NationStates Jolt Archive

Chirac and Schroder did the right thing - their population didn't want to join the war, and the intelligence that Powell presented wasn't convincing (and has since been shown to be mostly lies).
on one will disagree that Saddam was a dictator, but there are far too many dictators in the world who operate with full US support for that to be a valid reason for war.

geostrategic reasons for a war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians aren't good reasons anymore, and haven't been for 100 years or so.

if you think the region will be changed for the better by this war and occupation, you need to stop reading american news and broaden your perspective.
Dubya has created another monster.

so glad to be canadian, just hope bush doesn't realise that we've got huge oil reserves ourselves in the tar sands, and quite a lot of the world's fresh water.

oh well, we repelled an american invasion before, and burned down your whitehouse, we could do it again.

With what army? You canadiens piss everyone off with your "Oh we burned down the white house nonsense. It took the assistance of a foreign government to do it.

How about we compare canada's military to the US's

"
Today, Land Force Command (Canadian army) consists of three field-ready brigades: 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in Edmonton, Alberta, 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in Petawawa, Ontario, and 5e Groupe-Brigade mechanisé du Canada in Valcartier, Quebec (the Francophone brigade).

The Canadian Militia, or Army Reserve, is divided into under-strength brigades (effectively just for purposes of administration) organised geographically, and has a strength of about 15,000.

Maritime Command (Canadian navy) is the senior command of the Armed Forces, and has approximately 20 modern deepwater warships including 4 tribal class destroyers, 12 Halifax-class frigates, 4 submarines and several 1960s-era steam-driven destroyer escorts that are based in Halifax and Victoria. The Naval Reserve maintains a fleet of Marine Coastal Defence Vessels for coastal patrols.




Now:

The US Army consists of 10 divisions, not counting seperate brigades, special forces, and major commands. The US Army has a current troop strength of 512,000. The entire US military accounts for approximately 1.5 million.

US: Military manpower - availability:
males age 15-49: 73,597,731 (2004 est.)

Military manpower - reaching military age annually:
males: 2,124,164 (2004 est.)


Canada:
Military manpower - availability:
males age 15-49: 8,417,314 (2004 est.)
Military manpower - reaching military age annually:
males: 214,623 (2004 est.)



So don't go making retarded ass blanket statements that you can't back up. We have a stronger military, a better trained, better equipped, more mobile military than you do. Good job looking like a retard.

Only Congress can declare war. In that respect, every 'war' after WWII (Korea, Vetnam, Iraq, so on) was an illegal war, as Congress did not issue a declaration of war for any of them.

I give you this:

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/IB81050.html

The president does not need to issue a declaration of War to make war, he only needs the approval of congress, and even then, only under certain circumstances.

"During the 2nd session of the 107th Congress, the Congress passed H.J.Res. 114, the Authorization for the Use of Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (P.L. 107-243 ). On October 16, 2002, President Bush signed this legislation into law. This statute authorizes the President to use the armed forces of the United States


as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."

"During the 1st session of the 107th Congress, the Congress passed S.J.Res. 23, on September 14, 2001, in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia. This legislation, titled the "Authorization for Use of Military Force," passed the Senate by a vote of 98-0; the House of Representatives passed it by a vote of 420-1. This joint resolution authorizes the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.""


How does that foot in your mouth taste?

Comparing the US's actions to those of other countries, btw, smacks of moral relativism...

Just like:

Ignoring the actions of other countries compared to those of the US, btw, smacks of moral relativism......

I've never said that the US didn't send biological or chemical materials....let's get the story straight. The little brain surgeons on here who think the US loaded up WMDs in barrels and shipped it to Iraq, are delusional.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm

I find it amusing that the little anti-Americans have such short memories. If it wasn't for an Israeli air raid in the '80s....you could sit and whine about how Iraq has a nuclear bomb! I wonder which country built the reactor and sold them the fuel for that reactor? The US?? LOL

Isn't it strange, that numerous countries were involved in arming and shipping biological/chemicals to Iraq, yet the US is the one time and again...being crucified for it??

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm

I find it amusing that the little anti-Americans have such short memories. If it wasn't for an Israeli air raid in the '80s....you could sit and whine about how Iraq has a nuclear bomb! I wonder which country built the reactor and sold them the fuel for that reactor? The US?? LOL

Was it France that sold them that fuel for the reactor? I do believe it was France that sold that fuel for the reactor.

Just like:



I've never said that the US didn't send biological or chemical materials....let's get the story straight. The little brain surgeons on here who think the US loaded up WMDs in barrels and shipped it to Iraq, are delusional.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm

I find it amusing that the little anti-Americans have such short memories. If it wasn't for an Israeli air raid in the '80s....you could sit and whine about how Iraq has a nuclear bomb! I wonder which country built the reactor and sold them the fuel for that reactor? The US?? LOL

Isn't it strange, that numerous countries were involved in arming and shipping biological/chemicals to Iraq, yet the US is the one time and again...being crucified for it??
PLEASE do not confuse my comments as being anti-American. I felt horror, sickness, and shock when those planes flew into the WTC, like so many others in the world. I fully supported the retaliatory strike against the Taliban, but then there was a sudden change in US direction.

I do not support the invasion of Iraq. I do not support Bush's BS about Iraq having WMD, and links to Al-Queda. I believe that Bush's actions have made the world less safe for Americans and "westerners". The invasion of Iraq, wreaks of imperialism of the most dangerous kind. There are unkind links between Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and it all adds up to no good. What happened to the real war on terrorism? What is happening in Afghanistan? Where is Bin Laden?

Sure other countries aided and abetted Iraq against Iran, but with US approval, and support. The war on Iraq is/was illegal and immoral despite the tin pot puppet Saddam's existence. Saddam....made in the USA.

I do not support the invasion of Iraq. I do not support Bush's BS about Iraq having WMD, and links to Al-Queda. I believe that Bush's actions have made the world less safe for Americans and "westerners". The invasion of Iraq, wreaks of imperialism of the most dangerous kind. There are unkind links between Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and it all adds up to no good. What happened to the real war on terrorism? What is happening in Afghanistan? Where is Bin Laden?

Imperialism, how so? If the US wanted an empire it would be done through establishing a trade network, making nations so dependant on your trade that if you pulled out they'd crumble this is the only real cost effective way to become an imperialistic power in this day and age. Don't act like one of then hippies standing on the street corner in a che guevera shirt yelling end american imperialism.

Big deal, Regan was one of the key people involved in ending the cold war.

What is happening in Afgainistan? The country is a pancake with nothing. The nation only stands to benefit from having the US occupy it. And secondly it is near impossible to find a man who is hiding in a hotbed of supporters and potential harbourers.



Sure other countries aided and abetted Iraq against Iran, but with US approval, and support. The war on Iraq is/was illegal and immoral despite the tin pot puppet Saddam's existence. Saddam....made in the USA.

Us approval and support, have any proof to this allegation or are you just going to mouth off? The war in Iraq is illeagle based on what? What france or russia says two nations with backdoor dealings with the iraqi government but should this be known it would be ok right, since its not the US...

Immoral, yes FOR SHAME you dirty bastards, liberating an opressed people, you make me sick [/sarcasm]

Imperialism, how so? If the US wanted an empire it would be done through establishing a trade network, making nations so dependant on your trade that if you pulled out they'd crumble this is the only real cost effective way to become an imperialistic power in this day and age. Don't act like one of then hippies standing on the street corner in a che guevera shirt yelling end american imperialism.

Big deal, Regan was one of the key people involved in ending the cold war.

What is happening in Afgainistan? The country is a pancake with nothing. The nation only stands to benefit from having the US occupy it. And secondly it is near impossible to find a man who is hiding in a hotbed of supporters and potential harbourers.




Us approval and support, have any proof to this allegation or are you just going to mouth off? The war in Iraq is illeagle based on what? What france or russia says two nations with backdoor dealings with the iraqi government but should this be known it would be ok right, since its not the US...

Immoral, yes FOR SHAME you dirty bastards, liberating an opressed people, you make me sick [/sarcasm]
There has been tons of supporting evidence on these threads. Lots of links that you can follow and read up on. The trouble with so many people is that they don't want to face the truth or admit any wrongdoing. They also don't want to do the work.

There are many oppressed people in the world and Bush elected to go into Iraq when other countries would probably have been far more important targets in the so called "War on Terrorism".

You can use all the invectives you wish and it won't change the truth. If you want to believe that Iraq was a serious threat to the US you can. Now all that you have to do is prove that it was, and guess what? You won't be able to.

Is America any safer because the US attacked Iraq? Most people think not.

"Ooh Abu Ghraib wasn't jack shit compared to what Saddam did!"

uh huh. So we should set the standard of behavior according to what Saddam does, right?

I quote the universal declaration of human rights (supposedly, the one we're defending)

Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

and yet, from what was recorded (Taguba Report)

"Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

If your local police arrested you and performed those actions, I would bet you'd be screaming blue bloody murder.

It may not be "torture" according to your standards; after all the CIA set the bar pretty high - training the SAVAK secret police in the Shah's Iran, helping the G-2 unit in Guatemala (whose charming activities included electric shock to the gentials). If you want direct involvement, during the occupation of Panama, following the 1989 invasion, several cases of torture were reported by American soldiers upon the members of the Panama Defense Forces. In one case, a metal cable was inserted into an open wound, and another was hung up by one arm on which he already had a wound stitched up.

At home as well, a Human Rights watch noted that over a ten year period of observation of 20 US prisons showed "extensive abuses of the UN's minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners...amounting to torture". The list goes on.

There comes a point when you should stop defending your government and it's actions and just realise we're *all* being taken for a ride. They don't really care about any of the rhetoric - freedom, liberty, etc. It's all to further their own aims. All governments do it, the only thing is the US is powerful enough to get away with it.

To clear this up, btw, I'm not "anti-American". I don't hate Americans, I hate the actions of its government, which are mainly committed without the consent or knowledge of its citizens.

Imperialism, how so? If the US wanted an empire it would be done through establishing a trade network, making nations so dependant on your trade that if you pulled out they'd crumble

That is exactly what they ARE doing... trying to get rid of trades and tarrifs and any subsidies in all countries but their own, supporting the World Bank and the IMF in their neo-liberal policies aimed at selling off all state owned services, agressively pursuing "Free Trade" agreements that attempt to undermine labour laws in order to abolish minimum wages and labour standards so that the country can "attract" business by being open to sweatshops and abusive working conditions. The U.S has been key in convincing nations to stop growing foodstuff, and grow so called cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, etc, causing those nations to become dependent on food imports instead of being self-sufficient, and causing world market prices to drop when too many nations end up being producers of the same crop. The U.S is by no means alone in this...Britain, Japan, and other wealthy nations are pushing the same neo-liberal ideas, claiming that trickle-down will make up for any social problems that may be caused by such practices. So far, not one nation has proven the trickle-down theory right, while many have seen widening gaps between rich and poor, and national debts accumulating at an astronomical rate.

What is happening in Afgainistan? The country is a pancake with nothing.

You prefer your pancakes with blueberries? :) Afghanistan is a mess, and no amount of US occupation is going to fix that. In fact, the ousting of the Taliban means that many warlords are back in power, and terrorising the population once more. Women under the Taliban were horribly persecuted and stripped of their rights, but women under the warlords are at threat of more rapes and physical violence than they were before. What the US did was destabalize an already bad situation, without having a viable plan to put the country back together. Kind of like what is going on in Iraq.

By the way, if the U.S hated Saddam Hussein so much...why did they help him get into power in the first place? Why did they put Manuel Noriega in power? Or Pinochet? Because dictators create stability, and stability is good for business. When Hussein and Noriega started to stray from the U.S party line, they were removed.



Immoral, yes FOR SHAME you dirty bastards, liberating an opressed people, you make me sick [/sarcasm]

The U.S has helped oppress far more people (in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama to name only a few countries in which they installed or supported puppet dicators) than they have ever helped "liberate". It seems you only care about an oppressed people when you aren't profiting off their oppression. While you're out saving the world, why don't you do something about the Sudan? I'm sure they'd love to be tortured in prison, like the Iraqis.

By the way...I do not hate citizens of the U.S (you are not Americans, that name belongs to all of us on the American continent). I do not agree with your foreign policies (and yes, I have a right to dispute them, since they affect other foreigners, like myself:)). There are plenty of people in the U.S I admire, such as Noam Chomsky, who are working to change your system in a peaceful way. It was a coalition of U.S citizens that has made it almost impossible for the notorious School of the Americas to continue training foreign nationals torture methods to use in their own countries. I'd like to flush out the bad, but keep the good, because there is plenty of good in the U.S, as in any country.

By the way, if the U.S hated Saddam Hussein so much...why did they help him get into power in the first place?

IF the US put Saddam in power......

1. Why were there 3 Ba'athist coups?
a. The first coup lasted 8 months and Saddam was a nobody in the party at the time.1958
b. The second coup Saddam was in Egypt(not exactly the place to be if you were the next "President" of Iraq). Saddam had no official affiliation with the Ba'athist party. This coup lasted 9 months.1963
c. The third was orchestrated by his "cousin", General Hassan al-Bakr. Saddam had been al-Bakr's #2 after the previous coup had failed. July 1968

Then in 1972, Saddam, al-Bakr's #2, went to Moscow to negotiate a bilateral Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.
Doesn't sound like "we" put him in power.....

By the way, if the U.S hated Saddam Hussein so much...why did they help him get into power in the first place?

IF the US put Saddam in power......

"help" is not "put"; you're refuting an argument that wasn't made.

There are widespread allegations of CIA involvement in the 1963 Baathist coup - including from people involved in that coup. (Edit - Saddam joined the Baath party in 1956, prior to any of the coups. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2886733.stm)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1762/3626448.html

After the botched assassination, Saddam had to flee Iraq. He spent the next four years in Egypt and Syria, the only period he has lived outside Iraq. He attended law school in Cairo and is believed to have made frequent visits to the U.S. embassy there. The Iraqi Baathists and the CIA had a common interest in getting rid of pro-Soviet Qassim. Several authors believe that Saddam was helping the CIA and the Baathists coordinate a coup.

In 1963, the Baathists overthrew Qassim, with help from the CIA, and this time they killed him, but held power only briefly, setting off a a period of coups and counter-coups.

Said K. Aburish, author of "Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge," who worked with Saddam in the 1970s, has said that the CIA's role in the coup against Qassim was "substantial." CIA agents were in touch with army officers who helped in the coup, operated an electronic command center in Kuwait to guide the anti-Qassim forces, and supplied the conspirators with lists of people to be killed.

"The relationship between the Americans and the Baath Party at that moment in time was very close indeed," Aburish said. The coup plotters repaid the CIA with access to Soviet-made jets and tanks the Americans hadn't yet acquired.

The coup enabled Saddam to return to Iraq. But the success was short-lived. The Baath was ousted and prominent Baathists were jailed. Saddam went underground, then was arrested and spent portions of 1964-66 as a political prisoner. He apparently was held under relatively comfortable conditions and low security. He escaped, apparently walking away from guards at a restaurant, and went back underground to help plot the Baath's return to power.

"help" is not "put"; you're refuting an argument that wasn't made.

There are widespread allegations of CIA involvement in the 1963 Baathist coup - including from people involved in that coup. (Edit - Saddam joined the Baath party in 1956, prior to any of the coups. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2886733.stm)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1762/3626448.html


Noted.

Noted.
The Star tribune story ties nicely into this little video clip?

A very plausible story, to say the least:

http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html

BTW, I like your signature trailer.