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Originally posted by tiesto14 Anyone can answer...i just like Renegade because he tends to post credible links that have good and extensive reading OK we (the U.S.) went to war with Iraq in the early 1990's and sadley all those innocent Iraq civilians died due to the war....but for arguements sake....if the U.S. overthrew Hussein at that point would alot of those deaths, post war, been avoided?... What i am asking is....did Hussein not help his people after the war with aid...and the burning of the oil feilds that he is suspected of doing caused manymore deaths...but that can not be the fault of the U.S. can it?...since Hussein started those fires which caused major agricultural problems..... If the U.S. took over Iraq and had established a better government in the early 90's and Hussein was gone...would many of those civilian deaths ended...what do you think? i am still reading though...and if you could post some links (if you have them) to places where i can read more about reasons why the U.S. should NOT go to war and why Hussein should REMAIN in power..i would really be interested in reading them.....i mean you do agree Hussein needs to be removed...maybe not with a war but in some way or another..or do you disagree..?? I mean I think we all agree that the Iraq people are being oppressed….why are you against the U.S. freeing them?…

I would agree with you that Saddam is nothing but a horrible despot, an evil evil man who has nothing but the self interest of those and his worst sycophants in mind, let alone the interests of the Iraqi people.

However, you are framing the debate in a way not even the Bush administration has done. Bush himself has repeatedly said that "Saddam must disarm" I think we all know its a virtual lock that he won't but let's say he does. What will the "coalition of the willing" say then? "Uh yeah...well he disarmed but he's so bad that we still have to get him out of there"? Obviously the case for war would've gone FAR out the window.

Now first of all don't ever accuse me of coddling Saddam but if we were to go to war over PAST human rights abuses (in Yugoslavia there were violations in progress, not those which the U.S turned their back on in the 1980's) we would be engaged with every Kim Jong Il (provided he stops being so fucking nutty) every Bashar Assad, every Hosni Mubarak, every Iranian Mullah, every House of Saud, every Jiang Zemin. I have no doubt that these are bad regimes but it certainly is NOT in our (or anyone's) best interest to embark on a series of new crusades. The world is too interconnected and the weapons are too destructive for that.

And what about those leaders who we simply don't like but don't pose a threat to us? Fiedel Castro, Lula da Silva, Hugo Chavez and so on are we to attack them too?

Personally I admit some apprehension about this war and to a certain extent its motives in totality but I would err on the side of the hawks as Saddam simply cannot be trusted with any implments of mass destruction (not to mention his appaling human rights abuses) but I'm not going to delude myself that these issues are totally black and white.

Also, slam dunk military victory or not, the world will be watching to make sure we do right by the Iraqi people once the war is over. I certainly hope we do for their sake. They've had enough suffering.

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Originally posted by IronDragon I would agree with you that Saddam is nothing but a horrible despot, an evil evil man who has nothing but the self interest of those and his worst sycophants in mind, let alone the interests of the Iraqi people. However, you are framing the debate in a way not even the Bush administration has done. Bush himself has repeatedly said that "Saddam must disarm" I think we all know its a virtual lock that he won't but let's say he does. What will the "coalition of the willing" say then? "Uh yeah...well he disarmed but he's so bad that we still have to get him out of there"? Obviously the case for war would've gone FAR out the window.

Yea really ... this shit can all end tomorrow if the weapons inspectors come back saying Iraq has complied unconditionally ... disclosed ALL their assets, and are proactively disarming and making it known to the UN and to the world. Case in point: South Africa. There's not going to be a whole lot of war talk if there's no reason for it at all.

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Originally posted by Renegade With 60% unemployment, how can the Iraqi people possibly hope to feed themselves, or provide themselves with medicine and other essential things? More people than not are dependant on aid from the United Nations for food and medicine. It would be easy to blame Saddam Hussein for these travesties, but it must be remembered that prior to sanctions, Iraq was - by Arabic standards - quite a well off country. It was secular and relatively westernised, with a solid economy (largely dependant on oil of course). The Iraqi people were well fed before sanctions, remember, so the argument "Saddam likes to deliberately starve his own people" doesn't have a lot of merit. Take a look at some of the comments from this site: http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pag...lity_print.html/

VERY GOOD read....

can i ask for you explain what exactley these U.N. sanctions where about and for??...how come they had them and what did they intail....


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and from the and from the same source
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pag...lity_print.html/..
please explain what this means....i read it several times..yet still dont grasp what it means:::

Myth 3: Iraq has acted in violation of UN resolutions, while the United States has not.

While the US singles out Iraq for its failure to comply with UN resolutions and human rights standards, Washington maintains profitable relationships with almost all of Iraq’s neighbors. In recent years, the United States supplied Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel with billions of dollars in weapons . The United Nations, Amnesty International, and even the State Department have condemned all of those countries serious violations of human rights and UN resolutions.

UN Resolution 687, paragraph 14, calls for regional disarmament as the basis for reducing Iraq’s arsenal. By arming Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East, the US government is contravening the same UN resolution that it cites to justify continuing the sanctions.

Israel maintained a position of "nuclear ambiguity" until 1986, when a then-technician Mordechai Vanunu exposed photographs and details about Israel’s nuclear weapon’s program. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in high-security prison for treason. The extent of Israel’s nuclear capability is still uncertain, but the country is believed to have more than 200 nuclear warheads and has violated scores of UN Mandates, yet the US remains silent with regard to this violation of international law.

please explain....

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then the same site goes on to say this::::
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pag...lity_print.html/

After allocations are taken out of Iraq’s oil revenues to finance Gulf War reparations, UN administrative costs, and other mandated expenses, the amount of money from the oil-for-food program that trickles down to the average person in Iraq is completely insufficient. Prior to May 2002, "[T]he total value of all food, medicines, education, sanitation, agricultural and infrastructure supplies that have arrived in Iraq has amounted to $175 per person a year, or less than 49 cents a day," according to von Sponeck.

Iraq cannot afford to rebuild its infrastructure under the oil-for-food program or under the new provisions of so-called smart sanctions. Water sanitation facilities, electrical grids, communication lines, and educational resources will remain permanently degraded until the sanctions are lifted.

Was the U.S. "supposed" to help with this?...after the Gulf War did we (the U.S.) just abanded Iraq and let them fend for themselves??

And thats stating that Iraq alone can not fix the problem...mainly due to trade sanctions impossed by the U.N.???

do i have that right?

Also what is the oil-for-food program consist of....??

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Also from the same source it says this::

The United States and other members of the Security Council must also take responsibility for the arming of Iraq in the decades leading up to the Gulf War, as well as the enormous suffering of the Iraqi people since the Gulf War in the name of Iraq’s disarmament.

doesnt Hussein have to take responsiblity for his own people also...i mean YES we do aswell...but i just get the impression that Saddam cares more about his military then his public..


and thanks for the info...i learned alot...but i still beleive we need to replace Hussein....if anything he needs to own up to the bombing of the USS Stark in 1987 that was deliberatly bombed from an Iraq fighter jet...he also needs toown up for the gassing of the Kurds and the use of chemical weapons on Iran..which is a war crime...asweel as the burning of the oul fields in Kuwait....

Maybe war is not the way to go...i do not have the right answer being as i do not have ALL the facts...i donot wish for ANY civilian to die...but sadley in this world, soemtimes thatmust happen inorder for a better future....it is sad but "sometimes" it is true....

Either or i beleive Hussein needs to be removed..

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Bring back 1994 NYC clubbing nights, cus the sh*t today is filled with junk parties and DJs that play sh*t House.....Zabiela, Sander, or Howells and all the rest suck and couldnt throw a night like it was in the early 90s in NYC!!!...Screw Twilo - give me Limelight circa 1993!!!

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Originally posted by Cyrus King Saddam is not is a Shiite muslim.. sorry,,, im getting these confused myslef. In any event, the majority of Iraq is Sunni, but Saddam is Shiite and if a "democracy" were to be intilled with a new government, they will bow to the demand of the majority, which i Sunni, the more fundemental of the sects. Iran is majorly Sunni, and these two nations will go hand in hand,... and the US wont like their "new" country being friends with their old enemy!

uuummm i beleive Hussein is a Sunni Muslim and the majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims...and i think Iran is mainly Shiite Muslim aswell...

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Bring back 1994 NYC clubbing nights, cus the sh*t today is filled with junk parties and DJs that play sh*t House.....Zabiela, Sander, or Howells and all the rest suck and couldnt throw a night like it was in the early 90s in NYC!!!...Screw Twilo - give me Limelight circa 1993!!!

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Actually Iraq suffered $100 billion in economic losses from its war with Iran. It was heavily in debt and its real GDP was estimated at levels as it was in the 40's ... prior to the oil boom, modernization of the country, and when it was an agricultural state. One of the primary reasons it invaded Kuwait in the 90s was to seize its rich oil fields and to default on the Kuwaiti loans it owed. Hardly "well off" by any standard.

I don't think that foreign debt is necessarily any indication of the standard of living in a country. Look at the US for instance.

Quotes from the economy site I posted:

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....it seems as if the middle class are now living under conditions that were normal for the lower classes before the international embargo started. Iraq's economy did not plumb directly after the start of the first UN sanctions on August 6, 1990, it's decline continued deep into the 1990's. The fall in gross domestic product (GDP) fell with 15% in 1996...... Because of the Iraq-Iran War GDP did not rise for 8 years, whilst it grew with more than 30% from 1987 to 1989.....

Tiesto14:

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can i ask for you explain what exactley these U.N. sanctions where about and for??...how come they had them and what did they intail....

There were different sanctions put in place for different things. Some sanctions were a punishment for the unauthorized invasion of Kuwait, some because of the weapons programs, some for their human rights record. You can find a more complete description of why they were introduced and what exactly they entail here (section 2):

http://www.american.edu/ted/IRAQSANC.HTM

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please explain what this means....i read it several times..yet still dont grasp what it means:::

It's just saying that Iraq is not the only country in violation of the UN resolutions that the US seems so intent on forcing Iraq to comply with. That is, if Turkey, Isreal, Saudi Arabia and others are violating UN weapons treaties and human rights charters, then why is it only Iraq that the US are going after? Are they going to force Isreal to disarm after they've finished with Saddam Hussein?

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Was the U.S. "supposed" to help with this?...after the Gulf War did we (the U.S.) just abanded Iraq and let them fend for themselves??

No, so far as I understand it, a country is only oblidged to help with rebuilding the nation it's at war with if it occupies it. So, because the US were only there to kick Iraq out of Kuwait (or, at least, that's why they were supposed to be there) it's up to the Iraqi government to rebuild all the buildings destroyed in the war and to fund all the costs incurred.

So yes, the US left Iraq to itself after the Gulf War, but under international law it had every right to.

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And thats stating that Iraq alone can not fix the problem...mainly due to trade sanctions impossed by the U.N.??? do i have that right? Also what is the oil-for-food program consist of....??

Iraq can't "fix itself" because its economy is heavily dependant on the export of oil which, under the current sanctions, is heavily restricted. The oil-for-food program means that Iraq is only allowed to sell a certain amount of oil per month, and most of this revenue goes into a UN account so that they may ensure that the money is spent on food and medicine rather than on the military or Hussein's palaces. What this site is saying though, is that the amount of oil that Iraq is allowed to sell equates to just 79c/day per person in Iraq, obviously nowhere near enough to feed everybody. If it weren't for the restrictions under this program then yes, they'd be able to sell more and stand a better chance of feeding their own people.

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uuummm i beleive Hussein is a Sunni Muslim and the majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims...and i think Iran is mainly Shiite Muslim aswell...

Correct.

occirider:

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Yea really ... this shit can all end tomorrow if the weapons inspectors come back saying Iraq has complied unconditionally ... disclosed ALL their assets, and are proactively disarming and making it known to the UN and to the world. Case in point: South Africa. There's not going to be a whole lot of war talk if there's no reason for it at all.

But you get the feeling that even if Iraq did comply unconditionally and submit all its weapons, the US would still say that they're being hidden or something similar, in the same way that "no smoking gun" = "Iraqi deception" rather than "no smoking gun" = "no smoking gun". If I asked you to prove that you don't own a pair of pink shoes, then there's no way out of it. If there were none in the cupboard, I could accuse you of hiding them in the garden. If a thorough search of the garden turned up nothing, I could accuse you of hiding them next door. If the next door neighbours haven't noticed anything suspicious, I could accuse you of selling them to terrorists..... and so on and so on. You can't prove a negative ontological claim, which is why the burden of proof should be more on the Americans rather than the Iraqis.

Does that mean that Iraq has nothing to do? No, I still believe that it's important that Iraq allow the inspectors to do their job (which by Hans Blix's admission they've already done quite well) and go out of their way to actively demonstrate their claim that what weapons they did have have been destroyed (which they probably haven't done well enough) but you have to remember that the inspections from 1991 - 1998 were quite succesful. I think that the inspectors should be allowed more time, and war should only become an option when the situation deteriorates to the same extent it did in 1998 (which was as much Clintons fault as it was the Iraqis).

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Originally posted by tiesto14 uuummm i beleive Hussein is a Sunni Muslim and the majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims...and i think Iran is mainly Shiite Muslim aswell...

YEah your right... im just getting them really confused and i dont know why. Nevertheless, my argument was that Husseins religious sect is not the majority beleif in Iraq. Shiite ideology runs rampant in both Iraq and Iran, Which is why i think Iran will be targeted next. These two will undoubtedly begin strong relations as their religious beleifs go hand in hand... and the Us wont like this.

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-MARCO V

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Originally posted by Renegade I don't think that foreign debt is necessarily any indication of the standard of living in a country. Look at the US for instance.

Hehe ok but as attractive as the "..." is, let's not conveniently leave off the rest of the article:

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Iraq's economy did not plumb directly after the start of the first UN sanctions on August 6, 1990, it's decline continued deep into the 1990's. The fall in gross domestic product (GDP) fell with 15% in 1996. Before the Kuwait war, Iraq's export relied 98% on oil. The second most important export product was and is dates. Production levels were at 630,000 tons in 1997. In the 1980's there had been a shift in the economic politics, leading to the reduction of state involvement in industries, and the selling of state organizations to private interests. Unlike many other oil producing countries Iraq benefits from a population big enough to feed emerging industries with domestic labour forces, an agricultural sector producing enough for the domestic market and sufficient water resources. Because of the Iraq-Iran War GDP did not rise for 8 years, whilst it grew with more than 30% from 1987 to 1989. While much hardship on the economical development and general living standard has come as a direct result of the UN sanctions, there is already a year-long history of Iraq not using all funds available to help its population. Different programmes to allow increased imports of food and medical aid has not been used to their full by the Iraqi government. During the 1980's the Iraqi authorities allowed for increased private participation in agricultural sector. The aim was self-sufficiency and surplus production that could be exported. But due to the hardship following the UN sanctions and the war in 1991, state control was resumed. The UN sanctions of August 6, 1990 involved the following: Ban on purchase or transshipment of Iraqi oil and other commodities and sale or supply of all goods and products to Iraq (with the possible exception for medical supplies and foodstuffs). Interdiction of new investments in Iraq and Kuwait (while under Iraqi occupation). Freezing of Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets abroad. From September 25, this was expanded to include: Interdiction of air traffic to and from Iraq. Detention of Iraqi-registered ships violating the trade embargo.