Iraqi Freedom

Discussion in 'Politics' started by dotslashfuture, Apr 4, 2003.

  1. here , reread it yourself, if you even read it the first time:

    In the real world war or revolution is necessary to get rid of dictators. No dictator has ever left power because of purely external political pressure, if that were the case there wouldn't be any more dictators. It always takes a coup, or a revolution, or an invasion. Sad but true. People who ignore this are choosing ignorance.
     
    #41     Apr 4, 2003
  2. Do you think the US should invade each and every country that has a so-called dictator, then!? Ok.. that puts you in the company of the white skinhead militia and KKK who think they have all the answers to making things right as THEY see it! But you probably cannot correlate what I'm saying.

    Should we go after Cuba or N. Korea next... even if they do not ask us to?

    AND are you gonna fight and maybe die or end up paralyzed.. if we do? Doubt it! Talk is cheap for some!

    LOL

    Ice:cool:
     
    #42     Apr 4, 2003
  3. msfe

    msfe

    sometimes dictators die, like Spain´s Generalissimo Franco in 1975 - after 22 years of a splendid "special relationship" with the US of A
     
    #43     Apr 4, 2003
  4. Of course Bush dumbed down the reasons for invading Iraq. How could you expect the public to understand the remote goals of the invasion?

    Freeing the Iraqis per se is incidental, but will be a good thing if a stable democracy can eventually be installed. Removing a tyranny is a first step.

    What gives us the right to invade without an invitation?- That's an inherent paradox. You can't invade with invitation. But the Iraqi National Congress has been begging for an invasion for 20 years. Can we invade with legitimate national security concern without traditional provocation? Good question. If it works, we'll have our answer.

    It would make a big difference were our cities being bombed (mine was in a way). You might feel differently had the Sears tower come crumbling down.

    So why Iraq? So what's the connection? At first not much. But who else can we invade and get away with it and establish a military presence in the Middle East that is large enough to really effect reform? Syria? No. Saudi Arabia? No. Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain are already "friends."

    I said it here months ago:

    Saddam is:

    1) the wrong guy - A tyrant with expansionist tendencies
    2) in the wrong place - The middle East
    3) at the wrong time - Post 9/11

    Eliminating Iraq, and that is what we are doing, there will be a new Iraq, is step one in fighting terror, by giving a base of operations against extremism, which will give the US massive coercive power against forces that support Al queda, like the rich Arabs. A group whose philosophical core demands the death of non-muslims is bankrolled by some in the economic mainstream in the Arab lands. That is scary.

    iceman1 - the Middle East plays by a completely different set of rules. And power is rule number 1. Power is legitimacy. They don't vote there, not yet at least. The Arabs and Muslims have failed to reign in their extremists and have tossed up Palestine as the Red Herring. their people are exporting terror which must be fought systemically.

    Bush spoke at a university last month and was asked by a student why can't sanctions and inspections work. In what was an honest and unrehearsed reply, Bush said, 'I mean therapy is not going to change his (Saddam's) evil mind". The students laughed, but he is right. The Middle East responds to and respects power.

    Your points about individual Nation actions in a global framework are valid, such as your China-Taiwan example.

    I hate all this time and attention the Middle East is demanding, it's a drag on the world, economically, socially, politically, and emotionally.

    P.S. The Untied States has indeed had a mixed record on intervention. We have removed dictators and have installed them. Why do the critics of our Iraqi policy only reference our past blunders?
     
    #44     Apr 4, 2003
  5. that is probably what would have happened to Sadam. He had the French and Germans on his side, he was set for life. Then that rascal Dubya came along and wouldn't play fair ! Gee what a jerk !
     
    #45     Apr 4, 2003
  6. The evidence of Hussein's links to terrorist organizations of various types is, in my opinion, overwhelming. I'm not sure though that individuals who doubt, say, the evidence of the Iraqi regime's extreme and systematic human rights abuses, or of its genocidal repression of the Kurds and Shia, can be persuaded by what most of us would consider to be strong evidence. People who have placed themselves in that category have already offered challenges here. I would consider their inability to accept that such events occurred to make someone effectively unpersuadable, especially in the context of exchanges on an internet message board.

    You tell me what you would accept as evidence, and maybe I'll see what I can turn up. If you do your own search of Hussein and terrorism, you'll probably turn up a ton of articles from major international media organizatons, as well as governments and non-governmental organizations, that outline what is generally accepted to be true on the subject, as well as what many of us have little difficulty accepting as very strong circumstantial evidence. Some of this evidence comes directly from the organizations or from Hussein himself - such as the PFLP (famous for murdering Leon Klinghoffer aboard the Achille Lauro), which itself announced that one of its leading members died during the first-night bombing of the Iraqi leadership compound.

    You may also of course choose to disbelieve anything that you haven't witnessed yourself, or that doesn't happen to suit your prejudices, or that hasn't already been affirmed by one or another public figure you happen to trust and admire. Such a position would also make you "unpersuadable," in my opinion.
     
    #46     Apr 4, 2003

  7. Forget him Iceman. It is clear he knows nought of which he talks.

    The US government has distinguished history in installing opressive ultra right wing governments, and overturning democratically elected ones.

    For someone that claims to "see reality", he is tragically misinformed.
     
    #47     Apr 4, 2003
  8. "Bush spoke at a university last month and was asked by a student why can't sanctions and inspections work. In what was an honest and unrehearsed reply, Bush said, 'I mean therapy is not going to change his (Saddam's) evil mind". The students laughed, but he is right. The Middle East responds to and respects power."

    This is all very true, and is the main reason the anti-war crowd is off base and not being intellectually honest.
     
    #48     Apr 4, 2003


  9. Dgabriel, that is totally incompatible with bringing democracy to Iraq.

    How are you going to have a "power base" there without occupying the country? And if you occupy the country, then how can you claim that you have brought democracy to Iraq? Out of the frying pan into the fire isn't "liberation".

    One thing it does is obviously destroys the argument of "where doing to eliminate the WMDs", because if that was the goal then you get in, do it, and get the hell out. Regime change should be a matter for the Iraqis to deal with.
     
    #49     Apr 4, 2003
  10. msfe

    msfe

    Jawohl Herr Fleischer
     
    #50     Apr 4, 2003