**** Iraq

[Patrick Chewing]

And **** the Middle East in general for this kind of barbarism. It doesn't matter who you put in power, or how many wars you start on their soil, there will never be any semblance of peace or prosperity in that region so long as RELIGION holds sway. Always supported the Iraq war, but after watching this video, all I can think of is what a waste. None of these people need saving. They need to kill each other off and start anew. And none of them should be allowed to infiltrate our peaceful way of life and bring this hellish ideology over here.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=699_1400360595

[kNicKz]

:biggums:

[Done_And_Done]

Can I get a description of what's stored in the link please?

[Patrick Chewing]

Can I get a description of what's stored in the link please?


Yeah I forgot to put the ol' "NSFW" on there for ya.


Description: Pure brutality.

[Bandito]

Da ****.

[BasedTom]

It was actually a pretty interesting part of the world for a good portion of ancient history. But then...things took a turn for the worst.

[Jameerthefear]

What in the fvck is wrong with those people?

[KevinNYC]

And **** the Middle East in general for this kind of barbarism. It doesn't matter who you put in power, or how many wars you start on their soil, there will never be any semblance of peace or prosperity in that region so long as RELIGION holds sway. Always supported the Iraq war, but after watching this video, all I can think of is what a waste. None of these people need saving. They need to kill each other off and start anew. And none of them should be allowed to infiltrate our peaceful way of life and bring this hellish ideology over here.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=699_1400360595

There's something very interesting going on in that sentence.

You are aware that the group in that video, ISIS is the new version of Al Qaeda in Iraq and before that were based in Jordan? They only moved Iraq and only gained the prominence they have because of the invasion.

[Brizzly]

For those not aware of what is going on, this is what the shia muslims in Iraq is doing on daily basis. This seems like executing random strangers on the streets but they are actually executing sunni people that were in the army.

[Patrick Chewing]

There's something very interesting going on in that sentence.

You are aware that the group in that video, ISIS is the new version of Al Qaeda in Iraq and before that were based in Jordan? They only moved Iraq and only gained the prominence they have because of the invasion.


I'm aware that this is a new version of Al-Qaeda. This is why my sentiment has changed towards putting boots on the ground in Iraq in response to 9/11.

You're supposed to have faith and trust that your government will do the right thing and seek proper justice, but we all know that whether it was deliberate or not, the Iraq War was a complete disaster. The proper way to have rooted out those responsible was to go after the countries that harbored them with sanctions so overwhelming that they would be lining up at our doorstep to turn these criminals in. And this is not a jab on Bush or his administration. Doesn't matter who was in Office then, the country was craving blood and we would have gone to Iraq regardless.

When Islam faces the problems that Islam has, then it will be solved. When these Arab and Muslim nations face and deal with the terrorists that live down the street, then we will live in peace.

That is but a dream.

[COnDEMnED]

That guy walking slightly behind that other guy on the sidewalk...never coming out of his house again. And I bet he shit his pants running away. This is a brutal video. I guess the only silver lining would be most everyone died quick and painless.:(

[Brizzly]

[QUOTE]And **** the Middle East in general for this kind of barbarism. It doesn't matter who you put in power, or how many wars you start on their soil, there will never be any semblance of peace or prosperity in that region so long as RELIGION holds sway.

It is not religion per se that is the problem, the problem is shia and sunni making up 65 vs 35 % of the population.

Saddam while in office discriminated against the shia population and no one even knew that shia outnumbered the sunni people by such huge margin. So this is basically payback from shia.

I also don't think religion is the problem, the problem is the cultural differences or religious differences and a long history of hate between these two islamic groups.

We don't see any civil wars in the western world where the groups are separated by the religion they follow. Christians can assimilate, Jews can assimilate, buddhist,athesit, agnostics we can all co exist and respect the laws of the country we live in.

But shia muslims are the worst kind of religious people there is. I am speaking in general, yes I know that you may have a friend that is an upstanding citizen, but oh man if there was a button I'd push it and I'd sleep good at night.

[BlazerRed]

And **** the Middle East in general for this kind of barbarism. It doesn't matter who you put in power, or how many wars you start on their soil, there will never be any semblance of peace or prosperity in that region so long as RELIGION holds sway. Always supported the Iraq war, but after watching this video, all I can think of is what a waste. None of these people need saving. They need to kill each other off and start anew. And none of them should be allowed to infiltrate our peaceful way of life and bring this hellish ideology over here.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=699_1400360595
I've always just been a fan of mass nuking the Middle East, North Korea, Pakistan. Get rid of it all and start fresh. Not even the innocent people want to live there anyway.

**** religion.

[BasedTom]

I've always just been a fan of mass nuking the Middle East, North Korea, Pakistan. Get rid of it all and start fresh. Not even the innocent people want to live there anyway.

**** religion.
Well you're just an awesome person aren't you?

Is this you by any chace?
http://i.imgur.com/oCOdRMo.png

[Patrick Chewing]

[QUOTE=Patrick Chewing]

It is not religion per se that is the problem, the problem is shia and sunni making up 65 vs 35 % of the population.

Saddam while in office discriminated against the shia population and no one even knew that shia outnumbered the sunni people by such huge margin. So this is basically payback from shia.

I also don't think religion is the problem, the problem is the cultural differences or religious differences and a long history of hate between these two islamic groups.

We don't see any civil wars in the western world where the groups are separated by the religion they follow. Christians can assimilate, Jews can assimilate, buddhist,athesit, agnostics we can all co exist and respect the laws of the country we live in.

But shia muslims are the worst kind of religious people there is. I am speaking in general, yes I know that you may have a friend that is an upstanding citizen, but oh man if there was a button I'd push it and I'd sleep good at night.


How do you stop this violence then? I honestly don't care if they kill each other off, but there is no denying that radical Islam has spread to non-Islamic countries, and from the videos I've seen, there is no assimilation whatsoever. Just a conquer mentality. To me, the Middle East and terrorism is like a game of Whack-a-Mole. You squash one down a hole, and immediately another one pops out.

[KevinNYC]

I'm aware that this is a new version of Al-Qaeda. This is why my sentiment has changed towards putting boots on the ground in Iraq in response to 9/11.I guess that's what I was getting at. Do you now believe the decision to invade Iraq was a mistake? And a mistake that could have been avoided?

Is that just a recent change in sentiment? What did you think about the earlier revelations that Iraq had abandoned its WMD programs well before the war?

We made a lot of mistakes with regards to the Iraq War, but the biggest mistake was the original one, the claim the Iraq was connected to 9/11.

Everything else flowed from that. This mistake was magnified because it affected the way we fought the war in Afghanistan. We went in with too few boots on the ground in Afghanistan because Rumsfeld was already drawing up new plans for Iraq and wanted to keep these troops available. This led to Al Qaeda's escape from Tora Bora when we relied on Afghan tribal forces to cordon off the area as opposed to US troops. In addition, the focus on Iraq led to the decision to pull Intelligence assets away from Afghanistan including most of our agents who spoke Arabic .

[BlazerRed]

Well you're just an awesome person aren't you?

Is this you by any chace?
http://i.imgur.com/oCOdRMo.png
What's that got to do with nuking said places? :confusedshrug:

[Patrick Chewing]

Kev,

If the result of our presence in Iraq is to have groups like this murdering people like in the video, then yes, going to war in Iraq was a huge mistake.

I wonder how shoddy the evidence was or how hard did it take to convince GWB to head towards Iraq. The WMD argument was a distraction from terrorism. ****ing Saudi's trained in Florida just killed over 2,000 people! You were never going to win a war on two fronts so why the rush to Iraq? They had no ties to Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden.

My only logical answer to that is that Iraq may have seemed like an easier victory at the time knowing how impossible it is to disrupt terrorist organizations when they have cells on all corners of the globe. You can sell a victory in Iraq a lot better than you can sell rounding up all of Al-Qaeda and eventually bringing in Bin Laden, which never happened under his watch. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the oval office during the first four years.

[kNicKz]

I guess that's what I was getting at. Do you now believe the decision to invade Iraq was a mistake? And a mistake that could have been avoided?

Is that just a recent change in sentiment? What did you think about the earlier revelations that Iraq had abandoned its WMD programs well before the war?

We made a lot of mistakes with regards to the Iraq War, but the biggest mistake was the original one, the claim the Iraq was connected to 9/11.

Everything else flowed from that. This mistake was magnified because it affected the way we fought the war in Afghanistan. We went in with too few boots on the ground in Afghanistan because Rumsfeld was already drawing up new plans for Iraq and wanted to keep these troops available. This led to Al Qaeda's escape from Tora Bora when we relied on Afghan tribal forces to cordon off the area as opposed to US troops. In addition, the focus on Iraq led to the decision to pull Intelligence assets away from Afghanistan including most of our agents who spoke Arabic .

Meh. You wouldn't have been able to tell me any of this information in 2001. It's easy to criticize decisions with hindsight. Also, saying that we relied on tribal forces due to "saving" troops for Iraq is a misinformed statement. It was a strategy that didn't work out. It had nothing to do with "saving" anything for Iraq. Unless of course you think we should have had a normandy esque invasion on tribal Afghanistan...

[Brizzly]

How do you stop this violence then? I honestly don't care if they kill each other off, but there is no denying that radical Islam has spread to non-Islamic countries, and from the videos I've seen, there is no assimilation whatsoever. Just a conquer mentality. To me, the Middle East and terrorism is like a game of Whack-a-Mole. You squash one down a hole, and immediately another one pops out.

You cant stop the violence in the middle east, I mean you can try but at the end of the day it is a fool's errand. I mean in every war that has been won in the middle east a puppet regime has been installed and just a month later you see the group that wasnt represented in the new regime start an uprising.

Does anyone really feel that the interventions in Iraq, afghanistan or Libya ended up helping the people? some may even argue it got worse, the western world supported the rebels in Egypt, and look were that got them. Egypt today is a bigger shithole then it has ever been. I know it was a big ****ing tourist destination before, how about today?

The only hope is secularization of countries with islamic majority, but even that seems to be hard to accomplish considering US has overthrown two regimes who seemed to be leaning towards secularization.

The kings of Iran is a good example of how everything got worse.

[KevinNYC]

[QUOTE=Patrick Chewing]

It is not religion per se that is the problem, the problem is shia and sunni making up 65 vs 35 % of the population.

Saddam while in office discriminated against the shia population and no one even knew that shia outnumbered the sunni people by such huge margin. So this is basically payback from shia.

I also don't think religion is the problem, the problem is the cultural differences or religious differences and a long history of hate between these two islamic groups.

We don't see any civil wars in the western world where the groups are separated by the religion they follow. Christians can assimilate, Jews can assimilate, buddhist,athesit, agnostics we can all co exist and respect the laws of the country we live in.

But shia muslims are the worst kind of religious people there is. I am speaking in general, yes I know that you may have a friend that is an upstanding citizen, but oh man if there was a button I'd push it and I'd sleep good at night.

The killers in the video are Sunni, not Shiite.

How did the Western World get to be that way? It was after a long, long period of religious civil wars. You also may want to take a look at Northern Ireland.

http://citynoise.org/upload/5085.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02020/cromwell_2020963i.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02116/d1_2116240b.jpg

[russwest0]

I'm still pissed that daddy didn't get me the new iPhone for Christmas.

[BasedTom]

[QUOTE=Brizzly]

The killers in the video are Sunni, not Shiite.

How did the Western World get to be that way? It was after a long, long period of religious civil wars. You also may want to take a look at Northern Ireland.

http://citynoise.org/upload/5085.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02020/cromwell_2020963i.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02116/d1_2116240b.jpg
As with every conflict between the two groups in history, the Catholics were in the right and the Protestants were perfidious and bloodthirsty savages.

[Brizzly]

The killers in the video are Sunni, not Shiite.

How did the Western World get to be that way? It was after a long, long period of religious civil wars. You also may want to take a look at Northern Ireland.

]

Oh **** I always mix those up lol.


The troubles is more a political issue than a religious one.

[gigantes]

NO, i don't think we would have gone in to iraq basically solo if another president was in power. the people demanded blood...? yea, whatever. see: the afghan operation.

also, i notice a lot of crazy people like to think that we can just bomb / nuke the middle east with impunity. people also have this bizarre idea that we can erect some sort of invisible earthly boundary between ourselves and all peoples and influences deemed unwelcome. judas priest, man... isn't it about time to graduate from comic books?

the reality is that in this global civilisation, all parts of the world exert influence on the whole. that's just life and nature, and there will be blood and complications.

[KevinNYC]

Kev,

If the result of our presence in Iraq is to have groups like this murdering people like in the video, then yes, going to war in Iraq was a huge mistake.

I wonder how shoddy the evidence was or how hard did it take to convince GWB to head towards Iraq. The WMD argument was a distraction from terrorism. ****ing Saudi's trained in Florida just killed over 2,000 people! You were never going to win a war on two fronts so why the rush to Iraq? They had no ties to Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden.

My only logical answer to that is that Iraq may have seemed like an easier victory at the time knowing how impossible it is to disrupt terrorist organizations when they have cells on all corners of the globe. You can sell a victory in Iraq a lot better than you can sell rounding up all of Al-Qaeda and eventually bringing in Bin Laden, which never happened under his watch. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the oval office during the first four years.

I very much believe that Iraq was a longstanding goal of Bush and the people around him. The younger Bush basically agreed with neoconservative critique of his father and his policies. W. Bush also believed that Saddam tried to assassinate his father. I believe he came into office with the idea of correcting what he believed was his father's mistakes. Wolfowitz was highly critical of the decision not to depose Saddam after we drove Iraq out of Kuwait. Wolfowitz and Scooter also wrote a policy paper that caused an uproar when it was leaked during H. W.'s adminstration, but under W, it became very much the Bush policy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine) There's simply no way you bring Wolfowitz and Libby on your team if you are not planning a big change in our Iraq policy. I don't believe the evidence mattered.

If you are looking for a fly on the wall perspective, look at Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill. (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-sought-way-to-invade-iraq/) He says that 10 days into the adminstration and 8 months before 9/11, the first National Security Council meeting that Bush had was about getting Saddam to go.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Price-Loyalty-George-Education/dp/0743255461

[KevinNYC]

The troubles is more a political issue than a religious one.

It's a political issue that is 100% rooted in religion. If I applied applies for a job in Belfast, how would they know if they were hiring a Catholic or a Protestant?
My resume would just say J. Kevin Murphy. How could they tell.
Well, you would ask question like "where did you go to High School?" that would reveal the answer.

I mean that mural I showed is a celebration of Oliver Cromwell's forces "crushing" the Catholics. Cromwell died in the 1600's. He was celebrated by Loyalist forces during The Troubles because the conflict is a religious one. One of the most popular Unionist politicians interrupted a speech by Pope John II to call him the Antichrist. (http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/16/weekinreview/headliners-papal-audience.html)

If it requires a special kind of nerve to heckle a pope, the Rev. Ian Paisley has it. Mr. Paisley, a leader of the hard-line Protestants in Northern Ireland, last week disrupted a speech to the European Parliament by Pope John Paul II, who Mr. Paisley implied was somehow sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army. Almost as soon as the Pope began his speech in Strasbourg, France, Mr. Paisley, a member of the European Parliament, rose from his seat holding a poster saying, ''Pope John Paul II - Antichrist,'' and shouted, ''I renounce you as the Antichrist.'' Other members of Parliament snatched the sign away and threw papers at Mr. Paisley, who was then quickly ejected from the building. An unruffled John Paul continued his speech.

[Trentknicks]

I think OP needs to watch and read all of Michael Moore's material.

[Patrick Chewing]

I think OP needs to watch and read all of Michael Moore's material.


FAT chance :lol

[RidonKs]

iraq was not a mistake. it was a war crime by definition. it was one country sending troops into another's sovereign territory without invitation or security council authorization.

whether or not the bush administration thought they had a good reason, whether they were fooled by bad intelligence or cynically made it all up... is completely besides the point. motive is irrelevant.

it was a textbook example of aggression. what makes aggression the most heinous war crime of all is that, as described at nuremberg, it encompasses not just the crime itself but all the evil that follows.

the horrific sectarian violence in iraq that's killing a couple dozen people seemingly every other day isn't some mysterious coincidence impossible to explain. it didn't just happen to spontaneously spring out of some arcane theological dispute over islamic scripture. it's a direct result of an invasion aimed at regime change by the world's military superpower. and its uncontroversially criminal.

hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians are dead. even more are extremely sick. millions have had their lives destroyed. it's not exactly shocking that the result is fundamentalism and terrorism and vengeance and everything that inevitably follows from the decimation of a society.

that the world happens to frame it as sunni v shia isn't particularly important compared to what's actually happened in that country over the past 10 years, imo anyway

[gts]

Watched the video.. sadly nothing we haven't seen in the USA.

I mean I'd like to say it's a problem only seen in Iraq but be honest.. we got the same thing happening in US cities at this very moment... Religion or drugs, turf wars gang bangers or terrorists... Same actions just using different reasons for being assholes

[Trentknicks]

FAT chance :lol
Oh well, your only lying to yourself.

[gts]

FAT chance :lolIsn't the Michael Moore's nickname?

[KevinNYC]

If I was recommending a single about the Iraq War I would pick this one

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388177377l/87119.jpg
The author supported the war from a liberal humanitarian point of view. This was in large part due to his friendship with Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi exile professor who wrote about Saddam's crimes. Makiya and other exiles (who hadn't been in Iraq in decades) promised the war would be easy and Iraq would flourish afterwards. The interesting thing about this book is that is traces the intellectual history of the ideas that drove the war. He then reports of the aftermath of these ideas and how they basically shattered upon contact with reality. A good portion of the book shows how real honest debate within the administration was stifled because honest debate would have revealed how the thinness of the arguments for war and would have made the war less likely to happen. This is primary reason that planning for the aftermath of the invasion was so piss-poor. How are our forces going to beat Saddam's is an easy question. What do we do next is a more difficult one.

If you're wondering about what the adminstration knew, you have to realize that Bush never fully convinced his own adminstration this was a good idea, many people were against this, including Colin Powell who tried to put the breaks on this.

The documentary, No End is Sight was heavily influenced by this book and is quite good. It's on Netflix and Youtube.

Other books I would recommend are The Price of Loyalty which has a lot of insider accounts of decision making and Fiasco (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/books/25kaku.html?ei=5088&en=ed583c38a608b09b&ex=1311480000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all) by Tom Ricks which pointed out all the bad strategy and bad planning for the war. Ricks pointed out that Bush administration when selling the war, always took the worse possible scenarios when interpreting intelligence that they could use to SELL the war. Then when interpreting intelligence for what would happen after we invaded, they always took the best possible scenarios.

[kNicKz]

I just can't believe that kevinNYC posted a blatant lie and rolled with it

dude ignored me

He said that we didn't have enough soldiers to invade Afghanistan efficiently because we were saving our soldiers for an Iraq invasion that happened 2 years later :roll:

Should probably read up on military strategy in tribal countries and stop watching Michael Moore movies

[TheMilkyBarKid]

As far as i know the middle east only got especially ****ed up after the introduction of israel and their invasion of palestine.

[kNicKz]

He also posted that the majority of Arabic speaking agents were focused on Iraq instead of Afghanistan.....Afghanis speak Farsi/Pashto (Persian) and Iraqis speak Mesopotamian Arabic.... Two completely different things. Pashto is Indo-European and Mesopotamian Arabic is semitic :roll:

We have to start requesting sauce whenever this dude posts

[Relinquish]

As far as i know the middle east only got especially ****ed up after the introduction of israel and their invasion of palestine.

Then you must be a certified moron. :confusedshrug:

[pauk]

No Patrick, its people like you and those in that video that need to kill eachother and start anew.... you really need serious help....

[KeylessEntry]

iraq was not a mistake. it was a war crime by definition. it was one country sending troops into another's sovereign territory without invitation or security council authorization.

whether or not the bush administration thought they had a good reason, whether they were fooled by bad intelligence or cynically made it all up... is completely besides the point. motive is irrelevant.

it was a textbook example of aggression. what makes aggression the most heinous war crime of all is that, as described at nuremberg, it encompasses not just the crime itself but all the evil that follows.

the horrific sectarian violence in iraq that's killing a couple dozen people seemingly every other day isn't some mysterious coincidence impossible to explain. it didn't just happen to spontaneously spring out of some arcane theological dispute over islamic scripture. it's a direct result of an invasion aimed at regime change by the world's military superpower. and its uncontroversially criminal.

hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians are dead. even more are extremely sick. millions have had their lives destroyed. it's not exactly shocking that the result is fundamentalism and terrorism and vengeance and everything that inevitably follows from the decimation of a society.

that the world happens to frame it as sunni v shia isn't particularly important compared to what's actually happened in that country over the past 10 years, imo anyway

great post

:applause:

[TheMilkyBarKid]

Then you must be a certified moron. :confusedshrug:
Im no expert in the area, but the creation of israel and the disproportionate amount of power they hold due to strong ties with america is a recipe for disaster in a region which has a strong fanatically religious culture.
Palestine citizens are treated as 2nd class citizens in their own country. I understand you are probably american and the majority of media you have access to is favourable to israel (again strong jewish ties between usa and israel), but if you look deeper you will see there is more to it. Where were those weapons of mass destruction that started the war anyway?

[kNicKz]

Im no expert in the area, but the creation of israel and the disproportionate amount of power they hold due to strong ties with america is a recipe for disaster in a region which has a strong fanatically religious culture.
Palestine citizens are treated as 2nd class citizens in their own country. I understand you are probably american and the majority of media you have access to is favourable to israel (again strong jewish ties between usa and israel), but if you look deeper you will see there is more to it. Where were those weapons of mass destruction that started the war anyway?

Israel is no different from Muslim countries who receive a shit load of weapons from Russia. They just happen to be Jewish and stick out/ every muslim country hates them and vice versa. The region as a whole is ****ed at the moment. The picture is a little bigger. Get rid of Israel and all of these problems you're posting about still remain:confusedshrug:

[TheMilkyBarKid]

Israel is no different from Muslim countries who receive a shit load of weapons from Russia. They just happen to be Jewish and stick out/ every muslim country hates them and vice versa. The region as a whole is ****ed at the moment. The picture is a little bigger. Get rid of Israel and all of these problems you're posting about still remain:confusedshrug:
I would say israel has a fair bit more power but i get what you are saying. I just dont like the notion that israel is a nice, innocent country with bad neighbours, when they are a part of the problem.

[pauk]

Sunni Muslims are better or something? Thats such a racist and simple minded allegation.

You know who was Sunni Muslim? Sadam Hussein.

That guy or no other guy that kills or even hurts other people as much as even mentally (well, context) is a Muslim... sorry.... hell those guys kill more muslims throughout their lives than anything else, especially a guy like Sadam....

Hitler was a "Christian" aswell...

You people dont get it, there is no ideology that can save a HUMAN from being born with a loose screw... ideology is not the problem, HUMANS are.... you take away the ideology and that screw is still loose.... what do you blame now for his evil deeds in different form? That a human goes "Jesus" "God" or "Allah Akbar" when he does his evil deeds to try & desperately act like what he does is a good thing doesnt make him/her "muslim" or "christian" .... more like the opposite....

...and one more thing, there is no such thing as "radical/extreme *insert religion*", there is only "radical/extreme HUMAN".... especially Muslims dont identify with them or those peoples deeds, infact they hate them more than anybody else......... to call criminals of all kinds any type of religion is only what stupid persons like Patrick Chewing could do, but he does so only for the ideology of Islam, clearly no guy who happened to be born with any other ideology has ever done anything wrong, not even close....

Patrick, you should came here to fr. Yugoslavia and saw what ideology was at fault when Orthodox Christians tried to exterminate not only Muslims but Catholics aswell.... You have no idea what you are talking about, just a stupid yank brat watching snuff videos....

[kNicKz]

I would say israel has a fair bit more power but i get what you are saying. I just dont like the notion that israel is a nice, innocent country with bad neighbours, when they are a part of the problem.
It's pretty mutual. They've all gone to war with each other multiple times. Also, Pakistan has nukes

[FaceSmack]

Russia number 1! Iran number 1!

USA? Hack ptooey

[KevinNYC]

I just can't believe that kevinNYC posted a blatant lie and rolled with it

dude ignored me

He said that we didn't have enough soldiers to invade Afghanistan efficiently because we were saving our soldiers for an Iraq invasion that happened 2 years later :roll:

Should probably read up on military strategy in tribal countries and stop watching Michael Moore movies

You're correct. I did ignore you, I don't see your posts if I'm logged in. The forum has a nifty feature for this. You need to learn how to count. Two years after October 2001 is not March 2013. March 2013 is much, much later than Bush and Rumsfeld originally wanted. Colin Powell convinced Bush that for legitimacy's sake they had to make an argument at the UN. UN begins weapons inspections which delays the start of the war for several months. The UN weapons inspectors are on the ground in Iraq from late November 2002 to March 18 2003.

More importantly, the planning for the Iraq invasion started in 2001. Here's the talking points from meeting Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks had in November 2001. (http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/doc08.pdf)
He also posted that the majority of Arabic speaking agents were focused on Iraq instead of Afghanistan.....Afghanis speak Farsi/Pashto (Persian) and Iraqis speak Mesopotamian Arabic.... Two completely different things. Pashto is Indo-European and Mesopotamian Arabic is semitic :roll:

We have to start requesting sauce whenever this dude postsYes, but the folks we were after in Afghanistn were home grown Arabs. As for not finishing the job in Afghanistan because Bush wanted to go into Iraq, I cite

1. the official Army history of the first years of the Afghanistan War (http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind-War-Operation-September/dp/1907521151) which said there were three reasons Bush and Rumsfeld didn't commit adequate resources in Iraq.

A. They didn't like nationbuilding.
B. The didn't want to look like occupiers. The study says this is because the misunderstood the lessons of the Soviet War.
C. Iraq.

2 this CIA Agent (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/schroen.html)

When do you know, Gary, that gun sights are turned to Saddam Hussein?

I think by March of 2002. You could see changes being made in the staffing -- U.S. military staffing -- in Afghanistan, that the Green Beret units, the special forces group for the most of it were being pulled out to refit and get ready for Iraq. ... So we began to have some difficulty staffing Afghanistan on our side, and it was clear that the kind of guys that I think a lot of us believed were essential -- U.S. military personnel with special operations capabilities -- were being pulled away. So it was as early as March, April, of 2002.

Did it feel like it was slipping away -- like Afghanistan, and even the war on terror?

Well, we had this remnant of the Al Qaeda, the most senior leaders still there, still active. At that point, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed hadn't been captured, the guy who actually masterminded 9/11. The business hasn't been finished yet. ... I can remember trying to take issues about Afghanistan to the NSC during 2002 and early 2003 and being told: "It's off the agenda for today. Iraq is taking the whole agenda." Things that we desperately needed to do for Afghanistan were just simply pushed aside by concerns over in Iraq. There just wasn't the time. ...The Special Forces he is talking about is this group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Special_Forces_Group_(United_States)) who speak Pashto, Dari and Arabic. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/26/uselections2004.comment)
Pentagon pulled the fighting force most equipped for hunting down Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan in March 2002 in order to pre- position it for Iraq cannot be denied.

Fifth Group Special Forces were a rare breed in the US military: they spoke Arabic, Pastun and Dari. They had been in Afghanistan for half a year, had developed a network of local sources and alliances, and believed that they were closing in on bin Laden.

Without warning, they were then given the task of tracking down Saddam. "We were going nuts on the ground about that decision," one of them recalls.

"In spite of the fact that it had taken five months to establish trust, suddenly there were two days to hand over to people who spoke no Dari, Pastun or Arabic, and had no rapport.Pashto, Dari and Arabic.

It wasn't just soldiers that were diverted (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/07/wrong-war). In early 2002. Arabic resources at intelligence agencies, spy satellites, predator drones were all shifted to Iraq to the detriment of the fight against Al Qaeda.

the United States has pulled vital resources away from the hunt for bin Laden and Zawahiri. Soon after the fall of the Taliban, substantial numbers of Arabic speakers at the CIA and the National Security Agency were directed to focus on Iraq rather than the hunt for Al Qaeda. "By January 2002, serious planning began for the invasion of Iraq," notes Cannistraro, the former CIA counterterrorism chief, "and that meant drawing down Arabic language resources from CIA and electronic intelligence gathering." In addition, says Richard Clarke, who headed counterterrorism efforts under both presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, unmanned Predator spy planes were deployed away from Afghanistan to Iraq in March 2003, and satellites surveying the Afghan-Pakistani border were diverted to the Gulf region.

[Fawker]

Phucking mutts.

[Patrick Chewing]

No Patrick, its people like you and those in that video that need to kill eachother and start anew.... you really need serious help....


Those are your people doing it for your buddy, Mo. As in MohaMUD. That's a perversion of faith what you see going on and what's been going on since your buddy Mo when on that acid trip. That is the one region on Earth where life is expendable with all that 72 virgins bullshit.

On a serious note, all those countries are lawless and they governed by religious beliefs. Look at the Western world and other European nations. Why have they strived versus Arabia??

[Patrick Chewing]

You people dont get it, there is no ideology that can save a HUMAN from being born with a loose screw... ideology is not the problem, HUMANS are.... you take away the ideology and that screw is still loose....


My rebuttal to this statement is that it is the ideology that creates the proverbial "loose screw". Hey, worship who you want, believe in the alien warlords, I don't care, but do not use that religious difference to govern a people and enforce it upon those who believe otherwise.


Edit: As a Muslim, but not living in the Middle East, what do you think is the solution to Middle East peace? I'm no fan of Islam as you can probably tell, but I only go by what I see, and it disturbs me to see this kind of violence. There must be a day where constitutions are written where Arab nations are reformed and become secular states.

[Patrick Chewing]

Im no expert in the area, but the creation of israel and the disproportionate amount of power they hold due to strong ties with america is a recipe for disaster in a region which has a strong fanatically religious culture.
Palestine citizens are treated as 2nd class citizens in their own country. I understand you are probably american and the majority of media you have access to is favourable to israel (again strong jewish ties between usa and israel), but if you look deeper you will see there is more to it. Where were those weapons of mass destruction that started the war anyway?


What you're talking about though is the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I think we can all agree that the Israeli citizens and Palestinians are in no comparison to what we see further East in Iran, Iraq, etc.. Palestinians live peacefully within Israel and vice versa. They are civilized compared to these butchers from this video.

Furthermore, the Middle East has been in conflict for thousands of years. Israel is but a mere blip on the radar compared to the massacres that have taken place throughout history.

[tomtucker]

Muslims gonna muslim.........in other news , the sky is blue................btw, who were the men in the yellow car ?

[eliteballer]

The article says the guys shooting in that video are members of ISIS...a group who was kicked out of Al Queda because they were "too extreme"....they are an outlier.

[dude77]

lol@the last guy .. without knowing anything, you'd think these fkers were playing too many video games ..

they're all fkd but for some reason the yellow 300 kill seems even more eery .. bunch of young guys going for a drive randomly selected for exectuion in broad daylight :eek:

[dunksby]

What you're talking about though is the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I think we can all agree that the Israeli citizens and Palestinians are in no comparison to what we see further East in Iran, Iraq, etc.. Palestinians live peacefully within Israel and vice versa. They are civilized compared to these butchers from this video.

Furthermore, the Middle East has been in conflict for thousands of years. Israel is but a mere blip on the radar compared to the massacres that have taken place throughout history.
Iran is pretty peaceful and stable and it's not an Arab state, not all ME is Arab. Additionally ME having thousands of years of conflicts is due to the fact that it's where the first civilizations were established which then resulted in clashes and wars for land and resources. To add to the above, ME is probably the most important region in the world from a geopolitical view so obviously conflicts rooting from within and without have been a part of its history.
It must be nice to sit safely half a world away in a continent that hasn't seen much conflict during its brief history and judge a vast region you have only seen through your magic box.

[Dresta]

Kev,

If the result of our presence in Iraq is to have groups like this murdering people like in the video, then yes, going to war in Iraq was a huge mistake.

I wonder how shoddy the evidence was or how hard did it take to convince GWB to head towards Iraq. The WMD argument was a distraction from terrorism. ****ing Saudi's trained in Florida just killed over 2,000 people! You were never going to win a war on two fronts so why the rush to Iraq? They had no ties to Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden.

My only logical answer to that is that Iraq may have seemed like an easier victory at the time knowing how impossible it is to disrupt terrorist organizations when they have cells on all corners of the globe. You can sell a victory in Iraq a lot better than you can sell rounding up all of Al-Qaeda and eventually bringing in Bin Laden, which never happened under his watch. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the oval office during the first four years.Iraq was a geographical chokepoint in the world economy, and the hope was obviously to bring a bit of civility to a barbarous region, hoping it would eventually modernise the surrounding countries as well. A somewhat quixotic endeavour really, and certainly one with nobler motivating factors than most people think.


People need to stop acting like the US having conflict with some barbarous arabs is something new, when it has been going on for hundreds of years ever since the Barbary pirates. Partisan fools like Kevin can blather their talking points all they like, whinging about WMD's or 9/11 or Afghanistan, but the reality remains that the Saddam Hussein and Iraq problem was not going away on its own. All the tensions that erupted in the region, all the violent fanatics, the downtrodden and dispirited population were already there prior to the invasion. As soon as Saddam died the country was going to collapse into anarchy, but without American troops around to temper it. This would have attracted various terrorist groups hoping to gain control to the region anyway, and you would likely have had a civil war a la Syria, with several million people dying. You simply don't know, but the dominoes were there. People prancing around and pretending Iraq was a fairyland of happiness before the Americans got there, or that everything would have would have been fine only had there not been an invasion etc. need to seriously get to grips with reality, and accept this was a matter of making a choice between two sets of very unpleasant consequences, not a straightforward and obvious decision.

The Kurds in Iraq (a people who would have been exterminated without a no-fly zone being maintained for years) seem to have managed just fine arranging their affairs since the invasion, and have a far more stable and secure territory than the rest of Iraq.

'Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel as you are.' - Lawrence knew his shit :bowdown: .

[kNIOKAS]

Wow what a horrendous conversation. It does illustrate what's wrong with the world, and it's US.

Bunch of teenagers dicussing how barbaric are the people that their own nation has invaded, killed, opressed and robbed them of their resources. Yeah right.

Religion is the problem, terrorists is the problem, violence is the problem. :rolleyes:

How about US is the problem? How about they keep their military on their own soil for once, and do not invade other countries? This is King without clothes issue, and you people here talk about how wrong it is that you just cannot simply go and mess with other people, and how barbaric are those who does not stand down for your vampiricism.

[TheMilkyBarKid]

What you're talking about though is the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I think we can all agree that the Israeli citizens and Palestinians are in no comparison to what we see further East in Iran, Iraq, etc.. Palestinians live peacefully within Israel and vice versa. They are civilized compared to these butchers from this video.

Furthermore, the Middle East has been in conflict for thousands of years. Israel is but a mere blip on the radar compared to the massacres that have taken place throughout history.
Fair enough, even though palestine has a pretty rough deal, being forced to live in the west bank and gaza strip in a concentration camp like environment. I avoid talking about it too much as the antisemitic label is not onr i want sticking to me.
I understand (although not in great detail) that there is far more extreme groups in the region who shouldnt be put in a position of power, but i do believe that often they are products of their environment.

[Dresta]

iraq was not a mistake. it was a war crime by definition. it was one country sending troops into another's sovereign territory without invitation or security council authorization.

whether or not the bush administration thought they had a good reason, whether they were fooled by bad intelligence or cynically made it all up... is completely besides the point. motive is irrelevant.

it was a textbook example of aggression. what makes aggression the most heinous war crime of all is that, as described at nuremberg, it encompasses not just the crime itself but all the evil that follows.

the horrific sectarian violence in iraq that's killing a couple dozen people seemingly every other day isn't some mysterious coincidence impossible to explain. it didn't just happen to spontaneously spring out of some arcane theological dispute over islamic scripture. it's a direct result of an invasion aimed at regime change by the world's military superpower. and its uncontroversially criminal.

hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians are dead. even more are extremely sick. millions have had their lives destroyed. it's not exactly shocking that the result is fundamentalism and terrorism and vengeance and everything that inevitably follows from the decimation of a society.

that the world happens to frame it as sunni v shia isn't particularly important compared to what's actually happened in that country over the past 10 years, imo anyway
:facepalm

This is really just so incredibly childish, honestly. Saddam Hussein was a scourge and notorious war criminal, but now removing him is a war crime? You are filled to the brim with pity and compassion for 'hundreds of thousands' of dead Iraqis who have died since the outbreak of the war, but where were you when hundreds of thousands of children were dying of starvation before the war (while Saddam built palaces in every city)? Where were you when the Kurds were being gassed, when Iraqis were massacring Iranians? Here:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/01/world/iraq-sanctions-kill-children-un-reports.html

We're talking millions of deaths in-between Gulf wars, most of which could have been avoided had Saddam simply been removed in 91 as he should have. If we're talking about mistakes, really that's where we should be starting. But yeah, there's nothing like hysterically declaring war criminality in a typical effort to annex the moral high ground.

[Dresta]

Wow what a horrendous conversation. It does illustrate what's wrong with the world, and it's US.

Bunch of teenagers dicussing how barbaric are the people that their own nation has invaded, killed, opressed and robbed them of their resources. Yeah right.

Religion is the problem, terrorists is the problem, violence is the problem. :rolleyes:

How about US is the problem? How about they keep their military on their own soil for once, and do not invade other countries? This is King without clothes issue, and you people here talk about how wrong it is that you just cannot simply go and mess with other people, and how barbaric are those who does not stand down for your vampiricism.
I'm pretty sure you're a teenager because your opinions are so naive and simplistic that if you weren't you'd have to be clinically retarded. Yeah, fanatical religious zealots, terrorists and violence aren't problems, only the US is: the US creates all world evils, there would be world peace without their criminal activities :rolleyes:.

Oh wait, no, the US is actually the power that eventually put an end to European warring, something that was keeping the world in perpetual strife and conflict. If the US had kept its military on its own soil the world would be a completely different place, and considering the opposing powers, i would bet on it being a much worse place.

[fiddy]

Thank you USA, democratic Iraq

@Dresta stfu

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy" which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger

[RidonKs]

This is really just so incredibly childish, honestly.it's not childish and hysterical to call the invasion of another country for the purposes of regime change a war crime. it's self evident. you didn't refute or even address anything i said. because it's all irrefutable. again, textbook illustration of aggression. i'd like to hear why you believe it isn't.

instead of speaking to the issue, you ponder "where i was" at the time these other assorted events were devastating the iraqi population. those events are important, but "where i was" is not.

this isn't about moral high ground. it's about taking responsibility for how your tax dollars are spent. so as an american citizen, which presumably you are, it's important to know that the reaganites removed hussein from the terrorist list in 1982 so they could fund HIS aggression against iran. it's important to know that american military and diplomatic support for saddam continued right through his worst atrocities including chemical warfare against the iranians, halabja, etc. it's important to know that after the long war with iran, almost immediately after saddam "used poison gas against his own people" (a phrase we've heard so much), iraqi nuclear scientists were actually invited to the united states by the first bush administration to attend federally funded seminars on nuclear development. it's important to know that in 1991 when american forces had total control over the country having removed iraqi forces from kuwait, saddam hussein wasn't just allowed to stay in power but he was allowed to crush the uprisings taking root across the country. it's important to know that ECONOMIC SANCTIONS HURT THE POPULATION NOT THE LEADER. that's been proven over and over. so when the secretary of state was asked in the mid 90s about the hundreds of thousands of children dying of malnutrition and lacking basic medicine, she said something like their sacrifice is unfortunate but necessary.

where was i? who cares. where was my government? largely supporting yours, without getting its feet too wet. it's a shame you decide to focus all of your attention on the crimes of others, for which you bear no responsibility and about which you can do very little, while completely ignoring the criminality of your own country's deeds.

[step_back]

Many people do not realize that there is a civil war going on within Islam. It's the biggest reason why Syria has been so brutal. You have different tribes all fighting for power because they believe they have the divine will from God.

In regards to the allied forces (Can't only blame America on this one) with the Iraq war people have a short term memory. Saddam had chemical weapons which he had used on his own citizens. The Kurds have felt the full brunt of it. People talk of Iraq like it was some kind of innocuous utopia. Regardless of what the previous situation in Iraq had been Saddam was no longer the West's lapdog.

If people truly want to stop intervening in affairs then we as citizens have to be ok with this sort of thing going on in the world. You can't stop violence with sanctions. It takes a powerful military to overthrow a regime. We're not dealing with rational thinking people here.

[dude77]

were there crazy fks like this driving around shooting at random innocents before the U.S. invasion ?

those beheading videos and other violence videos are bad enough to watch, but to think you can be driving around on an idle day and be ambushed randomly like that is pretty fkn unsettling

[KevinNYC]

were there crazy fks like this driving around shooting at random innocents before the U.S. invasion ?

those beheading videos and other violence videos are bad enough to watch, but to think you can be driving around on an idle day and be ambushed randomly like that is pretty fkn unsettling

The answer is no. The Baghdad morgue got about one murder victim per day before the invasion.

[Patrick Chewing]

How about US is the problem? How about they keep their military on their own soil for once, and do not invade other countries? This is King without clothes issue, and you people here talk about how wrong it is that you just cannot simply go and mess with other people, and how barbaric are those who does not stand down for your vampiricism.


You're talking out of your ass now. If you would read the other replies in this thread, you will see that it is pretty well known the barbarities that were taking place in these regions (specifically Iraq) far before the U.S. stepped foot on their soil.

My argument against sending troops over there is not so I can wag my finger and shame my country, but because these people don't need saving. They don't need our help. They will never learn what it is to live in peace.

[Dresta]

it's not childish and hysterical to call the invasion of another country for the purposes of regime change a war crime. it's self evident. you didn't refute or even address anything i said. because it's all irrefutable. again, textbook illustration of aggression. i'd like to hear why you believe it isn't.

instead of speaking to the issue, you ponder "where i was" at the time these other assorted events were devastating the iraqi population. those events are important, but "where i was" is not.

this isn't about moral high ground. it's about taking responsibility for how your tax dollars are spent. so as an american citizen, which presumably you are, it's important to know that the reaganites removed hussein from the terrorist list in 1982 so they could fund HIS aggression against iran. it's important to know that american military and diplomatic support for saddam continued right through his worst atrocities including chemical warfare against the iranians, halabja, etc. it's important to know that after the long war with iran, almost immediately after saddam "used poison gas against his own people" (a phrase we've heard so much), iraqi nuclear scientists were actually invited to the united states by the first bush administration to attend federally funded seminars on nuclear development. it's important to know that in 1991 when american forces had total control over the country having removed iraqi forces from kuwait, saddam hussein wasn't just allowed to stay in power but he was allowed to crush the uprisings taking root across the country. it's important to know that ECONOMIC SANCTIONS HURT THE POPULATION NOT THE LEADER. that's been proven over and over. so when the secretary of state was asked in the mid 90s about the hundreds of thousands of children dying of malnutrition and lacking basic medicine, she said something like their sacrifice is unfortunate but necessary.

where was i? who cares. where was my government? largely supporting yours, without getting its feet too wet. it's a shame you decide to focus all of your attention on the crimes of others, for which you bear no responsibility and about which you can do very little, while completely ignoring the criminality of your own country's deeds.

Most countries sold weapons to Saddam because they profited from it, but that has no relevance to what the present stance in regard to him should be. If anything, it increases the responsibility of US citizens to right a former wrong perpetrated by their government. France sold tons of weapons to Saddam but the likes of Chirac (ha!) had no qualms sitting back and playing peacemaker, even when the deplorable actions of US government foreign policy pale in comparison to the brutality, and repeated pursuit of nationalist self-interest of the French.

I don't know why you bring up a load of past mistakes as if they somehow disqualify contemporary US foreign policy decisions. You are anthropomorphising the US government by portraying it as a single solid entity that makes consistent decisions, when it is a fluid system - one which changes as the people making the decisions change. Just because a bad decision was made in the past does not mean a good one cannot be made in the present. You seem to be advocating complete isolation, and saying it doesn't matter how many people die provided it has nothing to do with American tax dollars. That is nonsensical and utterly impractical.

Saddam didn't hurt his people now, it was only sanctions? :facepalm What do you suggest doing exactly? Let Saddam do whatever he wants? You know those sanctions were in response to him invading a member on the UN, gassing tens of thousands of Kurds, and repeatedly refusing to give up a weapons program that would allow him to kill more?

You are so full of contradictions it's mad. You think the Federal Government a bloodthirsty boogieman when it comes to foreign policy, but a benevolent carer for the disenfranchised when it comes to domestic policy! And yet the whole reason the states became a federation was to provide extra security with a unified foreign policy - one which provided the opportunity for expansion and growth - and is the biggest reason why democracy became the dominant form of governance in the world (for better or worse: i am no democrat really, though i suppose you are, so it's strange you would hate the influence of the one consistent source of democratic values during the past 200 years). Your opinions are really ahistorical and contradictory to say the least, and soaked in dogma. It can be reasonably ascertained that the Iraq war was executed poorly and planned rather hastily, and with excessive self-confidence, but whether it was the correct decision (either practically or morally) is a matter of opinion with no objective means of discerning a correct answer or truth, so you would do better not to blather so one-sidedly about something you can never come close to proving. You don't know what the geopolitical result of non-intervention would have been, and you never can. It is certainly possible to envisage many outcomes worse than the present one if one keeps Syria in mind.


were there crazy fks like this driving around shooting at random innocents before the U.S. invasion ?

those beheading videos and other violence videos are bad enough to watch, but to think you can be driving around on an idle day and be ambushed randomly like that is pretty fkn unsettlingYeah: they were just Saddam's sons or his own special forces of psychopathic criminals (he would select them based on their brutality) who cruised around raping and butchering on a mass scale. So the people doing this kind of thing (and much worse) were the ones with their hands on the levers of power, not fringe fanatics trying to create turmoil and unrest. Better these kind of people be engaging in political and religious violence than actually be actively running a country and people into the ground from the top down. Saddam was a fanatic himself, who starved his people, gassed whole towns, had a Koran written in his own blood, and ran a police state more extreme than anything this side of North Korea. Like Ceausescu basically, but far more brutal, and far more sadistic.

[Dresta]

Thank you USA, democratic Iraq

@Dresta stfu



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger
So what? What relevance does the posting of that have, why is no context provided, what were the alternatives, what would have happened had the US been isolationist? Posting that without first answering those questions is pointless and idiotic. Without the US the world would still be carved up by European and Russian empires: that is what people like you seem incapable of conceiving. America is the first dominant world power that has not been motivated by the need to annex territories to itself, and tends to exert its influence internationally in matters of self-preservation and self-interest like pretty much every country with a say on the world stage.

You kids :facepalm - you think the world has always been as it is now, as if our peaceful civilisation itself rose out of nothing aside from the good intentions of human beings, and that warring and strife is some kind of anomaly, perpetuated by the evil US bent on oppressing the world! It may be something you roll your eyes at now having enjoyed liberty and freedom from tyranny your whole life, but the ideals of liberty and of furthering the cause of human liberty around the world, are central to the founding of the United States. Need i also add that the biggest democrat of the founders (Jefferson) was bent on extending democracy throughout the world, and was happy to use force if he felt it was required (Canada and Mexico being conquests he had in mind). And in many ways it was his vision that brought down the monarchical Western European empires that had dominated the world for hundreds of years.

[fiddy]

So what? What relevance does the posting of that have, why is no context provided, what were the alternatives, what would have happened had the US been isolationist? Posting that without first answering those questions is pointless and idiotic. Without the US the world would still be carved up by European and Russian empires: that is what people like you seem incapable of conceiving. America is the first dominant world power that has not been motivated by the need to annex territories to itself, and tends to exert its influence internationally in matters of self-preservation and self-interest like pretty much every country with a say on the world stage.

You kids :facepalm - you think the world has always been as it is now, as if our peaceful civilisation itself rose out of nothing aside from the good intentions of human beings, and that warring and strife is some kind of anomaly, perpetuated by the evil US bent on oppressing the world! It may be something you roll your eyes at now having enjoyed liberty and freedom from tyranny your whole life, but the ideals of liberty and of furthering the cause of human liberty around the world, are central to the founding of the United States. Need i also add that the biggest democrat of the founders (Jefferson) was bent on extending democracy throughout the world, and was happy to use force if he felt it was required (Canada and Mexico being conquests he had in mind). And in many ways it was his vision that brought down the monarchical Western European empires that had dominated the world for hundreds of years.
WOW :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
Take your meds. Not worth my effort.

[Dresta]

WOW :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
Take your meds. Not worth my effort.
You obviously know nothing about history, so why do you bother having an opinion at all?

[RidonKs]

You are anthropomorphising the US government by portraying it as a single solid entity that makes consistent decisions, when it is a fluid system - one which changes as the people making the decisions change. Just because a bad decision was made in the past does not mean a good one cannot be made in the present.
what's more absurd: evaluating relations between two states in a vacuum or in a historical context? there is a great deal of carryover between reagan's first term, right through bush 1 and clinton, and on to bush 2. and i'm not just talking about ideologically and geopolitically, but in terms of actual personnel. the whole neocon gang is right in the thick of it. this isn't exactly a well kept secret.

most of those events i listed because you initially brought them up in a quite different light, in order to justify the removal of hussein on those flimsiest of idealistic grounds, "spreading democracy". your suggestion was that the invasion wasn't a war crime, because saddam was such a bad dude. the gas attacks, the suffering of the 90s, etc. again, in light of the history which isn't like ancient or anything, it's ludicrous to suggest the attack was launched on the basis of any respect for iraqi democracy.

american foreign policy is imo highly consistent. for the most part its aims are to open foreign markets for penetration by american investors and securing natural resources. geopolitical strategy like you find in its involvement with vietnam or cuba or others like it come subsequent to those primary motivations.

it's not contradictory in the least to suggest that the american government both does a lot of rotten things around the world and can also be harnessed domestically as a democratizing force for the betterment of its people. perhaps if you characterize it as a single solid entity, as you accuse me of doing, those two aspects of it come into conflict. but that's your strawman and i want no part of it.


You know those sanctions were in response to him invading a member on the UN, gassing tens of thousands of Kurds, and repeatedly refusing to give up a weapons program that would allow him to kill more?
here's where your history is really confused, and here is precisely why we need to understand what happened in its historical context. those sanctions were NOT in response to his criminality throughout the 80s, nor were they in response to his nuclear ambitions, since the first bush administration -- the same one that imposed the sanctions in the first place -- supported both of those. you're right that the sanctions resulted from his invasion of a un member, but more importantly, his invasion of a neighbouring oil producer which has for decades had close ties with both the united states and the united kingdom. oh, it also happens to be a family dictatorship lead by a monarch who can dissolve the weak parliament at will. go democracy eh!



It can be reasonably ascertained that the Iraq war was executed poorly and planned rather hastily, and with excessive self-confidence, but whether it was the correct decision (either practically or morally) is a matter of opinion with no objective means of discerning a correct answer or truth, so you would do better not to blather so one-sidedly about something you can never come close to proving. You don't know what the geopolitical result of non-intervention would have been, and you never can. It is certainly possible to envisage many outcomes worse than the present one if one keeps Syria in mind.
and now we've arrived at pure deranged fanaticism. you've now decided that i can't make a retrospective argument against the invasion of iraq, on either moral or practical grounds (i don't know what this distinction means), because.... i can't prove a non-event? because i can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt exactly what would have happened had everything been completely different? and that's why i should shut my trap. wow. you're better than this i hope. you're pretty much advocating the principle "we should ignore our mistakes and refuse to learn from them because who the fk knows".

as for syria, not a particularly good example of what could result from "leaving a country alone". given the flood of foreign arms, foreign fighters, foreign funding, and foreign intelligence that has turned that country into a proxy battleground between russia, iran, the gulf states, and yes certain nato countries such as the united states and turkey -- all for very different but equally cynical reasons -- it doesn't give us a very good picture of what iraq might look like had the bush administration not committed a war crime.




which brings us back to where we started: you decided to call me out as hysterical and childish, for describing the american invasion as the supreme war crime of aggression. are we in agreement on that fact now?

[kNIOKAS]

I'm pretty sure you're a teenager because your opinions are so naive and simplistic that if you weren't you'd have to be clinically retarded. Yeah, fanatical religious zealots, terrorists and violence aren't problems, only the US is: the US creates all world evils, there would be world peace without their criminal activities :rolleyes:.

Oh wait, no, the US is actually the power that eventually put an end to European warring, something that was keeping the world in perpetual strife and conflict. If the US had kept its military on its own soil the world would be a completely different place, and considering the opposing powers, i would bet on it being a much worse place.
Are you really going to try pull of this subjective utilitarian claim to evaluate what is just and what is unjust? Oh well.
:rolleyes:


You're talking out of your ass now. If you would read the other replies in this thread, you will see that it is pretty well known the barbarities that were taking place in these regions (specifically Iraq) far before the U.S. stepped foot on their soil.

My argument against sending troops over there is not so I can wag my finger and shame my country, but because these people don't need saving. They don't need our help. They will never learn what it is to live in peace.
They are longer standing culture than US is. They really don't need your "saving", you got that right.

However, for now it seems that for US it will be even harder to find a peace. You just cannot stop fightning other people in the different continent.

[Dresta]

what's more absurd: evaluating relations between two states in a vacuum or in a historical context? there is a great deal of carryover between reagan's first term, right through bush 1 and clinton, and on to bush 2. and i'm not just talking about ideologically and geopolitically, but in terms of actual personnel. the whole neocon gang is right in the thick of it. this isn't exactly a well kept secret.

most of those events i listed because you initially brought them up in a quite different light, in order to justify the removal of hussein on those flimsiest of idealistic grounds, "spreading democracy". your suggestion was that the invasion wasn't a war crime, because saddam was such a bad dude. the gas attacks, the suffering of the 90s, etc. again, in light of the history which isn't like ancient or anything, it's ludicrous to suggest the attack was launched on the basis of any respect for iraqi democracy.

american foreign policy is imo highly consistent. for the most part its aims are to open foreign markets for penetration by american investors and securing natural resources. geopolitical strategy like you find in its involvement with vietnam or cuba or others like it come subsequent to those primary motivations.

it's not contradictory in the least to suggest that the american government both does a lot of rotten things around the world and can also be harnessed domestically as a democratizing force for the betterment of its people. perhaps if you characterize it as a single solid entity, as you accuse me of doing, those two aspects of it come into conflict. but that's your strawman and i want no part of it.

here's where your history is really confused, and here is precisely why we need to understand what happened in its historical context. those sanctions were NOT in response to his criminality throughout the 80s, nor were they in response to his nuclear ambitions, since the first bush administration -- the same one that imposed the sanctions in the first place -- supported both of those. you're right that the sanctions resulted from his invasion of a un member, but more importantly, his invasion of a neighbouring oil producer which has for decades had close ties with both the united states and the united kingdom. oh, it also happens to be a family dictatorship lead by a monarch who can dissolve the weak parliament at will. go democracy eh!

and now we've arrived at pure deranged fanaticism. you've now decided that i can't make a retrospective argument against the invasion of iraq, on either moral or practical grounds (i don't know what this distinction means), because.... i can't prove a non-event? because i can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt exactly what would have happened had everything been completely different? and that's why i should shut my trap. wow. you're better than this i hope. you're pretty much advocating the principle "we should ignore our mistakes and refuse to learn from them because who the fk knows".

as for syria, not a particularly good example of what could result from "leaving a country alone". given the flood of foreign arms, foreign fighters, foreign funding, and foreign intelligence that has turned that country into a proxy battleground between russia, iran, the gulf states, and yes certain nato countries such as the united states and turkey -- all for very different but equally cynical reasons -- it doesn't give us a very good picture of what iraq might look like had the bush administration not committed a war crime.

which brings us back to where we started: you decided to call me out as hysterical and childish, for describing the american invasion as the supreme war crime of aggression. are we in agreement on that fact now?
1. Calling the invasion of Iraq 'the supreme war crime of aggression' is exactly what makes you hysterical and childish. The rest of your comments are also pretty hysterical and dogmatic, unthoughtful and inconsistent. What is funny is that you call my claim that it is impossible - due to the complexity and dynamics of geopolitics - to make any certain judgement as to what the long-term consequences of non-intervention would have been, whether they would have been better, and thus from a practical or moral sense only a fanatic and dogmatist could make cast-iron moral judgements like you do. You seem to be advocating complete isolationism; an opinion that is both impractical and would have led to a completely different world, one where democratic values are not predominant (you still haven't addressed this point with anything other than a rolling of eyes).

2. You are obsessed with the Bush administration, yet Tony Blair was giving speeches pertaining to the need to remove Saddam Hussein in 1999. The man had been a persistent menace and cause of international instability for some time, it wasn't some new or magical crusade that appeared out of nowhere with George Bush: the US was still providing the no-fly zone that prevented Saddam from completely extirpating the Kurds (people you don't seem to give a shit about), and his troops regularly fired on American planes. You are assigning motivations to people you know nothing about and yet proclaiming them to be fact. It is a typical tactic of vacuous moralisers like yourself to claim knowledge of personal motivation that is bordering on being some kind charlatan palm-reader, and it is always the lowest possible motivation that you assign telepathically to your enemy, because you are such a dogmatist, and so determined to paint your enemies as moral villains. Again: childish and hysterical - University campuses will be filled with children who share your opinions, and also the strength of your moral convictions.

3. I created no straw-man: it is not my fault that you cannot be consistent with your ideological dogmas. The people, the institutions, and the tactics of the federal government are not separated by simply whether policy is foreign or domestic. The federal infrastructure has grown up progressively over a long period of time, and the military infrastructure along with it. If you were consistent then you would have to go back to Lincoln, declare yourself on the side of confederates who only wished to rule autonomously, and without the influence of a federal government they felt did not act in their own interest. This is where the powers annexed by Lincoln have led, and without him the US wouldn't have been the world player and power it currently is. But then i can also see how what he did was necessary, and how the world would've been completely different had he allowed secession, but by your current standards he would have to be labelled a bloodthirsty and criminal tyrant.

4. Syria: ridiculous! Now you are pretending Iraq exists in a vacuum! As if when Saddam died there wouldn't be the possibility of surrounding countries piling into Iraq in the hope to control a territory with great geopolitical significance (with the two opposing forces of Iran and Saudi Arabia on either side). As if all these forces now meeting in Syria would not have piled in wherever there was civil unrest, and where they have a chance of securing some gain. This is the politics of the region. This is reality; deal with it. Syria does show actually what Iraq could have been like if US troops had pulled out straight away as people like you hoped.

[RidonKs]

and thus from a practical or moral sense only a fanatic and dogmatist could make cast-iron moral judgements like you do.
i haven't been making iron clad judgments from a practical or moral sense. the only ironclad judgment i've made has been from a legal sense, a judgment you continue to dispute and decry as hysterical without offering a single point in rebuttal. perhaps you'd like to take the time now to offer one. or maybe you'd rather divert the conversation away from an issue you have no way of responding to.



i may "seem" to be advocating an absolutist isolationist position, but i don't. military intervention is sometimes necessary. our difference of opinion rests in how often that is so.

when you argue that nobody can know what would have happened had the invasion never taken place and it's impossible to prove that things would have been definitively better or worse.... you're fundamentally missing the point.

the burden of proof is always on the advocate for using force, and not on the pacifist advocating isolationism. the reason for that is elementary in a logical and a moral sense. morally, we're only responsible for what we decide to do. we aren't responsible for what everybody else does. and logically, it's impossible to foresee the exact consequences of any given course of action. that's especially true when we're talking about the use of force and violence as it pertains to human beings, who are wildly unpredictable under these circumstances.

now these are both truisms. does it paralyze governments from ever doing anything ever? well of course it can't, that would be an absurd conclusion. but it does set a very high standard of evidence that advocates of particularly military action must meet... to be specific, in my eyes, they must essentially prove (as best they can, human affairs are not the sciences of course) that doing nothing would be as bad or worse than among the worst possible scenarios of doing x. i believe such a high standard is necessary on the grounds of pragmatism and morality, but also based on lessons learned from history. states have histories of making flippant decisions on cynical grounds with destructive effects. i think we should try to avoid these at all costs.

so to evaluate the decision on iraq, we need to take ourselves back to the time at which that decision was made, and determine whether that burden was met. it very clearly was not. i mean looking back, the whole thing was kind of a sick joke. the hyperbole, the lying, the fanaticism. it was very ugly.





your other points are just evading the issues and putting words in my mouth so i won't bother. if you can't even respond to a relevant point like the fact that the sanctions had nothing to do with hussein's reign of terror in the 80s, there's no point continuing the conversation.

[Dresta]

i haven't been making iron clad judgments from a practical or moral sense. the only ironclad judgment i've made has been from a legal sense, a judgment you continue to dispute and decry as hysterical without offering a single point in rebuttal. perhaps you'd like to take the time now to offer one. or maybe you'd rather divert the conversation away from an issue you have no way of responding to.

i may "seem" to be advocating an absolutist isolationist position, but i don't. military intervention is sometimes necessary. our difference of opinion rests in how often that is so.

when you argue that nobody can know what would have happened had the invasion never taken place and it's impossible to prove that things would have been definitively better or worse.... you're fundamentally missing the point.

the burden of proof is always on the advocate for using force, and not on the pacifist advocating isolationism. the reason for that is elementary in a logical and a moral sense. morally, we're only responsible for what we decide to do. we aren't responsible for what everybody else does. and logically, it's impossible to foresee the exact consequences of any given course of action. that's especially true when we're talking about the use of force and violence as it pertains to human beings, who are wildly unpredictable under these circumstances.

now these are both truisms. does it paralyze governments from ever doing anything ever? well of course it can't, that would be an absurd conclusion. but it does set a very high standard of evidence that advocates of particularly military action must meet... to be specific, in my eyes, they must essentially prove (as best they can, human affairs are not the sciences of course) that doing nothing would be as bad or worse than among the worst possible scenarios of doing x. i believe such a high standard is necessary on the grounds of pragmatism and morality, but also based on lessons learned from history. states have histories of making flippant decisions on cynical grounds with destructive effects. i think we should try to avoid these at all costs.

so to evaluate the decision on iraq, we need to take ourselves back to the time at which that decision was made, and determine whether that burden was met. it very clearly was not. i mean looking back, the whole thing was kind of a sick joke. the hyperbole, the lying, the fanaticism. it was very ugly.


your other points are just evading the issues and putting words in my mouth so i won't bother. if you can't even respond to a relevant point like the fact that the sanctions had nothing to do with hussein's reign of terror in the 80s, there's no point continuing the conversation.Yeah, they had to do with him invading another sovereign state, refusing to give up his weapons programme, and being a perpetual menace to the entire region etc. The sanctions were perfectly justified, and necessary if the use of force is being ruled out by the likes of you and kNioKAs. And the implementation of no-fly zones (US military commitment for over a decade) were based on his reign of terror, involved the US in the region, and were thoroughly necessary.

I didn't think you were making the judgement in a legal sense because there were plenty of legal justifications for the removal of Saddam's sovereignty. During his reign he:
1. Invaded 2 sovereign states, killing millions.
2. Attempted the genocidal extirpation of the Kurdish people, using illegal chemical weapons in the process.
3. Continuously trying to obtain illegal weapons to use on either neghbouring countries or elements of his own population he disliked.
4. International supporter of terrorism. He paid large sums to the families of palestinian suicide bombers to encourage them to blow themselves up. There is little doubt he was heavily involved in providing support for illegal groups and actions.

If you don't think there was legal recourse for his removal you are ****ing delusional. He should have been removed in 1991, and that was the real crime. The half-arsed policy of sanctions is the inevitable response to people like you who are constantly opposed to military intervention by the US due to some inbuilt moral prejudices you seem incapable of shaking. No doubt this is something you would have opposed regardless, because if an action comes from protecting our own interest (defending Kuwait) it must be the wrong action according to your logic. It is irrelevant whether that was in our own interest or not: the basic fact remains that a member of the UN was invaded by a maniacal tyranniser who had committed numerous atrocities over the past decade, and that coming to their aid militarily was perfectly justified, as would the removing of Saddam have been. Whether we were also protecting our oil interests in the process is of no relevance because it was the right action to pursue regardless.

[nightprowler10]

On a serious note, all those countries are lawless and they governed by religious beliefs. Look at the Western world and other European nations. Why have they strived versus Arabia??
Because they were smart enough to ditch Christianity (separation of church and state). For as long as Christianity was more than just a religion and influenced the law, there was just as much barbaric behavior in the West.

As far as progress is concerned, that has very little to do with religion and everything to do geopolitics. There was a time when the Islamic world had all the scientists and innovators and Europe was in the dark ages, now the tables have turned dramatically. It's overly simplistic to blame any religion for either region's dark ages.

[RidonKs]

Yeah, they had to do with him invading another sovereign state, refusing to give up his weapons programme, and being a perpetual menace to the entire region etc. The sanctions were perfectly justified, and necessary if the use of force is being ruled out by the likes of you and kNioKAs. And the implementation of no-fly zones (US military commitment for over a decade) were based on his reign of terror, involved the US in the region, and were thoroughly necessary.

I didn't think you were making the judgement in a legal sense because there were plenty of legal justifications for the removal of Saddam's sovereignty. During his reign he:
1. Invaded 2 sovereign states, killing millions.
2. Attempted the genocidal extirpation of the Kurdish people, using illegal chemical weapons in the process.
3. Continuously trying to obtain illegal weapons to use on either neghbouring countries or elements of his own population he disliked.
4. International supporter of terrorism. He paid large sums to the families of palestinian suicide bombers to encourage them to blow themselves up. There is little doubt he was heavily involved in providing support for illegal groups and actions.

If you don't think there was legal recourse for his removal you are ****ing delusional. He should have been removed in 1991, and that was the real crime. The half-arsed policy of sanctions is the inevitable response to people like you who are constantly opposed to military intervention by the US due to some inbuilt moral prejudices you seem incapable of shaking. No doubt this is something you would have opposed regardless, because if an action comes from protecting our own interest (defending Kuwait) it must be the wrong action according to your logic. It is irrelevant whether that was in our own interest or not: the basic fact remains that a member of the UN was invaded by a maniacal tyranniser who had committed numerous atrocities over the past decade, and that coming to their aid militarily was perfectly justified, as would the removing of Saddam have been. Whether we were also protecting our oil interests in the process is of no relevance because it was the right action to pursue regardless.
you're incapable of seeing the fundamental flaw of intervention. namely that it is NEVER on principle and ALWAYS on the grounds of cynical self interest and material gain. that it happened to be a bad guy in charge of the regime in question is purely incidental and irrelevant to the action that was taken. this can be demonstrated by the long history of american foreign policy crushing democracy where it decides it doesn't like it and supporting brutal tyrannies when it decides that it does. it's quite easy and very popular to ignore these phenomena, when the us supports mubarak or suharto or pinochet or hussein, when it attempts to crush aristide or lumumba or chavez or castro or the sandanistas. and it's equally easy and popular to focus attention on the bad guys that get kicked to the curb and the good guys that earn praise and blessing.

what you can't see is that this history is remarkably consistent and roughly abides by the laws i laid out in an earlier post. if a foreign government is willing to open itself up to western economic penetration and resource extraction, it doesn't matter how authoritarian or genocidal the particular government of the day happens to be. if it isn't willing to do that, it gets manipulated to whatever extent is possible, and if no other options are available, it gets strangled militarily or economically. that's the history and its uniform, with literally dozens of cases to support it.


unless you're convinced american foreign policy operates on a whim without a semblance of coherence or consistency, it is as i said. the sanctions were NOT in response to the invasion of iran, the kurdish cleansing, proliferation of wmds, or support for terrorist cells. if they had been, the bush administration wouldn't have been funding his military or providing him with advanced weapons training (nuclear and chemical) literally a year before they initiated the sanctions regime. it was strictly in response to the kuwaiti invasion that affected oil politics in the region.

so what about the idea that saddam should have been removed in 91? you again suggest regime change was the answer. i don't believe that's ever the answer because i understand how power interests work on the international stage. to offer anybody, whether its george bush or mahatma gandhi, the privilege to remove leaders as they see fit is just asking for them to abuse their power.

but given we agree that saddam SHOULD have been removed in 91, how could that have happened? well it very well could have given the democratic uprising that spread like wildfire around the country... and that the bush administration effectively authorized saddam to crush. if there was a mistake during the gulf war, THAT was it. the mistake certainly wasn't deciding against unilateral regime change because that's never the answer.




and of course lastly, i ask again, patiently but increasingly without any expectation of you actually providing a semblance of an answer: how is the 2003 invasion of iraq not an act of aggression that carries with it the accumulated evil of the whole including the ongoing sectarian conflict?

the reason you can't answer this question is because of your fundamentalist devotion to state violence, no matter the justification. it's always justified, because your country did it. the thought that your national leadership could be criminal is beyond your comprehension, even if the facts are just blatantly overwhelming, which in this case they are.

[bagelred]

Just another day in Los Angeles. When is the LAPD gonna get their shit together?

[GimmeThat]

The U.S. biggest downfall has been the fact that its unfamiliarity with any other governing institution besides that of democracy.

And it's biggest lack of tact has been it's ability to start a World War 3.
It's lack of reasoning to reunite others to fight for a common cause/purpose/mission.

Every single day there is a civil war that exists, the United Nation is failing it's duties and responsibilities. Is it to prevent the next mass genocide? to be "Red Cross" with military airplanes? To, not fight war with war?

We can say it's about geopolitics, and that the others shouldn't interfere. That "they" will eventually figure it out. that, "sanctions" will work better than military by crippling others economically.

Perhaps, these were the exact reasons that gave rise to communism, to overthrow the riches, to take down the government.

or you know, overthrow the poor, so they have the chance to become rich.

[Marlo_Stanfield]

american people are worthless.
not only do 30000 americans kill each other each year with legal fire weapons, no they think they have to invade countries for no reason at all.
the iraq never had anything to do with america outside of the fact that the american government supported Saddam for a very long time.
American people are war monging,blood thirsty and SICK.
they caused more death and despair than any other country in the history and they are only 300 years old.
without USA the world would be 100 times better.
they invade countries for no reason, destabilize entire continents and then blame it on the people who live there.
they control the world market and are not afraid to shed blood whenever they feel they benefit from it.
best example was their intervention in lybya. they only did this because a socialist dictator was able to make the country one of the wealthiest in africa and actually spread the money equally to all people. there are many countries with way worse dictators and america just watches.
why not invade Syria?? 10000 people or more died there, way way more than in Lybya but USA dont do shit. why?? because they dont benefit from it.
CIa was behind the revolutions a few years ago in the arabian world and look where those countries are now?? they are off way worse than before and that was USAs plan all along. keep the countries down.
USA needs constant wars and conflicts to play their role as world police and show how strong they are. the countries economy cant even survive without wars:roll: :roll:
on top of all that USA arent even a democracy because they only have two parties that are relevant and those are 100% controlled by the economy. the economy is the true president of the USA.
USA are a country with many cool people and great countryside but as a nation they are pure scum and will continue to cause struggles all over the world.
freaking hypocrites :facepalm :facepalm

[rufuspaul]

So Iraq was ****ed up before and after the last war. I'm shocked.

[GimmeThat]

So Iraq was ****ed up before and after the last war. I'm shocked.

This is why wars ought to have a purpose, generally one that establishes a system in which how the future of the country would operate.

We may argue this is why war based on religious purposes lasts forever, because the amount of religions is far greater than the amount of currently available governing system.

Wars are to establish a viable governing infrastructure at the cost of physical infrastructure. Without one, it is no different than people killing others for no other reason besides the need for survival, as well as out of fear.



If it's still f&cked up, it may be because Bush took out their only viable leader who had the ability to govern so many and to not let it remain in chaos.

Again, it's why the U.S. tries and install a democratic system once the war is over, in order to have a system in place, instead of heavy reliance on leaders coming of age.

I think this is the underestimation on how certain cultures places personality over systems. Only where as in a capitalism society, personality becomes that of wealth, and others? perhaps idol worship, which generally directly relates to wealth as well, only wealth not necessarily gained from being a business man, but that of ones unique individuality.

[KevinNYC]

they caused more death and despair than any other country in the history and they are only 300 years old.

Wow, you're a real historian ain't you.



best example was their intervention in lybya. they only did this because a socialist dictator was able to make the country one of the wealthiest in africa and actually spread the money equally to all people. there are many countries with way worse dictators and america just watches.
why not invade Syria?? 10000 people or more died there, way way more than in Lybya but USA dont do shit. why??

You care so much about Libya until it comes to how to spell the country. You also don't mention that the US got involved after the UN Security Council voted for a no fly zone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya#Chronology) and called for cease-fire because the Libyan dictator was committing crimes against humanity and it was a NATO mission, not just the US.

You care so much about Syria that you don't realize the death toll is about 15 greater than what you mention.

[Marlo_Stanfield]

Wow, you're a real historian ain't you.



You care so much about Libya until it comes to how to spell the country. You also don't mention that the US got involved after the UN Security Council voted for a no fly zone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya#Chronology) and called for cease-fire because the Libyan dictator was committing crimes against humanity and it was a NATO mission, not just the US.

You care so much about Syria that you don't realize the death toll is about 15 greater than what you mention.
lol i meant 100000 and im sure its at least twice as much by now.
but that didnt change the facts.
one country has a dictator who is maybe a bit crazy but also did WONDERFUL things for his people and actually made them quite wealthy--> invaded
The other is a complete sociopath who killed more than 100000 of his people by now. never did anything good to begin with--> USA dont care at all
i wonder why:rolleyes:

[COnDEMnED]

Wow what a horrendous conversation. It does illustrate what's wrong with the world, and it's US.

Bunch of teenagers dicussing how barbaric are the people that their own nation has invaded, killed, opressed and robbed them of their resources. Yeah right.


Are you trying to say the middle east hasn't had this same barbaric mind frame until after the United States was conceived? And not before? Because if you are, you are frighteningly misinformed, historically inaccurate, a teenager yourself, or all three.

Wow...

[kNIOKAS]

Are you trying to say the middle east hasn't had this same barbaric mind frame until after the United States was conceived? And not before? Because if you are, you are frighteningly misinformed, historically inaccurate, a teenager yourself, or all three.

Wow...
I'm saying what I said, that it is ridiculous and hypocritical of US people to call anybody barbarian. US is waging wars against people that have nothing to do with US.

Barbaric mind frame... How about building your country on slavery.


Pretty sure Dresta isn't an American. Worth noting since people tend to assume anyone with a stance such as his, is.
That has nothing to do with spouting fallacies and displacing the talking points that he does. Unless you're trying to distance yourself from that fool.

[GimmeThat]

This, couldn't agree more.


Of course we can just have U.S. keep their military on their soil.

Nothing better than the foriegn policy that of the 1930s of course. It DID make us the strongest world power post war.

Letting geopolitical warfare to fight out against itself.

I guess as long as your power doesn't become that as strong as that of the German did, no one should care. And just like Obamacare, you know, prevention doesn't help you have better health. It just means seeing the doctor earlier than you have to, since quality care > quantity care.

We ought to let their be more small wars amongst the world, and that whoever triumphs world war 3 gets to decide how the next cold war plays out!

[GimmeThat]

The only ass here is you.

Exactly, countries don't need to be saved by the US, they need to be saved from the US. And regarding living in peace, the US won't let countries have peace.

Iran is the perfect example, Iran is a country that hasn't initiated a war against another country for more than 200 years but the US has been messing with the country for decades.

On their way to democracy in the 50's the US led a coup to overthrow the Iranian prime minister, just so the power would go back to the Shah of Iran. Why? Because the Prime Minister, Mosaddegh, wanted to nationalize the oil industry and that would go against the interests of the US since Shah was a sock puppet of the US.

When the Shah was gone and after the country was hi-jacked by the current regime, Iran got attacked by Iraq. The US funded the Saddam-led regime in the war with billion of dollars and around 750 000 Iranians died in the war.

And now Iran is a massive threat again, according to the US and you have the on-going sanctions against the country. The same country who hasn't started a war for more than 200 years is getting tortured time after time by the "savior" called United States of America..

Educate yourself.


And they have a Bin Laden Statue/Monument somewhere in the world.