whatsallthisabout mused:
Given the proclivity of this Administration to find what it needs to find whether it exists or not, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, my friend. (And welcome to the SDMB!)
Yeah…that’s why they don’t attack each other. Because people might get upset.
:eek:
This is the kind of thinking that does you Lefty morons so much good at election time. What happened? Daddy not show you enough love? Somebody push you around on the playground? The most laughable part of your spineless drivel is your ascribing racist motives to our soldiers, while calling them “red-necks” in the same sentence. You make me embarrassed to be an American.
Well msmith537 I guess you wouldn’t be the first to think international censure was meaningless.
If any flimsy evidence gets the US off the hook for an unsanctioned invasion then this is sure win. I’m against this invasion but only a fool thinks Saddam has nothing to hide. Something incriminating will turn up. The question of whether inspections would have turned up the same thing will probably be forgotten in an interest to put all this unpleasant bickering behind us.
I predict this will bring some ugly/unstable times but I don’t really worry about a world war level event. If this triggers a terrorist surge just watch the old powers circle the wagons. It will be like leprechauns defending their gold (the horror movie ones not the cereal kind).
Crapp speech is on…
Okay…
So the deal is “the Husseins leave the country in 48 hours” (meaning by 8pm EST Wednesday) or we attack.
Only hope seemingly is a coup/mutiny in Iraq tomorrow. And then a preemptive surrender…
If the U.S. invades Iraq, it would be a huge blunder if we don’t find any “weapons of mass destruction”. You can be rest assured we’ll “find” these weapons whether or not they currently exist.
I find it odd that people always speak of instability in the Middle East as if it’s a bad thing. You’d think that when “stability” consists of a group of oppressive warlords reigning with an iron fist over millions of people and killing dissidents, that maybe shaking things up a bit might, you know, help a bit.
Jeff
Well I didn’t specify Middle East instability but of course there is that. re: Middle East-The stability of opressive warlords has served the West well so far, what benefits do you see coming out of this shake up. I certainly don’t see us abandoning the local-strongman strategy. All instability will bring are a bunch of deaths and a new boss.
But hey maybe this invasion will turn history on its head. I’m not holding my breath though.
History students of the future will be reading archives of internet discussion boards and trying to link screen names to actual identities to analyze public opinion and the structure of popular thought. They will be unable to come to a firm conclusion – it’s tough to analyze chaos. Reading the secret email and records in the US and Iraqi governments will reveal that the whole situtation was massively misunderstood by all parties. Objective reality will be obscured.
Everyone who isn’t a partisan idiot knows that Saddam Hussein has manipulated the countries in the UN with his oil money, and will stall and complain about every UN resolution placed on him until the attention of the world focuses elsewhere.
His strategy worked after the Persian Gulf War, and the United Nations (like any large committee) of people has a poor record of dealing with slow but escalating threats.
I believe Saddam’s aim is to become the leading power in the region setting Iraq up to be like Russia in the Soviet Union, or Germany under the Third Reich. The world ignored those two countries before WWII, turning a blind eye to their growing menace because they “haven’t attacked OUR COUNTRY, yet”. Then war broke out, but still many British thought Winston Churchill was nuts for declaring war on Germany… who cares about stupid Poland, anyways?
But had the Versielles (sp?) Treaty been enforced how many millions of people would still be alive today? I’ll admit that the Iraq situation is on a much smaller scale, but I think the principle is the same.
However, this time around the United States/Britain alliance forces will stop the progression of Iraq’s menace. If they don’t, either something catastrophic will happen, or Iraq will eventually collapse in on itself after a few decades like the Soviet Union did. But don’t forget before it collapsed the Soviet Union committed some of the largest genocides in history (Ukraine), and stirred up nasty trouble everywhere else.
In short, I think history will see United States and Britain take political heat for the unsanctioned ouster of Saddam, but the world will be better off because of it. What I don’t know is if the United Nations will try to ignore this action and to carry on as before, or if something new will happen when people think that a world-governing system like the UN is not suitable for the human race.
-k
All right, everybody, knock it the hell off.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Ok guys, comments like:
Hail Ants
** Mr. Wrong **
…are not appropriate in this forum. This thread is a bit too heated and a lot of people posting could stand a heaping tablespoon of Calm the Heck Down.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
::shakes fist:: Damn you and your faster typing ability, MEBuckner!
Arguably, this war will show that nations like Iraq, which initiated this whole chain of events be invading Kuwait without provocation, will not be allowed to go unpunished or be held unaccountable for their actions. This war might end up being the real start of the end to wars of aggression.
Regardless of the outcome of this war, anyone who remembers this war as the first one in which one nation attacked another pre-emptively is going to be repeating history class next year. We know about pre-emptive strikes going back five thousand years. They surely were happening before that, but that’s as far back as the written records go. Getting the first shot in goes back to when Og noticed how big Ook was and figured he’d be better off whacking him from behind with a rock to the head before stealing his woman.
Better? We’re going to massively bomb them (to instill “terror & awe”), killing lots of civilians. The dead will not be better off. Will those who survive be any better off? If we kill Sadam and both his sons, who will take over? Why assume he’ll be any better? Will we appoint the new leader? We don’t exactly have a good track record as to the leaders of other nations we have, over the years propped up and kept in office.
After a long time of only reading and watching the debates i think its time to state my opinion in this debate - i´m with what SCRUFF stated, the winner ( obvious it will be the us ) will show the world how necessary this war was.
But there will always be a big doubt because there was absolutely no proof and nobody really believes that the us government really cares too much about the iraqi people. So i think the us goverment will win the military war but will loose the principles the united states were standing for -
Most of the people in the world think it is a war for oil and the us goals in the region, an “no after war proof” will change that. The united states are strong enough to overcome all critics in the future and after the war, there will be enough Aznars and Blairs playing the game - but nevertheless the world understood :
AMERICA FIRST
I think a simpler and much more likely explanation is that we have a major war as soon as the memory of how horrible war actually is fades from the collective memory.
I think it’s no accident that nearly all of the cheerleaders for war in the Bush administration have no actual experience of war. (the majority of them having dodged the opportunity in Viet Nam).
A really major war is like an innoculation, which cures the leaders of the country from the hubris of thinking that a war can be waged in a controlled and non-horrible fashion. This innoculation lasts until the entire generation that had contact with the war is gone from positions of power, or from positions as trusted advisors.
For the fools who don’t really understand war, it seems like a useful tool, a bit romantic even; A way to separate the men from the boys, and since these boys desperately want to think of themselves as men, they start a war…
He’s threatening your way of life. Bomb him!
I predict history will start referring to the upcoming conflict as “the second six-day war.”
It’s too early to put words in the mouths of future generations, IMHO. Wait a few years + all three days of the war, then we can talk about it 