i think it would have been not smart to continue to allow iraq to go on in continual violation of UN mandates for so many years. i think it was a mistake to ever get involved in the war that you fought in, but now that we did and we had the UN pass these rules, i think we have to enforce them. i worry that we will be percieved as weak and that our words are just threats with nothing backing them. i think that post sept 11th we really have to be sure to keep our credibility. i dont care if we are thought of as arrogant. i want the world to know where we stand. we will kill you if we have to. i realize that sounds crazy. but other coutries will all be fine if they just dont do anything stupid. i think thats the kind of aggressive stance we should take. if you keep to yourself, dont get aggressive, dont support terrorists, dont commit genocides, america is your friend, do thigs that endanger the world and we might consider killing you. i think we are justified to think that way, because all we want is stability. it isnt like we are some imperialist empire, hellbent on taking over places. what i really wish is that we could go back in time and not get involved. never befriend israel, never put military bases in saudi arabia, never do anything outside our borders except trade. maybe if we had, we would not have made these enemies.
I agree with that statement. I guess where we disagree is determining what "line to cross (so to speak) to get to the point where we have to. I also tend to agree with this statement as well, but I think that if we were true isolationist, we wouldn't be the super power that we are today. Is that ok? I'm not sure.
Quote: So what? Israel is also in defiance of UN mandates, but we're not cutting off aid to them. This is one of the things that enflames Muslims so much is that they think there's a double standard to UN sanctions when it come Iraq and to Israel and to a large extent, they are correct. Besides, it's not Iraq that we should have felt threatened by. To me, North Korea's nuclear proliferation to the highest bidder is WAY more of a threat then Iraq will ever be. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) I am pro-Isreal, like it or not they are an allie of the USA and Iraq is not. Isreal did not invade and attack a neighbor in 1991 nor did they use chemical weapons on their own people. 2) There is no double standard, Muslims can think whatever they want. Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia have sponsered terrorism at one time or another and aren't allies of us except maybe the Saudis even though I don't trust them. There were terrorist camps found in Iraq that someone was using whether you want to believe it or not. Go search the news from the beginning of the ground war, i saw it on tv with my eyes. 3) I do agree that North Korea could possibly be a bigger threat than Iraq. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote: Again, so what. I'm not trying to diminsh the fact that they were in violation, but did you REALLY feel threatened by Iraq so much that American (and only American) lives were worth losing over? At that point in time, war with Iraq was not the answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You are dancing around the real issue here, Iraq as a threat wasn't the only reason why we went in, it was because the UN had sanctions on Iraq and Iraq didn't abide by them, to make UN creditibility mean for something. There should be consequences when one breaks the law, there were terrorist camps found in Iraq once again also. The president is trying to make Iraq a democracy where people can live in peace, that will help change the culture somewhat then jealousy, hate won't thrive like in the past. I don't know if I agree with it totally but if it works, Iran and Syria could fall over a matter of time just like the Soviet Union and East Germany. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your point about other countries that sponser terrorism. I would've done things differently than the president, I would've used bombs in places like Truman did to Japan such as places where this stuff breeds, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, etc. I'm not talking about whiping out whole countries all at once, just like Truman did. You first show your power and whip out towns and villages and then a city at a time until they decide to be an allie. If they don't come then whipe out the country, Hell, they started it we didn't and they let this cancer breed, hatred, etc. We don't have the man power to invade all these countries either. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are wrong by thinking, more troops would've ensured us finding OBL. 1) Like finding a needle in a hay stack besides most important thing is destroying his organization. 2)If we would've gotten him he would've been a martyr to the Muslim world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- We don't have to be friends and buddy buddy with everyone in the world. I don't care what some Muslim thinks in some 3rd world country. The funny thing is they sure love to come to America like everyone else, Muslims and Arabs alike, In todays communications there are enough that live here telling the truth back home that the Extremists are the problem and they don't want to face reality. One more thing,, No matter what you say, I'm pro Isreal and I will stand by them, don't care what Arabs say. Does it make Arabs good people to swear to the death of every Isreali and Jew in the world? So we should forget our allies like Isreal and site up with Arabs because there are a few extremists? So we should do like the Spainish people in Madrid did? We should give up Isreal and site with all Arabs and that will make everything just right?
I side with Israel too, but I do not think we should give them carte blanche to do whatever they want with no repercussions. Why is it ok to go to war with Iraq over UN sanctions violations, yet we don't put more pressure on Israel to comply. Sounds hypocritical doesn't? Your unilateral line of thinking only serves to escalate the conflict, not resolve it. I don't believe I am. I've made my point perfectly clear. Devote the resources to finding the people responsible for 9/11 first, deal with Iraq afterwards. They were not an imminent threat. I understand your point about the UN sanctions, but first, how can we possibly have the credibility you so desperately seek when we wage war against Iraq using UN mandates as a principal, yet we do not force Israel to comply with it's own sanctions? Hypocracy, pure and simple, and credibility is lost no matter what. Not only that, your position of using the violations of UN sanction as a basis for war is groundless because the United States is but one country in the UN. The majority voted NOT TO go to war just yet. You can't have it both ways. If you agreed with the sanctions to begin with, then you should abide by the decision of the majority when it comes to waging war unless the security of your country is imminently threatened - which I do not feel that it was. And just how is that different then the way they already feel about him? Only difference is that he'd be where he belonged - DEAD. I understand what the president is trying to do with promoting democracy in the middle east. I, however, would've preferred to see us take it one country at a time. Start in Afghanistan, devote these resources top finding OBL & friends, stabalize the country (and just because you dont here about it in the news much any more does not mean it's stable by any means), and move to Iraq, if necessary, once the job there is done.
Quote: I side with Israel too, but I do not think we should give them carte blanche to do whatever they want with no repercussions. Why is it ok to go to war with Iraq over UN sanctions violations, yet we don't put more pressure on Israel to comply. Sounds hypocritical doesn't? Your unilateral line of thinking only serves to escalate the conflict, not resolve it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will say it once again... Isreal is an allie who hasn't waged war and attacked other countries or used wmd's on its own people. Isreal is a democracy and Iraq was a ruthless dictatorship that could have sold wmd's and chemical weapons to its neighbors which support and supply terrorist groups. Isreal is an allie, Iraq, Syria, Iran and other middle eastern countries are not our allie. Iraq, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Pakistan are all countries that are not democracies, they are rather ruthless countries in the way of the ancient world. The USA looks after its own interest just the way Iran, Syria, Iraq and other middle eastern countries do yet they don't like it when we do what we do. Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia sponser terrorism, Hamas and other oraginzations to kill Jews and Isrealis in Isreal and other places. Now who is being hypocritical? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We could devote our whole military and may never find the sheppard, OBL and his henchman, just because you have more troops in the beginning doesn't mean you still could capture him. The president seeked creditibility I didn't , I'm not desperate for it. I don't care what the Muslim world thinks, I don't think any better of them than they do of us so be it. I like having the UN in America because they live and contribute to the economy, they also are good at giving assistance in some cases but other than that they are worthless. They've lost all creditibility as far as I'm concerned. I'm for the USA sovernty and NATO and prefer the way things use to be as compared to today. Why did the UN vote not to go to war? Your losing creditibility now because the UN would never vote to go to war because of the UN dealings with Saddam, Oil for food program. Annon, his son, France, Germany all had a part in this one, pocketing money and sending illegal weapons to Iraq that was found by our troops. Talking about can't have it both ways? PS I believe OBL and henchman are in Iran and have said all along. Have you ever looked at a map of Afghanistan and surrounding countries?
It's so easy for those who have never seen combat to wage war. Had they seen those horrors, they would know it's not something to take lightly and they would know to do everything in their power to avoid it. Concerning the UN, I was only attempting to my perceived point out flaws in your logic. I simply mentioned that you can't enforce sanctions on one country and not another. All in all, I think we both want the same thing. We just disagree on the route taken to get there. :thumb:
Quote: It's so easy for those who have never seen combat to wage war. Had they seen those horrors, they would know it's not something to take lightly and they would know to do everything in their power to avoid it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have you been in combat? I don't take war lightly but I also don't take an attack on the WTC in 93, and then the one in 2001 was the biggest attack on the USA in our History lightly. Not to mention all the attacks overseas during the Clinton years and we did nothing. The bastards started it I would finish it and save American lives, people in Pakistan and Palestine teach kids to hate from when they are born. That is a cancer that can only be killed. We probably want the same thing but we do disagree on how to get there...
Yes, I am a veteran of the first Gulf war. I've never been in a combat zone, but I have, with my own eyes, seen the wounded, the maimed and the disfigured and I've heard their stories, so I think that qualifies me to make that statement. Having said that, you're confusing the issue. Tell me how Iraq fits in with the bombings of the WTC? It doesn't. Hussein claimed to be a Muslim when it suited him, but he never embraced religion except when postering and he ruled Iraq as a secular leader. I fully believe in figthing to protect America and to seek justice for those killed, but I also believe we're fighting it in the wrong country. Agreed. :thumb: :911: :usaflagwa :usaflagwa :usaflagwa :911:
Maybe I did confuse the issue... I understand that another reason we are doing the Iraq thing is because George Bush believes if he can get Afghanistan and Iraq to become democracies it will put more pressure on the countries around and maybe they will be overthrown by their people. It will make it a lot harder for these countries to exist as they always have. I'm not sure if I agree with this philosphy or not but I will support the war in Iraq just because of the terrorist camps found there. They did have terrorist camps in Iraq but no one seems to care, its all moot anyway. WE ARE THERE NOW and there isn't 1 thing any of us can do about it. The whole Iraq thing is as old as Jake Plummer playing for the Broncos, it doesn't really matter. I'm more interested in where we go from here assuming Iraq works out like they are supposed to. I'm scared the Democrats are going to want to take everything through the UN no matter what. BTW, My brother was in the first Gulf War, he was part of the transportation regiment, (army) 1991
Actually the question no one will answer is "What constitutes victory in this war?" People keep telling me that we have to win this Iraq war. Well, how exactly do we do that? The security is worse than it was two years ago. Over 100 parties are running in the election and pigs will fly before a democracy happens over there. How long do we hang around getting killed? What specifically are we supposed accomplish, so we can declare victory and get the hell out? Actually the illegal weapons were cataloged and destroyed during the ten years that the sanctions were in place. Tons and tons of them. UNSCOM effectively eliminated this threat, as evidenced by the utter failure of our military to discover any. They didn't "disappear". The sanctions worked as advertised. American Scott Ritter, the chief UN arms inspector warned us all that there were no significant WMD's to be found in Iraq and that an invasion to find them would be a mistake. He was castigated at the time and called a liar and a traitor. But he was telling the truth and he was right, unlike our administration, who was not and was wrong. Whoa. You bash the UN at every opportunity and now you are trying to say that we enforced UN sanctions by invading Iraq? Uh, Sourdough . . . We did not get UN sanction to Invade Iraq. The UN wanted to give the sanctions more time, but we ignored them and unilaterial invaded Iraq. It is pretty lame to now say that we were doing it for the UN. Bullchit. Bush ADMITTED that the intelligence was at fault. He told the American people in a statement to the nation that Iraq was trying to aquire uranium in Africa, info that the CIA knew to be false. He later was forced to retract it. Too late of course. He ignored intelligence that aluminum tubes were not part of a centrifuge. Look, amigo. The weapons were not found. There never was credible evidence that they existed any longer after the UNSCOM demolitions. Bush either hoodwinked us or he was hoodwinked by his own people. Either way it was incompetence at the highest level. The argument has plenty of teeth. What doesn't fly is your belief that the WMD'S "disappeared" into Syria or Iran. None of those countries ever got along. Iran never returned any of the planes that Saddams pilots fled in. They fought an 8-year war with Iraq and lost a million men. They despised Saddam. Syria's beef is with Israel and the last thing they want is war with the US. They didn't take them either. The chemical and biological weapons were destroyed by UNSCOM and the nuclear program never operated after the 1991 Gulf War. You can't offer a shred of evidence to support your optimistic beliefs. You bet Bush lied. None of the so-called chemicals found turned out to be WMD's, usually lab analysis proved them to be pesticides. Bush claimed that tons of chemical and biological wapons existed. Rumsfeld stated "and we know where they are". To my knowledge exactly six old chemical artillery shells that escaped UNSCOM demolition have been found and they failed to work and nobody was injured. Do you really think that America would have gone to war and gotten into this occupation quagmire to capture those six shells? Bush claimed that mobile biological weapons labs on trailers existed. They turned out to be hydrogen generators for weather balloons. Bush mislead the American people by suggesting that tons of WMDs existed and that Saddam might give nuclear weapons (which he did not have) to al Qaida, ignoring the fact that bin Ladin despised Saddam. Hilarious. Sure. There has been no vote yet, you know. Say, would that constitute victory? We can go home then because that is what we came for? We had to capture six artillery shells from a bad man, so we have invaded a country that did not attack us and killed thousands of its citizens (who now despise us) for reasons that turned out to be bogus. All this at the cost of 10,000 American casualties, an unprecedented collapse of international support for America, and over 200 billion (and counting) wasted American dollars? Hilarious. Just hilarious. Rumsfeld is responsible for going to war without enough troops and without the proper equipment. He is responsible for failing to recognize that the occupation of 24 million people by 100,000 underequipped troops was folly. He is responsible for the national humiliation of the Abu Gharaib scandal after which even George Will thought he should have resigned. Now that the occupation is utterly failing to provide security and the bombings and the casualties are increasing, Rumsfeld rudely dismissed a soldiers plea for the right equipment to do the job and now is properly being attcked by republicans and democrats alike. His time is numbered and he will soon join Robert MacNamara in the league of disgraced defense secretaries. Iraq is a clusterfugg, Sourdough. And Rumsfeld is largely to blame. But the ultimate responsiblity is Bush's. And exactly none of this has aided in the capture of bin Ladin and the destruction of al Qaida. Instead more Arab terrorist groups are being formed and it is us that they are focusing on instead of Israel. Meanwhile we fritter away our troops, our treasure, and our good name in Iraq. Great power is being wielded without great responsibility. History will not be kind to those in charge of this Iraqi mess. Nor will the electorate in 2008.
