A most excelent retort Loopy !
It turned out, though, that the biggest danger to the chickens came from the chickenhawks.
Loopydude,
Thank you, that was quite entertaining. Unfortunately, you missed the whole point. The fox was there. Saddam was the fox. Granted, he might not have been a super-fox. He didn’t have extra-strong fangs or ability to jump over tall fences in a single bound. In fact, he might have been entirely decrepit bullshitting old fox. Still, the main point is the fox was there. So try to focus on details better next time.
So it’s not a dangerous fox? Maybe it’ll gum a couple hens or crack some eggs occasionally, even though we were sold a bill of goods telling us it was a bionic man-eating fox and the hens were just he beginning? May as well be a rabbit, or a mouse. Semantic bullshit of that sort is irrelevant if you can’t demonstrate threat. Fine, somebody pulled all the foxes teeth. The vet went in, looked in his mouth for five minutes, and didn’t see any. He told farmer bob to keep an eye on the fox, but the village idiot, Georgie, insisted the fox had some impacted wisdom teeth, and swore up and down they’d break through the gums, somehow multiply, and a barnyard armageddon would ensue. Worse, Geogie wouldn’t even wait for the vet to return, he just yelled “Time’s up!”, dashed in with a rocket-launcher, and blew the shit out of the henhouse. “Victory!”, declares Georgie, as the foxes in the woods lick their chops.
This thread is starting to get lost on me.
So that justifies whatever collateral damage may be visited on the country of Iraq, now or in the future, as a result of American occupation? No matter how devastating to the innocent citizens of Iraq, or grievous to the families of American soldiers, or how costly to the American taxpayers, that single outcome, “We got rid of Saddam”, trumps everything? Is there no limit at which even you might say, “My God, what have we done?”
I’m sorry, but millions? Not a freaking chance - unless you’re counting Iraqis killed in the Iran-Iraq war. Last estimate I saw was about 300,000 - 500,00 over 20 years. A definite atrocity, but nowhere near the scale of “millions.” Interestingly, it’s been estimated that over 100,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq - in only 2 years.
Your timeline is seriously wrong. Iraq made huge strides in health care and literacy under the initial leadership of Hussein. Then the infrastructure of the country was completely destroyed during the Persian Gulf War, it couldn’t be rebuilt due to sanctions. Prior to this, Iraq was considered to be a country on the verge of being included in the first world - with one of the most literate and healthy societies around.
I’m not going to say that this excuses Hussein’s brutality or atrocities. He led a corrupt and murderous regime, and I hope he gets what he deserves. But, like most things, his regime was not nearly so bad as you protray it to be.
Look at the booooooones!
Sorry, I shouldn’t joke. This is really sad. It’s not surprising in the least way, but very sad. What’s sadder is that at least 51% of Americans don’t give a fuck.
Wussamatta? Not getting your ass handed to you enough in your own pit thread? Need to be flamed in another? Wheeee!
See, Iraq wasn’t a threat, farmer dunce. As such, wrecking house over there served no purpose, has made Americans unsafe at home and abroad, weakened our global position, encouraged terrorism, etc…
You totally miss the point. There are dozens of pissant rabbits with attitude (vile dictators) out there. Farmer Bob habitually doesn’t give a shit about them. Heck, Farmer Bob’s been known to feed them and give them kicking lessons if it suits his purposes.
Farmer Bob told us that we should believe that Saddam was a fox because he was capable of actually doing some damage (WMD). He wasn’t. He wasn’t a fox. He was a rabbit with attitude.
There is some hope for you Desmostylus
To the rest of you on the left, I have to say that you have no traction mentioning WMD’s so don’t even try, it will only come off as politically motiveted. Why? Because BOTH parties (including Clinton, including Kerry) said that Sadam’s WMD’s were a threat that had to be dealt with, and for that matter much of the world.
Oh, I see the problem! He didn’t have any, Kanicbird! Zip, zilch, nada. I’m sorry, didn’t know you had been living in a cave on Mars, and didn’t hear this. He didn’t have any. There was no threat that had to be dealt with, because he didn’t have any.
Glad to clear that up for you. Didn’t have any (just in case you missed it again).
Oh dear, not the politics gambit. YOU WIN!
My heartfelt congratulations on killing thousands of Iraqis, killing or maiming thousands of our men and women, driving the credibility of the US on the world stage into the cellar, turning Iraq into a terrorist training camp, and swelling the ranks of America haters worldwide. Good show! Carry on. Sorry to have troubled your mind with base politics.
Tell us again who believed it was ok to sacrifice American lives to this quest.
Was it Clinton? Kerry?
I doubt there’s much of Desmo’s post that many of “the rest of us on the left” disagree with. Personally I disagree with none of it. Given that, I am interested in why you think that there is some hope for Desmo but (I take it) not for the rest of us.
I suspect you find his post less displeasing because he bothers to spell out for the terminally thick that just because he thinks that the war was unjustified, he doesn’t fail to recognize that in principle removing vicious dictators is a good thing and that terrorists are assholes. Certainly it seems to be a feature of debates on this topic that unless you state that very clearly, any sort of dissent in relation to the war overall will be taken by a number of mentally deficient hawks on these boards (and elsewhere) as confirmation that you love Saddam and want to give OBL a big smoochy kiss. An assumption that is devoid of logic and highly offensive.
Fuck off. Myself and any number of people on these boards were always skeptical that there were any WMD’s, or (at the very least) always of the view that there was so much doubt that the WMD’s existed and/or presented any real threat that war was not justified. Don’t try some dumbass attempt to disentitle me from a particular topic on the basis that you got it wrong.
Particularly when you probably got it wrong because when people tried to tell you you were getting it wrong you put your hands over your ears and shouted “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!”
And even more so because to the extent that many had it wrong about WMD’s that is because they were consistently lied to by the Bush administration that you support. Your position is like that of a fraudster saying that his victim’s loss is their fault because they believed his lies.
Did Clinton invade? Our problem is the manner in which BUSH choose to act on this supposed threat. When I saw Powell’s pitiful presentation at the UN I knew we had nothing. We can’t say what Kerry would have done, but we can tell you that in all of 8 years Clinton didn’t invade, that’s a fact. I’m pissed because I don’t feel like we exhausted every avenue before invading. Hell, we should have waited just for the fact that we would have gotten additional credibility with the war. We should have payed lip service to the security council and said what do you want? 60 days? 90 days? IIRC France and Germany put something on the table for 60 more days, then go do what you have to do.
The fact is a shitload of people were wrong about his WMD capability, but SHITLOADS (hmmmm say France) were correct. Personally I think we need to own up to this fiasco, it would go a long way in rejoining the civilized world. Instead, like a stubborn 6 year old we insist we did the right thing when it flies in the face of logic and reason. We’re dumping money into an expensive shithole that is going to devolve into civil war the second we pull out. While doing this, we’ve pissed off the world, created a new generation of terrorists, and placed ourselves at increased risk.
It’s like paying someone $100 billion to punch us in the face.
I’ll add that I think we were in a rush to get in because their summer was fast approaching.
Poland, like many other ‘coalition’ countries, are giving in to public pressure and withdrawing their troops. So, is it soon to be ‘Poland - they support the terrorists!’
whenever Poland is mentioned by Bush??
If some people don’t want to believe the photos - perhaps they would prefer this interview with a US soldier who was there
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20935/
What does the code of honor now require of the US military?