This Iraq thing is so simple...

[Cyberian]

There, I'm done. Writing long texts to argue makes my fingers sore. I won't reply anymore.

Can anyone translate this for me?

 

[StageLeft]

You're right on one thing - it is simple.

Let me tell you - this time yesterday myself and mrs.skoorb and another person I spoke to were against iraq being attacked. personally it's because I believe that even if he gets a nuke he won't use it. It would be mad and he knows he'd lose everything he has.

That's why I was against it. Well today reading bush's speech on MSNBC it was crystal clear to me. The UN has passed resolutions. Iraq has broken them like a dozen times and has had a decade to do it. And still the UN does nothing. Do their resolutions hold no weight? If they cannot be enforced they, and thus the UN is meaningless. Bush is right about that and I think people reading his speech realize that now as well. Without enforcing them it's meaningless, so they must be enforced. That's what it comes down to.

 

[SuperTool]

what would happen if a country unilaterally decided to disobey UNSC resolution and trade with Iraq? Like if Iran or Russia said, "yep, we don't care about UN, they are irrelevant anyways, we just like money"
What would happen then? Israel routinely disobeys UN resolutions, and if Russia did too, there isn't much the US could do. We would end up with a second Cuba, where everyone but the US is making money there
I really think this whole embargo is a joke and we should let money talk. Iraq has goods to sell and buy, and people who want to do business with Iraq should be allowed to.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: frombauer

Originally posted by: sward666

I'm sorry I ever started the post. Maybe I'm not completely right about the whole subject, I think few people realize the big picture

That's the first thing you've said that approximates the truth.

Yeah... maybe you should really blow up a big hole in Iraq, if it would make you all feel better. At least for me, war doesn't make me feel better at all.

What are you doing with those ball bearings in your hand and why do keep talking about strawberries?

 

[Swanny]

Um, no. Yes, it is about oil. Yes, we obviously want a new government that is willing to work with the internation community. BTW, it's the Palestinian terrorists that are slaughtering innocent Israelis (and Palestinians).

No, Gore did not win Florida. This country would be down the crapper if he had.

Yes, we dropped the A-bomb, and we had good reason to.

I'm not upset.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
You're right on one thing - it is simple.

Let me tell you - this time yesterday myself and mrs.skoorb and another person I spoke to were against iraq being attacked. personally it's because I believe that even if he gets a nuke he won't use it. It would be mad and he knows he'd lose everything he has.

That's why I was against it. Well today reading bush's speech on MSNBC it was crystal clear to me. The UN has passed resolutions. Iraq has broken them like a dozen times and has had a decade to do it. And still the UN does nothing. Do their resolutions hold no weight? If they cannot be enforced they, and thus the UN is meaningless. Bush is right about that and I think people reading his speech realize that now as well. Without enforcing them it's meaningless, so they must be enforced. That's what it comes down to.

agreed

 

[Tripleshot]

Eject Saddam from Iraq and deport the PLO to Iraq. Plenty of land for all those muslums to claim a home.


Now that's a thought.

 

[UNCjigga]

Brazil was one messed up movie man!

 

[SuperTool]

Who died and made the US military a UN enforcement arm? If you want to go in under pretext of enforcing UN resolution, then we need to assemble a UN force under UN command, blue hats and all.
Can any country now take it upon themselves to enforce UN resolutions they like and ignore the ones they don't? Besides, if we went around the world enforcing UN resolutions, we would be in dozens of conflicts at once. Bush is just fishing for excuses to attack Iraq. He needs to come out and make a case for why it needs to be done. Right now it's just sloganeering.
BTW I think for Iraqi people it will be better if we take out Saddam. Let's see. Sanctions removed, Massive US rebuilding help, etc, etc. There is no doubt there will be a huge gravy train heading to Baghdad. What I want Bush to do is make a case for how it will be better for the American people, and why we should pick up the tab when we are already paying high taxes and still the government is in deficits. We will pay to rebuild Iraq, and station troops there indefinitely, and then instead of sending food in exchange for Iraqi oil, we'll have to send cold hard cash. It's an enormous expense in the 12 digits range. The case would have to be pretty overwhelming to get me to support this type of undertaking, and so far the case has been very feeble with different messages coming out from various places. Also I want to see Bush's plans for Iraq for the next 20 years, and the expense involved.

 

[BadNewsBears]

Descartes what about the pilot less chemical spraying drones??

 

[UDT89]

i find it hard to believe that the United States, with all our military services and equipment cant find where hes hiding the weapons. Send the rangers and the seals in and find them. It will keep deaths to a minimum, and then we have our proof.


As far as oil is concerned, maybe your right. But i'd rather be safe than sorry. God forbid he has them.............

 

[JellyBaby]

Originally posted by: Tripleshot
Eject Saddam from Iraq and deport the PLO to Iraq. Plenty of land for all those muslums to claim a home.


Now that's a thought.

Hiya, Triple. Alas, what you just said in jest is actually being considered by the leaders of a certain strong-arm U.S. executive branch. j/k but you get my drift.

 

[slaman]

Simple, the US has absolutely no jurisdiction invading/attacking a sovereign nation. How about the US concentrate on rebuilding Afghanistan like it promised it would do after it completely destroyed what little infrastructure that nation had? (What was promised has not been seen) The entire world is against the issue of attacking Iraq except the little suck-up Blair (his own nation doesn't even support him) Have you ever heard the statement, innocent until proven guilty? Where's the proof? Why is Bush so goddamn trigger-happy? Especially when the region is in such turmoil.

If action IS to be taken, it should be done in a UN-run coalition.

 

[Red Dawn]

You'd think the Muslims would support the ouster of the greatest killer of Muslims the world has ever known. They must like being slaughtered if they continue to support the regime of that Psycho Killer. Of course if they don't value their own lives why should anybody else?

While it will be painful to the US if Hussien develops Nuclear Weapons, I have a premonition that it will be horrific to those who live in his general vicinity. When he does unleash it on his Muslim Brothers we will then have all the support we need to wipe him off the face of the earth. Of course by then the American public might not feel so generous to the Muslim Populations who were victims of Hussien and we might opt turn our head when they come crawling to us for humanitiarian aid.

So be it.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Descartes

How do you know I don't know anything? I read, and I read from different sources, not just US sources. So I can get a bigger picture about all things. Just wathing CNN and Nightline won't give you all the information you need.

I'd say: if your source of information is from news sources, this again precludes you from knowing anything.

There are few people in this country who know the truth of what really happens with our government, and none of us are one of them. As I said, the ones that do know, certainly don't talk about it.

If you get your "facts" from news sources, you're assimilating the work of talented spin doctors, and propagandists.

Umm, what are your sources? This statement is utterly ridiculous, we all get all our info from news sources(assuming you don't have some mondo cool security clearance). Yes, they are spin doctors and propagandists(propoganda: meaning the dissemination of info, real or imagined), but they're the only doctors we got!

 

[mithrandir2001]

Originally posted by: slaman
If action IS to be taken, it should be done in a UN-run coalition.

The UN might actually give the go ahead; Russia is basically the big question mark at this point and their vote will decide what the UN does. However, it seems like GWB is going to invade Iraq UN-approved or not.

I'm not happy with a US invasion of Iraq. It would set a bad precedent and I don't think we've thought out what to do after Saddam is removed. The US doesn't like nation building (witness Afghanistan).

 

[sandorski]

Concerning the "Oil is the reason behind..." arguement: It's not the whole reason, IMO. It's not like the price for crude determines whether to invade or not, it's more subtle than that. It's more of a, "oil is important, that area is a large producer of oil, therefore what happens in that area needs to be a major concern." Not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Bush made an assertion during his UN speech that I wholeheartedly agree with: The UN has to do something in response to Iraq's noncompliance. However, he seems to think that backing the US in an invasion *is* what the UN should do. I strongly disagree.

Now that Bush(and many Americans here)seem to think that the UN must act on such issues, is the US going to act in the future when the UN calls for an action during another Rwandan massacre type situation? This will be the ultimate test of resolve.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Actually the threat of invasion by the US has sent oil prices soaring lately. It's $30/barrel now and an invasion would surely send it to $35-40. Our economy cannot absorb those costs and we don't exactly have 1998 economic conditions anymore.

 

[So]

Yeah, NAZI. He is slaughtering the Palestinisans, destroying their houses, their infrastructures. They cant even leave their houses to buy food sometimes. Remember that they lived in the area in the first place, before Israel was even created. Maybe the jewish have some claim in the area (at least they say they have), but so do the Palestinians. Did we even had terrorism (not counting cases like IRA and ETA) before Israel was created? I don't remember.

1. How does the bulldozing of houses make him a "Nazi"? The Nazis were a bit worse than that, if I recall correctly. I haven't heard of any Palestinians actually starving to death because the IDF wouldn't leave their houses, nor have I seen proof of massacres (in the form of photographs) despite the multitude of claims by Palestinian militants that they are being murdered in mass.

2. So there was no terrorism before Israel came along, except for other terrorism that you rule out? Oh and I beleieve there was terrorism in the region before Israel came along.

And where did I say Israel had oil? Just that US thinks it is best to have a strong ally in the area.

I think I directly quoted you as saying they had oil, unless I misunderstood your post.

What if Saddam is left alone? Do you guys really think he would nuke half the globe? Now what would that accomplish? He didn't do anything since 1991, so I really doubt he would do such a thing.

I don't know, I actually am against acting unilaterally, it sets a bad precedent (note, I'm not saying that I'm against taking Sadam out).

 

[charrison]

You people can sit here and debate what we should do with Iraq. It is simple, we should remove him from power because he does support terrorist. It is doubtful that he would openly use a nuke on the US, but is extemely likely he would make sure some group got that would like to do hard to the USA.

While we are speaking of nukes..

Currently there is a container ship that just got towed 8 miles out to sea from New York because it is getting very high radioactive readings.

So when a nuke goes off in New York Harbor who is going to be the first to yell at Bush, "What did he know and when?"

 

[JellyBaby]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
You'd think the Muslims would support the ouster of the greatest killer of Muslims the world has ever known. They must like being slaughtered if they continue to support the regime of that Psycho Killer. Of course if they don't value their own lives why should anybody else?

While it will be painful to the US if Hussien develops Nuclear Weapons, I have a premonition that it will be horrific to those who live in his general vicinity. When he does unleash it on his Muslim Brothers we will then have all the support we need to wipe him off the face of the earth. Of course by then the American public might not feel so generous to the Muslim Populations who were victims of Hussien and we might opt turn our head when they come crawling to us for humanitiarian aid.

So be it.

Perhaps they fear some greater threat?

A policy driven by fear of what might be is a bad policy. "Ifs" and premonitions aren't justification for an act of aggression. We need to be told the truth. Then if we decide to take action we need to follow our declared rules of conduct during wartime. We need to make sure our cause is just. We need the authority and will of the people to back it up or it will fail. We need to know how much it will cost, how long it will last, what the objectives are and when victory can be declared.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

/me pops another bag of popcorn



nik

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: charrison
You people can sit here and debate what we should do with Iraq. It is simple, we should remove him from power because he does support terrorist. It is doubtful that he would openly use a nuke on the US, but is extemely likely he would make sure some group got that would like to do hard to the USA.

While we are speaking of nukes..

Currently there is a container ship that just got towed 8 miles out to sea from New York because it is getting very high radioactive readings.

So when a nuke goes off in New York Harbor who is going to be the first to yell at Bush, "What did he know and when?"

I wish the people who know that Saddam supports terrorism would be able to provide something more than the accusation. Alas.

 

[dolph]

hoo boy. can't get enough of these threads! but since i have to go, i'll be quick:

if anyone here thinks that hussein is a nice guy and we should just leave him alone, please speak up.



no one?



are you sure?



alright. you know what? the united states happens to be the most powerful country in the world at this time, and if we want to bring stability and democracy and all that other lovliness to iraq, i say great. saddam doesn't appear to care too much about his constituents, as demonstrated time and time again. the iraqi people have been living too long under saddam, and would anyone not be cheering from the sidelines if we heard that there was a revolution in iraq and hussein was overthrown? so why not give a little friendly push, before saddam does something that hurts people outside his own country, instead of after? is retaliation better than prevention? isolationism is a dangerous practice, because the world has become a whole lot smaller since ww1, and we'll sure feel it if something bad goes down there.

as for the "poor palestinians..." cry me a river. the very moment "adolf" sharon (that always gets me, it's really the equivalent of calling jesse jackson the grand wizard of the kkk) starts ordering buses of palestinian children blown up and suicide bombers to palestinian restaurants, i swear to God i will convert from judaism to islam, grab a gun and lead my new muslim brothers against the israelis.

 

[JellyBaby]

and if we want to bring stability and democracy and all that other lovliness to iraq, i say great.

Forcing others to change their way to yours is not right. You can't tell other people what to do but you can set an example and provide honest help. Then, if your way is the better one, they will accept, understand and appreciate it.