I'm non-partisan, but....
Just a thought about what may have convinced people Sadaam had WMDs:

A generally fair assumption called "Innocent men don't run."

He had WMDs. He showed himself to be an aggressive leader. He invaded a country in violation of the UN charter. He lost the ensuing conflict. He agreed to get rid of WMDs. He agreed to prove he didn't have WMDs anymore, then decided to give people a hard time about it. For 12 Years.

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Steal my dreams and sell them back to me.....

There is something I wish I could see. Let's say in a parallel universe Bush decided not to start the war and America was attacked again in one form or another. I wonder how many of you who are against Bush right now for acting, would be attacking him for not acting.

I also wonder how many of you got your opinions from your parents. I am not asserting anything...just curious how many of you are actually of voting age and make your own decisions.

The thing about these 'debates' (or lack there of) is that no one is going to prove anything to anyone else. You guys should know this by now. If any type of thread should be delete, it should be these. I mean, what is the point of this? To get your point across? To whom? No one listens here. They just continue to post 'evidence' that supports their side. Who wins? No one. Everyone leaves believing they are still right and everyone else who posted is stupid. Come on people, talk about Jedi Knight or something.

Now that I think about it, I would also like to see a parallel universe where Gore was elected...I wonder if he'd have started a war too? Guess we will never know.

I know what you guys are going to say. Oh no, your post has no point/evidence/etc so I am going to ignore you. Go ahead. Just adding my piece.

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"She turned me into a newt!"
Pause
"Well I got better..."

[This message has been edited by R_ivi_N (edited January 29, 2004).]

They're actually in my back yard.

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<scribbly handwriting barely resembling name>

I'm of voting age. My parents are strong conservatives. I would classify myself of a little left of the middle. If anything the Libertarians need more influence in our government, but they dont have the resources to make a strong Presidential bid.

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please

Libertarians are great, except free trade is stupid (we can't openly compete with outside countries when their cost of living is lower, meaning they don't need to be paid as much in our dollars), abortion is a violation of rights (the dna is different, so how can a fetus be part of the mother? IMO, its just people taking away the rights of the defenseless for personal benefit, like slavery), and people are too stupid to stay away from drugs (if you don't believe me, just look at some of the threads around here). Other than that most of my views sway to libertarian (the government is an inefficient POS for most of the things it does).

Thus, I'm republican

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Ω of 14

Just chiming in. I have no comment to Ubuu about this whole matter because of his immature attitude, except that Kay also said that it's not the President who owes an apology to the american people, its the intelligence agency who owes an apology to the president.

For me and my voting, I am a moderate straight down the middle. I go by issues, not labels. I wish other people were as equally open minded. I still to this day believe that with all things being equal, if Bush was a Democrat with the same views as he has as a Republican, he'd be hailed as the greatest President of the modern era - and over what? A label...

*Plus, it cracks me up to see people make G.W. to be an evil genius when it suits them for some things, and an idiot when it suits them for others. Well, which is he? He can't be both, morons!

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*Joren, Legend, Alleged Egomaniac, Thread-Killer, 2-time Ban Recipient, and 6th Grade Spelling Champ*

Did anyone read what I posted? Even if Saddam didn't have stockpiles of active WMD's at the time, he was in violation of UN resolutions. Does that not make the removal of him from power legitimate? That plus all of his other evil deeds? In the long run, how can removing an evil man like that from power be a bad thing? Does anyone argue with the fact that he was evil? Maybe the country is in disarray at the moment, but look at the long term, 5-10 years and longer. How can it be a bad thing? I just don't see how.

The only argument I can see is that it may not be our country's place to do things like this unless the nation directly attacks us or one of our allies. But he did in 1991. We just didn't finish the job then.

I can only speculate from Saddam's position that he had chemical weapons or at least was faking at it (with fake sites, etc etc). My reasoning? Three words: Kurds and Iranians. If they knew he didn't have any, he would have been screwed.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

Another interesting fact - Bill Clinton had plans for a Saddam removal in the works. He had said previously Saddam needed to go.

In a trip to Spain after the war started, Clinton told the Spanish PM that HE believed, based on the intel HE had seen, that Iraq had WMDs. Then he clarified and said he no longer believed it because they hadn't been found.

Clinton had the same intell and was PLANNING what Bush did. Bush ACTED on the same intelligence.

If Clinton had taken Saddam out, I would've supported it then, based on the evidence that was presented. I support Bush's action based on the evidence that was presented. ::shrug:: I guess THAT'S what being bipartisan is about. Willing to support either side if you think it's right.

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Frightening the very small and very old since 1952.

I'm in the same boat as blujay.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Hehe.. It took six posts for this to turn into a flame war. *puts on fireproof suit, runs away*

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MadQuack on Military school: Pro's: I get to shoot a gun. Con's: Everything else.
"I'm going to beat you until the laws of physics are violated!!" ! Maeve's Warcry

RIP -MaDaVentor-. You will be missed.

Thank you for the patronization, we're always short on that around here...

The fact is that I don't find it hard to believe that you aren't a little curious about why WMD's haven't turned up yet. Some people are so set in their ways, watching only the media that shows what they like, that the sheer fact that NOTHING has been found since may last year, does not faze them in the least.


Attacked by who?... Saddam would have a hard time of it trying to attack the US. Never mind the fact that what on earth would he have to gain?..... Does he want his country to get whooped or something? Is he sick of running a Junta and wants a comfy prison cell instead? The only thing he could do would be to attack Israel, but I'm not touching that subject with a barge-pole.


Well, apparently the U.N. didn't think so...


Nobody argues with that, but Iraq was never invaded because there was a bad guy in charge. Pol Pot was a bad guy and he died happily of old age after seeing the deaths of ~2 million Cambodians.


Unless my vague understanding of English history is incorrect, they could lay rightful claim to a good chunk of Normandy. But you don't see them re-starting the Hundred Years War.

And that is the whole problem right there.

The U.N. has become useless. It waffles more than eggo. The only thing effective in the U.N. is the charitable portion of it. Otherwise, its all talk about "human rights" and "admonishing human injustices" with very little effective action due to the beaurecracy of it all.

Sorry, but I would not rely on the U.N. for anything but emergency supplies for humanatarian relief - that's all they do well anymore.

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*Joren, Legend, Alleged Egomaniac, Thread-Killer, 2-time Ban Recipient, and 6th Grade Spelling Champ*

[This message has been edited by Joren DarkStar (edited January 30, 2004).]

Offer a better-working solution

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I hate kids.

Ok, Bush was wrong, people make mistakes, that is how it is. Bush is human like everyone else, everyone makes mistakes and you can't sit there and say "Oh, he is the President, he is not allowed to make mistakes."

The fact is that a psycho dictator who should have been gone years ago was finally taken out of power. Wheather or not he had WMDs serves very little, he is gone.

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I can't think of anything to put here right now.

Wow. It's a wonder that there are still problems in the world today with great solutions like that floating around.

As for the UN, how many times were they led around by Sadaam on a short leash in the 1990s? Those inspections show the complete weakness of the UN when it comes to military action.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Are you going to help all the other opressed people in the world now as you implied by taking out one dictator out of many?

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I hate kids.

True that. Okay, lots of people died, but we all make mistakes, so it's all fine and dandy. The people are dead, but that doesn't make mistakes any less human. Let's give the man an award.

If Saddam had not been removed from power, he would have gotten more people killed than the war did. He had already gotten way more people killed and the killing would have continued had he remained in power.

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<A HREF="http://www.rot13.com" TARGET=_blank>Wnav "Xebxb" Ghbzvara
w_ghbzvara@yhhxxh.pbz</A>

You are contra-sarcasming yourself there
(or you are severely ****ed up)

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I hate kids.

[This message has been edited by Common Sense (edited January 30, 2004).]

Or he's trying to say the war cost more lives than Saddam would have.

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Roach - Steal acceptance, lend denial.

0 of 14.

(I am wondering, was the deads' only purpose in life to die so that others are spared?)

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I hate kids.

[This message has been edited by Common Sense (edited January 30, 2004).]

I admit to making this post, but I ask for ignorance toward it. I don't even know how many died in the war, and I don't know how many Saddam got killed. I just know the figures are too big. Other than that, I know nothing. About nothing. Which would technically mean that I know everything, but I don't want to get technical, so I'll say "I know nothing about nothing" because it sounds like something you might hear in a movie.

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<A HREF="http://www.rot13.com" TARGET=_blank>Wnav "Xebxb" Ghbzvara
w_ghbzvara@yhhxxh.pbz</A>

Disolve the U.N. as a law-giving body, and make it a humanitarian organization.

Also, create an institution which every country is required to attend, and make it for mediation purposes only. Kind of a round table discussion on what is going on in the world. The institution will be used for nation mediation only - it will not disburse military aid, nor humanitarian aid (that will be the U.N.'s new function) - its sole purpose will be for point of contact and mediation, making the countries themselves settle the matters, thus dropping the beauracracy. Since there are no leaders there, only mediators, every country will be treated equally - meaning the U.S. is treated as an equal to Uganda for instance, and vice versa.

Nations need to learn to work together, not against each other, and having a global body that gets in the way of that and tells each what to do, especially when they reinforce practically none of it, will only divide nations.

Thus, if 2 countries want to go to war, let em.

This may sound very cold hearted, but many people won't understand the value of peace until they have experienced war, or have someone who can relate it to them.

Essentially, you can only be successful in the long run if you do one of 2 things:

1) Become a mediating body that teaches nations to work with each other - this means if 2 nations after mediation decide to go at each other - you let them, and let them find out the hard way about how to settle their differences.

2) Create a humanitarian body with its own army, that reinforces every article it passes. If a nation has been uncooperative in a search for WMD's, then THAT power goes in, and takes no crap from anyone. It doesn't just create laws - it enforces them, and strictly.


You wanted a better solution - there is 2. Not saying they are great, but they are better than what is in place right now, and to be honest, they are the only 2 that could effectively work in the long run.

As much as people want to say "no, we can't have war, no matter what!", its a necessary evil, that only becomes unneccessary when you have everyone in the world willing to not go to war. The biggest mistake these people make is treating everyone in the world as if they have the same thought process as they do - a cultural ignorance.


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*Joren, Legend, Alleged Egomaniac, Thread-Killer, 2-time Ban Recipient, and 6th Grade Spelling Champ*

Rarely do I see a post by you in which there is no disclaimer or where you don't try to appear overly politically correct like in that one

I am puzzled

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I hate kids.

Are you going to ***** and moan about it everytime the US does?

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Was that addressed to me? Because I thought everyone just skims through my posts.

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<A HREF="http://www.rot13.com" TARGET=_blank>Wnav "Xebxb" Ghbzvara
w_ghbzvara@yhhxxh.pbz</A>

That's the scary part Krok.

You talk to people in Iraq about life before the war, with Saddam in power, and generally almost every person has at least 1 relative that has "disappeared" or was dragged away by Saddam's guards, never to be seen again; most of the women you talk to say they have been raped by one of Saddam's soldiers, usually by age 11; and then mix into that finding mass grave sites here and there, full of thousands of people.


It would not surprise me in the least if an official unbiased inquiry were ever done, that the number could possibly approach Holocaust numbers. Not saying they will; it just would not surprise me. I mean, think of how many people are in Iraq - and almost to a man or woman every one of them has had a relative go missing?

That is truly scary stuff, and a major reason why I feel no shame about going over there to remove Saddam, nor feel any guilt about remaining there until the Iraqi's can truly and fairly govern and take care of themselves...

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*Joren, Legend, Alleged Egomaniac, Thread-Killer, 2-time Ban Recipient, and 6th Grade Spelling Champ*

Heh.

- If there were WMDs and Bush did nothing, he'd get flamed.
- If there weren't WMDs and Bush did nothing, things would be as they were.
- If there were WMDs and Bush went to war, people would be happy due to progress.
- Because there weren't WMDs and Bush went to war, he was flamed.

I guess in some ways he made the right decision. Okay, it killed a lot of people. Okay, not moch came out of it. But think... what would happen if there were WMDs, stocked and ready to fire? Would Bush be politically under attack then?

Standard disclaimer applies: I'm British and I go by our news. So there.

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The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
-- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, The Father of Rocketry

You can't do that. That impedes on it's national sovereignty. On a side note, the only three countries not in the UN is Switzerland, Vatican City(both for obvious reasons), and Thailand.

That was the function of the UN when it was founded.

That throws countless lives away. That's like saying that if mediation during a divorce suit fails, you just give the dad and the mom a gun to see who wins the kids.

That's exactly what the UN is. Not everyone in the UN wanted to go after Iraq. So instead of the UN going in, the US did.

Your idea doesn't say war is a necessary evil. It is promoting war. A bigger country knows that it can just remain stubborn and say "We aren't coming to a compromise" and squash the smaller country with no consequences whatsoever. That's wrong.

Saddam was ruthless as hell, but he provided order and relative stability. What really pisses me off is people think Iraqi's are ready for democracy. They aren't. They need something more centralized(im tempted to say constitutional monarchy). But instead we are trying to set up a complex three branch government like ours and it isn't going to work.

My point in case: Russia. It is still ****ed to this day and will for a long time because of it's virtually overnight change from communism to democracy.

Another point: Look at China. They have set up plans to slowly (and I mean over decades) convert to democracy. They know everything is going to have to be done in increments.

Also, all the Baathists that were in the government are being fired, imprisoned, whatever. That is not smart. You need people there to run the government, and having a bunch of newbies in there for the very start is bad. Also, a lot of the Baathists aren't super-devote. Some only said they were Baathists to get ahead in life. With a new regime, they would change there allegiences again to get ahead.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

Also, don't blame the UN's faults on bureacracies. The only "bureacracy" in the UN with any actual power is the Security Council. You just have so many different cultures and opinions collided that it just becomes stagnant and indecisive.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited January 30, 2004).]

So the UN should have allowed because the USA along with a hodge-podge group of allies said so? The WMD evidence was evidently insufficient to convince anyone back then, and it is even less convincing now.

Speaking of allies, there was good old "Can we have Gibraltar back?" Spain and "Can we have a Free Trade agreement?" Australia making sure they asked the return favours as fast as they could.


Well, seeing as the US can't find any WMD's now, it's a fair bet that either the US can't do the job that the UN was doing quite well, or that the UN did it well enough that it didn't need a second going over.

Either way, it's not the UN weapon inspection teams with mud on their faces at the moment.


It's such a shame that these noble sentiments don't extend much further than political/economic expediency. Maybe then we would have seen the U.S. doing something about the Khmer Rouge, CONTRA, Bosnia, Rwanda, Pinochet, Suharto.

It's not just a matter of "well we don't want to get american troops killed fighting someone else's coup d'etat", considering how eager Kissinger was to jump in bed with Pinochet, Suharto and any other right-wing dictator who throws a left-leaning democracy out of power.


That's the kind of lackadaisical attitude I was talking about earlier, you're not fussed that the war was sold to you on one pretence, then when that doesn't work out, it's perfectly fine to change the covering story.


But it's in the picking and the chosing where we are disagreeing. Gaddafi sponsored international terrorism, and all he got was a small bombing campaign. Israel sure has WMD's, but they aren't getting invaded either, they're getting subsidised weapons under the FDS budget.

Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors and kept them out. The UN did nothing about it.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

Kieran: No, he didn't.

This thread is a train wreck.

[This message has been edited by Ictus (edited January 30, 2004).]

You are probably right Kieran, although you failed to document how the U.N. and the Security council have completely failed. A lot of my ideas, you said that is what the U.N. is. No, I contend that is what the U.N. was, and no longer is.

*sigh*

Sad thing is, I think all this crap pretty much leads me to some Vader-esqe leanings, via what he as Ani said to padme in EP II.

I find that very sad that I should even remotely feel that way, but that comes with years of frustration of listening to idiots telling me that things that are obviously broken still work, and people who ultimately do a lot of good are bad, and seeing the same idiots rely on whats good and whats bad by the political party of the person they listen to, and so on and so on...

I find this world very ignorant, and very sad.

But I will never speak up about it in a large public gathering, because if you do it enough, you end up with a bullet in your head, ala Dr. King. Or, heaven forbid you tell people to be nice to each other and tolerant of one another for an extended period of time... a man got hung on a cross for that.

*sigh*

This world makes me sad.

*cries*

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*Joren, Legend, Alleged Egomaniac, Thread-Killer, 2-time Ban Recipient, and 6th Grade Spelling Champ*

Only because they were scared ****less by the US finally showing the willingness to attatch some consequences. Showing labs 4 years later is bull****.

And please don't believe that the Security Council was against the war itself for high moral standards. The real issue was money and big contracts that French, German, and Russian firms had with Sadaam's regime.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Joren: Again, claims that involve "generally almost every" Iraqi backed up by nothing but your own fickle word aren't worth making. Find some hard numbers.

Morf: Good God. Aren't you the one who is always complaining about how personal these threads are?

You apparently don't care if WMD existed at all, let alone in the quantities the Bush administration claimed. Is it acceptable for a President to use false and misleading information to make a case for war?

You say you that believe that Iraq 'had' WMD. How recently? When do you think it got rid of them?

Avenger: You've made that claim before, but I've yet to see any proof.

Ictus: That site says that Saddam expelled the inspectors AND that the UN called them back.

I never said it failed in my post specifically to you, but I did later and Ictus has given a site showing that no one really knows wtf happened.

Except for the part about strictly enforcing the law(treaties would be a better term), you described the UN in number 2.

It happens to everyone. At one point or another idealism and emotion cloud reasonable thinking. God knows I which I could take back my plan for getting rid of rapists.

I remember a quote by someone I can't remember the name of, but it went something like "All that is needed for evil to survive is for good men to do nothing"

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

Kieran: The site shows that the inspectors left because they were recalled, but four years and one meme later practically everybody was claiming Hussein kicked them out. Which he didn't.