quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter You could define terrorist in such a way as to include Saddam, but what makes you think removing him from power will solve anything? Do you honestly believe that Iraq will become a stable region once he is removed from power?

true, and very good point. all i can say is that right now I feel it is worth taking that chance. in fact i feel it will be more secure after he is ousted. i belive once there is a change of regime it will be looked over by members of the UN and be set up in such a way as to create a more secure, globaly friendly government, as per afghanistan. its not going to be a 'kill saddam then pack up our bags and leave that place in a mess' kind of deal.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancedfarmer the iraqi government claims that over 2 million people have lost their lives due to the brutal supreesion that the U.N. and U.S. especially have placed upon their country..

excuse me for not beliving the iraqi government

quote:

they have many exmples and proof of their claim, and the proof can be found in the media aswell.. last year beginning in march i started watching the actions of the U.S. against Iraq, and even from what i gathered from the American media, they killed hundreds of civilians in 2001 from bombings alone..

not to take away from those 'facts' because i do belive some innocents have been killed from the bombings, BUT there is absolutlely no way in hell you could ever find out how many poeple died from bombings. what, does the US send in poeple to count casualties? no, all the reports come from iraqi sources, the same ones that said 100% of the population of iraq 'voted' for saddam

quote:

Their sanctions have also killed many people...

You can not blame this on the US or anyone else for that matter except for saddam himself. if he were to obey UN command there would be no sanctions. hence, it is his fault the people are dying from the sanctions. he should be concerened about that and actually give a crap.

quote:

George Bush is a terrorist too. So was clinton. So was Bush Sr. So was Reagan. Carter. Nixon. KENNEDY.. every president down the line... TERRORISTS... What to do with terrorists...

no offense but your definition of a terrorist is far beyond any logic. a terrorist in my opinion, is a person or group of people or even a government, that INTENTIONALLY kills innocent civilians for the purpose of achieving a goal of some kind. NONE of the US presidents have intentionaly targeted civilians as part of thier operations.

quote:

gandhi said, "an eye for an eye making the whole world blind".

this is not a case of revenge
but honestly seems to me right now that the world is blind to the intentions of saddam hussien. so i guess the world is always blind wether you take an eye for an eye or dont.

___________________
If God is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question.

This is one of those issues that I feel strongly about. So here I go...

quote:

And another thing - Bush & Blair spent weeks talking about fresh evidence they had that Saddam was a threat to the world. Have we seen any of this evidence? No! All we get is the same old worn-out rhetoric about how Saddam is a grave threat to world peace and security.

Umm...He has nukes...he has chemicals...he doesn't like us. How much more "fresh" evidence do you need? I mean, once you know they have all these weapons, thats pretty much all ya need from a hostile country. What "fresh" new evidence should we require? A little blip on a radar screen headed toward the US? Would that be "fresh" enough?

quote:

I believe that iraq should be forced to comply with the UN, to get rid of weapons of mass distruction.

And if Sadam were to tell the US & UN that every weapon was gone and let us in his country, do you really think that we would ever be able to find the nukes they have and would still have stored 1/2 mile underground? NO! We'd find those in about 6 months when Sadam gets pissed off!

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what makes saddam worse than bush and his father...?

Do you like America? Do you enjoy living here? umm...thats what makes Bush and Sadam different. Go to Iraq to live for a while and tell me that the 2 are the same.

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I would suggest that this is one of those cases, and that the resources we would spend attacking Iraq would more prudently be allocated to fighting terrorism elsewhere and fighting the underlying causes of terrorism that cannot be removed by brute force.

I've read something very similar to this from some 50 years ago, only the term "Iraq"" was replaced with "Germany". Get my point?



And Trancedfarmer...you seem very unhappy with the American presidents. I have one question...are you American? If so you should no longer be allowed to be. If so, I hesitate to call you my "fellow" American.


As for N. Korea...Yes, they did put Bush in somewhat of a pickle. But come on, they are developing weapons, as is every other country. They are not an imediate threat, or at least not nearly so much as Iraq. N. Korea has the world breathing down their necks if they try something. If Sadam decides to have a bad day though, there is no America. Not to say that N. Korea shouldn't be dealt with, but we can't go attacking every country, we would have WWIII. We now have more than 1 country with Nukes pointed at us. What else is new? It only takes one.

We learned in the last World War that dictators should NEVER be appeased...NEVER. Why after this short amount of time do we forget that?

___________________
"Oh NO! It seems the world has been infected by a disease called shitty music.
We've had innocculations for some time now but the populace keeps refusing it.
You don't want it? Fine. Give me all the vaccine and a needle and I'll fucking overdose.
It'll be the best day of my life."

quote:

excuse me for not beliving the iraqi government no, all the reports come from iraqi sources, the same ones that said 100% of the population of iraq 'voted' for saddam hence, it is his fault the people are dying from the sanctions. he should be concerened about that and actually give a crap. but honestly seems to me right now that the world is blind to the intentions of saddam hussien.

Izzy, I can tell you and I are going to get along very well in this forum!

___________________
"Oh NO! It seems the world has been infected by a disease called shitty music.
We've had innocculations for some time now but the populace keeps refusing it.
You don't want it? Fine. Give me all the vaccine and a needle and I'll fucking overdose.
It'll be the best day of my life."

quote:

Originally posted by CortexBomb Thank you for this though, there seem to be a few too many people in the States who've adopted the it's us against them mentality toward the Muslims...which is a little too much like the attitude held during the Crusades (and would/will likely be viewed in the same light by future historians if we proceed) for my tastes.

bo shit.

the muslims are the ones pullin a 'crusade'.

___________________
The father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies / While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park / Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums / The music and medicine you needed for comforting / So make all your fat, fleshy fingers fingers to moving / And pluck all your silly strings and / Bend all your notes for me and / Soft silly music is meaningful, magical / The movements were beautiful / All in your ovaries / All of them milking with green fleshy flowers / While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines, / Smelling of semen all under the garden / Was all you were needing when you still believed in me.

quote:

Originally posted by trancedfarmer People die. George Bush is a terrorist too. So was clinton. So was Bush Sr. So was Reagan. Carter. Nixon. KENNEDY.. every president down the line... TERRORISTS... What to do with terrorists...

im sorry but that was a very poor choice of words. these presidents are so far away from the definition of a terrorist that any historian would slap the shit out of you.

___________________
The father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies / While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park / Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums / The music and medicine you needed for comforting / So make all your fat, fleshy fingers fingers to moving / And pluck all your silly strings and / Bend all your notes for me and / Soft silly music is meaningful, magical / The movements were beautiful / All in your ovaries / All of them milking with green fleshy flowers / While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines, / Smelling of semen all under the garden / Was all you were needing when you still believed in me.

ok, my opinion now...

since i just came back from a deployment over there, and probably will get sent back over there sometime @ the beginning of next year, all i have to say is that i don't want Saddam in power, but i also don't want to attack without U.N. support...

The ONLY reason we don't have UN support is not b/c of Bush, or his personal reasons... its all politics. The bottom line is Russia and France get their oil very cheap from iraq, and if the U.S. took over, their prices would go up... that is the ONE reason behind all that.... and for those of you who think the US is attacking iraq is for oil (or to steal their oil), you are WAYYY off... we get our oil cheap enough from saudi (agreements with airbases/oil purchasing)...

I see everyone saying "the UN should just say "get rid of all your weapons or we attack".... well DUH don't you think the US tried to get the UN to say that? unfortunately, like i said, due to politics, Hussein has some big-wigs in his back pocket so a UN-supported mission will never happen... he did that on purpose and he has been working on that since desert storm...

i myself asked "why.. why attack right now, this second?"... and then i realized "shit, we should have attacked years ago"... saddam has been violating the UN resolutions that ended desert storm ten years ago this ENTIRE time!! we should have attacked at least 8 years ago.. there is no lee-way with nuclear weapons & chem warfare.. BTW whoever was talking about the new evidence they found, the reason you haven't heard ABOUT what it is is b/c its classified. its part of intelligence, and we can't go blaring that over the TV can we? Its like if we found the secret hiding spot of bin laden, you think we'd advertise we found it? hell no, man, top secret!

and to webmeister - you seem to have a lot of anti-US sentiment, especially about the attacks in Bali.... you DO realize that has nothing to do with the US, right? i dont understand your problem with the war on terrorism... in my eyes if i were you i'd be madder than ever and FOR the war campaign. BTW your military does not agree with you - i have served alongside MANY an aussie soldier and they are some of the best-trained, most exuberant military i have ever met.... class A people they are, and they have NO problem being out in the desert - they love it out there with us. they hate saddam just as much as we do.

Now, about replacing saddam? i think that will be a chore, but it would still help, no matter how bad the next government will be - the key reason for defeating saddam finally would be to locate and dismantle his weapons... and take him out of power... if you do this, no matter how right-wing the new government is, it will still be experiencing growing pains and trying to "settle in", that there would be no serious hostile-threat...

What i don't understand is this: the world KNOWS saddam has all these weapons of mass destruction... yet nobody seems to care, except for the US. We are as far away from iraq as you can be, and the hundreds of countries closer to iraq don't mind? Everyone thinks that iraq "just hates the US, and will use all its weapons on the US?"???? hello... kuwait didn't do anything to iraq, and ten years ago look what happened to them. You don't have to be on their shit-list to get attacked from them.

what the USA is doing right now is an attempt at preventative warfare... attempting to prevent a huge nuclear or chemical holocaust. Ironically, its oil that is preventing the US from getting full support from the UN, not helping.

___________________
Peace.

^^^^

>JM<

one thing that needs to be looked at is that... US has a constitution... and we all abide by that... the USA is a limited government... while Iraq is an unlimited government, meaning that Saddam can do whatever he wants...


Personally I think what Saddam is doing is bad... and I think he should be removed from power, but only with UN support. The US would lose credibility worldwide... and you bring up a good issue with north korea john... we cant be hipocritical


I think the best alternative is to influence the UN to be more proactive and remove totalitarian governments, that threaten the security of the 'free' world...

I just finished typing, and must say wow to abt... agreed

quote:

Originally posted by SpykeChyld I've read something very similar to this from some 50 years ago, only the term "Iraq"" was replaced with "Germany". Get my point?

Comparing Iraq of 2002 to Germany of 1935 is ludicrous. The Iraqi total military strength is so insignificant compared the the US military strength that they may as well not even have any soldiers. Saddam may not be the most rational guy on the planet, but he's not insane. He wouldn't just launch a nuke at us for fun when we could turn the entire land area of his country into a smoking crater with 1/1000th of military capacity. He might do something stupid like that regionally, but he doesn't present a direct threat to us, and Iraq doesn't have the potential to get to that point anytime in the near future - and when he does become a threat, THEN we can deal with him. By attacking him pre-emptively and without UN support, we deprive any government we instill in the region of legitimacy and thereby ensure even greater instability in the region.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Comparing Iraq of 2002 to Germany of 1935 is ludicrous. The Iraqi total military strength is so insignificant compared the the US military strength that they may as well not even have any soldiers.

Thank you Arbiter, you nicely summed up my feelings on that comparison as well...

Hmm, let's see, is Saddam the head of one of the most powerful militaries of his time?

Not exactly...
Which kind of makes any comparison to Hitler ridiculous IMHO...