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[Davidfak]

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• (January 12, 2023, 01:18:11 AM)

[12AX7]

Current issues aside, simply from the UN resolution after the first Gulf War being ignored was reason enough - if only because we'd gone ahead and threatened to if he did indeed ignore them. (Don't threaten to resume attacks if you have no intention of following through.) That resolution said if he did not comply, bombing would resume, and the cease fire would be null. He NEVER complied; and we didn't do anything but fly around in his airspace. This was ALL of us making these demands and stating these consequences via the UN; not just the US.
 While I totally agree; stated reasons should have been more concrete, etc, - they should have included his non-compliance. End of issue then. We ALL agreed on that, right? Remember?
 I'm not so much upset about the going to war in Iraq as I am about us just sitting down on our asses before we finished. God, I imagine how frustrating it would be to be a soldier there now. For all practical purposes; just existing to be a target. I'd feel much differently if we got off our asses and TOOK Iraq properly; then set up the Iraqis to elect their own government and manage themselves AS Western troops are LEAVING. While tactically our troops kicked royal ass; strategically our commanders basically took Saddam down; and quit. We pulled OUT of Sadr City; specifically to LEAVE THAT MILITIA ALONE. I mean - Weird Tingly Feeling???
Gahh. It's morning. I dont need to irritate myself just yet.


  Fact: Penguins are better rock climbers than you.

[Rico]

Don't worry about offending me by finger-pointing.  I see it everyday.  Let me try it using your form.

Reasons for the war:

- Yes, terrorist training.  What do you mean insignificant?  Quantify that with numbers or data.  I forget the exact number, but I think we bombed something like 20+ camps in the first couple days of the war(war war, not the crap that followed)

-Yes, he took more than a few shots at our planes(AND other UN aircraft) and we should have responded then.  If you're going to play in international politics, you need to be ready to live by them.  He attacked Kawait(creating the international incident) and was summarily routed back to his own country, at which point certain restrictions were put on him.  Look at Japan if you want to see it done right.  To this day, their constitution forbids armed conflict with another country except in self defense.  I applaud them with the utmost respect.

- It's not the fact that he had stockpiles of weapons, it's that he openly used them and that he supported terrorism.  How hard would it have been for him to supply terrorists with some of that stuff?  Yeah, the US has some(more nuclear than chemical, I think), but it's no secret that we'll only use them only as a last resort to defend ourselves or in response to another nuclear attack.  Significant difference, or do you disagree?  As far as them being fictional, that's completely untrue.  Soldiers have been finding caches of contaminated artillery rounds ever since we first got there.  Also, hundreds of trucks crossed into Syria about the time we were wrapping up the war and no telling how much of it went out on that.  I know it's the cool thing now to debate their existance, but there's just way too much proof.  Even IF we hadn't found cache after cache of contaminated warheads, there were taped conversations between officials not just admitting that they had them, but saying how they'd use them.  Even if that wasn't enough, he'd used gas on the Kurds in 89, and chemicals on Iran several years before that.  Do you think he just decided to use up the last of his supply on the Kurds?


Reasons against the war:

- It's not the lack of support I was talking about, it's the tight political controls that prevents effect waging of war because of the senseless attrocities of Vietnam.  Every citizen in the US these days thinks they're qualified to dictate how to fight a war.  Obviously overly dramatic sarcasm aside, politicians do not want stories of bloody women and children on their watch, unfortunately that's really the only way to wage war and win.

- Because of the reason stated above, I don't think the US is capable of fighting a war anymore.  I don't think you'll see another sustained war effort unless it's on our own soil.  Most American citizens have been trained from birth to think of themselves first and nothing else second.  Don't get me wrong, some great folks in this country, but a whole bunch of selfishness too.  The media knows this and uses it to sell news and the politicians want to be re-elected, so they don't want that news in their term.

- I think the better course would have been immediate retaliation to Iraqi attacks on UN aircraft.  That would have given us plenty of excuse to take out military targets and covertly attack terrorist camps.  With a significantly weakened Iraq, the whole political balance in the Middle East would have become less stable.  I think the blood in the water would have been enough to cause Iran to step in and probably try to out Sadam for us.  We then could have engaged like we did with Kawait as 'Peace Keepers' and used the leverage in our own interests.  In that case, we're the liberators not the invaders, and I think it would have been much easier to secure the country that way.

- The terrorists being trained were not very good and fairly easily tracked.  Though there was always a chance we would miss one, the question is was the risk great enough to use it as an excuse for war.  I don't really think so, but I've known several who disagreed concidering Iraqs chemical capabilities and dealing with N. Korea who also has nuclear capability and is much more subtle.




To sum up, I hardly think we went to war over oil.  That's just silly since we already have Kawait.  Once there the oil companies made a KILLING, but more at our own expense rather than on the Iraqi dime, I think.  I think what we're doing in Iraq is completely necessary and in our national interest, but I think there was a better way of doing it.  I'm not the only one, btw.  I read an old assesment and suggested plan of action not much different from that a while back.  So, that idea was on the table.  My bet is that President Bush didn't feel he could afford to wait another ten years for the situation to destabilize enough for us to enter in a good light.  Another President might miss the opportunity to get that foothold in the region.  Trust me, I think there are good reasons to be against the war.  I just think the favourite ones are mostly bunk.

[TheJudge]

I am in agreement with a lot of what you say BTW.

I just wanted to point out that while it is true that there were terrorist training camps in Iraq, there were plenty more elsewhere. There's nothing special about the particular ones in Iraq as compared to other camps in other countries. This was used as an excuse to support the cause.

Furthermore, there were no strong ties between al Qaeda terrorists and Iraq initially. Today is a much different story, but that's pretty much your own fault. Considering that al Qaeda was really the target of the American public following the 9/11 events, the troups really should have gone in a different region. But no, instead your politicians created the illusion that terrorist = 9/11 = Iraq, only to later make the statements that there were no relation between the two because they couldn't handle the presssure of their critics.

Meanwhile, all of the activities in Iraq actually lead to al Qaeda going there in force. They weren't there before remember? (they were, but their presence was minimal). By going to Iraq, removing Sadam from power and destablizing the entire region in doing so, the US created an optimal environment for al Qaeda to operate in, and now they completely out of control. In my opinion, the "terrorist" part of the equation was made much worse by the actions of the US. Sure, you blew up a bunch of them and of their camps, but for every 1 you took down, they recruited and trained 10 more. I don't mean to use these numbers as actual facts, I'm just saying that regarldess of your efforts and success in eliminating terrorist, you actually have a bigger problem with then than you did 6 years ago. Things did not get better, they got worse. The entire situation is out of control and we have not yet witness the real consequences of this mess.

Again, regardless of the arguments your posted about reasons to go to Iraq, I will still never understand why the US went there. It's not because you can't build a valid and legitimate case for going there if you try really hard, but because of conflicting priorities. The priority of the US governemnt should have been al Qaeda and Bin Laden, not Iraq. The two were pretty much unrelated until you showed up and really fucked things up. So again, I'm not saying there was absolutly no reasons what so ever for going to war in Iraq, but there was certainly a much stronger case to go to war elsewhere and to go after those responsible for 9/11, which btw are still running out large, are still potting against the US, are still planning attacks, and ARE NOT IN IRAQ.

The second point was that while I agree with you completely that the UN should have reacted in full force much earlier, the fact to you were telling Agent T something like" You're not one of us? Why do you care what we do? Dude serriously, you may want to get more involved with your own politics!" and then you come back and start supporting your arguments with activities which involve the US mingling in other people's business seems illogical to me. All that to say that your arguments were not invalid. I was just pointing out that your response to Agent T is. He can in fact have an opinion about events that take place in a foreign country. That's really all I was trying to point out.

[milifist]

I just wanted to point out that while it is true that there were terrorist training camps in Iraq, there were plenty more elsewhere. There's nothing special about the particular ones in Iraq as compared to other camps in other countries. This was used as an excuse to support the cause.

That is not really true. There were some major differences between Iraq’s support of terrorist camps and the other countries.

None of the other countries were believed to have large stockpiles of chemical weapons. None of the other countries have a track recorded like Iraq’s. Two major invasions in less then twenty years, both of which clearly never had a chance of succeeding. During the second one, they decided to play russian roulette by firing SCUDS into Israel. It wasn’t hard to believe that Saddam would be crazy enough to give chemical weapons to terrorists.

Even if he wasn’t that crazy, if terrorists used chemical weapons against Israel, he would get them blame even if the terrorist got the weapons from another source. Why? Because with his track record and belligerent attitude, no one would believe he didn’t.

With Saddam gone, the chances of a full-scale nuclear war in the Middle East have been greatly diminished.

[Vespertine]

<snip>
With Saddam gone, the chances of a full-scale nuclear war in the Middle East have been greatly diminished.

I completely disagree with this statement.  I know that it's an unpopular thing to say, but I truly believe that, if there's a full-scale nuclear war in the M.E., Israel will have either made the first strike, or will have provoked some other entity into a first strike.

[TheJudge]

My opinion is that Sadam did have plenty of chemical weapons like agent orange and others, but was using these as a leverage to do as he pleased in his own country, and to influence others. To him, they represented power and ensured he was taken seriously by other nations and by his own people. I'm not convinced he would have necessarly supplied terrorists with such supplies like most people assume. If I stick to al Qaeda, it is no mystery that he didn't really care much about their cause and their goals. So why would he hand them out his limited supply of chemicals, the very things that really gave him power (in his mind).

I am not excusing him for any of his actions. He did respond with retalliation on more than one occasion. When Iraquis attempted to assasinate him in 1982 and failed, he killed almost 150 Iraquies, including children. When he dropped chemicals from planes overthe Kurds and killed about 180,000 of them, it was also a retaliation act. Sadam did not tolerate resistance or insubordination. He used is dangerous weapons on several occasions when someon really ticked him off. That doesn't make him an arms dealer. People cannot simply assume that he would have supplied terrorist groups with all kinds of chemical weapons because he didn't really give a shit about them anyway.

To rationalize that with Saddam gone means that the chances of a full-scale nuclear war in the Middle East have been greatly diminished is not necessarly accurate. It may be true, but it may not be.

[milifist]

I completely disagree with this statement.  I know that it's an unpopular thing to say, but I truly believe that, if there's a full-scale nuclear war in the M.E., Israel will have either made the first strike, or will have provoked some other entity into a first strike.

With Iraq effectively out of the picture, who would they strike? Most of Israel’s neighbors are on peaceful terms with them.

Israel doesn’t see Syria as a serious threat (and with good reason), and Iran isn’t a practical target. Also of course, it is unlikely any of the major Arab countries would go to war for Iran.

This is a very real danger that Israel could inadvertently start a major war, if say, an Israel Air Force pilot decided to go rogue and take out al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif.

[Rico]

Vespertine's right.  Just because we strung Sadam up, doesn't mean we're in a much better position where nukes are concerned.  Granted Iran has them, but just because the others don't, it doesn't mean they can't get them.  There are still several soviet nukes unnaccounted for and I don't think N. Korea would have many qualms about exporting one if they thought it'd be used against us.  Luckfully we can diagnose the fall out and tell where the plutonium came from, so knowing they would be caught might curb their enthusiasm.  On top of that, Isreal goes out of their way to tick everyone off.  I know people were offended my Mel's comment a few months ago, but he didn't fall too short of the mark.  Mossad are not nice guys, and they definately don't play by our rules.  I'm not condeming, simply pointing out that a lot of their activities are blatently inflamitory.

I see what you're saying now, Judge!  The problem I had with Agent_Tachyon dogging on "warrantless wiretaps" was, one the obvious falicy of the debate, but also the fact that he's not an American.  It's not that he's getting involved with our politics in general (you'll note that at a later point I provided him with a reason why he MIGHT have a dog in this fight and was ignored), but this particular topic is really none of his business.  IF there were warrentless collection activities against US citizens, it would be a violation of the rights of those citizens.  As a citizen of the USA, it is my duty to object and force a ceasation of those activities or a change to the Constitution.  Do it legally, or not at all.  In his case, not being a US citizen he doesn't get a say since this particular action doesn't effect him.  You wouldn't allow an American tell you how Canadian taxes on igloos should be applied.  Even if Canada wanted to change the tariffs they charge on American goods, I'm not sure we'd have grounds to say something.

Kinda get what I'm saying?  It's not that non-Americans can't have an opinion or debate American policies.  It's just that they have to realize that internal politics are none of their business, and they don't get a say on how we govern ourselves(just ask the British how well it worked   )

[Agent_Tachyon]

You wouldn't allow an American tell you how Canadian taxes on igloos should be applied.

We actually would, we're good that way.