Please try to remember that the prisoners that were “leashed and ridiculed” were, for the most part, the innocent Iraqis that we went over there to liberate in the first place. They were not the terrorists! The same is true for the prisoners that were sexually assaulted, attacked with dogs, deprived of sleep and tortured in ways that we don’t even know about yet.
Also, since when have the real terrorists (such as those who killed Nick Berg) ever needed an excuse to kill someone?
choie, your post spells it out – if only they will take the time to read and remember.
A terrorist network is a bit like a hydra. Cut off a head, and another will replace it. If we killed Osama bin Laden tomorrow, someone would replace him. And sleeper cells are quite capable of acting independently, even if we somehow managed to take out the entire Al Qaeda chain of command in one fell swoop.
Living in poverty under corrupt and incompetent governments is hardly unique to the Arab world. How about North Korea, for starters? Or China, for that matter? Is it the responsibility of the US to deopse every corrupt world government? When the US has tried to meddle in the affairs of other countries’ leaderships, the results have been less than good. Chile , for example.
You seem to think that all Arabs hate all Anglos. Even if they do; it hasn’t stopped Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive fundamentalist regimes in the modern world, from selling us oil Hell, we were Good Buddies with Iraq up until they decided to take over Kuwait. And how about those United Arab Emirates? According to the CIA World Factbook , they don’t seem to be doing that bad. A million cell phones in a population of about three million doesn’t sound too shabby. These countries clearly don’t need a “global welfare program”, they need to be able to trade without sanctions. Whether they hate us or not, our money is still good, and it’s not good business policy to kill customers.
Israel should give back the land they took from the Palestinians. I’m sure even if they did that, they’ still wouldn’t be well liked. However, Israel is quite capable of defending itself. Hell, they took the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights and West Bank in six days. Ever heard of the Six Days War? Yeah, that was the one.
I resemble that remark! Couldn’t it be possible that perhaps the things I said were things I thought up all by myself?
I’m glad to hear that, but I’m afraid you need to calm down, dear. Where did I seem to indicate that you (or anyone) didn’t know terrorists were bad.
Again, you really need to calm down. You’ve lost perspective. The Post editorial was talking about terrorists, not Iraq, nor Iraqis in general. It suggested less concern with the feelings of Iraqis in the pursuit of terrorists, I grant you, and that if necessary we mount a full-scale military action against the terrorist elements in Iraq, but nowhere did it mention war *with * Iraq. Besides, so far as I know there is no Iraq, as a military entity, to go to war with.
I realize that you are using somewhat of a scattergun approach here, but where did I ever indicate that Iraq had anything to do with 9-11? I will say however, that I don’t see it as much of a stretch that there was certainly a synergy between Iraq and al-Qaeda. They are both U.S.-hating Arab entities, both believe in terrorism (I’ve brought this up several times and it always disappears into the ether – but Iraq was offering, in advance, to pay the families of suicide bombers so they wouldn’t be hindered from killing Israelis because of family financial concerns. This is all I need to decide they embrace terrorism.), and Iraq was believed by the U.N., Europe, all of its neighbor nations and the U.S. to harbor, or at least to be trying to develop WMD, and given its willingness to use WMDs against its own people and against Iran, and the fact that it was trying to buy technology from France, Russia, China, et al., certainly suggested that it wouldn’t be long until they would have the capability to manufacture their own WMD, and given that Hussien and his shithead sons were interested primarily in money and power, and that Hussien hated the U.S. for kicking his ass out of Kuwait, Iraq wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to sell such weapons (although probably not the technology itself, as loose-cannon al-Qaeda could just as easily turn on Iraq) to al-Qaeda.
Excuse me, but I believe I’m an individual shitwit. Please don’t lump me with everyone else.
You do at last make some good points. I’ve often said the best thing about liberals is that they serve to keep the conservatives in check.
elfbabe, I’ll try to respond tomorrow. I’m pushing the nightly cutoff right now.
My apologies for grammar/spelling errors. I’m out of time, no preview.
What, choie gets a response tonight and I don’t? Did I not shriek enough? I could compare you to Hitler, if that would help. He was an artist at one point, too, you know. And he wasn’t much good at it. Didn’t make money to buy food with. Could have been considered starving, I suppose.
Now, before I get back to packing and studying for that exam, I realized that my opinions on this can actually be summed up thusly:
Military decisions need to be based on a rational assessment of the possible risks and benefits of any action, and on what the most important goals are, not on how emotionally fulfilling a course of action is. If desires for revenge are allowed to affect military decision-making, then we’re not likely to be choosing the best path to the goal/goals. (Oh god, can you tell it’s an Artificial Intelligence exam?) When the goals are really important and taking the wrong path may make them impossible or very costly to reach, it’s even more important to keep the blind rage part and the decision-making part separate.
Actually, I felt your post deserved a more thoughtful and weighty response, and since time was getting to be a factor I thought I could better do it justice tomorrow. **choie’s ** rant didn’t require as much in the way of thought and explanation. All I had to do was point out the errors.
Yes, but did he have my sense of humor?
Again, time is short and I really don’t feel I can do your posts justice at this late hour. However, I think you would probably be surprised to find that our positions aren’t really that far apart…they’re just enunciated differently. Good luck with your exam.
OK, I know there are a LOT of people who would like us to believe that Al-Qaeda and Saddam worked together, but there’s fuck-all of evidence that this ever happened and a TRUCKLOAD of evidence that it didn’t. Saddam and Osama hate each other, that’s something no one can argue with. The only relationship they were ever capable of having was the “two scorpions in a bottle” relationship.
You have to understand that to understand the ENORMITY of the fuckup that was the invasion of Iraq. We’ve created an ally for Osama and his crew. Bush’s decision was one of the hugest blunders ever made by an American. Period.
That’s what you get for letting people steal elections in the U.S.
And of course, if you were to ask them what should be done to the scum who beat an old man to death in Abu Ghraib their resolute hunger for swift and brutal vengeance would evaporate instantly. Primitive moral relativist fucks.
Don’t forget that they completely ignore that the “other” side feels the same way, calling for bloody vengance everytime something happens to one of their own.
I have been watching this shit, and I’m disgusted by what my Republican party has turned into. In all fairness, I’m sure that the blood lust by US citizens is shared between Democrat, Republicans, and non-voters. Lots of US people say that Arabs and Muslims are essentially violent psycopaths, but really, Christian Americans are much the same way in the stuff that advocate and forgive. :mad:
Absolutely. By all means, our foreign policy should be decided by some fucknut half a world away that wants to see us all dead. Sounds like a plan to me. :dubious:
You know, long before this Iraq nonsense got started, my girlfriend guessed that the whole 9/11 thing was bin Laden’s way of introducing instability to the mideast and upsetting the power structure of the world. Nice to see that we’re playing right into his hand. And now we can see who’s really in charge around here.
And kids, lets make sure we have some basic rules here:
1 - Someone can be a terrorist and have nothing to do with 9-11
2 - al-Qaeda is in Iraq now. Maybe George’s stupidity drew them there but its pretty damn obvious that al-Qaeda is there now.
3 - Concerning rule 2 - al-Qaeda does not equal Iraq
4 - A naked or tortured Iraqi in jail is not automatically innocent. They are however obviously being mistreated.
5 - Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
6 - Iraq’s former leadership did try to assassinate a former US president.
Invading Iraq caused the entire region to become unsettled.
Not a rule but an observation - The middle east Arab world has had a tendency to fight for centuries. The people of that region tend to fight between tribes, religious sects, religions and nations. In short-they do a lot of fighting and their rules for fighting seem to be different than those of the West. The West find the middle East rules repugnant. The middle East are appalled by Western rules.
So it looks like they either have to give up on fighting or adjust the fighting technique to be more effective.
Now you’re talking. I have no doubt that the order was sent down from the people in power to play and re-play that video (the one we Americans have seen) on the local and network news. Gets everyone all riled up so that they forget the prison atrocities. But I have to wonder, how would you feel if it were your family member who was beheaded? Having to hear and see about it for days on end can’t be pleasant. So stop already, we get the message. We’re good, and they’re bad.
And the Red Cross is reporting that 70 to 90% of the Iraqi prisoners are innocent and being held illegally. Geneva Convention, anyone?
