Iraq War

[Red Paul]

"Is Montreal Safe?" got onto the theme of Iraq, which was off-topic. So I'm setting up this thread in case people have anything to add.

The posters on the other thread managed to say what they thought without getting too personal or insulting. That's also the idea here, of course. All viewpoints are welcome, pro or con.

If we need an escort angle, I always assumed most escort clients were conservative. So it's kind of surprising how many people on MERB have been against the war.

Personally, I am American and I've been against the war since a year ago this month. First, Bush's case had some howlers. Second, we'd be occupying an entire country in the Middle East. That was bound to be a mess.

Ever since I've been pissed at Bush for getting us into this. I'm a Democrat, so I've always been against him, but now it's personal. The way I see it, he didn't think, he didn't ask himself hard questions, he wasn't honest in making his case to himself or to us. And as a result America has got a disaster on its hands.

 

[Man911]

I'm againt war, but in this case I'm agree.
I came from country who has a ditactor, If USA could go to my country and take this guys out, I will support them.
But, I don't think that they would come, because we don't have oil.

I'm sure that irakien people live better than before.

 

[HornyBoy007]

I am against any war, and especially against this new concept coming from that brilliant mind and which is "preventive war". Prevention about some weapons that nobody found yet. War against terrorism, I agree that extremist muslims are terrorists and I would never like to live in a country goverened by them. At the same time, I consider the american administration a bunch of terrorists also. what do you call somebody bombing cities 24 hours a day, or sbd bombing villages in Afganistan killing everybody there just because suspecting that some talibans are hiding there. I will not talk about the real hidden reasons behind this war : oil, religious extremism (some think that they should kill Saddam because he is the anti-christ, and the same people are governing the most powerful country in the world, pretty scary).

With all my respect to our neighbors, I think that americans are smart when it comes to business and making money, but many of them should pay more attention to politics, think carefully before voting for danderous people, and be more aware about what is going on beyond their borders.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[willyapd]

Let’s not forget the simple fact that Saddam Hussein butchered his own people, as well as the people of his neighboring countries. How can one not defend, or even thank the US for removing this man from power? But how come, when we needed the support from our allies (the same countries that begged us to get involved in Bosnia and Kosovo) they turned there backs on us. Saddam Hussein is a terrorist and is guilty of crimes against humanity. How can anyone question the acts of the US government? The UN makes a strong statement against terrorist’s organizations and bringing to justice those guilty of atrocities against men, women and children. The US did exactly what others preached. We are trying to maintain the basic fundamentals of human rights and liberties.

As for Afghanistan, we gave them the opportunity to give over Osama. They refused, and because of it suffered the consequences brought on by their own government. You speak of innocent villages, and I say remember 9/11.

 

[Neptune]

Considering that the US put this man in power in the first place goes to show how corrupt the US administration has been over the years. Nothing like watching Rumsfeld walk reverently up to Hussein to shake his hand in 1983. "Hi buddy, I'm Donald. Thanks for killing Iranians for us!".

Sure, Hussein is an evil man but that doesn't justify the US bombing a 3rd world country, killing 1000s of civilians in the process. That's not liberation. Kim Jong-il is an evil man too, so why has the US waited so long to bomb N. Korea? Oh yeah, nukes...

Hussein had nothing to do with 911. Even the CIA has said as much. The US should've bombed Saudi Arabia if they wanted retribution for 911. Oh, but the Saudis are the #1 supplier of oil to the US, so uh, let's bomb Iraq instead.

 

[Remy]

Hornyboy:

Its pretty scary that Bush governing the most powerful country in the world, but is much more scary if Iraq or some other Muslims country become the most powerful country n governing by people like Saddam Hussein

 

[HornyBoy007]

Extremism in Irak!!! You should clearly make a distinction between islamisms and islam. That's I was saying, if Americans try spend a little more time on learning international politics things will certainly be better. same thing applies to muslim extremists, as you travel more and as you know more cultures you become more open-minded and tolerant and less sensitive to politician or media manipulations.

I agree with remy that this is more a war of religions, or a war of some extremists (neo-conservatives) against others (islamics in Afghanistan, nobody knows against whom for irak). When you listen to bush, it's like listening to a preach and not the president of a modern country. We made many many jumps back to the middle ages. Whatever men have achieved at the technological level, they're still so morons as they still try to make wars.

I would not consider the removal of saddam as a major achievement here. Americans could have killed him without making this war killing and terrrorizing many innocent people to get just one man one. Besides that, there so many dictators in the world who are even worse than saddam. Is the US planning to make war to these countries for the next twenty years. Finally, by which right do the us feel responsible to eliminate dictators. there is a legitimate international organization for that. All this is not making americans safer at all, just look at the paranoia in the us now, it is also giving a bad image of the us in the world. Just think of all the people who stopped bying american products, all this will not help for sure the american economy.

 

[Red Paul]

Eager Beaver writes:

"All I hear is criticism of Bush which is very easy, it's like calling your classmates names in Kindergarten."

Surely not. For a year I've been reading detailed news stories laying out what Bush has been doing wrong and why. That's not namecalling.

What would Bush's critics do about terrorism? Concentrate on international law enforcement to break up al-Qaeda and find Osama bin-Laden. That's the standard Democratic position on terrorism, and anyone one with an opinion about this stuff should know that.

It's common sense that when you're fighting a war against a mortal enemy, you don't open up a sideshow. We've got better things to do than invade an entirely unrelated country and occupy it for God knows how long.

As to preventing more Arabs from becoming Islamists who hate the U.S., two points.

When a foreign country invades a people's territory, they tend to dislike that country more, not less. So, yes, Islamism is a real problem, but Bush's approach is a very bad way of dealing with it.

Second, keeping people in the Middle East from becoming Islamic fundamentalists would mean reshaping an entire region's society. Whether or not we have the right to do that, we don't have the power. Nobody does.

We managed to remake individual countries here and there, as with Germany and Japan. But that was a huge effort running for a decade or more, and it was done with the support of the American public behind it. Remaking the Middle East would be an even bigger job, far bigger, and it's not an assignment Americans signed up for. They wanted to protect their country against WMDs, not hang around the Middle East until everyone there has town meetings and shopping malls.

Anyway, Bush says we'll be pulling most of our troops out of Iraq beginning this June. So if he wants to change the course of Islamic civilization he'd better do it fast.

As to C.S. Martin's interpretation, I have to disagree. If the war is just part of an ongoing clash between Islam and Judeo-Christianity, why were so many Western countries against it? If Bush's actions somehow represent all of Western civilization, why did he need the scare talk about WMDs? And why would he invade Iraq at all as opposed to a genuinely Islamic country like Saudi Arabia?

As I see it, this is Bush's war and nobody else's. He appointed the men who wanted it, he mounted the campaign to stampede the public into supporting it. Republicans like Brent Scowcroft, Dick Armey, and Norman Schwarzkopff all said publicly they had doubts about the war. Bush was the one who wanted this, not Western civilization as a whole.

 

[Legolas]

<rant>
I am sick and tired of hearing the fallacy that The Crusades were an evil invasion of ... Muslims, Arab countries, the Middle East, whatever. This myth is a favorite of extremists and even my Arab friends.

The facts:

1. Lets not forget that the entire Middle East was based on the Greek culture after Alexander's conquests. Greece did not politically control these lands after his death, but its culture was the predominant one. Roman culture sat on top of Greek culture.

2. The Muslim religion took over the Middle East and spread thru North Africa. Arabs invaded Spain and conquored most of it before, what, 500-700 AD? The reason all Europeans are not Muslims is that Charles Martel (or was it Pepin the something-or-other), anyway the father of Charlamagne the Great, won an important battle in southern France. Muslims were only driven out about 1500. So, Europeans fought off a Muslim invasion on their southern flank for 800 years. (Ever wonder why the Spaniards were such hard asses only a few years later in the Americas?)

3. Muslim armies conquored Anatolia after a long struggle with the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was rescued from siege many times, as was Vienna. Believe it or not, the Lithuanian-Polish Empire (then the largest country in Europe) fight off two seperate Muslim armies, one of which may have been one million strong. (Image Egyptians attacking Poland. LOL)

4. The Muslims conquored Sicily and stayed there a couple hundred years. Same with Malta. Venice was in a do or die fight with Muslim navies for a long time.

Europe attacking poor, defenseless Muslim countries? Give me a break. The Crusades were much about trying to take back territory which the Europeans considered to be "European." They considered it a liberation campaign.

In any case, Europe barely held off Muslim conquest, losing Constantinople along the way. The fight got bogged down in the Balkans where, in some respects, its still being fought today.

K, now you can point out minor inaccuracies and use that to imply my entire argument is flawed.

</rant>

 

[Man911]

If we wait experts to remove Sadam, then it will never happen, until he discover the atomic bomb, then it's too late.

Bush kill 1000 innocent and war is over, no more kill.

Sadam kill more than 1000 per year and he never stop...

Which one is better.
It's like Hilter, we wait, wait and wait, you all know what happen after.

 

[Red Paul]

Eager Beaver -- I'll check out what Dershowitz has to say. In the meantime, let me just argue that busting up al-Qaeda and getting bin-Laden are not my idea of appeasement.

My view is that Bush is using a sledgehammer when we need something more like a power drill. The Iraq War was a lot of brute force driven by wishful thinking. We took a great army and slammed it into an already beat-up little country. And assumed the pieces would drop into shape as a democracy. What we need is a bit more brains and judgment and the realization things don't always work out as desired.

We should only go after who we need to go after, and we should keep our allies close to us instead of getting their backs up.

But as I said, I'm American and I wouldn't mind learning more about what Europe has been doing in all this. So I'll get ahold of Dershowitz's book and see what I think.

 

[FaceMaster]

It all started with Afghanistan. After 9-11, I wanted to carpet-bomb the Middle East back to the stone age. But then I started considering.

I considered that attacking a Muslim nation will enflame Muslims. It'll fuel their cause.

These wars should have been fought secretly with special ops units, covert assassinations, and intelligence field officers. What these wars do is simply respond to the American public's cry for revenge. Bush and his people know this won't win the war on terrorism, but it's got him the best poll ratings he's ever had.

21st century warfare is fought undercover with intelligence services and black ops. But then again, the Bush family made sure consumerism has replaced ideology as a reason for waging war.

 

[gremlin]

Before the comments, let me self-identify (to an extent!). I conduct nearly all of my business between north america and the middle east and have lived in these regions. I am not jewish or muslim or arab. I am not religious. I am, however, an avowed political conservative who believes the invasion of Iraq did not serve American interests and do not see the bush administration as pursuing anything remotely conservative in its foreign policy. Why? A conservative foreign policy is built on two pillars: one, the US is a friend of freedom everywhere but vindicator only of its own. Two, stable, democratic states are ultimately organic to their societies and not artificial creations of foreign powers. That said, the only conservative support for this war would have been as a reaction to an imminent threat to the US or its interests. I count myself along with a chorus of other conservatives who did not believe this was the case before the invasion and are not surprised now.

A few other issues that have come up in this informative thread:

What should have been done to deal with Iraq and bring change to the ME? For starters be serious about solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict….end the ridiculous expenditure of US tax monies on governments that oppress their people and occupy other people’s lands…the point is there are a number of policies short of invasion and occupation to bring change to the region and secure American interests.

Does this go all way back to the crusades? No. it would be comforting for us to believe this is a problem rooted in the ancient world and we have nothing to do with it. In reality, up until the mid-1960s, america was viewed by arabs and muslims as a positive anti-colonialist nation (i.e. Suez Crisis). remember that the armed Islamic radical movements we see now were first and foremost products of homegrown despotism. They tried to first overthrow the governments of Egypt and Algeria. To the extent that the US backed such despotic governments, Americans were implicated. Thus, IMO it is not accurate to say America had 9/11 coming but nor is it accurate to believe America was attacked for its values.

How do to deal with terrorism? Well, this is a big area, but I would just note the critique that military force is only part of the solution. Indeed, in almost every historical instance, terrorist tactics are tied to some political conflict. Lesson: attack the political causes just as stringently.

gremlin

 

[HornyBoy007]

I recommend a book that deals with the behind-the-scenes of the US administration. The book is written in french and is called "Le monde secret de Bush" be Eric Laurent. I don't know if the book is available in english since it was published only in may 2003. You may agree or disagree with the author's point of view, but at least it gives a different perspective.

 

[Legolas]

Another interesting read is Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, How We Got To Be So Hated by Gore Vidal, a USA man of letters

 

[HornyBoy007]

Exporting democracy

IMHO there is no country in the world that can really qualify itself to be democratic. We have more or less two types of democracy : the one applied in 3rd-world countries and the one applied in western countries or the free world if you prefer.

In 3rd-world countries people go to vote, sometimes they get some help to go to vote and sometimes we even help them to choose the right candidate. Choosing the right candidate in itself is not that difficult, since most of the time you have a single candidate or at most two. People gather in front of their TV sets and surprise surprise the single candidate is once again elected with a rate of 99.999999...% (mathematically speaking that is 100% rate).

Dictators in these countries claim that their people are not yet ready for democracy and the transition from dictatorship to democracy should be made smoothly.

Now take western countries. Well people are free to vote or not. People may choose between so many candidates. Each candidate tries to convince the opinion that he is the best and that the future will be so bright if he is elected. Scores are reasonable. Sometimes they are so reasonable that a court decision is needed to decide who is going to be a president. How is this decision taken? Who takes it? Nobody knows. All that is good, that's democracy. Third-world people are not ready for democracy, but are western people ready for it. Personally I doubt it, and here are some recent cases :

1- Starting from Qc, people voted for a candidate who did not have a clear program. Consequence, as he came to power, he started improvising a bunch of decisions which were not very popular as reported by the media.

2- California, people voted for an actor. They are hoping that this actor will get the economy out of its recession. The guy has no political experience, he never talked about a program during his compaign and was so evasive about it whenever interviewed by journalists. Did they vote for him because they loved him? Did they vote for him because he invested so much money in his compaign which was more like a hollywood show rather than a serious compaign? Or did they simply believe that Mr Terminator will overcome all these economic difficulties as he always does in his movies? An interesting mixture of reality and fiction.

3- France, 2002. People go to vote twice there. First round two candidates are chosen, and people go and choose between them in the second round. April 2002, the current president and J.M. Lepen were chosen. Lepen is famous with his dangerous ideas and not really popular. Why did he get into the second position, because many people simply did not go to vote and preferred to enjoy the sunshine. To prevent Lepen from becoming president, people had to vote for the current president who got a record score in the second round. was he reelected because of his competence. Not so sure.

People seem to vote for the candidate who made the best compaign no matter his experience, convictions, mental health, criminal file...Elections are turning to be just marketing. As Noam Chomsky says 'a dictatoship is a system where people go to vote, where newspapers are free to write whatever they wanted and where people are so manipulated that they don't even realize that they are not actually free to do whatever they want to do'

So why do americans want to impose their democracy, culture and religion to other countries. This is b.t.w. the same objective of islamists (not muslims). Personally, I prefer to live in a multicultural world, diversity is positive and it seems that we'll have really to work hard to maintain it these days and avoid taseless uniform culture all over the world.

This thread is mking me breaking records re. the lengths of my posts.

 

[Bizzie]

War on terrorism?
Must define terrorism. A tough, tough thing to do!
Many have tried, none have succeeded!

War in Iraq was hardly a WAR! And the one in Afghanistan was even less so.

"Saddam was tyrant. He killed his own people".
And now, WE will kill HIS people.
Is the cure worst than the disease?

"But we have liberated those people". Now they are :
Free to have armed foriegners enter their homes.
Free to fight over drinking water
Free to receive a daily dose of suicide bombings.
Free to HATE the USA.
WELL DONE!!

Fact:
Before the war on terrorism started, there were never any "suicide bombings" in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan.
The whole paradigm has shifted. For the worse.

Invaded at least 2 countries, and threatened a few others, but our flights still get cancelled because of "internet chatter".

Does any one know the true number of civilians killed (accidentally, of course) in the 2 so called wars??
Some estimates state the number to be several times 3000.

Mrs. Barbara Bush,
The best thing you could have done for us and the WORLD, was to have had an abortion some 50 odd years ago, instead of giving birth to this THING called George W.

 

[willyapd]

Fact: Before the war on terrorism started, there were never any "suicide bombings" in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan.

Where did you study your history? Oh, I'm sorry, you must watch the same media network set up by Saddam's regime and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (a.k.a Baghdad Bob) I saw that one too. That was the one when Iraqi rebels invaded Shea Stadium.

War has been going on in these countries since Biblical times. Major front line warfare has been going on between these so called neighbors for years.

The US didn't bring terrorism to these countries. They brought it too us and we responded.

Mrs. Barbara Bush, The best thing you could have done for us and the WORLD, was to have had an abortion some 50 odd years ago, instead of giving birth to this THING called George W.

By the way.

I have friends who have served proudly in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The US military (along with Great Britain, Spain, Italy and Japan) have gone to great links to remove a butcher from power and you attack George Bush. Last I checked, my president wasn't testing biological weapons on us, or torturing us for losing soccer games.

Get your so called "facts" straight.

 

[Remy]

look around the world, where ever there is muslims there is no peace.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Great website on this topic

www.michaelmoore.com