Main Topic: the war in Iraq... (again!). Triggerer: An article in the New York Times.

[Drake Maethor]

OK, once again with this topic! :D A 'classic' in our Royal Inn.
So lads and lassies, be prepared to start filling thy tankards! :cheers:
Bring thy cigars, pipes and joints :p .
Because the hot discussion, and arguments, may start at any time...

This in an article, published in the New York Times, which states an interesting opinion about the true causes for the US going to war against Iraq.
I submit its link not only because I find it interesting but also because it is an opinion found in one of the most prestigious papers of the United States.
Food for thought:

'Clinton and Bush did it because they could' by Maureen Dowd (http://www.iht.com/articles/525687.html)

[Hector]

:p

[Henrik]

Well, what can one say about that other than: "it's a man-thing" and why we do it ? - because we can !

[Finellach]

It would be funny if it's not horibble that all those people died "because Georgie Jr. can"...:rolleyes:

The good thing this article gave me is the explanation why they didn't move on Korea or Iran but on poors sobs like Iraq.

[Sir Turylon]

I won't get dragged into this... but a few remarks.

First off, the New York Times is a well resepcted LIBERAL anti-Bush newspaper. They backed Gore in 2000... need I say more.

Second off. The media distorted the causes so that onyl the WMD seemed to be the cause for liberating Iraq.

To debate the validity of a war is moot when it is over with. Why don't we discuss on how to prevent such a thing from occuring again... I speak directly about Iran and their refusal to comply with the UN.

[Drake Maethor]

My Lord Turylon, a hard question for thee:
The Invasion in Iraq... Are you in favor or against it? Now and then... Were you then in favor of it? Are you now? What things would you change if you were able to do it? And in case you are in favor, do you have any critics against the way things were done?

*Drake aims and fire the piercing question right into Sir Turylon's chest. :p There is no armour and no scape from that projectile! But Drake already knows that Turylon is a man of honour and so he would stand and fight back with an answer nevertheless. ;)*

[Ben Nevis]

Lord Turylon, explain to me why 90% of the Americans thought Iraq had something to do with Bin Laden?
This certainly was not the case (Bin Laden is a strong believer, while Saddam was/is not). They never had any ties, but still 90% of the Americans thought they had.
Of course you can say that Americans aren't that smart and that they think anything bad happening within the Middle East must have ties within something else bad happening within the middle east, but I don't buy that.
Bush set the Americans up into believing Al Qaeda had ties with Iraq, which would justify his war :nono: .
Then another thing, what about his reason to engage in a war. Saddam has nucliar weapons thus we should invade it before the nucliar weapons are ready to use. So far, however, no single nucliar weapon has been found.
No single other leader of a country could have gotten away with this. After one month of lack of nucliar weapons 50% would have been impeached. After two months 99%. Except for George W. Bush. Probably because he handled 9-11 so well (puke), he build up some credit. But how can you suddenly change the reason for engaging into a war after the war. From nucliar weapons to freeing the Iraqi people and get away with it.

Finally a little personal frustration of mine. Americans don't know anything about the rest of the world. I studied in Santa Cruz (CA) for six months and I think it's pretty safe to assume that the people going to the university are above avarage. Well, first of all, maybe two percent knew where to place the Netherlands on the world map. Of course the Netherlands is small, thus no offense. But approximately 40% didn't even know where to place Great Brittain (Great Brittain for crying out loud, there's not that many big Islands in front of the west coast of mainland Europe).
I was even confronted with a guy protesting against unfair practices in other countries. He had highlighted several countries and put their names on a spinning wheel with a nucliar bomb functioning as arrow.
I wondered whether he knew where all these countries were. Well, he certainly didn't, Mozambique was Zimbabwe and Tsjad was Angola. Of course not the easiest countries to get to know, but if you're protesting against these countries, please look them up first.
Thus, the average American does't know sh*t about what's on the other side of the oceans. They know Mexico, Canada and probably Cuba, but they already have a hard time pointing out the South and Middle American countries.
Of course I'm talking to the wrong people here, cause probably all the Americans in this forum know where to place all the countries of the world, because they are interested in History.
And don't get me wrong, I wasn't disappointed with the Americans themselves. They can't help it. I think it's the government indirectly and the school's responsibility directly to give people some knowledge about OTHER countries.

Btw, one other interesting thing I got to know in the US. I was an exchange student, thus I met a lot of former American exchange students in Santa Cruz as well. All those former American exchange students were in favour of the democrats. It's weird, I can't explain why, but somehow when you have a more open outlook on the world you tend to vote for the democrats.

Pls don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-America. I loved Santa Cruz and California. Had a great time there. The people were great too. No single bad word about the Americans I met there. But the government, well that's something else. I know a lot of hatred towards Americans has developed in Europe recently. My cousin from Minneapolis wasn't treated as kindly as she used to be in Europe. But I think that's all totally wrong. I think we clearly have to focus our frustrations on the goverment and certainly not on the people. Of course "the people" elect the goverment, but I think everybody agrees that "the government" : "the people" is not 1 : 1. That's not the case in any single country (except for some Greek cities many, many, many years ago (although that was still only the men)), thus also not in America.

One last thing, the media in America are horrible. When I was in the US I had to visit Dutch websites to get to know the wrongdoing towards the Iraqi people (done by American soldiers, of course). This was not at the time of the tortures, but at the time of the shootings. The Dutch news websites reported innocent Iraqi people being killed almost every day, but no single word on the American news on the tele.
My roommate got so frustrated with the American media that he got the idea to start a "news"website on which he reported events happening throughout the world for the UCSC students (University of California Santa Cruz).
this link (http://pangea.ucsc.edu/) .

Ok, I'll stop now, just had to let go of my frustrations.

[Hector]

to be honost John Kerry self isnt that wise too that man would kill someone for vote's.

He supported the war in iraq to so i dont think there is much difference between them.

lets be happy that saddam is gone:cheers:

[Angryminer]

Just one question:
Is that an article or a comment?

I call it a comment. And nothing more.
An article is objective ;) .

Angryminer

[Ben Nevis]

I've never heard of objective articles. Frankly objectivity hardly exists.

[Finellach]

Ben Nevis I totally agree. I had similar experience with americans. It seems some of them seem to know where Britain and France is, but after thatg for them probably the next country is Russia or China or simply a black hole :D :p

[Angryminer]

I'm a reader of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" ("Frankfurt General Newspaper") and you can really call it (nearly) objective.
I think it's the best in Germany, and I really tried many newspapers.
It has some comments in it too, but they are labeled "Comments". The rest of the articles are really good.
Of course sometimes you can see the opinion of the author, but that happens really seldomly.

Angryminer

[Ben Nevis]

Ben Nevis I totally agree. I had similar experience with americans. It seems some of them seem to know where Britain and France is, but after thatg for them probably the next country is Russia or China or simply a black hole

Huh, isn't Russia next to Uranus???? :D

[Sir Turylon]

*picks up the gauntlet Drake threw at his feet*

The Invasion in Iraq... Are you in favor or against it? Now and then... Were you then in favor of it? Are you now? What things would you change if you were able to do it? And in case you are in favor, do you have any critics against the way things were done?

I was for it. I knew that we could not convince Saddam to give up his dictatorship...

I am still for it. I believe that all free civilized countries have the obligation to help opressed people gain their own freedom from tyrants and iron fisted rulers. (Yes... I'm a Reaganite :) )

I did not base my support on WMD. I knew they would not be found in Iraq so soon. I have even seen some sort of pact between Anon and Hussein before the war. It took the UN over 10 years to make a resolution to tell Saddam he needed to disclose all his weapons programs. He baltered for 5 months before agreeing to let inspectors back in.

I'm going to appeal to logic now. Say you have a gallon of anthrax in your house. The police come to inspect your house for anthrax and they give you 5 month notice before they come. What would you do? You'd take the anthrax and drive it off someplace else.... It makes no sense that the media has declared there were no weapons in Iraq between the resolution and the start of the war. How do they know? They speculate that there were none because none have been found. There is no evidence to support their claim that there were none... Could they have been moved elsewhere in the world? Of course not, they say, Saddam would never move his banned weapons programs to a friendly nation...

The media has taken the word of anti-Bush, anti-government, anti-american propagandists and added fuel to it by throwing in more opinions about the "non existent" weapons.

Do they even mention the fact that post-invasion the military found shells buried in the ground that contained nerve agents? Do they mention that between 91 and 200 Saddam sent over 400 nuclear scientists to Lybia? Do they mention the fact that Saddam had declared he had such weapons back in 92 and by 2000 they suddenly... disappeared.... but no mention of their destruction was found? Of course not.

The war wasn't solely based on WMD though.... The media turned it into that.

1) Brutal dictator who slaughtered thousands of his own people. He must be brought up on crimes of humanity for that.
2) He harbored known terrorists before and during OIF. Do not even try to claim he had not ties to terrorists. He sent money to Islamic Jihadists in Israel when their kids became suicide bombers. Anser Al Islam was based in Iraq before OIF took them out. Saddam bawked at 9/11 and said he could have done it better. He could have done the terrorist attack better? I thought he wasn't involved with terrorists? Iraq was a breeding ground of anti-western ideaology before OIF came in.
3) Saddam refused to disclose information about his WMD plans. We did not say he had nukes... his nuke program was destoryed by the IAF back in the 1980s. He was re-intitalizing it. He failed to disclose the location of the WMD he had declared back in 1992 and "lost" between 1992 and 2002.


@Ben

Innocent Iraqis? Are Innocent Iraqis carrying RPGs and AK47s around... and shooting them at soldiers?

American soldiers shot innocent Iraqis?
crossfires?

Have you ever been in an urban combat environment? Have you ever seen one?

Regarding your view on Americans as being oblivious to the rest of the world. I agree and disagree. I think we all need to take more history classes and less easy classes in high school. Most American high school grads can't even point out the 50 states! They don't even know who won the war of 1812...They don't even know what country we fought against in the Mexican-American war!

You foreigners, or.. "those other people" as some would call you, have more knowledge about our past than 80% of the kids coming through our schools. This is one reason I feel so heavily pulled towards teaching.

Do not think that ONE campus can make you an expert on the rest of the country though. :) You were in one region, of one state...

@ the democrats in college campuses. This is very easy to explain... All of our public universities are liberal. ALL of them. 80% of the professors are professed Liberals with liberal agendas. 70% of campus students voted for Gore and Clinton. Why is this? Universities are run by the liberals... and may I add... humanists. There is a bigger effort in universities to cloud moral absolutes and install "feel good about everything" agendas. )BAH, he's talking nonsense... he's just anti-liberal and anti-humanist and he's been brainwashed by conservatives.) HAHA, no. I was in a class with a socialist not too long ago. A socialist, a federalist, and a sexist pig.... The three of us began a study group.... we all finished the class at top. :) The university system has slanted from the conservative foundation of the founders of Harvard and Yale... Now, they are bent on brainwashing the young naive, weak willed apathetic students into their ranks of mindless liberal democrat voting zombies. :) Not all liberal democrats are mindless.... but people like Gore, Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Moore, and etc... they really do nothing for their cause.

Did you know that 80% of this country considers themselves to be conservative in nature.... yet only 30% of them voice their political power to vote!


Last thing... There is no such thing as unbiased media. You cannot report news without having some sort of biased slant. The only way to gain an unbiased perspective is to go on yahoo... and check filters for all types of news. Even then, the news comes from a few sources... and those sources are biased. (example: the AP is humanist slanted and run, Reuters is humanist slanted and run) What is your definition of unbiased media? If you do not see a majority of stories that you agree with... that means it is biased towards a wrong opinion?

[Angryminer]

They speculate that there were none because none have been found. There is no evidence to support their claim that there were none...Is that the way judgement works in america?
Poor american people.

Angryminer

[Sir Turylon]

Originally posted by Angryminer
Is that the way judgement works in america?
Poor american people.

Angryminer

It is this... they base their opinion that none were there because none were found. They disregard any other proof that they existed before the war.

I hate to make the comparison... but it would be like if Hitler destroyed all the concentration camps... left no survivors of holocaust... People would think it never happened because they cannot see the "smoking gun." They would find the bullets, the plans to use the bullets... They even know that he used the bullets before.... but since no gun was found... he doesn't shoot anybody. It is absurd logically to think that you need to find something somebody has hidden from the world court of opinion for over a decadre in order to prove he was actually hidding something. I have a feeling that Khadafi is going to help us in this case. Stay tuned.... :)

[Ben Nevis]

I'll just pick some quotes and comment on them

The media has taken the word of anti-Bush, anti-government, anti-american propagandists and added fuel to it by throwing in more opinions about the "non existent" weapons

I don't know what state you live in, but as I see it the media are definately controlled by conservatives. National media for sure and I don't think a lot of Americans will disagree with me. Of course there are some "liberal" media, but certainly not the majority.

The war wasn't solely based on WMD though.... The media turned it into that

Please stay factual. It wasn't the media that focussed on WMD, but Bush, and again not many Americans will disagree about that.

1) Brutal dictator who slaughtered thousands of his own people. He must be brought up on crimes of humanity for that

Ever heard of Pinochet? (brutal dictator brought to power by the US). He's not the only dictator brought to power by America. Middle and South America has been filled with dictators brought to power by the US.

He harbored known terrorists before and during OIF. Do not even try to claim he had not ties to terrorists. He sent money to Islamic Jihadists in Israel when their kids became suicide bombers. Anser Al Islam was based in Iraq before OIF took them out. Saddam bawked at 9/11 and said he could have done it better. He could have done the terrorist attack better? I thought he wasn't involved with terrorists? Iraq was a breeding ground of anti-western ideaology before OIF came in.

Sorry, but again you are not very factual. I don't think the Palestines can be compared with Al-Qaeda. The Palestines fight for their country, while Al-Qaeda fights against a country. I know Israel likes to depict them as terrorist (as well as the Russians do with Tsjetsjenia), but terrorists shouldn't become a buzz word. In my opinion people fighting for their country or fighting for freedom are not terrorists although their acts of violence might be the same.

3) Saddam refused to disclose information about his WMD plans. We did not say he had nukes... his nuke program was destoryed by the IAF back in the 1980s. He was re-intitalizing it. He failed to disclose the location of the WMD he had declared back in 1992 and "lost" between 1992 and 2002

I think Hans Blix is and was a very capable man. The US has misled him with pictures, which has been admitted by Powell. I think the US (read: Bush) was way to eager to attack.

Innocent Iraqis? Are Innocent Iraqis carrying RPGs and AK47s around... and shooting them at soldiers

If I say innocent Iraqis, I mean innocent Iraqis. If you think an innocent Iraqi is a dead Iraqi then think again. Many times innocent Iraqis have been killed at controlposts. But as I wrote in my earlier post the Americans don't get to know about these accidents (and I think that if the national media would have been "liberal" they would have gotten to know about it).

@ the democrats in college campuses. This is very easy to explain... All of our public universities are liberal. ALL of them. 80% of the professors are professed Liberals with liberal agendas. 70% of campus students voted for Gore and Clinton. Why is this? Universities are run by the liberals... and may I add... humanists. There is a bigger effort in universities to cloud moral absolutes and install "feel good about everything" agendas. )BAH, he's talking nonsense... he's just anti-liberal and anti-humanist and he's been brainwashed by conservatives.) HAHA, no. I was in a class with a socialist not too long ago. A socialist, a federalist, and a sexist pig.... The three of us began a study group.... we all finished the class at top. The university system has slanted from the conservative foundation of the founders of Harvard and Yale... Now, they are bent on brainwashing the young naive, weak willed apathetic students into their ranks of mindless liberal democrat voting zombies. Not all liberal democrats are mindless.... but people like Gore, Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Moore, and etc... they really do nothing for their cause.

Maybe this is a clear example of how conservatives think. They are so suspicious of everything. Bush was suspicious of Hussein.
You are suspicious of public schools.

still 30% voted for the conservatives appearantly and I did meet Republicans at Santa Cruz. But zero percent of the exchange students voted for the Republicans

Last thing... There is no such thing as unbiased media. You cannot report news without having some sort of biased slant. The only way to gain an unbiased perspective is to go on yahoo... and check filters for all types of news. Even then, the news comes from a few sources... and those sources are biased. (example: the AP is humanist slanted and run, Reuters is humanist slanted and run) What is your definition of unbiased media? If you do not see a majority of stories that you agree with... that means it is biased towards a wrong opinion?

I never talked about biased or unbiased media. I just talked about bad media. this is a post I posted earlier

I've never heard of objective articles. Frankly objectivity hardly exists

The only thing is that most American media hardly ever report(ed) wrongdoings of America(ns). Obviously the torture tragedy was a too big a thing not to report. But in general most American media do not report wrongdoings by Americans. Nor do they report a lot about international issues. In Holland +/- half or two-thirds of the national televised news is international. In the US maybe 1% is international. Except for when the US is fighting a war of course. Then, it's 5%. And don't give our size (being the size of the Netherlands) as an excuse. Of course that has something to do with it, but not all. If you consider the size all news should come from Europe, but probably still 20%-25% comes from outside Europe.

[Angryminer]

@Sir Turylon
I see you didn't get my point. I'm sorry for not pointing that out correctly.They speculate that there were none because none have been found. There is no evidence to support their claim that there were none...Read this with the sentence "In dubio pro reo." in mind.
( Translation: "In Doubt For The Accused" )

Angryminer

[Siena]

LOL
that's a good one, Angryminer
:cheers:
poor American people indeed

lets say somebody would accuse Sir Turylon of wrongdoing, but would not offer any evidence. Their basis for accusing would be - that Sir Turylon did not prove to their satisfaction that he was innocent :p
Also, add to that, that they actually want to convict Sir Turylon...

I bet Sir Turylon would be really happy with that kind of justice :) And the sentence would be no less than death...

justice indeed.

[Sir Turylon]

@Ben.

You comment from your own narrow view of what is going on. You see information through the anti-american government perspective. "Anything the US gov does is wrong."


The facts of the media are blatantly clear. They are controled by liberal opinionated owners.... Ted Turner being one of the major names. Channels such as Fox News... TBN... 700 Club. they are moderate to conservative. CNN is leaning left of moderate... The major media institutes ARE liberal. CBS, NBC, ABC... etc. Written press is even worse. I refuse to read anything but USA Today and Weekly Standard because I grew tired of the one sided viewpoints of the editorials. My local newspaper is fairly good at balancing it out though. Neil Munro is a great Editor IMPO.

Innocents being killed at checkpoints? Are you refering to the incident of 4 people being killed when they failed to stop? Are you refering to that?

Palestinians are not fighting for their country. Have you even read what Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the others are fighting for? They are not fighting to defend their country.... They are terrorizing Israel until the nation of Israel is destroyed. Please go research their organizations before you post.


I have to laugh at the "clearly a conservative suspicious of the education system" comment. You spend a short time up here and think you understand it. How sad... really.

I've lived in the public school system for a good portion of the past 24 years. I have SEEN it go from moderate to liberal. You were here for less than a year! You based your opinion on one school. Have you read anything on what the schools are teaching? Probably not.

Ben, please do not fall into the typical non-American ignorant of what is really going on in the USA catagory.

A few weeks of speaking to people in California... (which is a democrat/liberal state turning back towards being Republican) makes you think you can voice an educated opinion on American public education. I wouldn't dare try to voice an opinion on say... Brazil.



@angryminer.

Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty.... The problem with that is.. it does not matter in a case like this. The defendant pleaded guilty over ten years ago. Does not a single one of you remember the past 12 years? the numerous UN resolutions demanding Saddam relinquish his WMD programs and stockpiles. Are your memories that selective?

The defender in a case has to persuade his innocence to just one juror. He has to prove it. The Prosecution has to convince the jury that he is guilty. The defendant has a much easier time of defending himself.

Here is a simliar example and I hope you can understand it.

Joe Smith goes to a gun store and buys a gun. He walks down the street in the desert and shoots a man. Nobody is there to see him. He steps down and retrives the gun and the bullet from the roadside. He continues on down the road and drops the gun off in Mexico. Police are able to track the bullet to the gun he bought. They arrest him for killing the guy on the road. There is no evidence that he shot the man.

Is he guilty or innocent?


Like I stated in the first post.

To argue over this war is actually quite stupid. It has been done. It is over. On June 30th there will be a NEW Iraq. Why do you wish to continue to debate wether or not it was valid? You seem to want to keep questioning it even after it is done.

Bush, as well as all 14 council members on the UN security council, saw an eminent danger... (not iminent... he never said iminent)... We acted upon that danger with well over 20 other countries.... Something better has emerged.


I will not reply further for being a pro-American policy voice on a forum filled with anti-American policy is like trying to debate philosophy with a wall. I post a comment... some eyes blink.. and people start replying with comments that do nothing to try to refute the opposite opinion of their own. Do you really believe that intelligent discussion comes from your stating your opinion... and then admonishing the other side for being...."conservative paranoids" while you yourselves neglect to put any factual basis to your own statements.
I can back everything I say about this with facts... Ben, if you really want the info... PM me and I will GLADLY send you www links to FACTS backing what I say.

I really do hope you people are smarter and better able to discuss something beyond such a childish debating level.

*looks for elewyn to reply sometime soon*