Iraq was never given that choice.

Booyah.

I am quite sure with the environment they lived in that at least some of them would have been dead if we hadn't invaded.

And its citizens weren't given the choice whether to be tortured, slaughtered, pushed around, denied rights, and killed on an everyday basis either. Don't bring up "That's not why you went in there" blah blah bull****, because that's why we're in there now.

....Still searching for them WMD's....And we're enjoying skyrocketing oil prices at home...

I dont think he nessacrily got blasted on TV. Had he known his facts and been able to defend himself, it wouldnt have come out quiet as bad. Plus, he isnt an ******* dimwad like all FOX journalist. No professionalism what so ever. You can be passionate about something, but when you are a media figure head your are expected to hold yourself with extreme classiness, and professionalism. The Fox reporters failed on that.

Hannity and Colmes aren't reporters.

Ok, talk show host

I don't see how you can debate this... the guy was an idiot and got his butt handed to him. He's just another one of those "omg I'm anti-this!" that made a website and got attention enough to be publically humiliated by Hannity and Colmes. It's about time some show decided not to be PC and actually call someone on their own bullcrap.

It's pointless to mention Iraq in here though, he wasn't talking about a SPECIFIC war. I believe Iraq was mentioned, but that's because he's just some bandwagoner idiot. He probably got caught up in all bandwagon idiots whining about iraq and hating this and that, ie: the soldiers. Theres a ton of idiots who blame the soldiers for Iraq, so this guy just took it a few steps further.

There are actually wars that had the military defend our "freedoms."

-Revolutionary war. Brits thinking they're high and mighty.
-Civil War. The South wanted to keep slaves and such, thus threatening the slaves' freedoms.
-WWII. Both Germany and Japan wanted to invade us. Japan wasn't even directly threatened by us, they overreacted (their nature).

The moron was acting like the military was to blame no matter what war it was, even though he's just another bandwagon idiot of the whole anti-iraq extremists.

It's ridiculous to turn this thread into an Iraq war debate and those who think all this is about Iraq are almost as bad as that guy. I would say just as bad, but it hasn't gotten to that point, yet.

Basically, hannity and colmes were talking about soldiers that HAVE defended our freedoms. So it's stupid to start an Iraq debate over what their comments.

Mind you, I too think it's bull that people say they're defending our freedoms in Iraq right now, but I digress. This thread should NOT have been turned into another Iraq debate.

Note: No, I don't think all anti-Iraq people are extremists or idiots, but there are alot of them that are.

Actually we admitted there are none, nice try. And I'd gladly give some money for the freedom and wellbeing of a people (though admittedly they should've started with Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, etc.)

Sorry I haven't read all of these posts. I'm at my parents, using dial up, so surfing isn't all it could be especially on my dad's PoS computer. Anyway, this subject was brought up quite awhile back, if I'm correct. The guy's website was foresakethetroops.com I believe. I had missed the Hannity and Colmes interview though. Downloading now (dialup!).

As already stated H&C isn't the typical news show. But it is still quite informative as they tackle topics you won't find in most places. I disagree that Colmes is the logical one and Hannity is whatever. They're relatively the same except from opposing sides. Colmes is much more level headed than your typical left-winger on a show like this. He finds it hard to excuse some things that would go unchallenged in other shows. Hannity has been annoying me for awhile though (and this coming from a right-winger!) with his combative attitude but at least I understand where it comes from.

And I disagree that our servicemen aren't out there protecting our rights to include the first ammendment. Our nation failed to defend itself for nearly a decade in the war on terror and thousands of US citizens lost their rights. Our troops are out there defending us now. You just need to know how to understand it.

I think it's more likely that our presence in the Middle East greatly increases the chance of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. If not, then it's at the very least causing our reputation with many Middle Eastern nations to plummet.

Again, you're blaming Iraq for things it was never responsible for.

Defending you against a country that didn't even attack you?

I wasn't talking about fighting the Japanese. I was talking about fighting the Italians, Germans, and their allies in the Balkans. How was that necessary? What did they do to us?

Besides, I said that I didn't agree with the war. That's not the issue I have with you Mort-Hog. In fact, I agree with you on many points, like how Iraq wasn't threatening our freedom, etc. The problem I have is that you seem to be equating U.S. troops with Nazis murdering people in concentration camps (Nuremberg defense?), and then you make it seem as if America is intentionally killing civilians.

Granted, there have been a few instances in which Americans have mistreated and killed Iraqis for no clear-cut reason (Abu Ghraib, Army Col. Allan West, 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano), but this is not a pattern, whereas among insurgents it's a means to an end.



Lies? Do you even watch the news or read the newspaper? What do you see almost everyday? 50 people in a market killed by a car bomb. Children killed by suicide bomber near U.S. patrol. 20 potential Iraqi Army recruits killed by a suicide bomber. Are you telling me that those are lies? Oh, I'm sure the insurgents didn't mean to do that in most of those cases, they just accidentally blew themselves up.

Once again, I'm not saying the war was right. I think that it was the wrong thing to do. I am talking about civilian deaths.

And by the way, i think Saddam Hussein was quite capable of killing large numbers of his people pretty quickly. Halabja, 1988. And you may say, he had chemical weapons then which he didn't have recently, but honestly, WMD isn't needed to kill lots of people really fast (Hutus against Tutsis, 1994, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc.).

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE GODDAMN MEANING OF THE WORD PRE-EMPTIVE?

FFS.

Jeez, settle down. It's just some words on an online forum.

I am settled. It's called "frustration". And note: it's only temporary.

Yes, I do. How was the invasion of Iraq pre-emptive? What were we pre-empting? It wasn't like Iraq was going to launch a nuke at America (or was even capable of it), or was in league with terrorists to perpetrate another massive attack in the U.S.

Well, that's what we (erronneously) thought. Though they were 'in league' (had relations with) terrorists, there weren't any plans, no.

Yoshi, suspiscion isn't enough grounds to go to war over. And outright lying and using fear to generate hate and support of a war by saying Iraq HAS WMD's or Iraq IS in league with the terrorists...only to admit years later that it was all false and cover it up saying it was "bad intelligence" (stupidity sums it up for me). That's something bush should be impeached for.


You've "liberated" Iraq alraedy. Why are your tropps still there? Get the **** out

It wasn't 'suspiscion', it was what we thought was proof. The CIA ****ed up, Bush ****ed up, this has been gone over and proven. The only thing is, you guys keep fighting that we had no cause when we DID at the time. It just ended up being bull**** in the end. We do have a cause now--rebuilding Iraq. I think that's a damn fine cause

Yeah...rebuilding the place you destroyed because of your "suspiscions". No wonder America isn'twell-liked.

Oh shut up. We're not rebuilding it because we destroyed it. We tore down a regime. You act like the plan that was in play was amazingly good and awesome. We're giving the Iraqi people freedoms and responsibilities they never had a chance to have before. While I know that's not why we went in there originally, and that may not be what you or Mort or anyone else thinks is best for them, they seem to be accepting it fairly well (although not nearly unanimously) and hopefully will only accept it more over time. In the end it's better than being tortured and killed on the whim of your dictator.

How many times are we going to (pointlessly) debate this subject? It happened. It's done. Yes, we screwed up with the intel on the WMDs. We probably screwed up big time. But now we fix our screw up. We stay there until the nation is on it's own two feet again. You think the world hates us now. Try imagining if we pulled out after we realized..."oops." Iraq would be nothing but anarchy and chaos. It would have looked that we didn't really give a **** about the nation if we withdrew. But we are staying there for the time being.

But hey, you all want to debate this over and over again...don't let me stop you. Unless you're being unruly and obnoxious, then I have to take action.

Actually, I think our presence is bound to help our reputation especially that the main target of Islamic terrorism in Iraq is now the average Arab on the street. And I would seriously disagree that our presence will lead to more attacks on US soil. We had a very limited presence during the last decade when major attacks were made on our soil. Just seems idiotic to be scared to respond to terrorist attacks for fear of more.





This isn't about nations declaring war on one another. This is about Islamic terrorism. Islamic terrorists seek to deprive us of our rights and our servicemen are defending them for us.





Yoshi, you're on the right track but if we're going to say that the CIA, Bush, etc screwed up you have to include most of the globe as well. It was never really disputed globally that Iraq had WMD programs and it couldn't be because they did have WMD programs. Iraq's dealings with terrorists are well documented and I've posted references to undeniable sources that no rational person would dispute. The thing about this issue is the deception the left uses to try to make it look like Bush went to Iraq because they attacked us and were going to gas us. We went to Iraq because we feared the potential that he might supply WMD to terrorists and we honestly don't know that he didn't. It was a win-win scenario because even if the world was wrong about Iraqi WMD we would depose a barbaric dictator, allow a country to reform itself, have a base of operations in the theater to combat Islamic terrorism, etc.

But this is all old news here and I'm not going to get back into this debate again now. I don't have the time.

Finally watched the clip. I don't think Hanity was out of line at all.

The question is..How many more Iraq's or Vietnam's are there going to be, before you and your government smarten up?

I'm positive that if another nation thought America had WMD's (which for some reaon, they are allowed to have, while other countries arent), and was under suspiscion because of intelligence they got, that America was planning to attack them..and instead bombed America?

Hell, I could see it now. America would be branding them terrorists/outlaws, whatever it may be..and claiming their rightful place in their minds as the saviors of the world.

Give it up, The war is bull****, the reasons for it are bull****, there's tons of other ways that could have been explored before going in to war. Like, for example...LISTENING to the rest of the world and 80% of the UN that voted AGAISNT the war, based on the correct intelligence THEY had.

How many more Iraq's? How many more vietnam's? How many more times will America destroy a country, and then claim it was all in the "best interests of the people"? How many times will innocent civilians die because America has a vendetta against their country?

Sorry, as much as I'd like to debate it, I just don't have the time. Seriously, we've been through it a few thousand times. I know I look hypocritical for even posting something but really it's meant as specific posts for those people I addressed and for them to discuss with others on the board.

Now off to BUMP the Fantastic Four thread.

Damn straight.

First off, comparing Iraq and Vietnam is stupid and pointless. They're not the same thing at all. Vietnam was a mistake on the side of we didn't want communism to spread. It was a stupid, petty little war, and it never should have happened. Iraq is about protecting the globe as a whole. You see, there's a difference between a superpower and a 3rd world country holding weapons of mass destruction. One does it for intimidation, the other does it because, hell, they may have nothing to lose, and just nuke anyone they don't like. Not to mention we have proof of Saddam's horrible treatment towards humanity and his citizens. Like Wookie said--even if we were wrong about the WMDs, which we were, we could at least tear down a dictatorship that should've never been supported by us. We were protecting the Iraqi citizens AND the rest of the world.

No, it's not a bull**** war. It's not like we're slaughtering citizens (though there are way more Iraqis that have been killed than Americans, that's due to things like us bombing wrong locations etc, and most of that I blame on the military's insufficient intelligence which is the military's fault. That's how I see it.) or we're being slaughtered for no cause at all. We're helping out this nation, freeing its people. But you don't see that--all you see is that we were wrong about WMDs. There's more to this war than just who has the nukes.

Yeah.. It's about who can have more power.

What the **** does getting a nation back on its feet and helping it to create a new, democratic, open government have to do with power? We get nothing out of this deal. Not even all this oil so many say we're going to be getting.

Ah, so the Bush administration and the CIA aren't hypocritical or devious... they're just incompetent.



Almost Godwin's Law!

Mention anything even remotely related to the Nazis and everything is all about killing Jews! Of course!


The Nuremberg defense was basically "It wasn't my fault, I was ordered to do it" which all the Nazi soldiers were going to use and the corporals and everyone up the line and putting everything squarely on Hitler (because of his strictly hierarchical system, it wouldn't be hard to do). The Allies knew this was going to be the case, so they decided long before the trials that this sort of defense was not going to be admissible. But this wasn't just going to affect Nazis.
This changed everything about all trials for soldiers and the military in general. Soldiers were now fully (or at least partially) accountable for their criminal actions even under order. This had a big effect on the atrocities committed in Vietnam, and it should certainly act as a detterant for soldiers in Iraq as well.



Yes, they are terrible, but the numbers killed by insurgents (or Saddam Hussein) don't come anywhere near those killed by Americans.

As for Halabja...
I've covered this many times in different threads, but people just don't seem to listen to it. There are so many absurd myths regarding Saddam Hussein.

Whenever anyone is talking about "Saddam Hussein gasses his own people!", they are talking about Halabja. It was 1988, during the Iraq-Iran war, and columns of Iranian troops were nearing the town of Halabja on the Iraqi border with Iran. The troops were going to occupy the town and would be supported by the Kurdish locals. To prevent the Iranians from taking the town, Iraq used chemical weapons on the town, killing civilians, sources vary in number from several hundred up to 5000.

(There is some discussion about whether Iraq was actually responsible, it could well have been Iran, to clear the way or something. I seem to remember some US sources putting the blame on Iran, but considering the US supported Iraq in 1988 (and sold them chemical weapons) , this could just be lies)

It is ridiculous to assert that the Kurds were actually the target of this attack, that would be a huge waste of expensive weaponry, especially when Iraq was in a hugely costly war with Iran.

I think it's hilarious how so many people have the view that Saddam Hussein personally went down, placed the chemical weapons, pushed the plunger and cackled nefariously as the children choke to death.

This was indeed the largest ever chemicals weapons attack ever, but in 1988 there was no public outcry, there was no condemnation. It was unforunate collateral damage.
It was not until 1990 that it was raised again, when the US no longer supported Iraq, and was trying to befriend Iran.

You're all being used, decieved by shoddy, irresponsible media to promote a political agenda.

I don't consider them to be devious. Hypocritical? Yes. Incompetent? Yes.

I think your problem is you've always got it in your mind that everyone has a hidden agenda, their own motive, and everybody's inherently evil. Grow up, Mort.

I don't find waht mort just said to be wrong in any way. It's the truth. I think you're the one that needs to do some growing up.

YEAH **** THE SYSTEM DUDE FIGHT THE MACHINE DON'T BE A ROBOT LOLOL I'M SO MATURE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME.

I'm sorry, but that mentality doesn't seem altogether...well...sane, much less mature to me. I'm not saying there's no corrupt politicians or anything, but I believe in innocent until proven guilty. I think everyone else in the world must believe in guilty until proven innocent, which is really just a horrible way to look at life.

When did I say, or imply that in any of my posts..?

Thank you for proving my previous statement though.

It's an example of the mentality you and Mort display. Mostly you, actually, you display it all the time (in drug threads, in cop threads, in political threads).

I've had enough. You're not even addressing what I say directly. Instead of arguing, I'm just going to ask you, Mort-Hog, plain and simple: Do you truly believe American troops are killing civilians in Iraq intentionally?

Don't worry about it Tempermental. Yoshi's favorite thing to do is to put words in peoples' mouths in all caps.