well, 2 minutes for bush’s speech now. just wanted to give a big shoutout to all people in the middle east. our thoughts are with you.
and remember: Europe has nothing to do with it, so your oil is very welcome here! 
Roel
ps. YES I know Holland is kinda FOR a war, but that doesn’t mean I agree on it
I don’t know how many people are for it in here (Australia), its less than 50%, but our democratic leader said “I will not bend to public opinion”.
So I guess I’ll apologise in advance for the actions of my country.
Words Are Hollow
Kind of an oxymoron “democratic leaders that listen to public opinion” especially when it’s the majority opinion. They always seem to resort to excessive force/violence against the people when the majority opinion doesn’t match their own, doesn’t matter if it’s a dictator in a third world country or an elected official in a democratic country, they almost always resort to violence to get their way.
Only at election time, will politicians listen to public opinion, and then do opposite once they are elected.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for because the government always wins.
I offer no apologies for my countries actions, only apologies that we didn’t do it sooner. I feel no sympathy for the Iraqi governemnt, and I hope we chase them into every hole they try to hide in, drag them out, and give them two in the chest and one in the head. They have had fair warning, they have had chance after chance to take the peaceful route. They have choosen war, not us. Because the route Saddam has chosen, he will get what lies down that path. And to those who think they are all victims, and the US is being a bully, well, you are ignorant. There is no simpler way to put it. Have your families been executed by cruel and torturous means? Have you had to live unde the rule of a dictator like Saddam? or do you live in a life where you can sit back, mess with blender and spend all day on elysiun?
hey acasto.
i make no apologys when The US government falls and The US is left starnded with no-one to turn to.
or when terrorists shoot you in the head.
in fact i think they should have done it sooner!!! (shoot you in the head that is)
to save you from your leader that would be, because i feel really sorry for you having to live wiht BUSH, in fact so sorry for you that i think it would be a good idea to put you out of your missery.
Don’t be a F**KING HYPOCRIT ABOUT IT by replying to this saying its different!!!
Alltaken
First, I don’t particularly take kindly to people hoping I’m shot in the head, but I won’t wish the same on you. Instead, I only hope Karma treats you fairly, and the way I look at it, that’s punishment enough. Second, we’re a hell of a lot better off it Gore had won… Bush may not be lowering taxes much, but at least he hasn’t raised them. Finally, the latest polls (done by the liberal press, not by the White House) show Americans support 2:1 the forceful removal of Saddam Hussein.
Imp
The weapons inspectors found nothing
The weapons inspectors found more nothing
Saddam offered to disarm himself from short-range missiles
Saddam started disarming
Saddam declares he will fully disarm
Saddam continues disarming
WHO’s asking for war?
really?
Note: none of these quotes are verbatim, all are paraphrased from Bush’s words and actions
There’s no point on argueing anymore, on the necessity of this war, especially when the decision has been allready taken and nothing I, or anyone else, might say, would change this…
Allthough I think it is a mistake which U.S.A will have to pay a heavy price for… That’s why I’m opposing this war, not because I think Saddam should be given a second chance…
And to those who think they are all victims, and the US is being a bully, well, you are ignorant. There is no simpler way to put it. Have your families been executed by cruel and torturous means? Have you had to live unde the rule of a dictator like Saddam? or do you live in a life where you can sit back, mess with blender and spend all day on elysiun?
I don’t know for the others, but at least, allthough I was pretty young, at the same time, I was old enough to understand things… I can say…
YES!!! I HAVE…
I’ve lived under the rule of a terrible dictator, like Saddam… Only his “excuses” were different…
He said we were like a patient… and “communism” was our illness… He was the doctor… And the treatment was pretty much the same, Saddam is prescribing to his own patients…
He did all he did to save my country, from the “communist” danger…
Most probably U.S. weren’t behind this, but they did nothing to stop him… Nobody helped…
THE STUDENTS ALONE, WITH OUT ANY HELP, KICKED HIS A$$ AND PUT HIM BEHIND BARS!!!
Perhaps Iraq doesn’t have such kind of students… But if it has, you didn’t gave them much time or help…
This war is a mistake… But it can’t be avoided anymore…
At least when this war is over, try to focus on the real problems of the region… If you manage to solve them peacefully, only then, you will no longer have to live under the fear of terrorism…
Spyros.
P.S.: One more time… Just to make things clear, I do not have anything against U.S. or U.S. citizens, many of them I consider as friends… It’s just that I may sound like a dreamer, but I think war, as a solution, has been used too many times and it still has failed to give any “fruits”… Perhaps the “powerfull” of this world should start listening to “dreamers” for once… Perhaps it would make a whole lot of a difference then…
The weapons inspectors found nothing
The weapons inspectors found more nothing
Saddam offered to disarm himself from short-range missiles
Saddam started disarming
Saddam declares he will fully disarm
Saddam continues disarming
WHO’s asking for war?
really?
Note: none of these quotes are verbatim, all are paraphrased from Bush’s words and actions[/quote]
Do you have an intelligence agency? or a spy plane? Or even a little remote controlled helicopter with a camera on it? Or just a big liberal mouth?
I really think Goofster is offering his sympathies to the people, not to the governement.
Martin
I really think Goofster is offering his sympathies to the people, not to the governement.
Martin[/quote]
Amen to that.
let’s make clear that I don’t take Saddam’s side OR Bush’s side, I just don’t like war.
now I don’t want to get in a full blown war discussion here, but there were 100’s of people looking for weapons in Iraq and they did not find anything major…and they didn’t even FRIGGEN finished their work! ARRGH.
anyhoo…good luck to everyone who’s involved in this soon-to-be war in one way or another. as bush said: may <insert religious figure here> be with you.
Roel
With all this talk about how wrong war is… I’m surprised no one is really getting into the fact that we Americans are RESPONSIBLE for this situation in the first place.
Of course Colin Powell knows for a fact that Saddam has very bad weapons… During the 1980’s our government gave Iraq the abilities and know-how to begin the programs which built these weapons of mass destruction… US didn’t want to have oil supplies controlled by Iran… So when Iraq-Iran war began… we realized we could make tons of money by helping Iraq against the evil Iran Empire…
Now… I dont know about you… but as far as the current world situation goes… why are we more afraid of a guy who has tiny little weapons not capable of reaching us… and we just twiddle our thumbs at North Korea and their NUCLEAR arsenal…
I’m not saying we need to destroy North Korea too… but if President Bush is using “logic” (which BTW is a stretch of the imagination) then logic says we must remove the North Korean threat first…
At some point tho… The rest of the world needs to act on this information… Most of the world’s “peace” problems are caused because of American Governments needs to build up foreign governments as “cash registers.” Obviously a people oppressed by democracy in the form of the almighty dollar are going to rebel and use our own technology and weapons against us… but we never learn… not once have we learned the price of war (and dont give me shit talking about Pearl Harbor and WTC)
Ask Britain about the effects of war on a urban setting… Ask France what a country-wide bloody skirmish does to a nation…
Lets not forget… the only reason America was able to become a superpower was because most every European nation was hammered into dust after WWII… We had no competition…
Turn your back on America… Foriegn nations should suspend import and export with us… Let us come to the realization that the planet Earth is not property of US government… Europe and Asia are NOT playgrounds for our rich cocksucker free enterprisers to plunder and control…
This was just a test… had this been an actual rant my country would have jailed me by now.
Lay off of Bush already. I won’t comment on the war, but Bush is no better or no worse than any other world leader. I’ve read the end of the book, and guess what? Most world leaders will put the screws to us. It’s unavoidable. Everyone from Bush to Blair and everyone in between.
In other words, if you’re going to start attacking Bush’s flaws, imagined or otherwise, then start turning your attention to the mistakes of your own leaders, and don’t tell me that they haven’t made any lately, because the simple fact that they’re human and in a position of authority means they’ve made mistakes.
Goofster: just wanted to give a big shoutout to all people in the middle east. our thoughts are with you.
Here here. As an American, I’ll gladly say that both our thoughts AND actions are with you.
luckybreak: our democratic leader said “I will not bend to public opinion”.
Both you and I live in representative democracies. Not mob rule. If some brave judges and executives had not bucked the strongly entrenched, at time violently supported, majority opinion in the late 50’s early 60’s here, the civil rights movement would have been DOA. Popularity of opinion makes it neither right nor wise.
spyros, alltaken, etc.: check out this phenomenal and complicated essay on both the terminology and philosophy of well, of recent events.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-031103A
Timonides: I think war, as a solution, has been used too many times and it still has failed to give any “fruits”
Are you insane, or just very ignorant of history? Wars that have had direct impacts on all of our ability to have a computer on our desk and Blender on our minds, with the accompanying freedom to express ourselves: French Revolution, American Revolution, US Civil War, WWII, the Cold War. This is a war of modernity versus tribalism. The US is on the side of modernity. Our side will win.
Goofster: but there were 100’s of people looking for weapons in Iraq and they did not find anything major
According to the UN resolution, they were not looking for banned weapons. They were supposed to be verifying that Iraq had destroyed those weapons as per the terms of the 1991 cease fire. When that verification became impossible, due to deliberate Iraqi noncompliance, they began another mission for which they were woefully ill-equipped: looking for WMD. Hiding such things is not difficult. BTW, Iraq DOES have those weapons. Reports from the southern front indicate that Iraqi units have been issued chemical shells and have been given the discretion to use them without higher authorization.
SKPJason: Let us come to the realization that the planet Earth is not property of US government
Much of the world’s economy depends upon the fact that nothing is more reliable than a check from the US government. True, all of our economies are interconnected, but to attempt to even think that we are not easily the biggest and most powerful player on the playground is naive silliness. ALL nations act in their own self-interest. Not just the US. It just so happens that we make the biggest waves when we do it.
Timonides (again): I’ve lived under the rule of a terrible dictator, like Saddam…THE STUDENTS ALONE, WITH OUT ANY HELP, KICKED HIS A$$ AND PUT HIM BEHIND BARS
Good for them. Really. But it tells me that the dictator was not like Saddam. Did your dictator have children raped in front of their parents? Did your dictator feed people through a plastic shredder feet first and force others to watch? Did your dictator deliberately grid off small villages and test different kinds of chemical weapons on the different sectors, then send in doctors to see how far kids made it out of their basements before they died in order to evaluate the effectiveness of different nerve agents? Saddam did. Insurrection under his regime was impossible. If yours did, please educate me.
And finally,
Timonides (once again): try to focus on the real problems of the region
The real problem of the region is that no group of people there, save the Israelis have ever had the chance for self-determinative government. This is not a single democracy among them. The Arab nations are ruled, for the most part, by populist thugs. Real thugs. Thugs with secret police forces who kill citizens who publicly disagree with them. Thugs who stone women for showing their faces or who would dare to walk outside without familial male accompaniment. Thugs who… argh. It just couldn’t be any clearer. Give these people a generation away from dictatorship and the purposeful fomenting of ethnic divisions, give them food in the bellies, water in their pipes, a sense that they are free to make of go of working for a better future, give them 127 channels on cable, and all of this will end.
This was way too long. If you read this far, you get a red white and blue cookie. Some people like them, and some people don’t. But in my country, in the world my country will fight for, you’re not obliged to eat that cookie. You can eat a plain one. Or a snickerdoodle. Or a red one with little speckles. But if you live in Iraq, you’d damn well better eat that cookie with Saddam’s smiling face on it, and tell the next guard you see that you really really liked eating the cookie, because if you don’t you just won’t be around the next day. Mmmmm… cookies…
acasto, you are a fool if you do not feel sympathy towards the iraqi people. a little more empathy…imagine the same happened to you. a bunch of arabians, who you’ve never seen in your life start flying plains over your house, dropping napalm and whatnot on your ass!! have the people done anything?!! no! cause theyre much to poor to achieve anything. i think you are being ridiculous. are the russians to blame for the way their country is run? no! they cant help it! the same applies for iraq.
Once again, anti-Bush zeal clouds the truth of the matter.
The bombing will not be on towns, cities, and villages. It will be against military targets. Then when the ground forces arive, the only civilians that will be killed will be the ones that take up arms against the army, at which point they will be considered military personel. In other words, if the Iraqi civilians don’t want to get themselves killed they just need to stay inside until things settle down.
Once again, anti-Bush zeal clouds the truth of the matter.
The bombing will not be on towns, cities, and villages. It will be against military targets. Then when the ground forces arive, the only civilians that will be killed will be the ones that take up arms against the army, at which point they will be considered military personel. In other words, if the Iraqi civilians don’t want to get themselves killed they just need to stay inside until things settle down.[/quote]
its still war, isnt it? i might have exaggerated, but i think you know what i mean…
blendermax: its still war, isnt it? i might have exaggerated, but i think you know what i mean…
Not any kind of war the world is used to seeing. The latest developments in American military technology (last 20 years) allow us to try to do something that NO ONE ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY HAS EVER EVEN BOTHERED TO ATTEMPT. Namely, the minimization of civilian casualties. When innocent people die, we don’t dance in the streets, unlike the populations of several other nations at odds with us right now. We don’t like it. And we have spent billions of dollars to prevent it. It’s not foolproof, but it’s the best attempt EVER made. You’d think we’d get some credit for that.
No. Screw it. Let’s just do what everyone thinks we’ll do. Hell, let’s just turn Iraq into a big reflective surface. And then let’s move onto France, and anyone else who simply doesn’t agree with us. We’ll destroy them.
Oh wait, no we won’t. WE DON’T DO THAT! You can all us imperialistic or powermad or whatever you want, but the facts simply do not bear it out.
If the local school bully brings a gun to the playground, starts waving it around, protesting that he doesn’t have a gun, and won’t listen to reason, what do you do? What will the police do? Try to talk him out of it, but if they get a clear shot, I guarantee you they’ll take it. They might hit a kid. They might not. But they have to try.
Um… you didn’t read his post then. He said he had no sympathy for the Iraq GOVERNMENT.
Well… it does appear that Qatar is close. The revenues from natural gas production (I guess they don’t have much oil) are used for the people. No one pays taxes. Health care is free, utilities are free, and housing is subsidized. The Amir has been changing that country. I believe they now have a parliament. Women have been legally liberated, though I think there’s still work on the cultural aspect. Women can drive, work, go to school, and run for political office. The Amir has been building schools, and inviting American schools to open branches, including a branch of the Cornell Medical School. The Amir has been fervishly working to prepare the country for a real democratic republic. I haven’t been there though, but that’s the way it seems from over here, anyhow.
As far as helping Iraq… right or wrong, the goal was not to help Iraq and Hussein… if we wanted to do that, Iraq would have won that war. The goal was to cause a stalemate, where neither side took too much power, enabling them to completely control the middle east.
Finally on the “inspectors”. I’ll say it again as harkyman did. Their goal is not to find Hussein’s weapons, but to verify their destruction. There are weapons there we know he has/had. Some were found by the previous inspectors, some were admitted to previously by Iraq. By 1441, Iraq was supposed to declare all banned weapons they had or still have. If they no longer had them, they were to show the documents pertaining to their destruction. Iraq did not do that. Iraq was then supposed to actively cooperate in the verification process. Iraq has not done this. The inspectors aren’t supposed to be playing hide and seek with Hussein, he’s supposed to show them so they can either see they were destroyed, or watch them being destroyed. As far as the Al Samud missiles… they were not loaded, and not WMD’s, but they exceeded the UN’s range limit. If you recall, when the inspectors first found them (they shouldn’t have had to… according to 1441 they should have been declared by Iraq), Hussein refused to destroy them. He then changed his mind (as Blair predicted, another delaying game). Of course, then he takes the absolute slowest approach to their destruction. It could have been done within a few days with some explosives, but he decided to take the slow way, 4 today, 6 tomorrow, 5 the next, then take a break for a couple days, etc., destroying them with a bull dozer. When the inspectors wanted U2 overflights, Iraq refused, giving the stupidest argument… that they couldn’t garauntee the U2’s safety because they shoot at all other American and UK planes enforcing the UN’s no-flight zones. Took them a while to get authorization for a chopper to get to their inspection sites more quickly, and it is still believed that the inspector’s offices may be bugged. Gee… how about the interviews? How long have the inspectors been working on getting them to do that? Sure, they’ve had some interviews in-country, some with escourts, but they haven’t had what they asked for… un-escourted interviews outside Iraq… of course, if they do get them, but the families of the interviewees don’t get out too, fat chance for any truth. The fact is the inspectors have found things, and according to 1441 that was not their purpose. Iraq was supposed to delcare them, then actively cooperate with the inspectors to verify their destruction.
Imp