the right to vote, I doubt they would vote to give up that right, even if they chose to keep their communist economies (something I'd also be quite sceptical of). So yeah, I'd say one type of government, namely one where people can freely vote for their government, is preeminent, and I don't think I'm wrong at all about THAT conclusion. And if you disagree that the only truly legitimate governments are those voted for by their citizens, whatever the final form it takes, then you are playing games of moral equivalency.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Segnosaur:No, not really. However, this is also the case for the US Senate.


True. But unlike the US, there is no political body which is based on population size to counteract that. (In the US, big states are under-represented in the senate, but they also have a bigger effect on who becomes president, and have more seats in congress.)

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
You must address the world as it is. Making the UN an exclusive club which only allowed members consistent with your viewpoint of a proper system of government, would just make it an extension of G7 and trully remove any moral authority.


It could just be me, but I don't think an unelected dictator has the moral authority to make decisions that will affect other countries. But, in the UN, that is what happens.

And why do you think any organization that contains just democracies would lack moral authority? (Granted, there will be a problem defining just what a 'democracy' is; however, it may actually give some countries something to strive for.)

Originally posted by DanishDynamite

Sure, there are lots of problems with the UN. That is in the nature of an organization meant to span the pluralities of the world's countries, government types, cultures, etc.


True, most large multinational organizations will have problems. The question is, do the benefits of the UN exceed the costs/problems, especially when compared to the alternatives of ad-hoc groups.

Personally, I'd like to see countries take the money they donate to the UN, and use it to provide direct aid to the most disaffected countries (or put the money into scientific research).

Originally posted by DanishDynamite

Could you point out the relevant paragraphs and how non-compliance should be handled? Thanks.

In the preamble it states:
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women
Yet countries practicing Islamic law don't exactly give women and men equal rights, much less fundamental human rights.

Article 1 states:
To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
To me, self-determination implies democracy. Yet dictatorships (both religious based like Iran, or secular ones like Cuba) don't practice this

Article 2 states:
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Iraq was a member of the UN when it invaded Kuwait. Egypt, Syria, etc. were members of the UN when they were at war with Israel. (Heck, you could say that the US violated this when they invaded Iraq; however, there are other articles of the UN charter which supported the invasion.)

Now, I don't think there is any easy fix to force countries to apply these principles. Taking a tougher stand against dictatorships (as the US did against Iraq) can help, but the use of force should be limited, and used strategically.

[Ion]

I will keep sneaking here in between bits of C++ coding, so I won't be able to be as active as this thread deserves.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

"Should have" is irrelevant without "could have". You have yet to suggest ANY possible means of removing Saddam from power without invading. And as long as Saddam was in power, there was no possibility of solving Iraq's problems.
...
Saddam wasn't doing buisiness free-enterprise style, he was doing it mafia style. But you didn't know that because you don't actually know much at all about what was really happening.
...
Why do you keep bringing up Sweden? There's no basis for comparison. Sweden is not a world power. It does not have the ability or the responsibility to affect the world that the US has.
...
...it's Saddam's mess that Bush is asking for help to clean up.
All this deserves an answer:

leave this to U.N. to judge it.

As for Sweden, there it is a model democratic country that doesn't have problems with U.N.:

.) Bush's predatory style has problems with U.N.;

.) Sweden -a non-predatory democratic country- doesn't have problems with U.N..

It is not Hussein's "...mess that Bush is asking for help to clean up." but it is Bush's "...mess that Bush is asking for help to clean up." because it is Bush's war in Iraq -not Hussein's or U.N.'s war in Iraq- that the pathetic fool and liar little Bush is trying to recover from inside U.S. and Iraq:

that's why today's Bush topic in U.N. is that Bush's decision for war in Iraq was worthy according to Bush, while the world of 150 plus countries in U.N. is skeptical and cynical about Bush's hidden agenda.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

All this deserves an answer:

leave this to U.N. to judge it.


In other words, you have NO proposal for any alternative way to remove Saddam from power. That's what I thought.

Iraq needs to be rebuilt not because of our invasion, but because of more than a decade of systematic neglect, where Saddam poured his resources into building personal palaces and maintaining an abussive and oppressive security and military apparatus to keep his own people in check, rather than maintain civil infrastructure. And ultimately it is NOT the US that needs the help of the UN, it is the Iraqi people themselves. But you have demonstrated amply enough in this threat a complete and callous disregard for their welfare, so it's no surprise that you wouldn't want the UN to help out the Iraqi people. Your hatred of Bush exceeds your regard for the Iraqi people, and that's just pathetic.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

In other words, you have NO proposal for any alternative way to remove Saddam from power. That's what I thought.
...

Absolutely.

Why removing "...Saddam from power..."?

Because Bush says so, when not getting his Halliburton oil contracts from Hussein while France gets oil contracts from Hussein without a war?

And Bush lies about this?

Now, if U.N. -including peaceful democracies like Sweden- was deciding "...to remove Saddam from power...", I would listen to it.

[Ion]

I found this information:

US plans to attack 7 Muslim nations (http://english.aljazeera.net/Articles/News/GlobalNews/US+general+attacks+Bush+war+plan.htm)

"A former commander of NATO's forces in Europe, Clark (http://www.msnbc.com/news/969671.asp?0cb=-317181785) claims he met a senior military officer in Washington in November 2001 who told him the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq first before taking action against Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan...

Bush is an idiot war monger, with no respect to the laws in the U.N. international community.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

What I am saying is that Bush claimed he knew of WMDs in Iraq, but he knew that he didn't know of WMDs in Iraq.

Thus, Bush lied.

Ion

Well, you've got two premises and a conclusion there.

Care to arrange them into a formal logical argument and then run some truth tables?


(crickets...)

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Segnosaur
Personally, I'd like to see countries take the money they donate to the UN, and use it to provide direct aid to the most disaffected countries (or put the money into scientific research).

Why not dissolve the security council, but keep the WHO and other UN charitable organizations?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Ion

Well, you've got two premises and a conclusion there.

Care to arrange them into a formal logical argument and then run some truth tables?


(crickets...)
Nothing hard to figure:

.) Bush claimed that he knew of WMDs in Iraq in 2002 and 2003;

.) Bush killed in 2003 based on his claim;

.) today, it turns out that Bush didn't know in 2002 and 2003 of WMDs in Iraq.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Absolutely.

Why removing "...Saddam from power..."?


Because he was a brutal, oppressive tyrant who murdered his own people, engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Kurds, threatened and attacked his neighbors, and funded terrorists. You prove once again that you don't care what happens to the Iraqi people, you just don't like Bush. Well, I don't like him either. But unlike you, I DO care what happens to the Iraqi people. Unlike you, I don't want them to rot under Saddam just because some beaurocrats won't get off their rear ends and act out of anything other than self-interest. Unlike you, I'm not blinded by my dislike of Bush to the point that I can't recognize that someone who tortures and kills his own citizens for speaking out against him is a bigger threat to world peace than someone who gives too many tax breaks to the rich.


Now, if U.N. -including peaceful democracies like Sweden- was deciding "...to remove Saddam from power...", I would listen to it.

In other words, you can't think for yourself. You can't decide on your own whether or not something is necessary or good. If someone you don't like proposes a course of action, the fact that you don't like them is what matters to you, not the action itself. You would adhere to the empty forms of international cooperation while abandoning the goals that such cooperation is supposed to provide, like guarantees of basic human rights. Absolutely pathetic.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Because he was a brutal, oppressive tyrant who murdered his own people,...
...

Leave this to U.N., will you?

No need for crooks like Bush to lecture, kill, and loot.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

Nothing hard to figure:

.) Bush claimed that he knew of WMDs in Iraq in 2002 and 2003;

.) Bush killed in 2003 based on his claim;

.) today, it turns out that Bush didn't know in 2002 and 2003 of WMDs in Iraq.

Oh brother... :rolleyes:

Anyone else care to try?? :con2:

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak

Why not dissolve the security council,...
...

Because the Security Council should remain in order to gain overwhelming importance against abusers like Bush and Hussein.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

Leave this to U.N., will you?

No need for crooks like Bush to lecture, kill, and loot.

Like the UN helped Romania, you mean??

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Oh brother... :rolleyes:

Anyone else care to try?? :con2:
Try what?

To be an idiot American against the world?

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

Because the Security Council should remain in order to gain overwhelming importance against abusers like Bush and Hussein.

You're helping to confirm my wildest fears...

Sovereignty - look it up...

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak

Like the UN helped Romania, you mean??
Like UN is developing into helping countries, I mean.

Like Romania.

Don't count on Bush for this.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

Try what?

To be an idiot American against the world?

Ahhh...

Here come the Ad Hominems... :rolleyes:

How sad... :(

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
I found this information:

US plans to attack 7 Muslim nations (http://english.aljazeera.net/Articles/News/GlobalNews/US+general+attacks+Bush+war+plan.htm)

"A former commander of NATO's forces in Europe, Clark (http://www.msnbc.com/news/969671.asp?0cb=-317181785) claims he met a senior military officer in Washington in November 2001 who told him the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq first before taking action against Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan...

Bush is an idiot war monger, with no respect to the laws in the U.N. international community.

And you're a gullible idiot who will believe anything you read in your favorite anti-Bush newspaper. I see no evidence, only accusations, that Bush ever planned on attacking more than Iraq. No direct quote from any administrations or pentagon officials in question, so it's very possible Clarke himself misinterpreted what was said to him. So you have a second-hand account of speculation by someone who may not even be representing Bush's plans. What I find much more plausible is that we will exert particular pressure on those other countries, and rightly so, because they're all corrupt, oppressive countries which harbor terrorists. But it's just wild speculation to say that Bush is planning on invading all seven of them just on Clarke's word alone - after all, it's not like he's an impartial witness in all this, he has particular reason to try to paint Bush in as bad a light as possible. But such basic scepticism never occurred to you, since you're convinced of how terrible Bush is that anything bad about him MUST be true.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak


You're helping to confirm my wildest fears...

Sovereignty - look it up...
Absolutely:

in the world, all countries shouldn't have sovereignity as far as international law goes, they should be all subject to international law.

Like I said to someone in San Diego, I don't see the difference between a 7/11 grocery robber and Bush robbing Iraq of oil:

they should both bow to the law above them.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

And you're a gullible idiot who will believe anything you read in your favorite anti-Bush newspaper. I see no evidence, only accusations, that Bush ever planned on attacking more than Iraq.
...

I saw in the paper, Bush threats against Syria and Iran.

Clark who claims Bush's intentions, has more credibility than Bush.

I don't make Clark's claim myself, I am just watching Bush lying and killing in Iraq.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Oh brother... :rolleyes:

Anyone else care to try?? :con2:

Are you learning yet?

I've already posted this before; Ion is a troll. Worse than a troll, he isn't even entertaining. Of all the posts I've seen from him, he has really only posted useful content once. The rest of the time, it is worthless statements along the lines of 'bush lied', 'bush wants oil', regardless of what was origionally posted or what the topic was.

You're much better to save your energy to debate people like Tricky, or Crossbow, or one of the other anti-war people more willing to address the issues and carry on a decent debate.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Oh brother... :rolleyes:

Anyone else care to try?? :con2:

One final thought on Ion in the form of a quote; just replace Mr. Maddison with Ion and apply to every one of his replies.

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

Leave this to U.N., will you?

No need for crooks like Bush to lecture, kill, and loot.

That's the whole bloody point: the UN wasn't doing ANYTHING about Saddam. They had no intention of backing up inspections with military force, guaranteeing that Saddam would never comply (why should he if there are no consequences to him personally?). The UN also never did anything about his genocidal campaign against the Kurds. The UN had no proposed means of dealing with the problem of Saddam. In an ideal world, the UN would indeed be the organization to deal with such dicators. But the world is very far from ideal, and many member states are themselves dictatorships. The UN abrogated its responsibility to do something about Saddam. But why the hell should that then mean that the US can't do what the UN should have been doing? And your accusation of looting is still baseless. But that's OK, because not only do you not care about the Iraqi people themselves, you don't even care about basic honesty.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ion

Like UN is developing into helping countries, I mean.

Like Romania.

Don't count on Bush for this.

Quit obfuscating, changing gears, and redefining terms.

Sorry, not like Romania. The UN did not depose the communist oppressors of that country.

Are you honestly arguing that NATO, and specifically the U.S., had nothing to do with the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe??

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Segnosaur


Are you learning yet?

I've already posted this before; Ion is a troll. Worse than a troll, he isn't even entertaining. Of all the posts I've seen from him, he has really only posted useful content once. The rest of the time, it is worthless statements along the lines of 'bush lied', 'bush wants oil', regardless of what was origionally posted or what the topic was.

You're much better to save your energy to debate people like Tricky, or Crossbow, or one of the other anti-war people more willing to address the issues and carry on a decent debate.

Like Claus Larsen, I find it difficult to completely give up on somebody.

You're probably correct though...

I need to quit :hb:

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

I saw in the paper, Bush threats against Syria and Iran.


"I saw in the paper" is as coherent an argument as you see capable of forming. Stegnosaur was right about you. I kept arguing for a while because I think it's important for nonsense to not go unchallenged, because other readers may be influenced by the arguments here. But you, you're just a worm, Ion. A selfish, ignorant worm. If you can't come up with something better than "Bush lied" to argue for why we should have let millions of people continue to suffer under Saddam's tyranny, then I really have nothing more to say to you.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

That's the whole bloody point: the UN wasn't doing ANYTHING about Saddam.
...

U.N. did disarm Hussein of WMDs, didn't do that?

What do you want now, U.N. giving Bush Iraq's oil that Hussein didn't want to give to Bush?

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Grammatron


One final thought on Ion in the form of a quote; just replace Mr. Maddison with Ion and apply to every one of his replies.



I agree, except for the god part. If god does exist, why would Ion be deserving of mercy?? ;) :D

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat


"I saw in the paper" is as coherent an argument as you see capable of forming. Stegnosaur was right about you. I kept arguing for a while because...
...

The point still remains that:

.) Bush lied;

.) people died.

It hasn't changed, and Bush is responsible about the murders.

[Tony]

:dl: :dl:

This thread is funny, mad props to the people who constructed the coherent arguments, Zigg., Kodiak, and Gammatron. Ion is the closest living being to Forrest Gump I have ever had the displeasure of associating with. I’m beginning to think Ion is a sockpuppet of someone who is just messing with you guys. I seriously find it hard to believe someone could be that utterly stupid and still be able to use a computer.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Kodiak

...
If god does exist, why would Ion be deserving of mercy?? ;) :D
Because I didn't kill anybody in my life, and that I don't condone it when it's supported by lying like you do support lying.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Tony

This thread is funny, ...
...
I seriously find it hard to believe someone could be that utterly stupid and still be able to use a computer.
Tony Baloney, did you look at yourself?

I guess not.

[Ion]

Let's make a deal:

.) Tony 'the Texas Baloney', Kodiak, Ziggy, Gramma, RF, Segnosaur (albeit in Canada with an Israeli ethnic background), crackmonkey, LukeT., etc., they deserve to live within Bush's lies and killings;

.) myself, Malachi151, Mr Manifesto, subgenious, A_Unique_Person, The Fool (albeit in Australia), Dancing David, shemp, Tricky, DanishDynamite (albeit in Denmark), LucyR, etc., we don't deserve to live within Bush lies and killings.

Now, see what happens November 2004, come U.S. elections times, will you?

How deep

Tony 'the Texas Baloney', Kodiak, Ziggy, Gramma, RF, Segnosaur (albeit in Canada with an Israeli ethnic background), crackmonkey, LukeT., etc.

are they burying themselves?

Meanwhile, watch today, Bush pathetically begging his "...irrelevant..." U.N. for help, while newspapers worldwide (including here in U.S.) mentioning today and tomorrow (I saw it yesterday) Bush's ridiculous inconsistencies...

Bush's war was recently publicly called "...a fraud...", wasn't it?

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion

.) Tony 'Texas' Baloney, Kodiak, Ziggy, Gramma, RF, Segno (albeit in Canada with an Israeli background), crackmonkey, Luke.T, etc., they deserve to live within Bush's lies and killings;

.) myself, Malachi151, Mr Manifesto, subgenious, A_Unique_Person, The Fool (albeit in Australia), Dancing David, Schemp, Tricky, Danish Dynamite (albeit in Denmark), LucyR, etc., we don't deserve to live within Bush lies and killings.


No, you just think that the Iraqi people deserve to live with Saddam's killings. Go back under your rock, worm.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Ziggurat

No, you just think that the Iraqi people deserve to live with Saddam's killings. Go back under your rock, worm.
Ziggolini,

you and Bush you have problems to say this in U.N..

See Bush today in U.N..

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

Ziggolini,

you and Bush you have problems to say this in U.N..

See Bush today in U.N..

I think this point deserves translation because Ion keeps bringing it up -- It's ok and perfectly normal to kill people as long as UN says it's ok.

[Ion]

You got it Gramma:
Originally posted by Grammatron

I think this point deserves translation because Ion keeps bringing it up -- It's ok and perfectly normal to kill people as long as UN says it's ok.
To complete it:

"It's not ok to kill people as long as liars like Bush and fans say it's ok."

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion
You got it Gramma:


I rest my case.

[Tony]

My earlier comment turns out to be surprisingly true:

According to the bible, the bible is true. Ion represents a new form of fundamentalism, that which bows at the alter of the U.N.

Ion, you have changed my view on one thing, I now support abortion.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Tony
My earlier comment turns out to be surprisingly true:
...

Sorry, no "...surprisingly true..." in your quote:

if Bush doesn't like U.N., U.S. shouldn't be a signatory of the U.N. Chart, and Bush shouldn't be crawling for help in U.N. today after insulting and overriding the U.N. in February 2003.

I think the surprise that got me in U.S., it's Bush and fans:

I couldn't believe that someone as naively stupid is president, and has apologists like Tony 'the Texas Baloney', RF, Gramma, etc..