I was always against the war, because I saw no real evidence of The "threat" of Iraq. I only got to see part of the UN meeting in school today, but what I saw seemed fairly convincing. My oppinion on the Iraq issue will change, depending on what unfolds the next few days. I don't like like war, but if this threat is real and nearly as bad as they've been saying, we need to do what we have to do.

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Originally posted by Renegade Given this fact, even if - with the evidence presented today - Powell has shown Hussein as being in violation of Resolution 1441, there is still a big difference between Hussein violating a single resolution (like I've said many times before, he's not the only leader in the world flaunting resolutions at the moment) and Hussein posing a genuine threat to the world.

well the reason this isnt just any other resolution is that this specific one calls for use of force (or i think the direct quote is grieve consequences) if not obeyed, this is very rare amoung UN resolutions and you will be hard pressed to find many more of that nature. so yes it is pretty serious if he violates just this one. furthermore it isnt just one resolution that he would have been violating, by defacto reasons it would mean that he hasnt been obeying any of the other resolutions passed at the end of the gulf war and any up through today.

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Powell failed to address any of the moral concerns regarding this war, and it certainly came across as an excercise in trying to find any excuse possible to march into Bagdhad, rather than a genuine demonstration of Hussein's threat to the global community.

i guess as you pointed out powell's arguements agianst saddam from a human rights point of view might be a way of addressing moral concerns, but as you pointed out some of that may be hypocritical (still it doesnt remove blame from saddam himself). Bush has also repeatedly said from a moral side how bad saddam is as a ruler for the nation of iraq. i do however see the 'moral' arena as the important one that should be concentrated in, the bush team should put a stronger effort in explaining why war is morally justified and only solution left, along with how it will in the future be for the better good (in terms of setting up a working future democracy embracing freedom). they got nothing to lose seeing as morality is an opinion and cant really be put forth by proof.

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Last edited by Izzy on Feb-06-2003 at 15:14

nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei:
"The message coming from the (U.N.) Security Council is very clear, that Iraq is not cooperating fully, that they need to show drastic change in terms of cooperation,"
Blix:
'He said the evidence of Iraqi non-cooperation presented by Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) to the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council on Wednesday and earlier evidence from Blix was compelling, and anyone who believed otherwise showed "a degree of unwillingness to face up to reality." '

rueters http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../iraq_blix_dc_3

would you need proof of a smoking gun in order to go to war or is proof that iraq isnt cooperating good enough?
why should iraq not cooperate if its got nothing to hide?

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quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Give me a few hours to rewrite parts of it (as now I can refer to the transcript instead of just doing everything from memory) but apart from that you're welcome to post it whenever you like.

excellent, yeah, just let me know when your done editing it.

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ_Skaya I don't like like war, but if this threat is real and nearly as bad as they've been saying, we need to do what we have to do.

need to do what? are you being personally threatened? do you think that iraq has any way of personally hitting the U.S., or has planned to do so, using their "weapons of mass destruction"? clearly not.

the "threat" of saddam hussein is a "threat" to his own people and to the neighbouring countries. IMHO the U.S. shouldn't even be a thousand miles near that area. why should they? do they think they're world cop?

if war is "what you need to do", and if the U.S. is after "world peace" or "world justice", then maybe they should stop being so blantantly obvious about trying to steal iraq's oil. instead they should deal with some of the REAL problems around them.

like north korea.

again, this "evidence" is not evidence at all, and is a joke and a disgrace to the international community.

dammit double post, sorry..

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Originally posted by Alccode need to do what? are you being personally threatened? do you think that iraq has any way of personally hitting the U.S., or has planned to do so, using their "weapons of mass destruction"? clearly not.

threat or no threat (i belive he does honestly pose a threat to the world and specificly the US) that is not the issue. the issue is whether or not iraq is cooperating with the world to make sure it is of peaceful nature (no WOMD programs, and other limitations put on it after the gulf war). i thought this was iraq's last chance to prove cooperation (seeing as it hasnt fully cooperated in over 10 years). in my eyes it is failing. since most all diplomatic avenues have been tried in bringing saddam to cooperate with the world the only option left is to force him to cooperate, whether he likes it or not.

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quote:

Originally posted by Izzy threat or no threat (i belive he does honestly pose a threat to the world and specificly the US) that is not the issue. the issue is whether or not iraq is cooperating with the world to make sure it is of peaceful nature (no WOMD programs, and other limitations put on it after the gulf war). i thought this was iraq's last chance to prove cooperation (seeing as it hasnt fully cooperated in over 10 years). in my eyes it is failing. since most all diplomatic avenues have been tried in bringing saddam to cooperate with the world the only option left is to force him to cooperate, whether he likes it or not.

and what if the UN decides for no war, or for more inspections instead, and the US goes to war anyway?

who will be uncooperating with the world then?

i'm really really curious to see if the US will defy the UN.

there are really only 3 realistic outcomes of all this.

1) the US goes to war anyway, defying the UN.
2) the US pressures the UN so much, that it agrees to war out of desperation / forceful tactics.

in both cases, the UN and, by extension, the world, have been disgraced. what are the consequences of that, then?

Well, when Powell said that after 9-11 everything has changed, but, if there wasent any 9-11, would the USA still attack Iraq ? ? .. thats one big question. In my opinion, I think that Bush is such a lucky mofo, so lucky that everything that has happened, his been able to justify and link it with Iraq with either real or some fake facts, yet, Im not sure about them, but , he surely is doing something that he would've loved doing anyways. This topic is getting very controversial, in my school, we spend hours discussing this topic with the class, and theres just so much information that has never come to the media in the USA that we here dont know.

One of the comments was that, the US will go to war no matter what, and that the US is just going along with the UN just to make time to build up the US forces in the middle east and attack Iraq from now on to 3 weeks. And I see this happening , only if Saddam proofs real deeply that he has no weapons of mass destruction and so on .. something I would doubt.. but, I dont know, the answers are always made after the damage is done.

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quote:

Originally posted by Alccode i'm really really curious to see if the US will defy the UN. there are really only 3 realistic outcomes of all this. 1) the US goes to war anyway, defying the UN. 2) the US pressures the UN so much, that it agrees to war out of desperation / forceful tactics.

uh.. that's only two things. I guess you left out the third.

3) the US heeds international and UN concern , and does not attack iraq.

The protests taking place worldwide are the largest EVER before a war. The only protests bigger were for vietnam, and this was after the war. funny thing about people, most can't be arsed to do anything until it hits home for them, like when americas boys started coming home from vietnam in boxes, the protests started getting huge in the US.

The same thing would happen now, except that now americas technology and weaponry is so much better, they really don't stand to lose much in the way of human life at all.

yet still, i predict the protests will only grow larger. There is a massive demonstration in New York city for February 15th, don't expect it to be covered much in the news, but it will be unavoidable if you are in new york. I am planning my own walk in my city for that day as well.

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quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith yet still, i predict the protests will only grow larger. There is a massive demonstration in New York city for February 15th, don't expect it to be covered much in the news, but it will be unavoidable if you are in new york. I am planning my own walk in my city for that day as well.

The anti-war movement is really gaining strength. Even though I think the war is not only morally justified, but is in fact the only moral option, I don't think the U.S. should attack unless it can garner more domestic support for the attack. If they proceed anyway, then I don't think Americans will want to bear the cost of rebuilding Iraq after a war they didn't even support, which would greatly hamper our chances of actually helping the people of Iraq (which is the only circumstance under which the war is justified anyway).

To be honest I think it's a sad reflection of the country that the anti-war movement is so strong. I think it is a manifestaion of our short-sighted, materialist culture. But I also think doubts about the U.S. government's motivations are legitimate (although they are a fallacious argument against the war in principle).

I fear that because of these factors, the people of Iraq may be fucked either way. For this I blame the U.S. government, for two reasons:

1. Their use of pro-war propaganda has provided an obvious and convenient straw-man for the anti-war camp to attack. Strengthening opposing rhetoric while creating the illusion that no justification exists.

2. Their vicarious sponsorship of big-media, mass consumption materialist culture has created an environment which gives rise to unrealistic human attitudes which refuse to make sacrifices. In the long run this refusal to make sacrifices is really what the anti-war movement is about. But we can't make progress unless we're doing it together. Even if the U.S. is right I'm not sure it will help to drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, towards those just objectives.

In any case, I still support the war with Iraq in theory. But under current circumstances, I fear that no choice we can make will produce acceptable results. It may be a case where we need to solve our own problems before we will be properly equipped to solve the problems of others.

I disagree with you that war is the only moral option. I fail to see how attacking a country which has done nothing is moral. I suppose the argument is that innocent people could die if we don't dissarm saddamn, but the fact of the matter is innocent people WILL die if we do attack iraq. both iraqis, americans, and all the "spinoff deaths" (i will come back to that in a moment).

you raise the point that because the support for the war is poor in america, money may not come to rebuild iraq. i agree, take a look at afghanistan, and we can see how the US rebuilds, even when support was high. and it's still not done bombing there yet. the iraqi people are going to be worse off if a war occurs, to believe we are doing this for the good of iraq is putting your head in the sand imo. america will have it's bases there for years to come.

this comes back to my "spinoff deaths". these are the people that will die from the exacerbation of the situation in the middle east.

This could be in any number of situations, resulting chaos after saddamn is deposed, riots and civil unrest in other countries such as saudi arabia, jordan and pakistan, as people try to fill the power void of saddamn, people killed by the US soldiers trying to "keep the peace" in the area.

However, these deaths don't seem to count much to the bush administration, they are merely "collateral damage".

But, there is another kind of spinoff death, that WILL result from an american attack, and that is increased desire for revenge from arabs, muslims in particular. American embassys will be attacked, americans will be targeted abroad (such as the bombing of the nightclub in bali), and there may be more terrorist attacks on US soil. some of these attacks may even be worse than September 11th if you believe the threats from saddamns son qusay(which i don't). As well, other countries that support this, such as the UK, Canada, Australia, etc may be attacked.

that's a potential huge loss of life, and could throw the entire mid east region into chaos. In fact, if the terrorist have it's way, what this will do, is throw the entire muslim religion into a holy war with the west. the potential for loss of life there is staggering, i'm sure you can see that.

So, the question then becomes.. who's lives hang in the balance? whose lives to we stand to save, by killing iraqi soldiers, and citizens, and causing and indeterminate amount of spinnoff deaths?

the answer, is shiites, kurds, kuwatis, israelis, and everyone else that saddamn dislikes in the middle east. because that is as far as he would be able to attack. he does not threaten the US, or even the UK, he could never get that far, he's a kid in the sandbox, quite literally. maybe the biggest and nastiest kid in the sandbox, but, only a kid in the end.

so, in conclusion, the question is: do we take this madman out, before he hurts someone? or do we leave him, and potentially let people in the mideast die and saddamn get more powerful.

The reason i do not support an american led war, is not because i do not believe that saddamn should be taken out. it's because that is not the job of the US or UK to decide nor enforce this.

furthermore, if they DO decide to take out saddamn, i feel that the consequences will only be more dire than if we had done nothing at all.

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