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Mar 28th, 2003, 08:32 AM
#41
KING BODWAD XXI
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Mar 28th, 2003, 09:09 AM
#42
Well ...
It won't be successful if Israel is looking for the slightest chance to break the ceasefire.
Imagine this: the terrorists have been striking in the form of suicide bombers. By invading Gaza and Palestine and killing a few of their soldiers or civilians won't punish the real culprits. It will merely "teach them a lesson". There is no 100% guarantee that if Israel stops these revenge attacks, the suicide bombings will surely stop. But there is 100% guarantee that if Israel retaliates the bombings will continue. The only sensible way is not to retaliate, because there's still some chance it may succeed. Have you ever seen Israel observing restraint, not invading the Gaza or making inflammatory speeches for even one whole week? Maybe it would work, but the people are just not willing to give it a try.
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Mar 28th, 2003, 09:52 AM
#43
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Mar 29th, 2003, 03:25 AM
#44
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Mar 29th, 2003, 03:31 AM
#45
PowerPoster
I think you'll find that some groups don't want to see an end to the fighting, be it because they just want a fight, or there making a profit off the attacks.
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Mar 29th, 2003, 03:57 AM
#46
Frenzied Member
Originally posted by Pc_Madness
I think you'll find that some groups don't want to see an end to the fighting, be it because they just want a fight, or there making a profit off the attacks.
Can't believe that I'm saying this! Hell must surely be freezing over! But Pc-Madness, looks like Ur Right, though just this once
"Brothers, you asked for it."
...Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian D'Anconia
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Mar 29th, 2003, 04:02 AM
#47
PowerPoster
Kayjay, **** you.
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Mar 29th, 2003, 04:15 AM
#48
Frenzied Member
"Brothers, you asked for it."
...Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian D'Anconia
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Mar 29th, 2003, 04:17 AM
#49
PowerPoster
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Mar 31st, 2003, 02:03 AM
#50
KING BODWAD XXI
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Mar 31st, 2003, 02:54 AM
#51
Well ...
The biggest power is the power to decide on other people's lives. To decide whether someone will live or die. That's the biggest corruption by power.
There being only one superpower now, matters are much much worse
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Mar 31st, 2003, 04:39 AM
#52
KING BODWAD XXI
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Apr 1st, 2003, 01:00 AM
#53
PowerPoster
Originally posted by Pc_Madness
I've yet to see a decent argument agains t the war, so I have no reason to change me stance.
I couldn't agree more. THe only arguments i've seen against war are
1) You'll cause more terroism. To that i say, yah in the short term and also, so what?
2) You'll kill innocent civillians. Granted killing innocent civillians is a terrible thing, there's no way we could ever kill as many as Saddam has and would continue to kill if we left him in power. He has killed HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of his own people.
So far in the war we have killed maybe 100. Those 2 bombs dropped in the market places are now being blamed on Iraqs own millitary... it seems thier Anti Aircraft fire is coming down and landing on thier own people.
So it seems that so far the Iraqis have killed more innocent civillians than the Coalition has.
Ahh yes but here comes the argument of.."Well if you werent over there they wouldn't be shooting at you", wel to that i say, Talk to Saddam, he's the one that refused to cooperate with the U.N.
-We have enough youth. How about a fountain of "Smart"?
-If you can read this, thank a teacher....and since it's in English, thank a soldier.
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Apr 1st, 2003, 03:53 AM
#54
Well ...
Whether Saddam kills his own people or not is bloody nothing of the US business. No other country pokes its nose in the internal affairs of the US judiciary system. You don't want nobody to question the misjudgements of your courts, do you? Saddam is the judiciary in Iraq and the US is nobody to question his decisions.
*sigh* But that's for someone who knows what living by the rules is
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Apr 1st, 2003, 03:57 AM
#55
Well ...
Arc, you just proved you are an ignorant and arrogant stupid git.
The main reasons against war are:
1. The US has no authority to unilaterally declare war. If you keep saying it's a continuation of the Gulf War, gimme a UN resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force by the US. Unless you give me that this war is ILLEGAL.
2. The reasons cited by the US are so far baseless. There's no evidence of Iraq having WMDs. There is no evidence of Iraq posing an imminent threat to the US. And I am using the entire security council of the UN to make these two statements. No single nation has backed you up in saying Iraq has WMDs. Those who back you are backing you only because you are a superpower, not because Iraq has WMDs.
3. Freeing the Iraqi people is none of your business. Your president is a miserable **** who doesn't know how to rebuild his own economy, and the US military has got loads of unused Tomahawks and Cruise missiles which will be useless in a couple of years, so why waste the chance to use them up ?
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Apr 1st, 2003, 04:16 AM
#56
Lively Member
No other country pokes its nose in the internal affairs of the US judiciary system.
Really? Perhaps you should do some research.
1. The US has no authority to unilaterally declare war. If you keep saying it's a continuation of the Gulf War, gimme a UN resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force by the US. Unless you give me that this war is ILLEGAL.
So the war is illegal because you say so? You must be some lawyer.
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Apr 1st, 2003, 04:51 AM
#57
KING BODWAD XXI
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Apr 1st, 2003, 05:07 AM
#58
Well ...
I shall only say one thing: Unilateral invasion of the country is NOT the answer to the above. And don't forget that the US started using that propaganda when it decided to go ahead without the support of the UN. The only points it raised in the UN were the WMDs and a possible non-compliance with resolution 1441, both of which have been satisfactorily addressed by the UN inspectors.
That's arrogance. It shows you don't have any sense of justice, any respect for rules and you want to exercise your will in every situation. Saying no leader has ever been arrested for war doesn't justify the war.
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Apr 1st, 2003, 05:13 AM
#59
Well ...
Bodwad, if you are comparing Saddam's atrocities with the Nazi massacre of the Jews, let me point out that you can force the UN to take action against Saddam for human rights violation. The US has not been empowered to carry out unilateral military strikes. It must and it MUST have UN authorization.
Deciding who's loyal to him and who's not is at the sole discretion of Saddam. I think it's much worse when the US president talks of "you are with us or you are with them" than when Saddam decides if someone is loyal to him or not. Also this decision is the outcome of the Iraqi judiciary process. I have never heard of any nation attacking the US for any decision by any US court of law which it thinks is not right.
Or are you implying if a US court gives a ruling in case of a person another nation may call it injustice and call for a military attack against the US?
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Apr 1st, 2003, 05:30 AM
#60
KING BODWAD XXI
Maybe you dont understand the difference between what is a fact and what is considered 'the right thing to do'. The fact is
You can declare war on anyone it is just a matter of wether anyone backs you or your enemy that matters. No leader has ever been arrested for starting a war
the right thing to do is
DISCUSS IT AND COME TO AN AGREEABLE SOLUTION
So you recon it was none of our buisness to stop the murdering of the Jews by the Nazis. We should just have left them should we????
I am saying that we had to intervine then even though you seem to think we never should.
So you think that a system that is not supported by the people should be used on the people!!!! Murdering 50,000 ir whatever people in Basra was a massacre not a punishment for a crime!!!!!
Global Human rights give people the right to a fair hearing (Hell even Saddam would). The people of Iraq have been poor ever since Saddam put his hands on that country why should we let many people suffer for one giant ***** of a man!!!!!!!!!!!
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Apr 1st, 2003, 05:31 AM
#61
KING BODWAD XXI
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Apr 1st, 2003, 05:34 AM
#62
Well ...
You are directly saying that might is right.
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Apr 1st, 2003, 07:34 AM
#63
KING BODWAD XXI
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Sep 26th, 2017, 05:28 AM
#64
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
Re: What I can't understand is...
Originally Posted by simonm
I think that this is one of them issues that will be judged retrospectively. It will be deemed either a worthy success or a miserable failure depending on a variety of factors including:
- How long it actually takes to complete the campaign
- What the magnitude of both military and civillian casualties are
- Whether or not the eventual changes will be broadly welcomed by the Iraqi people
- Whether or not they do actually find concrete evidence of WMDs.
I think it's impossible to judge it at this early stage.
Interesting running across this post that I made 13 years ago about how we might look back on the invasion of Iraq.
The campaign itself to Topple Sadam went pretty quickly it has to be said. But what I imagine few people foresaw was how long western troops had to remain stationed in Iraq fighting insurgents. There was a sharp rise of sectarian violence and disunity among the various racial and religious groups in the country. And when the troops finally left, the new 'democratic' regime nearly collapsed amid the rise of ISIS which threatened to turn the country into some crazy extreme caliphate that, if it had been successful, would surely have posed a greater threat to the world than Sadam's Iraq ever would have?
Sadam was reputed to have killed many of his own people but how many have died in Iraq, either as a direct casualty in the 'liberation' or as a casualty of violence that has arisen as a consequence of that? I don't know the answer but it seems to me hard to argue that Iraq has really become a better place than it was before, or that lives have been saved.
And as for the WMD's; that idea has largely been discredited now. No real evidence of such has ever been discovered.
But is the world a safer place as a result of the deposition of Sadam? It seems to me that terrorism around the world is still rife, as rife as it has ever been and probably worse than it was before the invasion of Iraq. I think it would be extremely difficult to argue that it has made the world a better, safer place.
We are where we are but, I think when I look back that I must judge it to have been a mistake. I do not think that we can say that we have not done more harm than good deposing of Sadam.
Everything I say is either loose interpretation of dubious facts or idle speculation rooted in irrational sentiment.
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Sep 26th, 2017, 08:30 AM
#65
Re: What I can't understand is...
I thought it was a mistake at the time, never mind in hindsight. It was a stupid war that we never should have been involved in.
Afghanistan at least there was a reason, Iraq we had no reason so we fabricated one !
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Oct 3rd, 2017, 08:01 AM
#66
Re: What I can't understand is...
I was thoroughly anti at the time but I think most of the problems that we're seeing since aren't a result of the Iraq war. In fact you can argue the Iraq war achieved one of it's most important long term goals: it inspired the Arab spring. That had the potential to be a massively beneficial thing for the region. Sadly, due to a combination of over-caution learned through the failings of the initial conflict and a unwillingness to upset our (and Russia's) vested interests in the ruling parties in the region, we failed to support of that spring in any meaningful way. Isis are not the result of our invasion of Iraq, they're the result of our failing to engage with the ensuing fall out.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill
Hadoop actually sounds more like the way they greet each other in Yorkshire - Inferrd
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Oct 4th, 2017, 03:21 AM
#67
Re: What I can't understand is...
Isis are not the result of our invasion of Iraq, they're the result of our failing to engage with the ensuing fall out.
Hmm i am not sure i completely agree, the power vacuum in Iraq allowed ISIS to spread in a way i never could have if Saddam was in charge. We removed Saddam but we had no plan what to do next and it is the fallout of what happened next that while it did't create ISIS, allowed it to spread through-out Iraq and Syria in a way it would have been impossible before.
I am no fan of Saddam Hussein but then i am no fan of Robert Mugabe or Omar al-Bashir or Bashar al-Assad.
Who we decide to remove using regime change seems completely arbitrary, unless you factor in were the Oil is.
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Oct 4th, 2017, 08:39 AM
#68
Re: What I can't understand is...
the power vacuum in Iraq allowed ISIS to spread in a way i never could have if Saddam was in charge
It spread in both Iraq and Syria and it's that second bit that says to me that it wasn't really the removal of Saddam that created them. Your reference to "no plan" after Saddam is pretty close to what I mean. It wasn't the Iraq conflict that created them, it was our failure to manage the ensuing events. It's a pretty fine distinction and I'm not sure we'd really disagree if we really got into it.
I think I was about the only person I know who was saying we should put boots on the ground in Syria soon after the incursion started. We didn't because 1) we were scared of the Russians (though not unreasonably so) and 2) the complications following Iraq and Afghanistan had quashed any appetite for foreign military involvements. And the fact that we didn't meant there was room for the likes of Isis to present themselves as the champions of the people of Syria.
Similarly, in Iraq, had we been more willing to pressurise the sitting government to institute truly secular instead of fiercely anti-Sunni policies (and, again, that might have meant military involvement) we wouldn't have given ISIS the opportunity to portray themselves as "protectors".
We got everything exactly the wrong way round. We got involved when it served our interests without caring for the interests of the local populace. Then we failed to get involved when it would have served the interests of the local populace but wouldn't have served our own. That's pretty much a recipe for creating anti-western movements.
Who we decide to remove using regime change seems completely arbitrary, unless you factor in were the Oil is.
^That
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill
Hadoop actually sounds more like the way they greet each other in Yorkshire - Inferrd
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Oct 12th, 2017, 03:39 PM
#69
Re: What I can't understand is...
I think it was more a fatigue of foreign conflicts for us, rather than any concern over the Russians. From my perspective, we seemed to be kind of hoping that Russia would pressure Assad to abdicate, which would have been good enough for us in that country. We'd probably have declared victory just as we did in Iraq, and been surprised at the result just as we were in Iraq.
If you consider the war over when Saddam was toppled, then, yeah, the war wasn't the thing. The Sunni awakening is something I would include in the war, and would have prevented ISIS, except that we walked away from that and let the Iran-supported Shia government further divide Iraq. The disenfranchisement of the Sunnis, who were the dominant power under Saddam, and our subsequent neglect of the situation created the grounds for ISIS to flourish.
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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Jan 2nd, 2018, 03:01 AM
#70
Re: What I can't understand is...
Never been sorrier to have been right. The WMDs never existed, and whatever earlier administration was functioning, the war ensured Iraq was dragged down a deep quagmire it will take years to come out of. ISIS was born with the ready anti-US hate agenda, US was caught in a public face-saving exercise over the army's withdrawal and the whole exercise now looks like a hurried orgasm. Neither party could be happy.
Ironically, we have another US president who seems to be as trigger happy as Dubya, and another region in North Korea that's turning its broadside to the US inviting all the fire it can. I just hope the Iraq war lessons are learnt and better crisis management techniques are used, instead of just storming into a region and throwing everything to the wind...
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Jan 2nd, 2018, 01:05 PM
#71
Re: What I can't understand is...
Cheney and Rumsfeld had plans to topple Iraq well before Bush was elected. They needed an excuse, and Powell couldn't stop them.
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Jan 9th, 2018, 07:36 PM
#72
Re: What I can't understand is...
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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