NationStates Jolt Archive

NOTE: I really don't like posting long articles on here, contrary to what you may believe based on some of my posts, but a few are just too good, IMHO, to not post. Mark Brown, the author of the article below has been a strong critic of President Bush in the past, and had these thoughts to share about Iraq.

Was Bush Right About Iraq All Along?

February 1, 2005

BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Maybe you're like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started -- not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood.

You didn't change your mind when our troops swept quickly into Baghdad or when you saw the rabble that celebrated the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, figuring that little had been accomplished and that the tough job still lay ahead.

Despite your misgivings, you didn't demand the troops be brought home immediately afterward, believing the United States must at least try to finish what it started to avoid even greater bloodshed. And while you cheered Saddam's capture, you couldn't help but thinking I-told-you-so in the months that followed as the violence continued to spread and the death toll mounted.

By now, you might have even voted against George Bush -- a second time -- to register your disapproval.

But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?

It's hard to swallow, isn't it?

Americans cross own barrier

If you fit the previously stated profile, I know you're fighting the idea, because I am, too. And if you were with the president from the start, I've already got your blood boiling.

For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility.

I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.

Some CNN guest expert was opining Monday that the Iraqi people crossed a psychological barrier by voting and getting a taste of free choice (setting aside the argument that they only did so under orders from their religious leaders).

I think it's possible that some of the American people will have crossed a psychological barrier as well.

Deciding democracy's worth

On the other side of that barrier is a concept some of us have had a hard time swallowing:

Maybe the United States really can establish a peaceable democratic government in Iraq, and if so, that would be worth something.

Would it be worth all the money we've spent? Certainly.

Would it be worth all the lives that have been lost? That's the more difficult question, and while I reserve judgment on that score until such a day arrives, it seems probable that history would answer yes to that as well.

I don't want to get carried away in the moment.

Going to war still sent so many terrible messages to the world.

Most of the obstacles to success in Iraq are all still there, the ones that have always led me to believe that we would eventually be forced to leave the country with our tail tucked between our legs. (I've maintained from the start that if you were impressed by the demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad when we arrived, wait until you see how they celebrate our departure, no matter the circumstances.)

In and of itself, the voting did nothing to end the violence. The forces trying to regain the power they have lost -- and the outside elements supporting them -- will be no less determined to disrupt our efforts and to drive us out.

Somebody still has to find a way to bring the Sunnis into the political process before the next round of elections at year's end. The Iraqi government still must develop the capacity to protect its people.

And there seems every possibility that this could yet end in civil war the day we leave or with Iraq becoming an Islamic state every bit as hostile to our national interests as was Saddam.

Penance could be required

But on Sunday, we caught a glimpse of the flip side. We could finally see signs that a majority of the Iraqi people perceive something to be gained from this brave new world we are forcing on them.

Instead of making the elections a further expression of "Yankee Go Home," their participation gave us hope that all those soldiers haven't died in vain.

Obviously, I'm still curious to see if Bush is willing to allow the Iraqis to install a government that is free to kick us out or to oppose our other foreign policy efforts in the region.

So is the rest of the world.

For now, though, I think we have to cut the president some slack about a timetable for his exit strategy.

If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance.

Maybe I'd have to vote Republican in 2008.

They finally managed to find some WMD's that could be deployed in 45 minutes?

Was Bush Right About Iraq All Along?

no

They finally managed to find some WMD's that could be deployed in 45 minutes?
if they did i wouldnt be able to stop from asking myself...

deployable within 45 minutes, eh? so why did it take you a year to find them!?

if they did i wouldnt be able to stop from asking myself...

deployable within 45 minutes, eh? so why did it take you a year to find them!?
Cause Saddam also had cloaking devices to make them invisible. And only now their powercells ran out.

No he was not right. I don't even agree with the sentence, "Would it be worth all the money we've spent? Certainly."

How so? We've gotten nothing out of it and the only reason a nation should go to war is out of protecting its own self-interests. There is no other reason to resort to violence. This war has failed to give such a reason. Forcing democracy on other nations because we believe it to be the superior form of government is not worth spending our money and our troops lives on. Fighting a war purely for idealistic purposes, simply for the satisfaction of saying, "Hey we did something good!" is idiotic.

Well it's not over yet.

One thing I heard one historian point out which you rarely hear(at least in my case) is the time to perfect democracy. You can't simply give people a vote and things will be happy from that point on. How long did it take for us to free the slaves?, How long before women got to vote?, How long for blacks to not be unofficial second class citizens?

Iraq has only known a monarchy and a dictator. Democracy is going to take time. Security forces and intelligence gathering is going to take time.

One reporter in Iraq(can't remember his name so take this as it is), said from the people he talked to some of the motivation for voting was to take their country back and to see about getting the Americans to leave.

Withdraw dates are Catch-22. If you don't give one, you start pissing off people. If you give one, you aid your enemy as now they know they only have to hold out till that date.

Time will tell.

As I said before. If Iraq sorts out to a point where I think I can visit it without body armor, then I will grudging congratulate the Shrub.

They finally managed to find some WMD's that could be deployed in 45 minutes?


No. Just hidden within 4 years.

That there were WMD's in Iraq, Bush was wrong, it seems. That Saddam wasn't very nice and that Iraq would be better off without him, he was right. Not quite sure why this involved such manoeuvres as shooting down allied aircraft though.

Cause Saddam also had cloaking devices to make them invisible. And only now their powercells ran out.
Id be convinced

Heh. I WISH I was wrong and Bush was right. I'd much rather have to eat my own words than see my country fuck itself over.

Except it seems to me that that's exactly what it's doing.

I find this train of thought going through my mind as well. I find myself thinking "well I'll be damned. They actually pulled it off!" Of course, this doesn't wish away the ethical and practical ramifications of the pre-emptive strike, nor does it ameliorate the thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis that died, but at least something good may come out of it.

Id be convinced
Especially if it was confirmed by the CIA.

Especially if it was confirmed by the CIA.


With the UN helping poor ol' Saddam make $21 billion while starving his own people!

With the UN helping poor ol' Saddam make $21 billion while starving his own people!
But now thannkfully the US controls the oil. And we all know we can trust them.

no

I would think that you would, as a simple common courtesy, actually READ the article before simply dismissing it as more "propaganda." You seriously disappoint me. :(

Check my post here. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=393239&page=5&pp=15)

Read my essay length post.

I find this train of thought going through my mind as well. I find myself thinking "well I'll be damned. They actually pulled it off!" Of course, this doesn't wish away the ethical and practical ramifications of the pre-emptive strike, nor does it ameliorate the thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis that died, but at least something good may come out of it.

Hmm. You don't suppose those figures might be just a TAD inflated, do you? :(

Check my post here. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=393239&page=5&pp=15)

Read my essay length post.

Ok, but only if you read the article I posted in this thread first. :)

EDIT: I read it. Good essay. A bit over emphatic, perhaps, but good nonetheless. :)

But now thannkfully the US controls the oil. And we all know we can trust them.


No more than France, Germany, Russia, or Jordan?

LMAO

Nothing in the artical changes the facts.
The invasion wasnt about setting up a democracy, it wasnt about making Iraqi people free or happy. It was (alledgedly) because Saddam due to his ongoing WMD programs, was a serious, direct, immediate threat to US security.

Further none of the evidence that has been revealed as being 'primary evidence', when taken into context with other evidences and facts, indicates strongly that there were active WMD programs, despite the pre-invasion assurances from the Bush admin that the evidences were robust and conclusive. I've seen no evidence that this was so, and every indication that it wasnt.

If the war was worthwhile due to democratic installation by force being a desirable end, then that is what people should have been told it was for prior to the invasion. Unless someone is suggesting that the admin lied, and democracy was a goal rather than a side effect, the fact remains that the Bush admin started a war by mistake. If someone does want to believe the Bush admin intentionally lied and concocted false allegations against another nation for the purpose of tricking their populice into starting a war, simply because the admin believed the real reason wasnt going to cut ice, that's actually worse not better.

The happiness of the Iraqi people doesnt change the fact that the war was either initiated only through subtefuge and lying to their own populice, at worst, and a mistake at best. No, I dont in circumstance believe starting wars by mistake or lying to start a war against the percieved wishes of your populice, is anything but a dangerous and stupid precedent to set, either in terms of the US's interests and well being, or in terms of the world's interests and well being.

No more than France, Germany, Russia, or Jordan?

LMAO
Actually less then above mentioned.

Nothing in the artical changes the facts.
The invasion wasnt about setting up a democracy, it wasnt about making Iraqi people free or happy. It was (alledgedly) because Saddam due to his ongoing WMD programs, was a serious, direct, immediate threat to US security.

Further none of the evidence that has been revealed as being 'primary evidence', when taken into context with other evidences and facts, indicates strongly that there were active WMD programs, despite the pre-invasion assurances from the Bush admin that the evidences were robust and conclusive. I've seen no evidence that this was so, and every indication that it wasnt.

If the war was worthwhile due to democratic installation by force being a desirable end, then that is what people should have been told it was for prior to the invasion. Unless someone is suggesting that the admin lied, and democracy was a goal rather than a side effect, the fact remains that the Bush admin started a war by mistake. If someone does want to believe the Bush admin intentionally lied and concocted false allegations against another nation for the purpose of tricking their populice into starting a war, simply because the admin believed the real reason wasnt going to cut ice, that's actually worse not better.

The happiness of the Iraqi people doesnt change the fact that the war was either initiated only through subtefuge and lying to their own populice, at worst, and a mistake at best. No, I dont in circumstance believe starting wars by mistake or lying to start a war against the percieved wishes of your populice, is anything but a dangerous and stupid precedent to set, either in terms of the US's interests and well being, or in terms of the world's interests and well being.

But, you know what? When the US pulls out, after making sure that no surronding country will pick on Iraq, alot of countries an their dictators are going to be feeling pretty guilty. Suddenly, democracy isn't a evil system on the other side of the world. It's a government system that people accepted and will now fight for, and guess what? They are right next to you. How do you countinue to bullshit your people with that staring them in the face?

Im very happy the elections went successfully, and bush was right all along, there is a whole lotta oil in iraq, which is why terrorism reigns supreme in the nations that arent rich in oil, sudan, somolia... etc.

no

heh. Nice summary.

Etrusca, there's a point there, and though I, for the most part, agree with it, I would never vote Republican. They're greedy, harsh, caustic, religious, heartless, imbeciles, who care nothing about civil rights, education, equal opportunity, the environment, etc.

It is going to take more than a single vote to convince me that democracy is even possible in Iraq.

It is going to take more than a single vote to convince me that democracy is even possible in Iraq.
Single vote no good? How about 60% of the country?

Single vote no good? How about 60% of the country?

60 of registered voters.

And the amount of registered voters wasn't even close to being the entire country. Assuming US state department spokesman Richard Boucher is correct, there were some 15 million (other sources state much lower figures, but we'll say the US figures are correct, even though better judgment would warrant otherwise) that's 0.6 x 15 = 9.

9 out of c:a 25-30 million (we'll say 27). 9/27 = 1/3 = 33,3 %.

60 of registered voters.

And the amount of registered voters wasn't even close to being the entire country. Assuming US state department spokesman Richard Boucher is correct, there were some 15 million (other sources state much lower figures, but we'll say the US figures are correct, even though better judgment would warrant otherwise) that's 0.6 x 15 = 9.

8 out of c:a 25-30 million (we'll say 27). 9/27 = 1/3 = 33,3 %.

Hmm. I seem to have forgotten that you, being Swedish, are now an expert on the American political system. Please forgive my ignorance. :rolleyes:

Hmm. I seem to have forgotten that you, being Swedish, are now an expert on the American political system. Please forgive my ignorance. :rolleyes:

How would that be relevant to Iraq? And how would my status as a Swedish national preclude me from gaining knowledge about the US political system?

and now for the more important question; does it matter?

does it matter what the motivation was for the war? we're there now and now, for the good of the world and the Iraqi people we've got a duty to make it work

john kerry's continued bitching isn't doing anyone anygood and ted kennedy should have stayed in chapequetic creek

does it matter what the motivation was for the war? we're there now and now, for the good of the world and the Iraqi people we've got a duty to make it work

The question was if Bush was right. No, no he wasn't.

60 of registered voters.

And the amount of registered voters wasn't even close to being the entire country. Assuming US state department spokesman Richard Boucher is correct, there were some 15 million (other sources state much lower figures, but we'll say the US figures are correct, even though better judgment would warrant otherwise) that's 0.6 x 15 = 9.

9 out of c:a 25-30 million (we'll say 27). 9/27 = 1/3 = 33,3 %.

Out of those roughly 27 million, only about 15 million are adults. The rest are children under the age of 15. http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#People
So, using your 9 million...
9/15= 60%
60% of Iraqis capable of influencing the government voted to do so.

What They’re Not Telling You About the “Election”


The day of blood and elections has passed, and the blaring trumpets of corporate media hailing it as a successful show of “democracy” have subsided to a dull roar.

After a day which left 50 people dead in Iraq, both civilians and soldiers, the death toll was hailed as a figure that was “lower than expected.” Thus…acceptable, by Bush Administration/corporate media standards. After all, only of them was an American, the rest were Iraqis civilians and British soldiers.

The gamble of using the polling day in Iraq to justify the ongoing failed occupation of Iraq has apparently paid off, if you watch only mainstream media.

“Higher than expected turnout,” US mainstream television media blared, some citing a figure of 72%, others 60%.

What they didn’t tell you was that this figure was provided by Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) before the polls had even closed.

When asked about the accuracy of the estimate of voter turnout during a press conference, Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying that a closer estimate was lower than his initial estimate and would be more like 60% of registered voters.

The IECI spokesman said his previous figure of 72% was “only guessing” and “was just an estimate,” which was based on “very rough, word-of mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout.”

Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, “Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too soon to say that those were the official numbers.”

But this isn’t the most important misrepresentation the mainstream media committed.

What they also didn’t tell you was that of those who voted, whether they be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of an ongoing US occupation of their country.

In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every Iraqi I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the occupation.

And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their country to come sooner rather than later.

This causes one to view the footage of cheering, jubilant Iraqis in a different light now, doesn’t it?

But then, most folks in the US watching CNN, FOX, or any of the major networks won’t see it that way. Instead, they will hear what Mr. Bush said, “The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East,” and take it as fact because most of the major media outlets aren’t scratching beneath film clips of joyous Iraqi voters over here in the land of daily chaos and violence, no jobs, no electricity, little running water and no gasoline (for the Iraqis anyhow).

And Bush is portrayed by the media as the bringer of democracy to Iraq by the simple fact that this so-called election took place, botched as it may have been. Appearances suggest that the majority Shia in Iraq now finally get their proportional representation in a “government.” Looks good on paper.

But as you continue reading, the seemingly altruistic reasons for this election as portrayed by the Bush Administration and trumpeted by most mainstream media are anything but.

And Iraqis who voted are hearing other trumpets that are blaring an end to the occupation.

Now the question remains, what happens when the National Assembly is formed and over 100,000 US soldiers remain on the ground in Iraq with the Bush Administration continuing in its refusal to provide a timetable for their removal?

What happens when Iraqis see that while there are already four permanent US military bases in their country, rather than beginning to disassemble them, more bases are being constructed, as they are, by Cheney’s old company Halliburton, right now?

Antonia Juhasz, a Foreign Policy in Focus scholar, authored a piece just before the “election” that sheds light on a topic that has lost attention amidst the recent fanfare concerning the polls in Iraq.

Oil.

I think it’s worth including much of her story here, as it fits well with today’s topic of things most folks aren’t being told by the bringers of democracy to the heart of the Middle East.

On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies."
In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it into American corporate hands.
According to the finance minister, foreigners would gain access both to "downstream" and "maybe even upstream" oil investment. This means foreigners can sell Iraqi oil and own it under the ground — the very thing for which many argue the U.S. went to war in the first place.
As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained back in 1992, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the [Middle East] region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."
While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press Service reported on — or even attended — Mahdi’s press conference, the announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message — but to whom?
It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on the ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations.
Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming elections, particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to vote because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If Bush were to suggest to Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances of victory will likely decline.

I’ll add that the list of political parties Mahdi’s SCIR belongs to, The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), includes the Iraqi National Council, which is led by an old friend of the Bush Administration who provided the faulty information they needed to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq, none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

It should also be noted that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also fed the Bush Administration cooked information used to justify the invasion, but he heads a different Shia list which will most likely be getting nearly as many votes as the UIA list.

And The UIA has the blessing of Iranian born revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa which instructed his huge number of followers to vote in the election, or they would risk going to hell.

Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings in Iraq.
Regardless of what happens in the elections, for at least the next year during which the newly elected National Assembly writes a constitution and Iraqis vote for a new government, the Bush administration is going to control the largest pot of money available in Iraq (the $24 billion in U.S. taxpayer money allocated for the reconstruction), the largest military and the rules governing Iraq's economy. Both the money and the rules will, in turn, be overseen by U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals who sit in every Iraqi ministry with five-year terms and sweeping authority over contracts and regulations. However, the one thing which the administration has not been unable to confer upon itself is guaranteed access to Iraqi oil — that is, until now.

And there is so much more they are not telling you. Just like the Iraqis who voted, believing they did so to bring an end to the occupation of their country.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000193.php#more

As any good math instructor will tell you, the ends don't justify the means. And as my arbitrary poll suggests, nobody's really convinced that this is the end of Iraq's problems.

Out of those roughly 27 million, only about 15 million are adults. The rest are children under the age of 15. http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#People
So, using your 9 million...
9/15= 60%
60% of Iraqis capable of influencing the government voted to do so.

Hence why the US figures are untrustworthy. 100% registration rate? Sounds a lot like the 100% turnouts communist dictatorships bosted about. :rolleyes: (Psst: The registration rate for exiled Iraqi's was around 23%, and they didn't have bombs to fear...)

1/3 of the country is still hardly 60% of the country.

and now for the more important question; does it matter?

does it matter what the motivation was for the war? we're there now and now, for the good of the world and the Iraqi people we've got a duty to make it work

john kerry's continued bitching isn't doing anyone anygood and ted kennedy should have stayed in chapequetic creek

Chappaquiddick Island, Poucha Pond.

The question was if Bush was right. No, no he wasn't.

thats a slightly mute point now that the lives and futures of 26 million people have come into play.......

I fail to see why there's this huge indignation over US miltary bases in Iraq. How many soldiers and how many bases were left in France, Germany, and Japan for how long? Considering how much France and Germany protested when Bush announced plans to pull troops out, I'd say those countries like American troops there.

thats a slightly mute point now that the lives and futures of 26 million people have come into play.......

Yeah, well that's what really sucks, but I was not the one asking the question.

1/3 of the country is still hardly 60% of the country.

but how many of those 26 million people are elegable to vote?

Iraq (because of the dictatorship) has a much higher percentage of persons under 18 than western nations

1/3 of the country is still hardly 60% of the country.

How can any country claim a majority when you throw children into your equations.

but how many of those 26 million people are elegable to vote?

Iraq (because of the dictatorship) has a much higher percentage of persons under 18 than western nations

Still doesn't change that it wasn't 60% of the country. Although it raises a democratic question - being so numerous, should the voting age have been lowered?

And, mind you, 60% turnout of registered voters is still extremely low by international standards.

How can any country claim a majority when you throw children into your equations.

Usually, they don't claim majority. At least where I live absolute figures of total population are given. But, then again, our turnout is in the 85-90% range...

60% of registered voters is better than CANADA, damnit.

Still doesn't change that it wasn't 60% of the country. Although it raises a democratic question - being so numerous, should the voting age have been lowered?

no, no it shouldn't voting age is about decision making, not representing age trends

besides, when we say 50% of Americans voted we don't mean all Americans, just the ones that can vote

And, mind you, 60% turnout of registered voters is still extremely low by international standards.

like hell it is, its better than we did and its a hell of alot better than the UN has ever done

they got 10% of registered voters in cambodia and everyone hailed that as a victory

the dems needs to stop bitching and look to the future

Vietnam 1961: The US Government publicly supports South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem with an ever-increasing number of troops (15,000).

By November of 1963 the US Government had become tired of the repressive regime we had propped up and authorized the military coup which resulted in Diem’s assassination.

The next US sponsored boss, General Duong Van Minh, who would prove to be as corrupt as his predecessor, gave way to the elections of 1967.

By this time the USA had nearly 500,000 troops in the country, when Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President in September of 1967 in an election tainted with widespread fraud.

And despite American support for democracy and free elections, the death toll of our boys and girls continued to increase through 1972.

Me thinks ~ Elections do not necessarily provide Peace.

MH

Here you go read this for your first post.


http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21145/

Fass I love you, I agree with almost everything you said. I would also like to add that.... that's great and all that the Iraqis got to vote, and i HOPE that the country turns out well (although I don't like it will happen anytime soon), but the point is that the Bush administration went to war because, THEY THOUGHT, Iraq was the most dangerous. But the fact remains that, at the time, North Korea was more than capable of doing terrible things, at the time, Libya was, or how about Iran? Or what about all the terrorists in... say.... Saudi Arabia, or even Israel? OH WAIT, i guess they don't matter, because the Bush administration happens to like those countries. And what about the human rights violations in China? Or again, Israel? I guarantee you that Israel has also violated almost as many UN resolutions as did Iraq (another justification for the war). I am by no means saying we should attack Israel, believe me, I am not. But the administration is being very hypocritical and using their "facts" to simply support what they want to do, not in the best interest of the country, but in the best interest of say... big business? The Bushs? The Cheneys? What about the non-democratic nations in Africa? If we're gonna use "building democracies" for an excuse, I don't thikn the middle East is the place to start. Africa has almost no democracies... and the lives for the majority of peoples there are terrible. Not just HIV/AIDS, but the constant armed conflicts taking place. The Congo, The sudan? Do those ring some bells? Why don't we do something right and help some genuinely needy people? I would also like to point out that upwards of 100,000, thats right, i said one hundred thousand, Iraqi citizens have been killed during our "occupation." So... so much for freeing the Iraqi citizens uh? I'm not quite sure thats the kind of "freeing" they had in mind.

no, no it shouldn't voting age is about decision making, not representing age trends

Actually voting is about democracy. And is it really democratic to exclude such a large proportion of the population?

besides, when we say 50% of Americans voted we don't mean all Americans, just the ones that can vote

That was not what was being claimed.

like hell it is, its better than we did and its a hell of alot better than the UN has ever done

The US voter turnout is widely recognised as abysmal. Doing better than you is not that big of an achievement. Oh, and the UN doesn't have voter turnouts.

they got 10% of registered voters in cambodia and everyone hailed that as a victory

Really? That's relevant because?

the dems needs to stop bitching and look to the future

Your US centric rhetoric is irrelevant to non-USians.

I fail to see why there's this huge indignation over US miltary bases in Iraq. How many soldiers and how many bases were left in France, Germany, and Japan for how long? Considering how much France and Germany protested when Bush announced plans to pull troops out, I'd say those countries like American troops there.

Seeing as France doesn't have any american bases, its not really relevant. Besides, France wanted those bases, because America was its ally in ww2, those and marshall plan only helped it. Germany and Japan had forced US-friendly governments after ww2.

Anyways, the Iraq war is still not justified. There were no WMD found, while targets with much more likely WMD were ignored. There is the human rights argument, but its a weak one. Human rights cases have, and are being ignored in africa. The US has supported flagrant civil rights abusers in the past for its own purposes. The turnout in voting only shows that Iraqi's want to lead their own lives. If you were invaded, and had any hope of having an influence afterward, of course you would vote. This is not a victory, its a byproduct which means little.

Was Bush Right About Iraq All Along?

NO NO NO NO NO NO, a thousand times NO!!

Vietnam 1961: The US Government publicly supports South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem with an ever-increasing number of troops (15,000).

By November of 1963 the US Government had become tired of the repressive regime we had propped up and authorized the military coup which resulted in Diem’s assassination.

The next US sponsored boss, General Duong Van Minh, who would prove to be as corrupt as his predecessor, gave way to the elections of 1967.

interestingly enough neither of those men were elected

By this time the USA had nearly 500,000 troops in the country, when Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President in September of 1967 in an election tainted with widespread fraud.

And despite American support for democracy and free elections, the death toll of our boys and girls continued to increase through 1972.

Me thinks ~ Elections do not necessarily provide Peace.

MH

please tell me you can see the world of difference between the highly regimented, equiped, organised, funded and foreign-supported NVA and the ragtag militia that gets a few checks from saudi arabia and calls itself the insurgency

But, you know what? When the US pulls out, after making sure that no surronding country will pick on Iraq, alot of countries an their dictators are going to be feeling pretty guilty. Suddenly, democracy isn't a evil system on the other side of the world. It's a government system that people accepted and will now fight for, and guess what? They are right next to you. How do you countinue to bullshit your people with that staring them in the face?
In the very first instance even if the implications you posit were all true, and even if best case scenario of spreading democracy emerges, this doesnt change the fact that it isnt right to start a war based on either a mistake or a lie.
As it happens I find your notion that dictators will suddenly all see the light and realise that abusing human rights and holding an entire population in servitude to their will is wrong simply due to a democratic neighbour emerging, somewhat far fetched to put it generously.

How do you continue to bullshit your people? Are you seriously asking me 'does propaganda work'? Because if so, the answer is yes.

May I point you to the Bush admin and the invasion posited soley on the grounds of there being absolute, irrefutable conclusive, deductive proof that Saddam Hussein currently had a WMD program that presented a current direct threat to US security?

Fact; Bush said 'there are X, lets go to war because X is dangerous to us. Fact; there wasnt X'. Fact, people who know there was no X still believe it might be possible that Bush was right when he said 'we must go to war due to the existence of X'

Frankly the efforts the Bush admin puts into propaganda may be more than I'm comfortable with considering the position and duty of that entity at this time, but it looks like amateur-hour when contrasted with the propaganda efforts of your average dictator.

But, you know what? When the US pulls out,
The US isn't pulling out anytime soon, especially since they are in the process of building 24 bases.

The US will leave when:

A. All the oil is gone.

OR....

B. Oil is no longer necessary for driving the US economy.

Next destination....Iran??

but the point is that the Bush administration went to war because, THEY THOUGHT, Iraq was the most dangerous.

at no point did the administration ever say Iraq was the most dangerous rouge state

But the fact remains that, at the time, North Korea was more than capable of doing terrible things

yeah, also capable of doing terrible things to an invasion force

while the war in Iraq may eventually cost a quarter of a million lives if will free a nation and put a region at rest

a war with north korea would cost tens of million of lives and it would wipe a region off the map

And what about the human rights violations in China?

would a war help with that?

Or again, Israel? I guarantee you that Israel has also violated almost as many UN resolutions as did Iraq (another justification for the war).

but none of the resolutions Isreal may or maynot have violated came with anything near the sever reprecussions authorised by SC 668 (or was it 669, I can't remember) and 1441

What about the non-democratic nations in Africa?

once again, there are more productive way to help them

If we're gonna use "building democracies" for an excuse, I don't thikn the middle East is the place to start. Africa has almost no democracies...

Africa has "almost no democracies" - well the arab world only has one, and many westerners don't even consider it to be one

and the lives for the majority of peoples there are terrible. Not just HIV/AIDS,

once again, more productive ways to help that

The Congo, The sudan? Do those ring some bells?

Colin Powel in the congo, declaration of genocide? does that ring a bell?

I would also like to point out that upwards of 100,000, thats right, i said one hundred thousand, Iraqi citizens have been killed during our "occupation."

would those people have been any better off under saddam?

So... so much for freeing the Iraqi citizens uh? I'm not quite sure thats the kind of "freeing" they had in mind.

tell that to the revelers who were dancing in the streets last Sunday

Actually voting is about democracy. And is it really democratic to exclude such a large proportion of the population?

no, its about making sure the people in the polls are old enough to make a decision

more than half the people in iran and under 15, does that mean 12 year olds should be shuffling into the polls?

The US voter turnout is widely recognised as abysmal. Doing better than you is not that big of an achievement. Oh, and the UN doesn't have voter turnouts.

#1 - the US turnout rate is better than most european countries and democracy still lives on - so its working out

#2 - if you knew your histroy the UN has sponsored several polls in the past and despite voter turnouts that were fractions of what the Iraqis had they were all claimed as successes and worked out in the end

Really? That's relevant because?

because voter turn out in the first election was less that a fraction of what it was in Iraq, but democracy prevaled and foreign troops were pulled out in a few years

Your US centric rhetoric is irrelevant to non-USians.

interesting..........cause I'm pretty sure thats what this thread, along with a good 90% of all the other geo-political/IR threads on this forums evolve around

Human rights cases have, and are being ignored in africa.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they're being ignored, not delt with as harshly as Iraq, but still by no means ignored

The US has supported flagrant civil rights abusers in the past for its own purposes.

that was the past, and now we're trying to make up for it

This is not a victory, its a byproduct which means little.

like hell it isn't, this shows that the occupation is working, and that despite shelling and death threats Iraqis are enthusiastic participents in democracy and the vast majority of them stand with the new government

this shows popularity for the insurgency is wanning, Iraqis are looking to the future, and in a few years the majority of the coalition troops will have departed

even if best case scenario of spreading democracy emerges, this doesnt change the fact that it isnt right to start a war based on a mistake

so what should we do? take it back?

we're in this now and we cant back-down

so lets win

Here you go read this for your first post.


http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21145/
Did you read the letter by the PNAC (Project for a New American Century)? A link to the letter was in the article that you posted!!

They want to increase the US forces by 25,000 troops each year, over the next several years!!

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20050128.htm

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.

There is abundant evidence that the demands of the ongoing missions in the greater Middle East, along with our continuing defense and alliance commitments elsewhere in the world, are close to exhausting current U.S. ground forces. For example, just late last month, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, reported that "overuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan could be leading to a "broken force." Yet after almost two years in Iraq and almost three years in Afghanistan, it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly, in Condoleezza Rice's term, a "generational commitment." The only way to fulfill the military aspect of this commitment is by increasing the size of the force available to our civilian leadership.

WOW!!

Draft time?

WOW!!

Draft time?

definatly not yet

remember, we still have 1.7 million troops gearing up to take on Russia

we're good for (in all seriousness) at least 4 more Iraq sized wars then occupations before we even have to start looking into a draft

furthermore, if all goes as is predicted though we will have to leave some troops in Iraq for quite a long time most will be availiable for redeployment in a few years tops, our "new Europe" allies are becoming more militarialy viable and I'm thinking that little Iraq will be eager to spread democracy around in a few decades

When some western nations decided to create a civil war in Japan to replace its "economically-disavantageous" (to the western nations anyway) government a couple centuries ago it may have been perceived then as Iraq is now.

But we all know how Japan payed the US, Britain, etc back during WWII.

With the muslim world, and world in general, being angered by the US's action the blowback from this venture will come much faster and harder.

WOW!!

Draft time?

There's not going to be a draft now or ever. The government would be putting its neck in the noose if it did that.

As for Schrandtopia's view that the US no longer supports civil rights abusers, we heavily support China and Saudi Arabia. We're not trying to "make up" for anything. I'm not saying we should be either, just that the US government is not some idealistic body that always does what's best for everyone.

And yes far worse problems plaguing the world have been ignored in favor of targeting Iraq including the wandering warlords of Africa who would have been far easier and more justifiable targets. Especially since there is evidence of terrorism links in African nations that did not exist in Iraq.

When some western nations decided to create a civil war in Japan to replace its "economically-disavantageous" (to the western nations anyway) government a couple centuries ago it may have been perceived then as Iraq is now.

But we all know how Japan payed the US, Britain, etc back during WWII.

With the muslim world, and world in general, being angered by the US's action the blowback from this venture will come much faster and harder.

but the US's actions are a little better motivated than they were 150 years ago

and remember, we're not just going to let them sit there and stew in it like we let the Japs, we'll be there the whole time helping them along (and keeping a respectable troop level up)

definatly not yet

remember, we still have 1.7 million troops gearing up to take on Russia

we're good for (in all seriousness) at least 4 more Iraq sized wars then occupations before we even have to start looking into a draft

furthermore, if all goes as is predicted though we will have to leave some troops in Iraq for quite a long time most will be availiable for redeployment in a few years tops, our "new Europe" allies are becoming more militarialy viable and I'm thinking that little Iraq will be eager to spread democracy around in a few decades
Take on Russia? If anything, you will be taking on China before Russia.

What They’re Not Telling You About the “Election”
...

And there is so much more they are not telling you. Just like the Iraqis who voted, believing they did so to bring an end to the occupation of their country.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000193.php#more

Damn good post! I'd like to see someone refute it.

Worst.

President.

Ever.

Take on Russia? If anything, you will be taking on China before Russia.

I know, I'm just saying we have all those troops holding cold war defencive positions, we'll move them out and onto the field long before we think of calling out a draft

so what should we do? take it back?

we're in this now and we cant back-down

so lets win
The question is 'did he muck up', not 'what are we to do now that it is established he mucked up'. Although I cant tell you what can be done to put the milk back in the bottle, now that having been warned not spill it, the US has gone right on ahead and tipped it out all over the show, but I can tell you that the next stupidest thing to making such a muck up in the first place, is trying to pretend it's not a muck up, that includes disengenious attempts to dismiss any criticism on the basis that telling you it was a muck up doesnt solve the muck up that you were advised was going to be so darn hard to solve if you went ahead and made it.



Sensible persons: Dont do that, it'll make a hard to clean up mess, and it's not entirely necessary according to the rationale you are offering.

Bush admin:we have to because X

Sensible persons: X isnt true, so you dont have to,

Bush admin: X is so true, we have concrete, irrefutable proof

Bush admin:Er, we made a mess, and X isnt true, was this a mistake?

Sensible persons:yes.

Bush admin:Oh that's fine for you to say, but what do you expect us to do about it, how are we supposed to fix this?

Sensible persons': its a bit late to ask our advice now... we didnt say it would make a mess just to hear the sound of our own voices you know...

Causing an unsolvable problem doesnt justify causing an unsolvable problem. The fact that the US created a problem that there is no easy (if there is any) solution for, does not make creating that problem any less wrong, in fact one might suggest the contrary is true.

In other words such disingenious attempts to distract us from the fact that it was wrong to either start a war by lying to their own populice because the real reason would cut it, or to start a war based on avoidable error, dont (distract us).

Damn good post! I'd like to see someone refute it.

ok, if you really want me to

#1 - the 72% figure, while widly reported on US news was always prefaced with "a lone estimate" and ended with "actaully turnout expected to be lower)

#2 - we don't give a damn who they voted for, we're just happy they voted

#3 - its a friggen blog, and by the dielect I can almost gurentee its writen by an American - how does he know the situation on the ground, let alone the situation of the ground for the entire country?

but the US's actions are a little better motivated than they were 150 years ago

and remember, we're not just going to let them sit there and stew in it like we let the Japs, we'll be there the whole time helping them along (and keeping a respectable troop level up)

Well we really didn't let them 'stew'. Their entire culture was reworked to fit the western ideal: Public schools, parliament, naval system matiching the Brits, police force, end to samurai and the caste system. It was known as the 'Cultural Revolution'. The connection between west and east was very strong.

Although many welcomed the change there was a vocal opposition that grew as time went on and these guys eventually got into power. They were opposed to the presence of the western powers who had completely taken over their economy and many other affairs. Everything was tilted in the west's favour.

The situation with Iraq is extremely similar. Downright eerie.

EDIT

BTW the US motives were completely self-centered. Weapons launched at US in 45 minutes and oil.

Sensible persons: Dont do that, it'll make a hard to clean up mess, and it's not entirely necessary according to the rationale you are offering.

has it ever occured to "sensible persons" that Iraq was a mess befor hand?

has it ever occured to "sensible persons" that most neo-cons we're willing to and are still willing to back any excuse for war regardless of its legitimacy?

what did "sensable persons" intend to do about Iraq in the first place?

The situation with Iraq is extremely similar. Downright eerie.

but there are distinct differences; the invasion, the occupation force, and most importantly the rebuilding

ok, if you really want me to

#1 - the 72% figure, while widly reported on US news was always prefaced with "a lone estimate" and ended with "actaully turnout expected to be lower)

#2 - we don't give a damn who they voted for, we're just happy they voted

#3 - its a friggen blog, and by the dielect I can almost gurentee its writen by an American - how does he know the situation on the ground, let alone the situation of the ground for the entire country?

1: ask anyone and they will say that 60% of the country voted because thats all you hear even though it is still jsut an estimate.

2: the issue is that the Iraqis voted because America forced an election on them and they got it in their heads that the vote would get the Americans out of there... not because they hail Bush as a liberator.

3: aren't there any Americans in Iraq? How do YOU know the situation in Iraq? By your dialect and rabid nationism you are most likely just an American on a message board so you obviously cannot have a clue what is happenign in Iraq whatsoever.

4: you did not say anything of substance so that cannot be counted as a refutation.

while the war in Iraq may eventually cost a quarter of a million lives if will free a nation and put a region at rest

a war with north korea would cost tens of million of lives and it would wipe a region off the map

I must call bullshit on this.

Gulf war, 1991. US takes 148 combat deaths, and 145 other deaths. At this time, Iraq is the fourth largest military in the world.

A war with north korea, assuming nuclear weapons arent a problem(US would destroy them in silos, or at worst, over the ocean while in flight. Destroying 4 ICBM's isnt the hardest thing in the world, and while it would damage the enviorment, it wouldn't kill many, if any lives directly), would be fairly bloodless for the US. An intense air bombing over the DMZ, using B-2's and cruise missiles, would destroy most of the artillery and aircraft threatening seoul. Right after, intense strikes from aircraft carriers and land bases in south korea would take out secondary threats, from land based missiles to tanks and aircraft.

An intense air campaign would be launched, from US and allied forces. Mig-21's and Su-25's would be decimated by F-14's, F-15's, and Rafales, assuming the French were along for the ride. B1-b's and B-52's would destroy any threat targets, until little was left.

The real invasion would be quick. Strikes would be made by artillery over the border. Paratroopers and marines from south korea and american naval groups would secure areas, while armoured divisions and mechanized infantry rolled over a secure part of the DMZ, probably after intense artillery to destroy any defenses in the sector.

North korean tanks would be utterly destroyed. M1a2's, Challangers and Leclercs, etc would rampage through, destroying anything of real danger. Thousands of North korean troops would surrendur, leaving only the elite to fight on...and just like the gulf war, they would be obliterated too.

There would be a dangerous insurgency, but no worse than Iraq. Its surrounded by South korea and China. South koreans would never fund North korean insurgents, and China has too much to risk to signifigantly help the koreans...Besides the fact that with only one small border, it would be well enough guarded to stop arms smuggling anyways.

If it was done in 2003, it would have been even easier. The Korean nuclear program is flying at ramjet speeds. If we had invaded then, we would have had more real support, and had an easier time with the korean problem. Sure, there would be cries of containment re-emerging, but its sure better than the religious theory.

War with north korea would have been close to as dangerous as iraq. We would have had a solid base to invade from. It leaves a good question on why we invaded Iraq though. North korea, WMD and human rights wise, were indeed a bigger threat. Oil is still a reason that has no real counter-arguments...but I digress.

elections are not democracy

you can't just set up a make-shift political infastructure and hope it'll hold all by itself. remember when frederick II tried to overhaul his entire country and ended up alienating both the peasants and the nobles? that's what's going to end up happening in Iraq. people need to be free but you can't just expect everyone to fully and immediately comprehend what this new democratic system means .
why is it that we only throw out dictators in countries we need something from?

like hell it isn't, this shows that the occupation is working, and that despite shelling and death threats Iraqis are enthusiastic participents in democracy and the vast majority of them stand with the new government

this shows popularity for the insurgency is wanning, Iraqis are looking to the future, and in a few years the majority of the coalition troops will have departed

Except for the fact that is conjecture, not actuality. They voted because they could. They were given a chance to take things into their own hands, and they did. All that means is they have their own ideas. It doesn't show anything about insurgents. It doesn't show anything about democracy. All it shows is the people have their own ideas. Extrapolating more out of that is just that.

has it ever occured to "sensible persons" that Iraq was a mess befor hand?
I would say that tautologically (via definition of sensible) that it must have occured to sensible persons that it was less than ideal, a bottle of sour milk, which is still better than sour milk coating every surface in the darn kitchen and broken shards of glass underfoot, under the gap between the microwave and the bench and hidden in the cranny between the stove and the wall...it was less of a mess prior to the invasion.

has it ever occured to "sensible persons" that most neo-cons we're willing to and are still willing to back any excuse for war regardless of its legitimacy?
Yes, despite the denials that many pro invasion people were simply war mongerers looking for a fight at any excuse, many apparently sensible people maintain that indeed there is a section of neo cons who are as you describe out for a war just 'cause they 'wanna.

what did "sensable persons" intend to do about Iraq in the first place?
Which sensible people? There is more than one or two floating about. Certainly none of them thought we should lie in order to trump up excuses to invade a nation (if there is a legitimate reason for invading trumped up excuses are unnecessary), nor did any think we should invade a country by mistake. Since one or the other has occured here, whatever any individual sensible person thought, they didnt think Iraq should have been invaded in the manner and circumstances that occurred.

Enough bandying with words. Which is true

It is not a mistake to invade another country by mistake, or in circumstances where lies are necessary to convince the populice of the invading nation that the war is justified,
or
it is wrong to lie to your country to cause them to agree to the invasion of another country they would not otherwise have agreed to invade, and it is a mistake to start a war due soley to avoidable error?

you know, Eutrusca, I stopped paying attention to your posts a while ago.

but no, bush was not right. just because we've given then a small semblance of democracy does not mean we found WMDs. remember, that's why we went to Iraq. this whole democracy thing popped up later.

also, may I point out that we were happy that only 44 people died? scaled to population, that's like saying "YAY!!!! Only 660 Americans died from terrorist attacks today! let freedom ring!" to add some comparison, the approximate death toll of 9/11 is about 2800. that's around a quarter. is this massive? no. Is it awful? yes. and is celebration the right response? no.

but, to quote myself, "you know, Eutrusca, I stopped paying attention to your posts a while ago."

1: ask anyone and they will say that 60% of the country voted because thats all you hear even though it is still jsut an estimate.

now ask yourself, is the government resposible for that or are people just stupid?

the site said "they're not telling you everything about the election" when in reality they are, people are just dumb

2: the issue is that the Iraqis voted because America forced an election on them and they got it in their heads that the vote would get the Americans out of there... not because they hail Bush as a liberator.

I don't care why they're embracing democracy, I just care that they are

3: aren't there any Americans in Iraq? How do YOU know the situation in Iraq? By your dialect and rabid nationism you are most likely just an American on a message board so you obviously cannot have a clue what is happenign in Iraq whatsoever.

damn stright, you called it, so I rely on a multitude of news sources who have reporters on the ground all over Iraq and have been doing this for centuries, not one dude who doesn't have a shread of evidence and make HUGE blanket statments he alone cannot possibly support

4: you did not say anything of substance so that cannot be counted as a refutation.

I questioned its authenticity and pointed out (at least a few) statments that were flat out wrong

but there are distinct differences; the invasion, the occupation force, and most importantly the rebuilding

2 things there (invasion, occupation) are not things that will help the US stabilize Iraq. They actually make it worse than it was in Japan.

As for rebuilding, I have no idea how much of the restructuring was done by japanese or by the west after the civil war. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some hand in it (they had their hands in just about everything).

A war with north korea, assuming nuclear weapons arent a problem(US would destroy them in silos, or at worst, over the ocean while in flight. Destroying 4 ICBM's isnt the hardest thing in the world, and while it would damage the enviorment, it wouldn't kill many, if any lives directly), would be fairly bloodless for the US.

I would bow down to you O bullshit caller, but you know........no

OK, so lets assume for a minute that we do knock down the 4-6 ICBMs that would be headed to America with the missle shield we don't have, OK, I can buy that one

but what about the other targets? what about Japan? what about S Korea

how many people would die from a midsized nuke going off in the middle of Tokyo?

An intense air bombing over the DMZ, using B-2's and cruise missiles, would destroy most of the artillery and aircraft threatening seoul. Right after,

how can you possibly assume that? they've been digging those positions in for the past 50 years

why do you think all the American troops were pulled further souther from the boarder last year? the only way we can get those guns out is with weeks of gun fire (weeks we wouldn't have) or nukes

intense strikes from aircraft carriers and land bases in south korea would take out secondary threats, from land based missiles to tanks and aircraft.

this isn't Iraq where you have a couple ZU-23's blind firing into the sky, this has been build up since the commies tooke over and is funded by the chinese, this would take us a while

An intense air campaign would be launched, from US and allied forces. Mig-21's and Su-25's would be decimated by F-14's, F-15's, and Rafales, assuming the French were along for the ride. B1-b's and B-52's would destroy any threat targets, until little was left.

hahahaha, the french with us......that'll be the day

how do you know the N. Korean air force wouldn't put up a fight? they did last time

The real invasion would be quick. Strikes would be made by artillery over the border. Paratroopers and marines from south korea and american naval groups would secure areas, while armoured divisions and mechanized infantry rolled over a secure part of the DMZ, probably after intense artillery to destroy any defenses in the sector.

quick over mountains? this isn't the open Iraqi desert, this is hell. terrain is very difficult, there are re-enforced bunkers like no tomorrow and landmines out the wazoo

North korean tanks would be utterly destroyed. M1a2's, Challangers and Leclercs, etc would rampage through, destroying anything of real danger. Thousands of North korean troops would surrendur, leaving only the elite to fight on...and just like the gulf war, they would be obliterated too.

why would the be destroyed, they were easily enough in Iraq because of the open terrain, air cover and excelent recon. but all three of those things would be mission in an imeadiate invasion

All that means is they have their own ideas. It doesn't show anything about insurgents.

yes, their own ideas, not the insurgents' ideas

the insurgents' implicitly banned them from the poll and said they'd murder the family's of all those who voted - yet the majority of Iraqis voted

It doesn't show anything about democracy. All it shows is the people have their own ideas.

yes, the Iraqis have their own ideas and they have put fail in a democratic forum to express and build upon these ideas

I would say that tautologically (via definition of sensible) that it must have occured to sensible persons that it was less than ideal, a bottle of sour milk, which is still better than sour milk coating every surface in the darn kitchen and broken shards of glass underfoot, under the gap between the microwave and the bench and hidden in the cranny between the stove and the wall...it was less of a mess prior to the invasion.

so "sensible persons" were going to just sit back and watch?

they were going to just sit back and watch was Iraqi girls were raped, as political dissidents were tourtured to death, as genocide occured and as random brutality rulled 26 million people even though they clearly had the power to stop it all?

real sensible

Yes, despite the denials that many pro invasion people were simply war mongerers looking for a fight at any excuse, many apparently sensible people maintain that indeed there is a section of neo cons who are as you describe out for a war just 'cause they 'wanna.

not "just 'cause they 'wanna." because the realised the broader implications of the war and what it would do for the Iraqi people

Which is true

It is not a mistake to invade another country by mistake, or in circumstances where lies are necessary to convince the populice of the invading nation that the war is justified,

when did Bush lie?

it is wrong to lie to your country to cause them to agree to the invasion of another country they would not otherwise have agreed to invade, and it is a mistake to start a war due soley to avoidable error?

check my bot St. Thomas of Aquiness, not if that war saves lives and does good

now ask yourself, is the government resposible for that or are people just stupid?

the site said "they're not telling you everything about the election" when in reality they are, people are just dumb

No the corporate media with a vested interest in spreading corporate power into iraq (which is what the site is saying) is mainly responsible, because they don't tell you the whole story while they parrot what the Bush administration said. Bush is just responsible for lying about why the Irqis voted (They are embracing democracy) yes, but the media is responsible for playign it over and over.



I don't care why they're embracing democracy, I just care that they are

They were not embracing democracy, they were doing what they could to get rid of the American occupation

damn stright, you called it, so I rely on a multitude of news sources who have reporters on the ground all over Iraq and have been doing this for centuries, not one dude who doesn't have a shread of evidence and make HUGE blanket statments he alone cannot possibly support

and still you parrot the Bush Admins view. Why is that? Oh yeah because the corporate media loves Bush.

I questioned its authenticity and pointed out (at least a few) statments that were flat out wrong


You questioned the authenticity even though he gave sources and quotes to support his view. Which statements did you point out at flat ot wrong? I saw none of that.


* reply in bold

also, may I point out that we were happy that only 44 people died? scaled to population, that's like saying "YAY!!!! Only 660 Americans died from terrorist attacks today! let freedom ring!" to add some comparison, the approximate death toll of 9/11 is about 2800. that's around a quarter. is this massive? no. Is it awful? yes. and is celebration the right response? no.

if it ment that freedom lived on I'd be shouting from the roof tops and praising their courage

You can bet that there will be a draft.Whatever PNAC wants PNAC gets!!

As for the Iraq vote it's a travesty of the democratic process.

The turnout is questionable,even Vietman had a higher turnout of 83% in '67.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Iraqi Elections: Media Disinformation on Voter Turnout?
by Economics Professor Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO501F.html

5. Sanctions against those who do Not Vote: No Vote, No Ration Card, No Food

The election commission had estimated that 14 million people are eligible to vote, based on the number who received ration coupons through the UN Oil for Food program. In this regard, the international observer mission had recommended. "using the rolls for Iraq's food rationing system as a sort of makeshift census to guide the effort." (NYT 31 Jan 2005).

In the weeks leading up to the election, there were reports that food rations would be cancelled if voters did not show up at the polls. In Fallouja, polling stations were set up "at centers that distribute food, water and cash payments to residents whose homes were devastated by the offensive" (LA Times, 31 Jan 2005).

According to Al-Basa'ir, weekly, of the Muslim Scholars Council in its pre-election Jan 19th issue:

.. those who do not take part in the forthcoming elections will be punished.... "sanctions will be taken against those who refuse to vote or go to the polling stations." The article goes on to say: "The Iraqis have become accustomed at the end of each year, specifically in the last month of the year, to replace their ration cards with new ones to cover the months of the new year. However, one notices that December this year has passed without the Iraqis reading in the local papers or hearing in audiovisual media any mention of any invitation calling on them to replace these cards. This gave rise to many rumours as to why the issuance of these cards was delayed. The only plausible reason they found for this is that "the government intends to withhold these cards from the families that will not participate in the elections. Many Iraqis affirm that the new ration card has been printed and that it will be distributed to the head of the family while he votes and that those who do not go to the polling stations will not get their cards, and therefore will not receive the staples that are covered by the card as a punishment." (BBC Monitoring 24 Jan 2005)

--------------------
Association of Muslim Scholars critical of Iraq elections

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F1149ACC-43EE-4BA6-AD8A-AC9D62290514.htm

------------------------------------------

The Candidates,all 245 pages of them.

http://www.ieciraq.org/img/PDF/nationalfinal.pdf

-------------------
...and NO Bush was not right about Iraq or Afghanistan for that matter.Bush is an ignorant,extremely dangerous,simple minded person as are most followers of Leo Strauss.


Perhaps some should turn off the television and get educated.

bush is killing :sniper: people mindlessly he is sending people to get killed and he was rong abut the stuff all along so I thing he is :headbang: and he is :sniper: and :mp5: so :upyours: bush is how I feal so he should stop :gundge: and :sniper: and :mp5: and I think that he is as smart as :headbang:

No the corporate media with a vested interest in spreading corporate power into iraq (which is what the site is saying) is mainly responsible, because they don't tell you the whole story while they parrot what the Bush administration said. Bush is just responsible for lying about why the Irqis voted (They are embracing democracy) yes, but the media is responsible for playign it over and over.

so could you tell me again when did "the media", cause we all know they're one person, lied about the election?

They were not embracing democracy, they were doing what they could to get rid of the American occupation

but they're doing it will ballots and the democratic proces, not with guns which is a pretty damn sudstancial victory

and still you parrot the Bush Admins view. Why is that? Oh yeah because the corporate media loves Bush.

oh yeah, I almost forgot to give head to rupert murdock today.........

has it ever ocured to you that maybe the views I "parrot" are my own, formed by myself and that I base my decisions on much of the same material you do

I don't think the way you do. you'd like to think that if I knew what you knew I'd have the same opinion on Iraq. frankly, I do know what you know and I'm still extatic we went

You questioned the authenticity even though he gave sources and quotes to support his view. Which statements did you point out at flat ot wrong? I saw none of that.

the 72% one

thats not the media, thats just people being stupid

You can bet that there will be a draft.Whatever PNAC wants PNAC gets!!

I suppose you'll be able to prove that.........

As for the Iraq vote it's a travesty of the democratic process.

why and how?

The turnout is questionable,even Vietman had a higher turnout of 83% in '67.

thats cause they were rigged honey

bush is killing :sniper: people mindlessly

it far from mindless

he is sending people to get killed

actaully they voluntered to go

so "sensible persons" were going to just sit back and watch?

they were going to just sit back and watch was Iraqi girls were raped, as political dissidents were tourtured to death, as genocide occured and as random brutality rulled 26 million people even though they clearly had the power to stop it all?
Are you seriously suggesting that you reason
X would not lie to start a war,
and X would not start a war as a result of an avoidable error
therefore X would sit back and watch Iraqi girls being raped, political dissidents being tortured to death, genocide occuring and random butality ruled over 26 million, even though X had the power to stop it?


real sensible
Actually a false dilema fallacy is not indictive of good sense, you might want to look into that.

not "just 'cause they 'wanna." because the realised the broader implications of the war and what it would do for the Iraqi people
You asked if it had occured that some neo cons wanted a war whether there was a legitimate reason for one or not. In other words in the absense of any good reason for doing so. I answered that so far as I can tell, yes it is a suspicion that appears to have occured to quite some number of people, many of whom appear to come under the rubix of 'sensible people'.

when did Bush lie?
My argument doesnt require Mr Bush to have lied, it is a fact that either Mr Bush mistakenly believed the WMD premise and so started a war due to an avoidable error, or he lied about believing the premise. This can be ascertained from the facts
Mr Bush claimed that he wanted the invasion because the WMD premise was true
The WMD premise was not true
The only conclusions consistent with these two facts are that
Mr Bush was mistaken
or
Mr Bush lied
so, either Mr Bush was mistaken or Mr Bush lied.

check my bot St. Thomas of Aquiness, not if that war saves lives and does good
My question requires a yes or no answer. Attempts to squirrel around it with qualifications that add parital context while ignoring equally relevent contextual facts and qualifications, only draws attention to the fact that your own answer to the question is probably unsupportive with regards to your stated opinions.

Actually a false dilema fallacy is not indictive of good sense, you might want to look into that.

please explain how this was a flase dilema

You asked if it had occured that some neo cons wanted a war whether there was a legitimate reason for one or not. In other words in the absense of any good reason for doing so,

hardly the absense of any good reason, perhaps of any good legal reason

My argument doesnt require Mr Bush to have lied, it is a fact that either Mr Bush mistakenly believed the WMD premise and so started a war due to an avoidable error,

how was the error avoidable?

[QUOTE=Peopleandstuff]The WMD premise was not true
The only conclusions consistent with these two facts are that
Mr Bush was mistaken
or
Mr Bush lied
so, either Mr Bush was mistaken or Mr Bush lied.

clearly Bush did not lie, he always said the CIA had given his evidence which lead him to believe that Iraq posses WMDs which they did

so is it his fault that the intelegnce services were mistaken? should he have gone under cover and found out for himself? what could he have done?

My question requires a yes or no answer. Attempts to squirrel around it with qualifications that add parital context while ignoring equally relevent contextual facts and qualifications, only draws attention to the fact that your own answer to the question is probably unsupportive with regards to your stated opinions.

that was a resounding yes

I though that was obveous

please explain how this was a flase dilema
I said not p and not q, your concluded therefore r. Not p and not q, does not mean r.
neither p v q (premise)
therefore r (conclusion)
is a false dilema.



hardly the absense of any good reason, perhaps of any good legal reason
That is not what you stated in your original comments. You stated no legitimate reason, so that's what I replied to. If you wish to change your comments to reflect a contrary position to that originally expressed, you should not assume that my comments provide any cohesive answer to your new premise, since they were not ever intended to reply to a premise contrary to the premise they were in reply to.

My argument doesnt require Mr Bush to have lied, it is a fact that either Mr Bush mistakenly believed the WMD premise and so started a war due to an avoidable error,

how was the error avoidable?
How was the error not avoidable. It's easier to disprove a fact than it is to prove it. It takes a fair level of either stupidity, and/or determination to prove a fact that isnt in fact a fact. It's hard enough to prove concretely that something did happen, it is certainly much easier to avoid proving something that didnt happen did happen, than it is to prove that something did happen. Proving something that cannot be proven is of course avoidable. Most days I dont prove non true facts, in fact I cant remember ever having proven that something untrue was true.


clearly Bush did not lie, he always said the CIA had given his evidence which lead him to believe that Iraq posses WMDs which they did
It doesnt matter to my argument either way.

so is it his fault that the intelegnce services were mistaken? should he have gone under cover and found out for himself? what could he have done?
As the commander in chief and the President, yes the buck does indeed start and stop at his office. Tough job huh? I guess that's why all the kudos goes with it...
What he could have done was applied logic and reasoning to all the evidence, judging all the evidence on it's merits and placing equal weight on evidence according to it's appropriate merits. What he couldnt have done was go through all the evidence and find conclusive concrete evidence that proves that something that wasnt, was. Why? Because if something isnt, then there cannot be concrete conclusive evidence that it is.

that was a resounding yes
I though that was obveous
So you dont believe in democracy (ie the voting citizen's right to make an informed decision about the constitution of their governing bodies), or do you imagine that people can make informed decisions when they are uninformed?

Yeah stupid America set up a democracy. Now if only we could set one up in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, our 2 biggest allies. But i forgot the shieks and princes there are bush's oil buddies so we can let their oppresive regimes still rule as long as the bush family gets a cut of the oil.

No he was not right. I don't even agree with the sentence, "Would it be worth all the money we've spent? Certainly."

How so? We've gotten nothing out of it and the only reason a nation should go to war is out of protecting its own self-interests. There is no other reason to resort to violence. This war has failed to give such a reason. Forcing democracy on other nations because we believe it to be the superior form of government is not worth spending our money and our troops lives on. Fighting a war purely for idealistic purposes, simply for the satisfaction of saying, "Hey we did something good!" is idiotic.

on the one hand i agree: no its not right or worth it. heres where i disagree, yes there are unselfish reasons for going to war. sometimes you help someone out not because it helps yourself, but because you are in a position to help and your help is needed. its just the nice thing to do. the problem with this war is although saddam is a dictator and no one likes him, although the iraqis have no democracy, although a multitude of other things, these problems are not unique to iraq. there are plenty of countries that have a ruling dictatorship and no democracy. should the USA systematically invade and 'fix' all these nations? in my opinion, no.

have you ever tried to help someone and it turned out they didn't want your help? if a country needs and wants help, someone will ask.

it far from mindless



actaully they voluntered to go

...tell that to the Americans who've fled to Canada.

they may have voluntered(sic) to go, but they signed up for a specific time. tours are being extended for troops that have been there since the beginning of the war. people are being forced to fightbeyond thier stays forcing families apart. you can't possibly be trying to argue that they all want to stay, are you?

I have no problem being angry with Bush. As far as the WMDs they found at this point we can't even prove that we didn't plant those. The CIA has done crazier stuff in their life. As a political science major something I learned a long time ago was that democracy isn't for everyone. Without a large middle class democracy rarely works. Look at all the Developing Nations that we now hinder their development. We achieved our status by keeping the British out, but now people aren't allowed to keep us out of the economy. This is one reason why modern democracies don't work as well as previous ones.

See, if they went into this war with an honest desire to liberate the people of Iraq from Saddam and give them their country back to choose their own form of government, Bush would be right. However, liberation was a last ditch effort to gain more support for the war after the imminent danger of WMD's and the link to Osama fell through...

This was a war of self-interest, liberation was nothing more than a convenient third excuse.

All you ingnorant self-serving dweeblets who can't see anything but oil need to find some friggin' PROOF! And I do NOT mean damned twinky Websites supporting no one but their own twisted, anti-American propaganda, or quotes about how evil ole Haliburton is involved! I mean real, factual, honest-to-God TRUTH! Or is that a concept so far beyond your "Oil = Iraq" mental fixation as to be impossible for you to comprehend? Jeeze.

PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

...tell that to the Americans who've fled to Canada.

they may have voluntered(sic) to go, but they signed up for a specific time. tours are being extended for troops that have been there since the beginning of the war. people are being forced to fightbeyond thier stays forcing families apart. you can't possibly be trying to argue that they all want to stay, are you?
My brother's shipping out to Iraq for a second tour today I believe, he was telling stories of soldiers having people shoot them, beat them with baseball bats, and doing drugs in attempts to not being force to go last time he was home visiting around Christmas, and they sent them all anyways...

My brother's shipping out to Iraq for a second tour today I believe, he was telling stories of soldiers having people shoot them, beat them with baseball bats, and doing drugs in attempts to not being force to go last time he was home visiting around Christmas, and they sent them all anyways...

GOOD! If you can't stand the heat, don't volunteer for kitchen duty!

Iraq is slowly looking like a success, but the problem is, its not a "smashing" success, as the government might put it. True, Iraq has become free and installing a democratic government is good. In the long run, it will probably be better for Iraq that Bush invaded. I thought this even when the war was going on even though I do not approve of it how it came about.
The drawback of the freedom that is now available to within Iraq is that people are now free to terrorize the populace, which was only done by Saddam in his time. In addition, Bush used the War on Terror as an excuse to go after Iraq. Now that he has gone through with it though, Iraq has become a key battleground for the war on terror.
Bush has put the lives of many Americans and Iraqis on the line to congratulate himself for bringing freedom to every corner of the world. It's good that he did it, but not how he did it. The things he did to get this far are not excused by the situation, or how the situation might be.
The end is great but it does not justify the means.

All you ingnorant self-serving dweeblets who can't see anything but oil need to find some friggin' PROOF! And I do NOT mean damned twinky Websites supporting no one but their own twisted, anti-American propaganda, or quotes about how evil ole Haliburton is involved! I mean real, factual, honest-to-God TRUTH! Or is that a concept so far beyond your "Oil = Iraq" mental fixation as to be impossible for you to comprehend? Jeeze.

PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
What are you ranting about?
What is the reason for invading according to you?

What this really boils down to is a debate about whether the ends justify the means.

In my mind, they do.

Freedom and democracy are costly. Very few democracies have been born without a great deal of bloodshed (Canada is one example).

Free nations have an obligation to work to free those that are not. Even the United States has assistance in its war of independence from foreign powers. Was that intervention wrong? Would the US be better off under a monarchy without the rights Americans now enjoy?

Blood is the price that we pay for freedom, and while I still have concerns about Bush's motives in Iraq, I have no reservations that the people of that nation will be better off.

As for those that ask - what of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - well, neither country has an oppressive dictator in place - in those two nations there is still hope for a bloodless transition.

What this really boils down to is a debate about whether the ends justify the means.

In my mind, they do.

Freedom and democracy are costly. Very few democracies have been born without a great deal of bloodshed (Canada is one example).

Free nations have an obligation to work to free those that are not. Even the United States has assistance in its war of independence from foreign powers. Was that intervention wrong? Would the US be better off under a monarchy without the rights Americans now enjoy?

Blood is the price that we pay for freedom, and while I still have concerns about Bush's motives in Iraq, I have no reservations that the people of that nation will be better off.

As for those that ask - what of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - well, neither country has an oppressive dictator in place - in those two nations there is still hope for a bloodless transition.The blood of the iraqi people belongs to the iraqis. They've been colonized by the americans and you say they are free but they're not. Freedom is when you own fate is on your hands, not when an external power comes and tells you capitalism is freedom. They will be free when the occupation force leave (including halliburton).
What you are saying is that the english liberated the US.

The blood of the iraqi people belongs to the iraqis. They've been colonized by the americans and you say they are free but they're not. Freedom is when you own fate is on your hands, not when an external power comes and tells you capitalism is freedom. They will be free when the occupation force leave (including halliburton).
What you are saying is that the english liberated the US.

What I'm saying is that the Iraqi people are on the road to freedom. They had an election - which had a higher participation rate than the US or Canada or GB typically get.

I'm also saying that is it not necessary for people to set themselves free - in fact it is quite rare. The US, whether it was their true intent or not, provided the strength that the people of Iraq lacked. Now they have that opportunity to plot their own course.

What I'm saying is that the Iraqi people are on the road to freedom. They had an election - which had a higher participation rate than the US or Canada or GB typically get.

I'm also saying that is it not necessary for people to set themselves free - in fact it is quite rare. The US, whether it was their true intent or not, provided the strength that the people of Iraq lacked. Now they have that opportunity to plot their own course.
They have the opportunity to elect anyone provided he is capitalist and US-friendly.

Did you read the letter by the PNAC (Project for a New American Century)? A link to the letter was in the article that you posted!!

They want to increase the US forces by 25,000 troops each year, over the next several years!!

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20050128.htm

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.

There is abundant evidence that the demands of the ongoing missions in the greater Middle East, along with our continuing defense and alliance commitments elsewhere in the world, are close to exhausting current U.S. ground forces. For example, just late last month, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, reported that "overuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan could be leading to a "broken force." Yet after almost two years in Iraq and almost three years in Afghanistan, it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly, in Condoleezza Rice's term, a "generational commitment." The only way to fulfill the military aspect of this commitment is by increasing the size of the force available to our civilian leadership.

WOW!!

Draft time?


Well, if anything said by the PNAC is true then this should be quite a read!

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040722.htm

"According to the September 11 report:

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request ... [but] the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections. (p.61)

In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. (p.66)

“There is evidence that Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training--combat, bomb-making, [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] CBRN. Although Saddam did not endorse al Qaeda’s overall agenda and was suspicious of Islamist movements in general, he was apparently not averse, under certain circumstances, to enhancing bin Laden’s operational capabilities. As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training are [redacted] from sources of varying reliability.”
That according to a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism, “the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda’s enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq.”
That the Iraqi regime ‘certainly’ had knowledge that Abu Musab al Zarqawi – described in Iraqi Support for Terrorism as “a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner” – was operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq."


Thanks for helping make the connection between al-qaeda and Saddam Hussein!

They have the opportunity to elect anyone provided he is capitalist and US-friendly.
By the sheer amount of candidates, there's bound to be bunches of religious leaders. The reason that the pro Americans have better chances is because they're known better.
But to the end justifying the means, Freedom is costly, and often worth the price, but who is Bush to force the Iraqis to pay it?

We will know if Bush was right in 10-20 years or so, for democracy is a culture, and that should be the lenght of time needed to see if a democratic society was sucessfully established in Iraq.

Still, most people that argue forget one thing.. it were the Shiites that voted, not the sunni..

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1KUTIR5HFSOIQCRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=7512765

I say break Iraq in three countries. A Kurd, a Shia, And a Sunni country, three different states. Or else, you will get a nice civil war down there, or, another dictator to make those people live togheter in peace.

They have the opportunity to elect anyone provided he is capitalist and US-friendly.

And that is part of the transition. The first US election the newly freed people had a choice of a libertarian anti-monarchist or a libertarian anti-monarchist...of course, in spite of the fact that GW got all the votes in the electoral college - John Adams still got to be vice-president...so the lucky American people got both. Now that is democracy[please note sarcasm]!

They have the opportunity to elect anyone provided he is capitalist and US-friendly.

No-maybe to fulfill your desire to make Bush the bad-guy, they will elect another lunatic that arrests, rapes and tortures at will, totally unchecked. There were hundereds of candidates and a huge voter turn out, considering all of their lives were potentially endangered just for participating. They were able to do so because the US military was there, allowing IRAQI people set and and conduct and IRAQI election. If we werent there, it never would have taken place.
Its a first step to a tried and true form of government. It may take a while to work, but at least can make mistakes without fear of being murdered, tortured, beheaded, etc...
I hope whomever is elected is capitalist and friendly to the US. Maybe the population of Iraq will then start to benefit from being oil-rich, instead of just a handful of saddams friends. And france. Maybe business will flourish and children will be properly nourished and educated.
Or maybe they will sink back to what they were-backward, hateful and ignorant,fighting over nothing in the dust for another thousand years.

By the sheer amount of candidates, there's bound to be bunches of religious leaders. The reason that the pro Americans have better chances is because they're known better.
But to the end justifying the means, Freedom is costly, and often worth the price, but who is Bush to force the Iraqis to pay it?
Freedom is an illusion. We all think we're free. Look at the US. They all shout how much they're freer than the rest of the world and yet from where I live the US looks like a dictatorship. I think I'm free in my country, but to other people eyes' they think socialism is a dictatorship. I think I'm free because the system I live in formated me from birth and I don't know anything else than this one. I would be lost in any other system. The iraqis people are the same. After several years of brain washing they'll think they are free although they will be tightly controlled by corporate mass propaganda.

Freedom is an illusion. We all think we're free. Look at the US. They all shout how much they're freer than the rest of the world and yet from where I live the US looks like a dictatorship. I think I'm free in my country, but to other people eyes' they think socialism is a dictatorship. I think I'm free because the system I live in formated me from birth and I don't know anything else than this one. I would be lost in any other system. The iraqis people are the same. After several years of brain washing they'll think they are free although they will be tightly controlled by corporate mass propaganda.

That's a cop-out statement..."I'm only free because they tell me I'm free."

I call bullshit.

Liberty and freedom come from having choices. No amount of "corporate mass propaganda" can limit your choices.

I don't buy Nikes. I don't have an iPod. I don't want to "feel fresh".

I live the way I want to live - buy what I want to buy - do what I want to do - and once every few years vote how I want to vote.

That is freedom.

That's a cop-out statement..."I'm only free because they tell me I'm free."

I call bullshit.

Liberty and freedom come from having choices. No amount of "corporate mass propaganda" can limit your choices.

I don't buy Nikes. I don't have an iPod. I don't want to "feel fresh".

I live the way I want to live - buy what I want to buy - do what I want to do - and once every few years vote how I want to vote.

That is freedom.But you vote for nothing. Whatever you vote, in the end, Halliburton will decide what they do with the oil and in your local supermarket there will be a choice between Nike and Adidas.
Every four years you choose between capitalism or capitalism.

That's a cop-out statement..."I'm only free because they tell me I'm free."

I call bullshit.

Liberty and freedom come from having choices. No amount of "corporate mass propaganda" can limit your choices.

I don't buy Nikes. I don't have an iPod. I don't want to "feel fresh".

I live the way I want to live - buy what I want to buy - do what I want to do - and once every few years vote how I want to vote.

That is freedom.

You're right. this is about as free as it can reasonably be.

But you vote for nothing. Whatever you vote, in the end, Halliburton will decide what they do with the oil and in your local supermarket there will be a choice between Nike and Adidas.
Every four years you choose between capitalism or capitalism.

I suspect you're an American...two party system and all.

I'm not. I'm in Canada. In my riding (aka voting district) I can vote for a wide range of candidates from full blown Communist Party of Canada to the Green Party - to the Libertarian Party.

But you vote for nothing. Whatever you vote, in the end, Halliburton will decide what they do with the oil and in your local supermarket there will be a choice between Nike and Adidas.
Every four years you choose between capitalism or capitalism.

Which is fine with me and its why I still live here. Capitalism will make sure that there are .49 cent flip flops or $500.00 ferragamos to put on my feet. and the entire range in between. Everything will always be available or the corporations you so despise would fail.
Tell me where there are more choices available? Its not on this planet.

Was Bush right? On many of the issues no. There were no WMDs, Saddam didnt pose a grave threat to national security, he hadnt partaken in 9/11, and the charges of him harboring terrorists are tenuos ones (what nation in the region doesnt harbor terrorists)
But I think Bush was right on this point: the Iraqi people are far better off now then they could ever have been under Saddam's tortuous regime. This was the dictator that had systematically committed what was tantamount to genocide on the Kurds in the north, he politically oppressed the Shiite religious minority, his sons were infamous for their malevolence, and Saddam's war with Iran did little for regional stability. So I think we should give Bush a bit of credit. Perhaps there were better ways to resolve the situation. Perhaps his motives werent entirely pure. But no humane nation, with the power like the US has could idly sit by and watch as a depraved madman oppressed the Iraqi people. And there Bush was right.

Was Bush right? On many of the issues no. There were no WMDs, Saddam didnt pose a grave threat to national security, he hadnt partaken in 9/11, and the charges of him harboring terrorists are tenuos ones (what nation in the region doesnt harbor terrorists)
But I think Bush was right on this point: the Iraqi people are far better off now then they could ever have been under Saddam's tortuous regime. This was the dictator that had systematically committed what was tantamount to genocide on the Kurds in the north, he politically oppressed the Shiite religious minority, his sons were infamous for their malevolence, and Saddam's war with Iran did little for regional stability. So I think we should give Bush a bit of credit. Perhaps there were better ways to resolve the situation. Perhaps his motives werent entirely pure. But no humane nation, with the power like the US has could idly sit by and watch as a depraved madman oppressed the Iraqi people. And there Bush was right.

I agree with you for the most part. Unfortunately, this sets us up for the next barrage of criticism though. there are so many tyranical governments on just this continent, you are going to get a flood of "How come we arent invading and liberating countries X,Y and Z then?"
This is an argument we will have a hard time winning. But we are still free to speculate wether we feel this man was right or wrong without the fear of being arrested and abused.

This is an argument we will have a hard time winning. But we are still free to speculate wether we feel this man was right or wrong without the fear of being arrested and abused.

I firmly believe that it is the duty of free nations to aid and assist unfree peoples to gain their liberty. Let's knock off dictators one-by-one (ideally through peaceful means, but by force if necessary). Shall we start a list?

North Korea
China
Cuba

...and about 40 others.

Was Bush right? On many of the issues no. There were no WMDs, Saddam didnt pose a grave threat to national security, he hadnt partaken in 9/11, and the charges of him harboring terrorists are tenuos ones (what nation in the region doesnt harbor terrorists)
But I think Bush was right on this point: the Iraqi people are far better off now then they could ever have been under Saddam's tortuous regime. This was the dictator that had systematically committed what was tantamount to genocide on the Kurds in the north, he politically oppressed the Shiite religious minority, his sons were infamous for their malevolence, and Saddam's war with Iran did little for regional stability. So I think we should give Bush a bit of credit. Perhaps there were better ways to resolve the situation. Perhaps his motives werent entirely pure. But no humane nation, with the power like the US has could idly sit by and watch as a depraved madman oppressed the Iraqi people. And there Bush was right.

Much better yes, they starved to death before due to the lack of food (that provoked the international blockade imposed by the US), or were slain in Saddam's retaliatory razzias; now they are living in a full-scale war-torn and ever degradating country and pathetic way of lives. But you would not care about it. Let us not judge so easily please. Nobody is wrong or right, that is only cheap consensus that benefits another people wih differant agendas than you, it is not the goal of democracy that we are FREE to judge

But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?
I've been thinking the same thing since sunday. But then I think of all the bloodshed that this freedom to vote has cost, and I still doubt that it was worth it.

But it's really too early to make any kind of final judgement, but I'm leaning (or rather, remaining) in my anti-war position.

This guy said it best:
I find this train of thought going through my mind as well. I find myself thinking "well I'll be damned. They actually pulled it off!" Of course, this doesn't wish away the ethical and practical ramifications of the pre-emptive strike, nor does it ameliorate the thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis that died, but at least something good may come out of it.


PS. And I did go to the peace protests!

*snip*

The article has a single, fatal flaw.

It makes the assumption that Bush went into Iraq in order to set up a democratic government. In fact, these are side-effects - and were not listed as Bush's original reasons.

The article has a single, fatal flaw.

It makes the assumption that Bush went into Iraq in order to set up a democratic government. In fact, these are side-effects - and were not listed as Bush's original reasons.

About as flawed as some opinions I've heard on this forum about why Bush went to war.

If he said WMD, then we have to hold him to WMD. Anything else was just gravy.

But, I've heard too many people say he went there because he was a neocon, or a fundamentalist Christian - and I don't think those were the reasons, either.

It was what he said the first time. WMD. And there weren't any, even though the CIA said there was. Note that British Intelligence said there was, also.

Bad intelligence! Bad!

Next time that some intel guy tells you that there's something at the following location, take him with you, and tell him that if it isn't there when we all get there, we'll take turns on his ass until we get tired.

The article has a single, fatal flaw.

It makes the assumption that Bush went into Iraq in order to set up a democratic government. In fact, these are side-effects - and were not listed as Bush's original reasons.

Penicillian was also created by accident...and millions are better off because of it.

Just because something wasn't intended doesn't lessen its value.

Penicillian was also created by accident...and millions are better off because of it.

Just because something wasn't intended doesn't lessen its value.

The question is "Was Bush right...?" not "Did something good happen?"

The question is "Was Bush right...?" not "Did something good happen?"

Just because you had an orgasm doesn't mean it wasn't rape...

Just because you had an orgasm doesn't mean it wasn't rape...

I understand that...as per my earlier posts - while the reasoning may not have been sound, the end does justify the means...therefore Bush was right to act.

I understand that...as per my earlier posts - while the reasoning may not have been sound, the end does justify the means...therefore Bush was right to act.

"Right to act" and "right about Iraq" are two different things.

and now for the more important question; does it matter?

does it matter what the motivation was for the war? we're there now and now, for the good of the world and the Iraqi people we've got a duty to make it work

john kerry's continued bitching isn't doing anyone anygood and ted kennedy should have stayed in chapequetic creek
that's like saying "oops, we put our hand in a woodchipper for no good reason. no use in blaming whoever did it, we might as well stick it out till the end. screaming and trying to learn from the mistake isnt going to help anyone."

that's like saying "oops, we put our hand in a woodchipper for no good reason. no use in blaming whoever did it, we might as well stick it out till the end. screaming and trying to learn from the mistake isnt going to help anyone."

Suppose someone put your hand into a factory machine. Yanking backwards will make you lose your hand and most of your arm, destroy the machine, and probably endanger other people. Allowing it to continue through will hurt a lot, but your hand can be partially salvaged, the machine will be fixable, and other people won't be in added danger.

What do you do?

Suppose someone put your hand into a factory machine. Yanking backwards will make you lose your hand and most of your arm, destroy the machine, and probably endanger other people. Allowing it to continue through will hurt a lot, but your hand can be partially salvaged, the machine will be fixable, and other people won't be in added danger.

What do you do?

hold the person who put it in there accountable in the first place. and i sure as hell wouldn't trust him with salvaging it.

hold the person who put it in there accountable in the first place. and i sure as hell wouldn't trust him with salvaging it.

That doesn't answer the main question though:

Are you going to yank your hand backwards, or allow it to pass through?

Was Bush Right About Iraq All Along?
No. The only thing Bush has been right about to date is that he could manage to get himself elected president in this screwy country not once, but twice.

That doesn't answer the main question though:

Are you going to yank your hand backwards, or allow it to pass through?
my hand is connected to my body, and it's looking like if i just let things take their corse, im going to be losing a lot more than just my hand. if it was a small machine, one which would let me see where my hand is coming out and when, i might let it pass through. but as it is, i might just give up on my hand so i don't get my whole body sucked in. can we stop talking in metaphores now?

my hand is connected to my body, and it's looking like if i just let things take their corse, im going to be losing a lot more than just my hand. if it was a small machine, one which would let me see where my hand is coming out and when, i might let it pass through. but as it is, i might just give up on my hand so i don't get my whole body sucked in. can we stop talking in metaphores now?

You really are being obtuse. THe statement was pretty clear. If you yank back, you lose your entire hand and part of your arm, destroy the machine, and endanger others. If you allow it to go through, you have a chance at saving your hand, the machine may be fixable, and no other people are in danger. What do you do?

You really are being obtuse. THe statement was pretty clear. If you yank back, you lose your entire hand and part of your arm, destroy the machine, and endanger others. If you allow it to go through, you have a chance at saving your hand, the machine may be fixable, and no other people are in danger. What do you do?
your point is a bad one. you could also get sucked in whole, clog the machine, and die.

your point is a bad one. you could also get sucked in whole, clog the machine, and die.

Perhaps, although extremely unlikely.

Meanwhile, you know for a fact that yanking out will have certain effects.

Perhaps, although extremely unlikely.

Meanwhile, you know for a fact that yanking out will have certain effects.
staying in is going to be really painfull too. and if we're talking about iraq and not OSHA standards, we're going to be mangled either way. we might get our reputation back at the end of the war and sew it back together. this might be the end of american power if we keep on going. if we pull out now, iraq might just be another country we messed up like nicaragua or iran or vietnam. we pulled out of vietnam and it wasn't the end of the world. so stop taking the metaphore so seriously. we're losing more of our good will, pissing off more of the people, and getting farther in debt the longer we stay. maybe we cant yank it out right away, but we can't just keep on feeding our hand into the woodchipper either. i don't know what the answer is, but i dont have faith that the guy who got us into this mess can get us out or that we should just smile and be patient and pretend like he didnt fuck up. thats really my whole point. someone stupid enough to get us here isnt smart enough to get us out.

staying in is going to be really painfull too.

Of course it is.

this might be the end of american power if we keep on going.

This is incredibly unlikely.

if we pull out now, iraq might just be another country we messed up like nicaragua or iran or vietnam.

Nothing like someone who has no sense of responsibility...

we're losing more of our good will, pissing off more of the people, and getting farther in debt the longer we stay.

Do you honestly think people wouldn't be even more pissed off when the Middle East started degenerating into chaos as a direct result of our actions?

but i dont have faith that the guy who got us into this mess can get us out or that we should just smile and be patient and pretend like he didnt fuck up. thats really my whole point. someone stupid enough to get us here isnt smart enough to get us out.

I agree with you. Unfortunately, over 50% of our voting peers thought otherwise. Not much we can do about it at this point but work for the best.

Of course it is.



This is incredibly unlikely.



said the great soviet general before he entered afghanistan. or kaiser wilhelm as he decided to march into paris, again. or the japanese as they landed in manchria.



Nothing like someone who has no sense of responsibility...



we've broken things in the past, they've healed themselves. im sure if you asked iraqis whether theyd like to see us go or stick this out till the end, they'd be happy to see us shirk our responsibilities. the good will of the iraqi people isnt worth wrecking our economy over.


Do you honestly think people wouldn't be even more pissed off when the Middle East started degenerating into chaos as a direct result of our actions?


i think right now we are doing more to drum up chaos. al qada is able to recruit more easily when there are occupiers in the region. we pulled out when iraq overthrew the shah and it didnt destabilize the region. we did it all the time in latin america. i guess if you really want to, we could put in a puppet government, get the hell out, and watch them overthrow it and replace it with another dictator.


I agree with you. Unfortunately, over 50% of our voting peers thought otherwise. Not much we can do about it at this point but work for the best.

and really, that's all im looking for, realizing the president made a horrible mistake. he wasnt brave or visionary, he was wrong. period. he's not a fighter for democracy, hes an idiot trying to justify his actions. you get the last word, i need to go eat.

heh. Nice summary.

Etrusca, there's a point there, and though I, for the most part, agree with it, I would never vote Republican. They're greedy, harsh, caustic, religious, heartless, imbeciles, who care nothing about civil rights, education, equal opportunity, the environment, etc.
---------------------------------------------------
I just became dumber reading this.

we've broken things in the past, they've healed themselves. im sure if you asked iraqis whether theyd like to see us go or stick this out till the end, they'd be happy to see us shirk our responsibilities. the good will of the iraqi people isnt worth wrecking our economy over.

Honestly? The majority of interviews I have seen/heard showed that even those who absolutely hated the US occupation still wanted us to stay until things are stable.

i think right now we are doing more to drum up chaos. al qada is able to recruit more easily when there are occupiers in the region. we pulled out when iraq overthrew the shah and it didnt destabilize the region. we did it all the time in latin america. i guess if you really want to, we could put in a puppet government, get the hell out, and watch them overthrow it and replace it with another dictator.

Yeah, let's just keep screwing things up, just like we always have! Yippee!

At some point, we (the United States) have to come to a couple of realizations.

1. Iraqis are intelligent human beings, who will be running their own country again sooner or later. For everyone concerned, sooner would be better than later.

2. No matter how long the US keeps troops in Iraq, the "insurgents" will still be there for the rest of Iraq to deal with when we leave.

3. The people who live in Iraq, and that general area of the world, basically invented what we like to call civilization. For anyone who disagrees, look up "The Fertile Crescent" and/or "The Cradle of Civilization".

4. The longer we keep what are to Iraqis foreign troops (US, British, et al) in Iraq, the more it looks like an invasion and not an "intervention" not only to the rest of the Islamic world, but to Iraqis and to the rest of the world in general.

5. The culture of Iraq is vastly different from that of the United States, and cannot be expected to change, with or without force, to replicate the culture of the US.

6. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

7. There is a HUGE difference between having warned the Taliban about harboring international criminals, and then invading the country the Taliban had almost completely taken over by coup - when the Taliban had not yet been recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by many other nations, and invading Iraq, a sovereign nation, even though under a horrific dictator, on what turned out to be (as some always said/thought) non-existant "evidence".

At some point, we (the United States) have to come to a couple of realizations.

1. Iraqis are intelligent human beings, who will be running their own country again sooner or later. For everyone concerned, sooner would be better than later.

We appear to be working on that.

2. No matter how long the US keeps troops in Iraq, the "insurgents" will still be there for the rest of Iraq to deal with when we leave.

But, from the appearance of the recent election they seem reticent to attack the basic Iraqi population. Makes it hard to be an insurgent.

3. The people who live in Iraq, and that general area of the world, basically invented what we like to call civilization. For anyone who disagrees, look up "The Fertile Crescent" and/or "The Cradle of Civilization".

And they've lost it and regained it and lost it and regained it. That's a useless point to make, as none of the people who invented it are there now.

4. The longer we keep what are to Iraqis foreign troops (US, British, et al) in Iraq, the more it looks like an invasion and not an "intervention" not only to the rest of the Islamic world, but to Iraqis and to the rest of the world in general.

I'm betting we are there for another year, then a major force reduction, then do the Status of Forces Agreement like we did with Germany, and have a few bases for military training and exercises there - but not for occupation.

5. The culture of Iraq is vastly different from that of the United States, and cannot be expected to change, with or without force, to replicate the culture of the US.

Just sell them American products and television for a while.

6. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

As far as some people go, yes. With al-Qaeda and people they recruit, it might be said that flies don't do any harm when they fly into buildings. You kill more ants with flaming gasoline than with kind words.

7. There is a HUGE difference between having warned the Taliban about harboring international criminals, and then invading the country the Taliban had almost completely taken over by coup - when the Taliban had not yet been recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by many other nations, and invading Iraq, a sovereign nation, even though under a horrific dictator, on what turned out to be (as some always said/thought) non-existant "evidence".
I think the Taliban knew that no matter what they said, the US was going to show up in town. So they had nothing to lose by talking big shit.

Excuses and after the fact justifications do not materially alter the facts. Bush said active WMD program in Iraq is a current threat to US security, so lets attack,
but there was no active WMD program in Iraq
if you can conclude from these premises a conclusion contrary to 'Bush was mistaken about Iraq', then you must be working very hard to do so....

They have the opportunity to elect anyone provided he is capitalist and US-friendly.

Then why a Socialist party in Iraq? Why dozens of Theological parties?

Of course they would be US friendly, but the US isn't forcing them to be. Do you really think an anti-US group would take any part in an election that the US set up in the first place?

Well, if anything said by the PNAC is true then this should be quite a read!

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040722.htm

"According to the September 11 report:

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request ... [but] the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections. (p.61)

In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. (p.66)

“There is evidence that Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training--combat, bomb-making, [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] CBRN. Although Saddam did not endorse al Qaeda’s overall agenda and was suspicious of Islamist movements in general, he was apparently not averse, under certain circumstances, to enhancing bin Laden’s operational capabilities. As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training are [redacted] from sources of varying reliability.”
That according to a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism, “the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda’s enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq.”
That the Iraqi regime ‘certainly’ had knowledge that Abu Musab al Zarqawi – described in Iraqi Support for Terrorism as “a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner” – was operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq."


Thanks for helping make the connection between al-qaeda and Saddam Hussein!
Ummmm I never said that the PNAC told the truth. They are an ultra conservative think tank driving the current administration in Washington. The link I posted was to a letter by them detailing THEIR desire to substantially increase US troops.

BTW, if you haven't been paying attention, the Congressional report stated that there were no provable links between Iraq and Al Queda. The only people pushing that agenda, was the current administration.

The PNAC will forward whatever propaganda is necessary to further THEIR goals of American Imperialism?

All you ingnorant self-serving dweeblets who can't see anything but oil need to find some friggin' PROOF! And I do NOT mean damned twinky Websites supporting no one but their own twisted, anti-American propaganda, or quotes about how evil ole Haliburton is involved! I mean real, factual, honest-to-God TRUTH! Or is that a concept so far beyond your "Oil = Iraq" mental fixation as to be impossible for you to comprehend? Jeeze.

PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
Why the US invaded Iraq:



Access to the world's 2nd largest known reserves of OIL.

Strategic Middle East location for establishing US bases (14 in the making).

Hijack the Iraqi economy, which was done through the invoking of Bremer's Orders (a 40 year lease on Iraq's economy).

US presence in the Middle East is a benefit for the US's closest ally in the region-----Israel!!

Iraq's proximity to Iran (next door neighbour) makes it easier for the US to launch an attack against Number 2 on Bush's HIT list!!


There is more but that is a good start. If you think otherwise Eutrusca, then you are in denial?

BTW, if you haven't been paying attention, the Congressional report stated that there were no provable links between Iraq and Al Queda. The only people pushing that agenda, was the current administration. It isn't quite what they said. But check this out:
4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.
From an official government document no less. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
The links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda were numerous, and the world is better off with Sadaam in a cage and free elections going on in his place.

It isn't quite what they said. But check this out:
From an official government document no less. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
The links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda were numerous, and the world is better off with Sadaam in a cage and free elections going on in his place.
That article was published BEFORE the Congressional report that could not identify any recognizable links between Saddam and Bin Laden. Nice try though.

Access to the world's 2nd largest known reserves of OIL.

why not just life UN sanctions against iraq and let the oil flow?




Strategic Middle East location for establishing US bases (14 in the making).

For what purpose, we are reducing number of foreign bases and would have access through Israel and maybe Kuwait or Turkey. Besides, W. has promised to recall troops whenever Iraqi gov't requests it.



Hijack the Iraqi economy, which was done through the invoking of Bremer's Orders (a 40 year lease on Iraq's economy).


Last I checked we have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, what exactly are we hijacking?



US presence in the Middle East is a benefit for the US's closest ally in the region-----Israel!!


Israel is plenty capable of defending themselves why would they need us there?


Iraq's proximity to Iran (next door neighbour) makes it easier for the US to launch an attack against Number 2 on Bush's HIT list!!


Consult a map, we have plenty of ships in the Persian Gulf and already have troops in a bordering country called 'Afghanistan'

why not just life UN sanctions against iraq and let the oil flow?

For what purpose, we are reducing number of foreign bases and would have access through Israel and maybe Kuwait or Turkey. Besides, W. has promised to recall troops whenever Iraqi gov't requests it.

Last I checked we have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, what exactly are we hijacking?

Israel is plenty capable of defending themselves why would they need us there?

Consult a map, we have plenty of ships in the Persian Gulf and already have troops in a bordering country called 'Afghanistan'
Perhaps when you have done a little research into the points I posted then you might have a better understanding?

Perhaps when you have done a little research into the points I posted then you might have a better understanding?


way to duck the questions! why don't you save me the time of doing the research and answer the questions yourself?

way to duck the questions! why don't you save me the time of doing the research and answer the questions yourself?
I HAVE done the research and if you go back to much early threads where I have posted, you would see that.

Take Bremer's Orders for instance, how much do you know about this blatant US hijacking of the Iraqi economy?

Judging by your response, obviously nothing?

BTW, the US has NOT invested hundreds of billions in Iraq. Most of that money has been spent on US troops, vehicles, planes, and the required supplies for annihilating Iraq.

This election was a farce.

They werent allowed to enter thier own candidates, just choose the ones given to them.

Funny how the guy who will win this election, is the same guy that Bush gave the job to.

IN Iraq, about 5000 people registered to vote.

Nearly 90,000 Iraqi's were registered to vote in Detriot Michigan, wich has the largest concentration of Iraqi's, outside of Iraq.

This election wasnt decided by the people of Iraq...it was decided by the people of America.

Why do you think these people are still pissed?

Why the US invaded Iraq:



Access to the world's 2nd largest known reserves of OIL.

Strategic Middle East location for establishing US bases (14 in the making).

Hijack the Iraqi economy, which was done through the invoking of Bremer's Orders (a 40 year lease on Iraq's economy).

US presence in the Middle East is a benefit for the US's closest ally in the region-----Israel!!

Iraq's proximity to Iran (next door neighbour) makes it easier for the US to launch an attack against Number 2 on Bush's HIT list!!



Only a sad, foolish person would believe this.

Only a sad, foolish person would believe this.
Actually, I am a fairly happy kind of guy and I choose not to believe the Bush propaganda machine, otherwise, I would be foolish.

Surely you cannot possible disagree with all the points I have raised?

If you want to find out where America is headed, perhaps you should check out this web site?:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

It certainly seems to be part of the Bush-ka-bobs playbook.

Why the US invaded Iraq:



Access to the world's 2nd largest known reserves of OIL.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm

Strategic Middle East location for establishing US bases (14 in the making).

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/iraq-intro.htm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p17s02-cogn.html

Hijack the Iraqi economy, which was done through the invoking of Bremer's Orders (a 40 year lease on Iraq's economy).

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2004/0120ambitions.htm
http://www.earthisland.org/project/newsPage2.cfm?newsID=550&pageID=177&subSiteID=44
http://100777.com/node/494

US presence in the Middle East is a benefit for the US's closest ally in the region-----Israel!!

http://palestineday.eccmei.net/special/I4Ib.html
http://feralnews.com/links/iraq_war_and_zionism.html

Iraq's proximity to Iran (next door neighbour) makes it easier for the US to launch an attack against Number 2 on Bush's HIT list!!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/18/1447252
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0118/dailyUpdate.html


Start with some info, then debate? Wake up and smell the coffee.

This election was a farce.

They werent allowed to enter thier own candidates, just choose the ones given to them.

Funny how the guy who will win this election, is the same guy that Bush gave the job to.

IN Iraq, about 5000 people registered to vote.

Nearly 90,000 Iraqi's were registered to vote in Detriot Michigan, wich has the largest concentration of Iraqi's, outside of Iraq.

This election wasnt decided by the people of Iraq...it was decided by the people of America.

Why do you think these people are still pissed?

5000 people? Where the hell did you get your information?

This election was ok. I like seeing democracies set up. However when I think of it I am reminded about two things. The first is a scene in Lawrence of Arabia when all the Arabs get together and cannot agree on one thing. And the other is when the former Soviets elected people to draft a new constitution it took them 5+ years just to agree on a national anthem, so these things definatly are not going to happen overnight. i'm afraid we will see another Rwanda situation were the majority is now in power that was formerly oppresed and now they are executing their former masters. The Sunnis and shities will never get along, and whoever is in power will war with the other one to get power. Then when you throw the kurds into the mix things get very complicated indeed...

Quote: We've gotten nothing out of it and the only reason a nation should go to war is out of protecting its own self-interests.

Excuse me? Of course we protected our self-interests! We went to war to remove the threat to Saudia Arabia and get our troops out of there!

And besides, was 9/11 not a part of this? This war says "You commit acts of terrorism, and we'll kick the shit out of you and all of your terrorist friends."

Quote: IN Iraq, about 5000 people registered to vote.

5000? Where the hell DID you get your information? 8 million iraqis voted.

There is no doubt that Bush was right to invade Iraq. Lost in all of the politcal wrangling is the fact that we were attacked. By Iraq? No. But by people with the same ideologies as Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq aided and abbetted terrorists in there quest to hurt America. But even more important than that is the fact that the entire Middle East is a breeding ground for this sort of sentiment. Invading Iraq did not make us genuinely safer in and of itself. But it was a start. A democratic Iraq sends a message to other regimes in that region and around the world that they will not be tolerated. That they must stand up and change or we will make them change. And make no mistake about it, we have every right to do so. We have every right to protect ourselves and every other free nation around the world from their madness and intolerance. These people hate America and they hate freedom and democracy. It goes against every fiber of their being. The only way for us to be safe and free is to systimatically dismantle these regimes by all out war if necessary. And for those who are wondering, Iran IS next on the list. If need be, we will bomb them, invade them and forcibly remove the dictators that plague their nation's people. In doing so, we will only add to the growing list of people that have been freed by President Bush and the American people. And we will therefore make ourselves safer.

There is no doubt that Bush was right to invade Iraq. Lost in all of the politcal wrangling is the fact that we were attacked. By Iraq? No. But by people with the same ideologies as Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq aided and abbetted terrorists in there quest to hurt America. But even more important than that is the fact that the entire Middle East is a breeding ground for this sort of sentiment. Invading Iraq did not make us genuinely safer in and of itself. But it was a start. A democratic Iraq sends a message to other regimes in that region and around the world that they will not be tolerated. That they must stand up and change or we will make them change. And make no mistake about it, we have every right to do so. We have every right to protect ourselves and every other free nation around the world from their madness and intolerance. These people hate America and they hate freedom and democracy. It goes against every fiber of their being. The only way for us to be safe and free is to systimatically dismantle these regimes by all out war if necessary. And for those who are wondering, Iran IS next on the list. If need be, we will bomb them, invade them and forcibly remove the dictators that plague their nation's people. In doing so, we will only add to the growing list of people that have been freed by President Bush and the American people. And we will therefore make ourselves safer.
By beliving we are the infallable and invincible protectors of the free world and making more and more people fear and hate us... Gotta love the illusion of security.

And for those who are wondering, Iran IS next on the list. If need be, we will bomb them, invade them and forcibly remove the dictators that plague their nation's people. In doing so, we will only add to the growing list of people that have been freed by President Bush and the American people. And we will therefore make ourselves safer.

All aboard the George W. Bush FreeDumb Train.

Who is next after Iran? North Korea and/or China?

There is no doubt that Bush was right to invade Iraq. Lost in all of the politcal wrangling is the fact that we were attacked. By Iraq? No. But by people with the same ideologies as Saddam Hussein.
um, iraq was a pretty secular power. the people who attacked us on 9-11 were religious zealots. so by same ideologies do you mean they both were brown? because that and a hatred for america is all that's linking them. if thats all the link you need, you might as well say we'd be right in invading the entire middle east and a good part of latin america.

There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq aided and abbetted terrorists in there quest to hurt America. But even more important than that is the fact that the entire Middle East is a breeding ground for this sort of sentiment. Invading Iraq did not make us genuinely safer in and of itself. But it was a start. A democratic Iraq sends a message to other regimes in that region and around the world that they will not be tolerated.
That they must stand up and change or we will make them change.

Im sure we're making them shake in their boots. we've spent billions of dollars and killed our economy and we still cant stop a bunch of insurgents with an operating budget of a few million dollars. all we've done is prove that any tin-pot dictatorship can make itself a quagmire for the cost of a few hundred pounds of explosives and a few decrepit vehichiles. seeing how sweeping and decisive our victory was, i feel safer already.


And make no mistake about it, we have every right to do so. We have every right to protect ourselves and every other free nation around the world from their madness and intolerance.
hahaha, intolerence. we'd better teach them a thing or two about tolerence, what with our supporting of all our people, no matter who they choose to love.
These people hate America and they hate freedom and democracy. It goes against every fiber of their being. The only way for us to be safe and free is to systimatically dismantle these regimes by all out war if necessary. all of them? really? the budget of the US is 2 trillion dollars per year. the cost of war in iraq is 70 billion. we're hurting for cash now. can we really afford to take out every regime? where are the soldiers coming from? this statement really makes no sense.
And for those who are wondering, Iran IS next on the list. If need be, we will bomb them, invade them and forcibly remove the dictators that plague their nation's people. In doing so, we will only add to the growing list of people that have been freed by President Bush and the American people. And we will therefore make ourselves safer.
or we'll be adding to the growing talent pool for the jihad. i mean, they are already getting to be pro-american. let the people overthrow the government themselves. or let the cia fund them. but do it more stealthy next time. yeesh. adding to the stockpile of images of cruise missiles blowing up mosques isn't the best way to stabilize the region.

There is no doubt that Bush was right to invade Iraq. Lost in all of the politcal wrangling is the fact that we were attacked. By Iraq? No. But by people with the same ideologies as Saddam Hussein.
If you want to be taken seriously, it's a good idea not to start out with blatently false statements like this.

There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq aided and abbetted terrorists in there quest to hurt America.
Yes, but in your mind, rather than being ideological enemies, Saddam and Osama have synomonous ideologies, which only proves that whatever is going on your mind, it bears little resemblence to what is going on in reality.

But even more important than that is the fact that the entire Middle East is a breeding ground for this sort of sentiment.
Actually Iraq wasnt much of a breeding ground for the kind of sentiment that resulted in the attacks on Sep 11, or at least it wasnt prior to the invasion, I would agree that it is such a place since the invasion though.

Invading Iraq did not make us genuinely safer in and of itself.
Of course it didnt, it achieved quite the opposite in fact,

But it was a start.
Er, a start to creating a terrorist breeding ground, a start to using up valuable military resources that might be needed elsewhere at any point in time, a start to mounting US debt, a start to making much of Osama's propaganda appear as though it were confirmed..., a start down a road best not travelled...

A democratic Iraq sends a message to other regimes in that region and around the world that they will not be tolerated.
No it doesnt.

That they must stand up and change or we will make them change.
You dont have the power or the authority to do this. Just how long do you expect the entire world to put up with one nation bullying every nation that does not tow their ideological/political views. The US may be mightly, but it doesnt match the rest of the world combined.

And make no mistake about it, we have every right to do so.
No you do not have any right whatsoever.

We have every right to protect ourselves and every other free nation around the world from their madness and intolerance.
Protecting yourself, and invading other nations to force your ideology on them, are not synomonous. For instance few people would be stupid enough to describe the behaviour of Nazi Germany as 'exercising their right to defend themselves'. Aside from the specifics, there is no difference to what you state is the US's right, and what Nazi Germany actually attempted.

These people hate America and they hate freedom and democracy. Which people, every single person in the Middle East, or just every single person currently in non-democratic nations in the Middle East? Either way, they are entitled to hate freedom and democracy to their heart's content. It's really no business of yours what they do and dont hate.

It goes against every fiber of their being.
Right so how exactly are you going to force them to participate in it? Hold a gun to the head of every citizen come election day....kind of funny that so many Iraqi's voted since they all hate democracy, or is Iraq no longer in the Middle East?

The only way for us to be safe and free is to systimatically dismantle these regimes by all out war if necessary.
No it isnt.

And for those who are wondering, Iran IS next on the list.
Aha and then who, and then who, and then who, and then who, and then who....just how many who's do you think the US is going to be allowed to get through before everyone else in existence bands together for their own protection, refuses to trade with the US and forms a military pact for the sake of their safety and freedom. How dare you suggest that everyone else in the world must give up their safety and freedom, to ensure your own. You are a selfish little hypocrite who obviously has far too high opinion of your own importance on the face of this earth. Contrary to what appears to be your beliefs, your life isnt worth one jot more than any single person killed to secure your 'freedom and safety'.

If need be, we will bomb them, invade them and forcibly remove the dictators that plague their nation's people. In doing so, we will only add to the growing list of people that have been freed by President Bush and the American people. And we will therefore make ourselves safer.
What do you mean plague them. You already said that all these people hate democracy, presumably if they hate democracy they must be happy with dictatorship. Evidently most people do not normatively describe being killed for someone else's benefit, as being 'set free'...

If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance.

Maybe I'd have to vote Republican in 2008.
This right here is the reason why I won't give this guy's ramblings a second thought. He seems to think that the mere event of Bush being right about something (albeit something important) is a good reason to vote a party line. And as a penance? That is a truly ridiculus proposal.
That is however beside the point. We already know Saddam was a bad guy, very few have ever questioned that. "Free" elections do not justify the invasion of a sovereign country not in violation of any treaties, especially at the price both the US and Iraq have paid in lives. Bush could not be considered right unless WMDs were found that could be deployed against us.