You misunderstand me. We, the general public, were conned, we fell for all the bullcrap about WMD in Iraq. Blair and his cronies probably knew it was a load of bollocks from the word go.
I know it’s hindsight, but how the fuck did we fall for all that twaddle in light of what we’ve learned since
[QUOTE=chowder]
You misunderstand me. We, the general public, were conned, we fell for all the bullcrap about WMD in Iraq. Blair and his cronies probably knew it was a load of bollocks from the word go.
[/QUOTE]
There was a large minority of the population who thought that the threat of an Iraqi attack against the U.S. was laughable, even if they had had large stockpiles of WMD at the ready. There was indeed manufactured evidence regarding the WMD issue, but the bogus Iraq-Al Qaeda link was put to rest immediately.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Garbage. You are just hoping that I’m actually stupid enough to rush out and get myself beaten up or jailed or killed. None of your proposed actions on my part would have any other effect than that. Except for leaving the country, which would be rather pointless, unless you are aware of the address of some Utopia that agrees with me in all ways - since that appears to be the standard you think I’m supposed to aspire to. And you’ve yet to explain why “walking the walk” means doing what YOU want me to do.
[/QUOTE]
My goal isn’t necessarily to put yourself in physical harm, though you might learn a lesson through those means that you seem unable to have learned otherwise. My goal is to have you spew your offensive stupidity face to face with people who this war has touched more than you, and you have to explain yourself as you look into their eyes. That’s why I mentioned the Bingo tournament. But I guess one of those old ladies could have a cane.
As far as walking the walk, that’s in opposition to continuously yammering away anonymously on a message board. I identified things that would allow your actions to be in concert with the nonsense you spew. Their suggestions. Don’t like 'em, fine, come up with your own. But come up with some actions that are of the same level of extreme as your hate-filled words. So, come on, big mouth, what will it be?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And making obscenities out of my name is so grade school.
[/QUOTE]
Intentionally, Shithead. On par with your ignorant sophmoronic rantings. (Yeah, a new word I coined just for you.)
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
You wish death on the Iraqis by “supporting the troops.”
[/QUOTE]
In fact, that’s the elephant in the living room you and your fellow monsters are ignoring. You support the troops, you support the slaughter of innocent Iraqis. And all your whining about how terrible and evil I am for wanting an invading army destroyed is worse than hypocrisy. You want the invader’s victims killed instead.
Sheeze, you’re an idiot. I don’t wish death on any innocent person. I’d even prefer that the non-innocents simply change their behavior and not become another statistic. But let’s look into your fetid brain. What do you mean by me and my “fellow monsters”? It seems that you are of the belief that anyone who does not advocate immediate withdrawal is “a monster”. Is that right? If not, please elaborate.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Pretty damned small risk. It’s the Iraqis who are dying right and left. And the American soldiers in Iraq are unworthy of compassion anyway.
[/QUOTE]
Small risk? Really? Well, why don’t you share what you consider a small risk? I’ll let you choose your own site and find the numbers you want to stand by as supportive of a “damned small risk”. and since the Iraqis are dying “right and left”, I’ll ask you for a cite in support of that assessment. One that looks at the percent of Iraqis killed or wounded and the percent of U.S. soldiers killed or wounded. In advance, I feel the need to ask that you endeavor to show some intellectual honesty and choose cites that their is consensus on.
And thanks for stipulating that this whole exercise might indeed by moot because a kid who loses a leg in an effort to learn some skills and go to college who wouldn’t otherwise have the chance is unworthy of compassion.
You know, it dawns on me that you must have had an extraordinary upbringing. Your parents should be prosecuted for the horrors they must have visited upon you.
[QUOTE=DMC]
How in the hell do you know what he does to combat the issues? He could be protesting, writing letters to his congressmen, discussing the issue with others, etc. or he could even just vote, which is one of the traditional ways we fix things here.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t. But the point is that based on the extreme degree of his ranting it would not be enough. It would not be commensurate with his level of passion (hate) on the subject. If you or most of the others who advocate a quick exit from Iraq were to do those things, that would be logical. Your words and deeds would be in concert in both direction and degree.
[QUOTE=DMC]
Also, he doesn’t wish death on soldiers because they are soldiers, nor because they are American. He wishes death on them because they are killing innocent people in a war that never should have happened.
[/QUOTE]
If this is true it merely compounds his stupidity and shows how childish his thinking is. So let’s have all our soldiers die because I don’t like what they’re doing today. “What’s that, someone is making a move against us on our soil? Want to go put an end to the genocide in Darfur? Well, let’s just send in our—oh wait, never mind.”
[QUOTE=DMC]
With that said, I AM disappointed that more don’t put themselves at risk and go against their superiors. I’d like to think that I would, but I can’t know for sure as I wasn’t in that situation.
[/QUOTE]
I appreciate your honesty here. As far as to whether we should have more or fewer soldiers challenging their officers, it’s hard for me to have an opinion. If they’ve been asked to do something illegal or outside the military code of conduct, I wish they would challenge each and every one of those orders. Barring that, I hope for the fewest challenges to the chain of command as possible, as it degrades the effectiveness of the organization.
[QUOTE=DMC]
The only people actually defending their country in this mess are the “insurgents” in Iraq, so can I assume you support them?
[/QUOTE]
Your question eliminates any possible justification for a preemptive war (but let’s not have a hijack). That said, as far as the insurgents, they do not have my support. I will make a distinction between those who target foreign forces and those who target innocents. The latter are the scum of the earth and deserve no sympathy or restraint. The former I can understand. I do wish they’d also understand that they are not helping this come to a peaceful resolution. Which for some, is the objective.
[QUOTE=DMC]
In fact, if they are wrong, I reserve the right to join in chastising him, as I see fit.
[/QUOTE]
I wait with bated breath. 
[QUOTE=DMC]
There was a large minority of the population who thought that the threat of an Iraqi attack against the U.S. was laughable, even if they had had large stockpiles of WMD at the ready. There was indeed manufactured evidence regarding the WMD issue, but the bogus Iraq-Al Qaeda link was put to rest immediately.
[/QUOTE]
Large? I don’t know of anyone who thought Iraq was going to attack the U.S. The more realistic danger was that Saddam or someone in his government either sympathetic to Islamic extremists or wanted to see further damage done to the U.S. (or The West at large), or maybe wanted to just make a quick buck would give WMDs to these groups. And whether or not there was any operational connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is beside the point. (For the record, I don’t think there was.) The common cause could simply have been damage to the U.S., or West, or the oldest reason in the world: a quick buck.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Large? I don’t know of anyone who thought Iraq was going to attack the U.S. The more realistic danger was that Saddam or someone in his government either sympathetic to Islamic extremists or wanted to see further damage done to the U.S. (or The West at large), or maybe wanted to just make a quick buck would give WMDs to these groups. And whether or not there was any operational connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is beside the point. (For the record, I don’t think there was.) The common cause could simply have been damage to the U.S., or West, or the oldest reason in the world: a quick buck.
[/QUOTE]
And that is it in a nutshell. Why we are over there.
The failures of this war are manifold, and I didn’t agree with how we conducted it at the outset and I still don’t.
But I agreed with the reasoning behind it, which is bolded above. You have to remember that this was the thinking after we, you know, actually WERE attacked by terrorists on a grand scale in NYC in 2001.
There was never any Al Qaeda connection, it was the fear of Saddam having weapons that we knew he had giving or selling them to a group that would use them against us here at home in the wake of 9/11.
[QUOTE=FoieGrasIsEvil]
And that is it in a nutshell. Why we are over there.
The failures of this war are manifold, and I didn’t agree with how we conducted it at the outset and I still don’t.
But I agreed with the reasoning behind it, which is bolded above. You have to remember that this was the thinking after we, you know, actually WERE attacked by terrorists on a grand scale in NYC in 2001.
[/QUOTE]
I remember quite vividly, which is why I, and many others who think attacking Iraq was the stupidest fucking thing in the world, were fine with our intentions in Afghanistan, whose government actually supported the, you know, terrorists who actually WERE the ones who attacked NYC on a grand scale in 2001. Can we stop with the stupid-assed “Iraq…9/11” shit? There was zero evidence that Iraq had any intentions of using WMD against us, either directly, or via proxy. There is zero evidence that Iraq had even the slightest sliver of involvement in 9/11. Zero. Feel free to demonstrate evidence to the contrary. Hell, Saudi Arabia had far more of a connection to those who attacked us than Iraq did, but we didn’t seem to want to go after the House of Saud. Why do you supposed that is?
While I consider this horseshit, believed at this point only by the most gullible of sheep, you’d think that those who claimed to believe it would at least have pretended to care about finding the WMD and locking them down once that was done. Why didn’t they do so?
What’s with all the Iraq v US crap? Last I checked, we were fighting along side Iraq, not against it. We are joined with Iraqis fighting insurgents, domestic terrorists, and power hungry extremists in their own country. We haven’t been fighting Iraq since 2003.
The US led coalition, Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police, Sons of Iraq and other awakening groups are working together to stabilize the nation. Where’s the racism in that? Sounds like the exact opposite of racism to me.
[QUOTE=Bear_Nenno]
What’s with all the Iraq v US crap? Last I checked, we were fighting along side Iraq, not against it. We are joined with Iraqis fighting insurgents, domestic terrorists, and power hungry extremists in their own country. We haven’t been fighting Iraq since 2003.
[/QUOTE]
I would suggest that it could be said you are both fighting with Iraq and against it. Alongside Iraqis and against them.
I suppose it depends on how you define “Iraq”, really. Is it a sum of the people that live there? Is it conceptualized entirely in the government and governmental figures?
I would imagine the racism part comes from the whole “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” part, but that’s just my take on it.
Oh I hear ya.
But if one were so inclined to wish the immediate death of the entire coalition force, he’d be killing more Iraqis than he’d like to admit. He would be killing off the entire Iraqi Army, its police, and thousands of its concerned citizens. Sort of counter productive when you’re mad that too many Iraqis are dying at the hand of Americans.
You can’t just kill all the Americans, Brits, and Aussies and leave the Iraqis. It’s all one team.
[QUOTE=Bear_Nenno]
Oh I hear ya.
But if one were so inclined to wish the immediate death of the entire coalition force, he’d be killing more Iraqis than he’d like to admit. He would be killing off the entire Iraqi Army, its police, and thousands of its concerned citizens. Sort of counter productive when you’re mad that too many Iraqis are dying at the hand of Americans.
You can’t just kill all the Americans, Brits, and Aussies and leave the Iraqis. It’s all one team.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, this is true. I didn’t realise you were disagreeing with a particular person.
[QUOTE=Bear_Nenno]
Oh I hear ya.
But if one were so inclined to wish the immediate death of the entire coalition force, he’d be killing more Iraqis than he’d like to admit. He would be killing off the entire Iraqi Army, its police, and thousands of its concerned citizens. Sort of counter productive when you’re mad that too many Iraqis are dying at the hand of Americans.
You can’t just kill all the Americans, Brits, and Aussies and leave the Iraqis. It’s all one team.
[/QUOTE]
Great point. Doubt the imbecile has thought things through enough to realize that his wish would kill a few hundred thousand or so Iraqis. And he calls our soldiers monsters..