I agree with anything I believe makes sense. No more, no less.

Kuat--you're the one who said this war was for oil, not me. I for one don't believe it was so much for oil as it was for Bush to stay in office...but that's just me.

War is a very powerful tool in politics.

I said if Iraq becomes a democracy, is that a bad thing? Are you saying it is? Now look what you've done, you got me involved. Shame on you.

Wait.. I figured that's how you justified the war. If it's not, then how do you?

You could justify it a few different ways I supposed. If one were to argue ends justify the means, getting rid of Saddam is worth it. Or, Bush was given bad information, which at this point isn't hard to believe. Or, you could believe Saddam did have WMD's, has hidden them, or given them to Syria, which is an other distinct possibility, and also was a breeding ground for terrorisrts, which is also not hard to believe. Take your pick. I for one am not. I see Bush as much more willing to protect the nation than Kerry. That's all, the justification is moot. Or, to put it another way, all these scenarios benefit not just America, but the world.

What I said...



This was a reply when finity said to focus on the positive. I never said those were reasons for war, but only that these were the only current actual postive effects of the war. However, this was all sarcasm. I thought when I started off with the "overpopulation" part, it would be clear I was sarcastic. No, I don't think our goal was to control the population of the world either.

If you thought that I said the war was over oil, I would see where "ignorant" and "stupid" are justified. However, in that case I didn't make my point clear, which was at the end of the day, the Iraqi's aren't doing so well.

When you come in, call someone's ideas evil, use sexual insults and throw around curse words, that isn't an accident. It's tactless, tasteless, and is meant in malice. Name calling and arrogant "your wrong times infinite plus one" attitudes need to be left in junior high where they belong.

Perhaps. It's just too bad you're all hung up over that petty stuff rather than the fact that he's right.

If that were true than I would be going after everyone who had his ideas, not just him. Being right means nothing if you have the argument of a 12 year old.

I agree, Ictus has been insulting in the past. I have watched his posts in other political threads too. I think it is just his nature to be mean :p

Well then I forgive you Kuat--I misinterpreted that you were saying the war was for oil. I automatically dismiss anyone who says that, because it's quite frankly one of the more retarded things I've heard after reading a bit of literature on just HOW MUCH oil Iraq really has, and the cost of exporting it, etc.

But.. no one else has expressed those ideas, Kieran. Who else is there for you to attack? The only person to acknowledge agreement with him has been me, but I didn't expound further than that. Also, I think it does mean something if you're right, no matter how you express yourself. The same meaning is in there whether or not it's shrouded in biting sarcasm or sickening politeness.

Perhaps someone who speaks overly-verbose jackass will clear up Ictus' posts for this bat**** insane fool who can't really understand what he meant by..



Freelancer, want to give it a go?

I went through the first page and found 5 people who share similar views as Ictus. The difference is that they kept a semblence of class. And Ictus was not offering biting sarcasm nor was he in anyway polite. He was being all out crude and blantatly offensive. If someone doesn't have the maturity to act like an adult, why should their capacity for reason be put on a higher level? The ends do not justify the means.

I applaud you sir.

Ooh. Overly-verbose jackass. I must be getting on Sine's good side. ...But seriously, it's all about the - 1000 thing isn't it? If I change it to 1 will you feel better?



Erm.. not sure about this, myself, actually.



Even if I didn't object to the idea of poor policy decisions and politicians with large egos who feel it their obligation to influence the world for good by killing people,



I'd be mad at this administration for giving the American public false pretenses for going to war. (I'm assuming he means that according to you, Sine, the administration's secret agenda is to convert the world to democracy, thus the false pretenses).



If the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq in order to eventually convert the middle east to democracy,



they should have said "hey, America, we're going to invade some country in the middle east so we can spread democracy, not because of any crap about oil or WMDs or ousting Saddam."



Eh. Make of that what you will.

The idea of al Queda being made up of displaced, disgruntled working class men with little or nothing in their lives is a classic idea, it's the framework for which profiles of 'terrorists' have been built upon for decades, and it makes sense. The only problem is that it simply isn't true.
The al Queda WTC hijackers were all very well off, some with wives and children. Most of them came from rich Saudi families, sent to study in European universities. They weren't just leaning against a wall, having nothing to do, they were rich and educated and had their whole lives ahead of them. They had every option available to them. They could easily have chosen to be bankers or businessmen, make lots of money, raise a family. But they didn't, they chose al Queda, and they chose to end their lives.
So there must be something else at work here.

al Queda is composed of generally quite wealthy men. Your framework might be more applicable to the Palestinian organisations.

Just thought I should pop in to be the second person to agree with Ictus.

America does not just get to unilaterally decide that they can invade countries that it thinks might pose some sort of threat to its super-power hegemony at some undefined, distant point in the future.

And where was the USA to protect Iran when it was invaded by Iraq in 1980? Oh, that's right, the USA was too busy supporting Iraq's invading another country and shooting down Iran Air Flight 655 and its 290 passengers because a large commercial passenger plane was confused for an F-14.

And then of course there was the time when the US helped foster democracy by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Chile and installing a military dictator; a real win, that.

Aparrently, we do, because we did, decide when, who, and where to invade.

Different president, different time.

I don't know much about the Chile conflict, just the basics.

I did not mean that the USA does not have the power to do as it likes; obviously it does. What I meant was that it should not just do as it pleases, the rest of the world be damned. That is certainly one reason the USA does not have a stellar reputation in the Middle East at the moment.

I agree with Mort Hog, even though I still think the grunt level positions of the organization are of the poor and desperate.

While all of the reasons that the Bush administration has given for invading Iraq have all been sounds reasonms for action, most people keep forgetting that you must weigh the advantages and consequences of each action. While it would be a good goal to elminate terrorism, remove a dictator, destroy weapons of mass destruction, and install democracy into a primarily dictator-controlled region, one needs to make sure you're paying a reasonable price to accomplish those things; there's perhaps a hundred nations that could use help from the U.S. military in building a stable democracy, and fighting terrorism. However, the US military, despite making up over 50% of the world's armed power, is still quite a limited resource for accomplishing those goals, so it would be best to choose the right countries to work in, where we would see the greatest, longest lasting result with the smallest cost.

It is on that utilitarian basis that I find the invasion of Iraq to be a gargantuan mistake. While it is obvious that everyone who likes democracy would be happy to see a dictator removed (any pro-Bush people who call people anti-democracy based upon their opinions against the invasion need to grow up, not just grow older), people who actually give issues some intelligent thought will not like paying a high price to accomplish such things. While it may have been good to remove Sadaam from power, he was perhaps among the least dangerous tyrants; the only nation he was really interestng in attacking was Israel, which is currently quite capable of defending itself against hte rest of the Middle East. Simply removing a dictator that has proven to be fairly docile for the past decade or so isn't a bargain when you have to sacrifice the lives of over 1,000 troops, thousands of civilians, the U.S.'s credibility across the world, as well as tying up the U.S. Army for the next decade or so, among other costs.

Currently, Osama Bin Laden remains quite free, and is suggesting that the U.S.A. is closer to another catastrophic terrorist attack than ever. Also, it seems that terrorist activity is almost (if not truly) at an all-time high, so the invasion of Iraq was innefective for combating terrorism (so much that I cannot count Iraq as part of the "War on Terrorism". AS for protecting any of the US interests, I don't think any of them are any safer; we've had plenty of reports of U.S. contract workers being murdered by guerillas. As for the Iraqi people, most are still without power (at least Sadaam Hussein had power back on for everyone in Baghdad within a week after Desert Storm), and the citizens of Iraq are still fearful of criminals running rampant, that were otherwise kept away by Sadaam's secret police forces. As for the WMDs, I don't think we've accomplished anything here; as the evidence shows so far, Sadaam truly did comply with the original UN resolutions of 1991, and removed all of them. Of course, every nation has the potential to develop chemical and biological weapons...

As a deal, I do think that the invasion of Iraq was a rip-off for Anerica. While a few of the goals were desireable, and accomplished to some degree, it was still too big of a sacrifice for such a small reward. The efforts should have been better spent on fighting enemies that actually did pose a real threat, such as Al-Qaeda.

You know what, you're right. 1,000 casualties is just awful. I mean, the cost is too high. Did you know 7,000 Americans died on Iwo Jima? Or that 2-3 thousand Americans died in one day on 9/11? I'm sorry, the fact this is our most successful war in history has pulled the wool over my eyes. People let's keep things in context.

Okay, sorry, gotta be fair and let all the Middle Eastern countries rape us with terrorism.

Sorry we aren't so forgiving, when they kill over 6,000 people on our own soil. (this is the figure I last saw, it may be lower/higher)

Did you mean2-3 thousand Yoshi? I know there weren't 6 thousand casulaties on 9/11, and the first attack on the WTC still wouldn't add up.

Every single war is pre-emptive, someone has to attack without being attacked

A war is pre-emptive when the party upon which war is launched poses no threat at that time.

Question: I'm not trying to insinuate or imply something with this question. If Saddam didn't have ready-to-launch WMD's, than why did he play hide-and-seek with the UN inspectors? Right before the war was started CENTCOM was watching Iraqi convoys move from place to place and Saddam would let the inspectors go to one area and not another area one day, but then do the opposite the next. To our knowledge Saddam didn't have any ready made chemical weapons to use, but he had everything to make the chemicals, put them in the warheads he had, and launch them should he choose to(think of a disassembled gun with ammo next to the pieces). He also had chemical suits given to some of his forces. Was simply having the material to create chemical and biological weapons against UN resolutions, or did those only specify he couldn't have WMD's that were already made?

Yes, I think you should definitely keep things in context here. I also think you should pay attention to costs and benefits other than the ones presented to you by the media. here's a breakdown, presuming your claim about Iwo Jima was correct (other information can be relatively easily found through the Internet):

Iwo Jima:

• U.S. Military Casualties: 7,000
• Civilian Casualties: 0. Iwo Jima was a truly military location.
• Goals achieved: defeated a large ammount of Imperial Japanese forces, and pushed them back to Japan. Prepared for a final strike to defeat Japan, an ally of Nazi Germany.
• Military Forces tied up holding Iwo Jima: very few, and it was known that WWII would last not much longer, so they could come home soon.
• Change in region's stability: Positive. The reactionary (very right-end) forces of Japan were weakened, and the Pacific region, as a result, became free of Japan's military presence
• Change in USA's credibility: Positive. The USA showed that they could attack an enemy on their own soil that had prepared amazinging well, and come out of the battle with a kill ratio of 3:1 (The Japanese there were 21,000 strong). The Japanese defense in the Pacific was truly weakened there, and it boosted the morale of the Allied forces.
• Duration of Mission: 36 days

Iraq War II:

• U.S. Military Casualties: Over 1,000, and still counting.
• Civilian Casualties: Too high to count. Over a year ago, the International Red Cross gave up on counting civilian deaths at 5,000; they had merely counted the dead brought to 50% of the Iraqi hospitals (no death was coutned twice), so that implies the death toll was at least 10,000 then.
• Goals Achieved: Sadaam Hussein has been removed from power, but now chaos reigns across Iraq. Countless guerilla forces strike from every possible location, so it is unlikely that democracy will be truly installed for many years.
• Military Forces tied up holding Iraq: over 300,000, and it looks like even more will be needed to hold it for the potential decades that will be needed to return Iraq to a stable nation, even longer if it is to be a democracy (and not just another dictatorship)
• Change in region's stability: Highly negative. Although the non-Baathist Iraqis had few freedoms under Sadaam Hussein, they were very safe, and any international Muslim terrorist organization could create any cells in Iraq, for Sadaam Hussein was a militant, Secular dictator, and his secret police forces would've wiped out any Muslim terrorists that might've attempted to do any work in there. Today, U.S. forces are woefuly inadequate to hold the region fully stable, and terrorists are striking left and right in there, and recruiting countless new members, while unorganized looters and thieves terrorize the Iraqi citizens.
• Change to U.S.A.'s credibility: Negative. In choosing to invade Iraq, Bush went against he opinion of both houses of legislature, as well as the majority opinion of the public (most polls that claim public support for the war was high were either taken during the invasion, or were worded to not actually ask that question. An example is, "do you support efforts to fight terrorism?" is a very bad question to ask about invading Iraq, as it is too vague). The majority of the rest of the world had the same opinions as the American people. In fact, even all of Bush's generals told him the invasion was a bad idea; If Bush had been right on any number of his claims, the coalition would've been wiped out, as all of his military (not his civilian defense advisors, which included the Defense Department) advisors concluded after lots of research and study.
• Duration of Mission: so far, roughyl a year and a half. It'll be years, if not decades, before it is really safe to say it's over. When Bush stood atop that carrier, the banner was a pure lie.

Please don't make all these fallacies in your arguements; any attempt to liken the Iraqi war to WWII is a major fallacy, as we're not really simultaneously fighting two of the four most powerful militaries on Earth. Also, please read this post before quoting me as saying "Blah Blah Blah", or something like that. You don't insult me when doing that, merely your own intelligence. Don't try to look like the CIA here.

This is off topic, but,

The battle of the Somme, september 1st 1917 i think

First day - british losses - 70,000
Cause - Field commander sir douglas hague

It took years to rebuild Germany, Japan. Why does everyone expect this situation to be any different especially since it's a very hostile region? Also I am of the opinion, that when it comes to the worlds opinion of the United States, in most cases, the world be damned. Post script: Now this is why I hate posting on these threads, I don't know why I bother. I know I'm right in my opinion, you know you're right. Nothing you say, repeat absolutely nothing you say will change my mind. Nothing I say will change your mind becuase in the end, I am not as eloquent as others, and blunt statements don't get people very far on an internet debate. I consider myself to be aware of the issues involved, and have made up my mind. You'd think after years of being here I would have learned these debates don't accomplish anything, but yet here I am. sigh......

I think that Sadaam's actions might have had something to do with strong feelings of nationalism (not to be confused with patriotism; nationalism is the bigotry-filled version, whereas patriotism is filled with good feelings toward other countries.) in Iraq. Much of the arab world looked up to Sadaam Hussein, as he did ensure that Iraq was one of the most secure nations of Earth (the fact that he was a dictator didn't matter, as all of them were dictators). I saw his attempts to mess with the UN inspections to be largely an attempt to show he really wasn't being bullied by the "western infidels", and he had full control.

The other possible factor here was that perhaps Sadaam was pretending to still have WMDs. One must remember why WMDs were invented; it wasn't to perform terrorist strikes. In fact, they were designed to make conventional warfare obsolete; no nation would truly dare attempt a conventional invasion if they risked having the entire army gassed or nuked. If you know your "opponent" is rational and cautious (which it appears Bush was not), the mere claim that you possess WMDs would be enough to deter invasion, on the basis that that might provoke a response with WMDs (this is the main reason why US and USSR forces rarely actually engaged in conventional combat).

That doesn't sound very healthy. Just because it applies to you doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

I was talking about myself. Did I say "nothing, absolutely nothing will change anyone's mind?" No.

It is unwise to attempt a nation-bulding operation if you know that you will still be attacked by some in that nation for years to come. We didn't have terrorsists based in Germany attacking the Allied forces for years after Germany was captured. I'm stating that it was a very bad idea (very bad bargain) to undertake such an endeavor.


That is one of the few opinions that is just plain morally wrong. The United States is part of the world, and more over, is the most powerful force among the 6.3 billion humans on this planet. Being the most powerful, it should be the duty of our nation to ensure the best for not just the 293 million living within out borders, but the 6 billion living outside, as well. Your ideas of isolationist realism were proven quite wrong in the 20th century; when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was shown that a small band of political ideology, believing in multilateral actions to promote free, open democracies, was the only truly correct political ideals. Anything to the contrary is simply wrong, and really shouldn't need any argument against it; time has done enough.

Sine, I read your post and it looks less like you're looking at the invasion of Iraq objectively and more like you're trying to apply an idealistic motive to it. Invading Iraq did nothing to kickstart democracy and everything to kickstart terrorism.

As if the USA's reputation in the middle east wasn't bad enough, and in spite of the fact that although Iraq is a massive policy failure there are a lot of people there with good intentions, Joe Mohammed recruiting for Al Qaeda can now use Iraq as a textbook example of how the US is bad.

99.9% of westerners in Iraq are there because on one level or another they want to make a difference. Unfortunately a significant proportion of Iraqi's want to kill them. All it goes to show is that you can't look at the world through rainbow-tinted Power Ranger goggles and define everything simply into good and evil.

Sine: I'm not calling you bat**** insane, or evil, or a fool. Forgive me if I gave that impression.

What if you don't like the stance of either guy? Somehow Coke and Pepsi would make you just as happy if it was the same cola in two different cans.

Vote Nader. Or the Personal Party. I mean, a party with a porn star running mate can't be all bad.

I have one comment on this statement. I don't know the attitudes of the arab people, but I do know that most of the arab rulers did not like Saddam for different reasons. Some of them decided to side with the US and some decided to stay out of it because they didn't want to side with any nation who wasn't Islamic or Islamic enough(as was the case with Iran). For those that did side with us, they saw Saddam as a threat to their soveriegnty. The Iraqi-Iranian war and Desert Storm showed that Saddam was not above invading a country for materialistic reasons if he had the resources to do so.

Another thing.

Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party were very secular socialists. He wasn't an exceptionally good socialist, but the welfare system in Iraq was very good. And the state of Iraq was not a fundementalist Muslim state, like Iran or Saudi Arabia, it was very secular (making Saddam Hussein very unpopular with a lot of people). This meant that women in particular had a lot of freedoms that they wouldn't have in Saudi Arabia in particular.
Regardless of whether the next government is formed democratically, or as a rebel coup, I think it will be unlikely that Iraq will be nearly as secular as it was before.
It was the highest ranking religious cleric of Iraq that was the only person that could postpone the violence in Fellujah, and in a recent opinion poll it was the religious clerics that were most trusted, showing that it is religion that is power in Iraq today.
The Ba'ath party was not like this, the Ba'ath party was not governed by Islam in the same way that its neighbours was. In the opposition of the Ba'ath party, it is likely that a far more religious state will emerge.
And so women may have to give up much of the freedom and equality they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein.
And the US will be the last country to suggest that their state should be less religious.

Perhaps it is too early for the Middle East to secularise.... perhaps Saddam Hussein was a man ahead of his time..