Explain your position on this matter.
By the way, I wanted to post a poll on this, what happened to the poll option?
I think that getting rid of Soddom(SP) is a good thing.
Soddom(SP?)is a sociopath. His only goal is to have power. He has no problem with killing people. It is a well known fact that he killed his way into power. He has no guilt with killing people who disagree with him. He used chemical weapons on his own country. He will kill anyone who disagrees with him. He will also work attack the US if he can.
He needs to die.
Slee
No. This would not be a “war.” This would be an unprovoked attack on another country. This is illegal under international law. This is why Bush & Co. want nothing to do with the International Criminal Court.
This nation of “Christians” of ours has its collective head in the sand. People in the US are the most ignorant and unsophisticated the world has ever known. Their source of information is strictly the US propaganda machine. They have zero idea of the world ouside their borders.
People in the US should ask themselves why world public opinion is overwhelmingly against a US attack on Iraq. This includes the governments of all Nato countries, excluding Britian, and the Arab League.
I agree with galen, and thank you for having the courage to say it! “Getting rid of” Saddam does not a proper war make. All this talk about ‘pre-emptive action’ is just a cover for what amounts to the bully on the playground beating up who he can. We can’t flout international law, or it will come back to haunt us.
The USA attacking Iraq smells a lot like Bush trying to improve his approval ratings for the next election, so no they shouldn’t attack.
No one has stated how, exactly, we’re going to replace Hussein IF we manage to find the bastard. Remember Osama bin Laden, dead or alive? Yea, neither does the rest of the Oprah-watching population. So we find him and shoot him, what then? Another debacle like Afghanistan?
I also agree with galen.
We’re the United States. We’re supposed to be the good guys. We’re not supposed to throw our weight around. Fair, honest people don’t do that. We’re supposed to be slow to anger. We’re supposed to only use force when there is absolutely no other option and we’re forced into it.
We used to go on and on about how wrong it is for powerful countries (such as the USSR) to engage in military operations in other countries. (Even though we would do the same.) Now we’re the ones who want to invade another country.
Iraq would be better off with a different leader. As sleestak said, Saddam is an evil person who gasses his own people. But it’s not our place to invade his country. We promised the Kurds that we would back them up if they rose up in revolution. Well, we lied. We should have backed up our promise. If we want to “free” Iraq, then we should let the people who live there do it. Help them out if they ask for help, but let them do it.
I know “we” are worried that Saddam might make a nuclear or biological weapon and use it in the U.S. But the U.S. is not, in my opinion, a nation that uses “First Strike”. Good guys don’t do that.
In my opinion, Bush is a blithering idiot who can’t string words together to make a coherent sentence. And he wants to lead us into war? To finish his daddy’s work? The man is going to start WWIII. To me, he sounds like someone who wants to bring on the Apocalypse so that the biblical prophesies can be fulfilled and all of the Righteous can dwell in the kingdom of heaven for ever and ever amen. Dubya is a scary, scary man.
So, no; I don’t think we should invade Iraq. I think we should work through the United Nations to resolve the situation diplomatically. We can always use force later if we are forced to do so (for example, if Saddam attacks the U.S. or our allies first); but if you start out with bloodshed, where do you go from there?
(Geez, that turned into a rant. Sorry if I’ve made an ass of myself.)
Magickly Delicious, from dictionary.com:
bully:
A person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people
It must be nice to so easily fit the USA into this definition. Personally, I’d equate this more to the SWAT sniper waiting for a clear shot to take down a bankrobber who’s taken hostages.
But then, I’m a bit biased in this matter.
We did convince the people in Iraq that we’d help them. They rose up after the Gulf War. We turned our back on them. If the U.S. goes ahead with this unilaterally, expect a lot more terrorist-type attacks and a lot less global sympathy.
I used to think we should attack, now I’m not so sure.
I think it’s silly that we are mulling a pre-emptive against him, on the slim chance he would attack us. By that logic, he would justified in pre-emptively attacking us, as we’ve made it clear we intend to wipe him off the face of the earth.
And if we want to take it back, we’d all probably be dead, because we would’ve been justified in attacking the USSR (and they would’ve been justified in attacking us) because they just might attack us. And the USSR actually HAD nuclear warheads. THOUSANDS of them. It’s funny that this entire first strike doctrine relies entirely on “because we say so.”
Yea, Saddam may be looking for nuclear weapons. So’s every country in the world. Pakistan and India and their nukes are far, far more likely to use theirs at the moment.
Yes. There is I believe enough evidence that Saddam assisted Al Queda in sept 11th. Also, Saddam with Nukes would be a major destabilizing factor in the region, because we know from previous actions that he would be willing to use them in a military support manner, and even if he wouldn’t use them directly, he would use them as a form of blackmail to support his expansionism.
and galen, nope, we want nothing to do with the ‘international court’ because it impinges on our sovernity, and is not recognised as a binding court by the Constitution, nor does the court recognise the Constitution in turn.
I’d vote “no”. 
Hey, if I thought that he was trying to bring about the Kingdom of God, I’d help him. Too bad what he’s really trying to do is to improve his approval ratings, satisfy is edipous(sp?) complex, and distract us all from the fact that he’s one of the worst presidents in our history. I hated Clinton, but at least he managed to appear intelligent and presidential once in a while.
I agree with World Eater in that you can’t justify attacking Iraq based on the chance that he might attack us one day. That rationale could be applied to most of the nations on earth.
Bush is willing to start a war, even if it turns the United States into a pariah nation, and that scares me. He doesn’t support the International Court because he might end up before it one day.
This whole thing sorta blows my mind. Whether or not the US wants to get rid of Saddam it doesn’t need to be couched like that. Why not just say recent world events makes it imperative that we enforce the U.N. inspections which until now have been lax , something we have every right to do. Why talk about going to war. Why not just say that we will be inspecting as the treaty allows for and if we are stopped we will do whatever is necessary to allow the UN inspectors access.
I say absolutely no. There’s no proof he was involved in the Sept 11 attacks, and people in the west have been bleating since the first gulf war that he’s months away from making nuclear weapons. Since he poses no immediate threat to the west, they have no justification under international law to attack him.
Therefore, if we are to attack him, that means we will probably be acting in contravention of international law and without a U.N. mandate. The democracies of the west are founded on the basis of freedom and the rule of law. That means that no matter how undesireable someone is considered, be they criminal, agitator, critic or revolutionary, we cannot break our own rules to try and attack them.
And that’s ignoring the numerous practical issues. Like, does the west want a fundamentalist Islamic republic in Iraq? Would another Taliban be better than Saddam? If we attack, would he be able to accelerate his weapons program or kill large numbers of Kurds before he was defeated?
Favorite quote time:
(A Man for All Seasons)
I think this is a bad, BAD idea.
I recall one (of several) of the reasons the 7/11 attacks are thought to have happened in the first place was because the U.S. government was throwing it’s weight around in the oil-rich regions with little to no regard for the native peoples of this area. I fear that an unprovoked attack would encourage more terrorism. Let’s say we go in, wipe out Saddam & Co. and install a freindly government. How is that going to sit with the natives? The newscasts I’ve seen say that the people of Iraq are fairly satisfied with their leader. It’s just the U.S. that wants him out of there. Why?
We are being told that there is evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I will say I totally, emphatically support unrestricted U.N. weapons inspections to make it clear what they have and what they don’t. And while we’re talking about it, don’t plenty of countries have some form of mass destruction weapons? Let’s be aware the the most recent, horrible attack the U.S. suffered was NOT from an ICBM.
Forgive my lack of blind trust in my president, but I have a hard time ignoring that the last time we found ourselves at odds with Iraq, it was with our current president’s dad leading the way. Please correct me if I’m wrong (honestly), but doesn’t the Bush family owe a lot of their wealth due to the oil industry? I have this sneaking feeling that our president has an agenda beyond “Keeping the world safe from those who would threaten our FREEDOM!”
Lone remaining superpower or not, I don’t see a bright future for the U.S. if the administration continues to insist on unilateral agressions that are at odds with the rest of the world.
Attack Saddam because he is advocating international terrorism?
And a war is not such a big danger to innocent people?
OK…I am biased too, living in a country that is a bordering neighbor to Iraq…but come to tghink of it.
We have had a major terrorist organisation operating within our border, and these guys killed about 30,000 people in 15 years. We had concrete proof that these guys had training camps in Iraq, Syria and Iran, but nobody in the world considered declaring war on these countries at the period.
The problem now seems solved, due to a very skilled anti gueriila operation, played with the same rules as the terrorists themselves.
Declaring war on a country, and wipin it off the map is no solution to terrorism.
Experience hath speaketh!!
Soverneignity:
a: supreme power especially over a body politic
b: freedom from external control: AUTONOMY
c: controlling influence
Yeah, it’s great to be sovereign…
To not have to answer to anybody whether or not we commit a crime.
To throw our weight around with impunity.
To be the boss of everybody else.
But is that fair to the other nations that we share this planet with?
A war with Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States. I expect Iran will end up controlling much of Iraq after we overthrough the Baath party.
This thread belongs in great debates.