"Even dolls were buried with the children"

[hawthorne]

I’m glad you informed me about the lion cubs, december. Shocking. That alone would surely be a sufficient bureaucractic pretext for an invasion.

[minty_green]

Plus, he had really bad taste in art.

[mazirian]

*Originally posted by ammo52 *
But for the “sideline” players who sat this one out, and sit EVERY one out ( Wonder how long the Iraqis would have had to wait on being liberated by the Finns, just to pick an example… Maybe mazirian can shed further light on that scenario), any chance to spin this as a black eye for the coalition must be seized.

This may come as a suprise to you, but I supported this war. I’m just tired of this sanctimonious bullshit about protecting human rights and liberating the poor people of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had to go and as a former sponsor, the US was perhaps even obliged to remove him. It’s just realpolitik, not a mission from God.

And since you Americans love to remind us Europeans how you liberated us in WWII, I invite you to study little bit of history called the the Winter War. Cost of “Liberation”: 430,000 dead, Cost of Peace: 10% of our country, Net Worth of Promises by a Superpower: Jack and Shit.

[elfje]

*Originally posted by december *
**Dozens of mass graves have been uncovered all over Iraq since Saddam’s ouster, but this report of a mass grave containing the remains of 200 Kurdish children has a special horror. It’s a reminder that regardless of the number of WMDs we ever find, overthrowing Saddam was a good thing to do. **

you conveniently forget that a lot of those massgraves were the direct result of the popular uprising by the shia majority in Iraq and the slaying of them by Saddam’s troops.
Oh, and who was it again that urged those people to stand up to Saddam? And then consequently pulled out his troops?

Bush Snr?

or was that all just a bad dream?

[elfje]

*Originally posted by december *
**You’re close. It was actually lion cubs that were mistreated. http://hotnews.lycosasia.com/worldnews/7000087622_C.html **

I have yet to find **any[/] zoo or cage that is suitable for lions.

Saddam’s not the only one that mistreats and tortures animals.

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by SimonX *
**What’s better doing something worthwhile in a less-than-ideal way, or doing something in an ideal way? **

Funny, how this question never gets answered by the likes of december… they’re aleways quick to bring up the “do nothing/do something” dichotomy (a flase one, in this case), but when it’s pointed out that there were better ways to “do something,” the only response is silence.

Yes, the Bush Administration sure “did something”… it started a war under false pretences. The fact that that war had had good results in Iraq thus far does not change the fact that the war was started through deception, obfuscation, and what was most politically expedient at the time. I do not accept that the war was “just,” when such tactics are used to justify it.

[Tranquilis]

This wouldn’t be the first time a Good Thing was done for the Wrong Reasons. Whether or not the reasons were actually wrong remains to be seen, but the Good Thing will remain.

shrug

When America does it, it’s wrong. When any other nation does it, well, no one but the parties directly involved seem to even notice, even though it’s still wrong.

And that’s just how the world is.
So be it.

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by Tranquilis *
When America does it, it’s wrong. When any other nation does it, well, no one but the parties directly involved seem to even notice, even though it’s still wrong.

For what it’s worth, I often notice. The difference is, I live in America, and America is the nation that, as a citizen, I have the right to call for change. I don’t have that right for countries where I do not live, most of which I’ve never even set foot in.

*Originally posted by Tranquilis *
**And that’s just how the world is.
So be it. **

That might be how the world is… that doesn’t have to be how America is.

[december]

*Originally posted by Avalonian *

** Originally posted by SimonX
What’s better doing something worthwhile in a less-than-ideal way, or doing something in an ideal way?**

Funny, how this question never gets answered by the likes of december

Coincidentally Thomas Sowell addressed this very point in his latest column.

The point here is that a wholly fictitious India has been created by the intelligentsia and used for too long to make the United States look bad by comparison. The same was true of the Soviet Union during the worst years of Stalin, China during the butcheries of Mao and now Cuba under the brutal dictatorship of Fidel Castro…

No society of human beings has ever been Utopia. But virtually everything that has been criticized in the United States has been worse elsewhere. By sheer repetition, slavery has been depicted as something peculiar to this country or to Western civilization, when in fact slavery has existed on every inhabited continent, as far back as history has been recorded…

The key to the denigrators is that they do not compare the United States to other countries but to the Utopia in their imagination. Those who do this seem not to understand that it was the attempt to create political heaven in the 20th century that led to the unprecedented hell of totalitarianism.

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by december *
**Coincidentally Thomas Sowell addressed this very point in his latest column. **

“Yeah, but it’s so much worse elsewhere!” And the question of why the United States can’t do better remains… unanswered!

Color me surprised. :wally

[Shodan]

…to thoroughly scour Iraq for more conclusive WMD evidence – which, oddly enough, seemed to require an almost endless patience when it was UN inspectors doing the looking, but now that it’s American soldiers, everybody’s got an eye on their stopwatches …

An excellent point, ammos52 - welcome to the SDMB.

Regards,
Shodan

[Ben_Hicks]

ammo52
…to thoroughly scour Iraq for more conclusive WMD evidence – which, oddly enough, seemed to require an almost endless patience when it was UN inspectors doing the looking, but now that it’s American soldiers, everybody’s got an eye on their stopwatches …

The UN inspectors were pulled out in 1998. They were brought back in the run up to the war. They were given just under two months to complete their task. The US Government deemed that they had had enough time and invaded anyway. Now the US Government is searching instead and so far they’ve had just over two months. They have found nothing. By the same standard as they gave the weapons inspectors, they have had enough time and should come clean to the fact that they lied to the world to wage a war for wholly different reasons (hegemony & oil, presumably).

[light_strand]

Which Shodan, compels me to ask, why the endless patience when American soldiers are looking, but none when UN was?

Is it that you were itching for a good war to watch?

Is it unfair for the US populace to question the existantace of the “tons and tons” of WMD aimed at Israel, and Suadi Arabia, as an immenent threat for the US and our Allies?

Why all of a sudden do you have the patience of a saint when it comes to finding them. We supposedly had the intelligence reports that told us exactly what they had, and where it was hidden. So precise was our intelligence that we couldn’t even turn it over to the inspectors, because it was super-double-extra-top secret.

Is it possible for you to admit that you were duped?

This amuses me:

I have said it before, but I will repeat - my objections to the US acting as the world’s policeman are practical, not moral. If we could overthrow every tinpot dictator on earth as quickly as we did Saddam, we would be almost morally compelled to do it.

I take this to mean that you supported Clinton in Haiti, Bush Sr. in Somalia, are hopeful that the US goes into Congo, are chomping at the bit for the invasion of Zimbabwe, and are still lamenting the lack of US action in Rwanda.

[PatriotX]

If not for the spectre of chemical and biological weapons and the al Qaida link, we could’ve waited to build a stronger coalition along the lines of what Bush I suggested earlier this year.

[mazirian]

…to thoroughly scour Iraq for more conclusive WMD evidence – which, oddly enough, seemed to require an almost endless patience when it was UN inspectors doing the looking, but now that it’s American soldiers, everybody’s got an eye on their stopwatches …
An excellent point, ammos52 - welcome to the SDMB.

Perhaps because the Bush administration claimed a detailed knowledge of their numbers, capabilities and locations. Or is the failure to find them as fast as promised just standard military incompetence? I think not.

One wonders what happened to those suspected WMD sites, which Colin Powell exposed in his little slideshow? Why weren’t they secured by special forces immediately when the war started? With obvious air superiority, satellite surveillance and a real threat of those “45 minutes to launch” WMDs, I’d thought these would have been an easy top priority target.

[Marley23]

I’m stunned. Thanks, december. My opposition to this war was based on the fact that I thought Saddam Hussein was a wonderful, cheerful, charming guy and a fair-minded President. Now that I’ve realized the truth, of course I agree with you.

This isn’t a debate, it’s another attempt at a polemic. Do you just enjoy making people angry at you?

[december]

*Originally posted by Marley23 *
** Do you just enjoy making people angry at you? **

It’s an honor to be resented by people who complain about Saddam being taken out of power.

Here’s a report from an observer in Iraq about ecological damage, which hopefully can be remedied.

I am in Irbil in Kurdistan northern Iraq. Someone explained the history of this place to me today. The mountains here are bare and devoid of trees. They used be forested. Covered with trees. There used to be so many trees in Irbil that you couldn’t see around corners. Now it looks like Kansas or really more like parts of Montana.

The reason is that Saddam cut down all of the trees in Kurdistan in 1988. He bulldozed 4000 of the 5000 villages in Kurdistan and the Kurds ran to the mountains for safety, so he cut down all of the trees on these mountains and killed all of the game, so that the Kurds would have no wood for fires and no food to eat. He was incredibly effective. The Kurds are now replanting the trees. You can see hundreds of tiny trees if you look closely at the mountains. I didn’t notice them until they were pointed out to me. In Kirkuk they found a mass grave of Kurdish children. One of the U.N. guys offered to take us out and show it to us. I haven’t taken him up on it. I have no reason to go there and I feel like it would be disrespectful to go and gawk. I guess some of the children were buried with their toys and dolls.

It makes me sick everytime I surf the net and see all these people in Europe and back home saying that the war was not justified because we haven’t found 50 tons of sarin gas yet. I wish those people would come to this country and look at ruined villages between here and Kirkuk and the bare mountains. Anyone who protested against this war and defended Saddam ought to be ashamed of themselves. Its just unimaginable the things that went on here.

Marley23
I’m stunned. Thanks, december. My opposition to this war was based on the fact that I thought Saddam Hussein was a wonderful, cheerful, charming guy and a fair-minded President. Now that I’ve realized the truth, of course I agree with you.

This POV seems to be shared by Hawthorne and minty green. ISTM it’s a way of saying, “I’ve chosen to be in denial about Saddam’s evil. So, you ought to be in denial too. I resent your asking me to face facts.”

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by december *
**This POV seems to be shared by Hawthorne and minty green. ISTM it’s a way of saying, “I’ve chosen to be in denial about Saddam’s evil. So, you ought to be in denial too. I resent your asking me to face facts.” **

laughs Your sarcasm-meter is on the fritz again, december. You’ve been seriously whooshed.

[Marley23]

December, I hope you don’t swim often - you’d probably sink due to your great density.

It’s an honor to be resented by people who complain about Saddam being taken out of power.

It’s an honor to be irritating to people who think that’s what the complaint was about. Nobody whose opinion is worth anything will miss Saddam. The destruction to the country and the number of people killed (certainly in the thousands but probably unknowable), on the other hand, are going to be lamented by a lot of people.

[mazirian]

*Originally posted by december *
It’s an honor to be resented by people who complain about Saddam being taken out of power.

Here’s a report from an observer in Iraq about ecological damage, which hopefully can be remedied.This POV seems to be shared by Hawthorne and minty green. ISTM it’s a way of saying, “I’ve chosen to be in denial about Saddam’s evil. So, you ought to be in denial too. I resent your asking me to face facts.”

Is it an honor to be resented by people who complain that he was taken out only after years of Reagan-Bush support? I’m sure the Israelis would have loved to get rid of the homocidal fucker much earlier, before he started to shoot them with SCUDs.