quote:

Originally posted by Lilith True, "contempt" would be a more apt description

contempt? yes, for Rudd. not your troops

...and do i have to remind you whom exactly it was that put Australian and British SAS/Para's first into Iraq and on the ground doing recon weeks before the yanks ever showed up en-masse? hmmm? hint, it wasn't Rudd.

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You want me to spell out a parallel lack of humanitarian efforts in two countries under tyrannical regimes during this era,

yes, because i fail to see anything equivalent to UN 1441 with respect to any country other than Iraq or any equivalent to Afghanistan circa 2001.

if you have a problem with it go jerk the UN's chain and stop dumping all your blame on my country. while youre at it, look to your own.

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Originally posted by Q5echo contempt? yes, for Rudd. not your troops

And yet, should they be asked Australia, regardless of a labour or liberal government in charge would follow the US. As they have done and most frequently offered without exception since World War 2.
Yes, even Rudd would do it and as much as I don't like him much either for different reasons, he'd back the US to the hilt.

With attitudes and pig ignorance by the common American goodness knows why they bother

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yes, because i fail to see anything equivalent to UN 1441 with respect to any country other than Iraq or any equivalent to Afghanistan circa 2001.

Well gee, just off the top of my head there was the 2nd Congolese war which had killed 5.5million people and was the largest conflict since WWII, which the west doesn't care about.
Then there was the fall of Zimbabwe from democracy into despotism and still no support from the west for that one either or since...

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if you have a problem with it go jerk the UN's chain and stop dumping all your blame on my country. while youre at it, look to your own.

Which country? I lay claim to 4. Residency in 2, citizenship in 1 and will get killed in 1.
The US knocked back my refugee status and refused residency because of my actions in one of the countries I once lived in, stood up for my rights and was booted out of by the government, under armed force. Not a "please leave now"

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Originally posted by Q5echo "Berlin Wall" now thats lip service.

well, what would you describe the wall of segregation?

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Originally posted by Q5echo if the right to worship is what people in Iraq want regardless of sect then yes, Islam as a whole has a greater influence in Iraq.

well, i was thinking about the elections and how hardline islamists now have a voice in the government, which i don't think is a good thing (for iraq or the US).

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Originally posted by Q5echo to add to that, it also has greater influence in government as opposed to the minority's iron hand during Saddam.

could you post some info on this wonderful new government? coz all i've seen from the previous few years is people lamenting what a lame duck parliament it is.

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Originally posted by Q5echo Al Sadr isn't even in Iraq. he's fled to Iran. Al Sadr is far from the senior Shiite clergy in the region. i've stated this before. AlSadr has been given little choice by American success to what whatever it is youre referring to restaint. thats why he hasn't been in the country for over a year.

ok, obviously i meant al sadr's army, which i assume is still very much in iraq? and is a kind of stand-off with the american military currently? certainly im not sure that the surge has effected their capabilities? do you really think this "peace" is the new status quo? or is it merely transitory? hasn't the level of violence tapered off because of the shiite militia's restraint or not? or are they in some mode of defeat? didn't seem so when the allied forces tried to bring basra under control.

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Originally posted by Q5echo 1. by their own laws and regulations Germany never allowed our intel services access to Curveball to use "alternative interrogation methods" so your'e fundamentally wrong there regarding curveball

so what you're saying is that the americans put a whole lot of stock in an informant that they never actually got to meet? an informant that the german authorities warned the US of coz they didn't feel he was credible? and what about the sheikh? he most definitely was tortured, by egyptian secret police at the behest of the US.

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Originally posted by Q5echo 2. GITMO started taking prisoners in 2002 as a result of the Afghan war Enduring Freedom. it makes absolutley no sense in thinking that we tortured Iraqis for Saddam WMD intel during the run-up to the war in 2003 when we weren't even in Iraq while we were making our case to the UN. IOW we had all the evidence we needed for casus belli in Iraq whether that casus belli was flawed or not. whatever we were doing in GITMO in 2002 had little to do with finding WMD in Iraq.

yeah, sorry i didn't mean to sound as if they were torturing those at gitmo for the invasion of iraq, poorly worded on my end. but after 9/11 there was a new doctrine of "torture" handed down from up high, and there's no doubt that faulty intelligence has been gathered from these new techniques of interrogation.

in any case, out of the two major informants the US used in their case for war, 50% of them were tortured.

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Originally posted by Q5echo that is a point...to the point that there is no such thing as perfect intel.

but there is such a thing as an over-eager administration paying attention only to information they wanted to hear. many many intelligence officers have gone on record to say that the bush administration misused the information provided to them, and made categorical truths out of intel known to be shaky.

im sorry, but that's just not good enough from the leaders of the free world. if you are going to invade another country, you need more than they had.

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quote:

Originally posted by ******** ? Is Austrailia a member of NATO?

Nopes.. NATO is mostly a EU thing..

http://www.nato.int/STRUCTUR/countries.htm