War in Iraq

[Colbwa]

First off I think it's completely rediculous that everyone is put in political parties. Hell, even those who consider themselves non-partisan (myself included) are basically stuck with a label and considered a member of a certain group.

Some random information:

Fact: War is the natrual flow of life. People die everyday of retarded shit, but thats the way it is. I believe us invading Iraq is helping and will help a lot of Iraquis finally get a taste of freedom. Yes some of our troops are dying. Yes we are killing a lot of Iraqui civilians and troops, but a lot of Americans/British/Aussies/Canadians/Mexicans/French died in World War II as part of the Allied Forces and because of that we are speaking English in America and not German or Japanese. I know some will argue that we had a better reason to go into WWII because bombs were dropped in our back yard, but the world will never learn to like America if we don't rush to get their backs. We are the most powerful country in the world and we willingly sacrifice for the benefit of other countries.

Fact: The media lies all the time. First off they only report what they are given and even then they fabricate the truth as much as possible to get the best ratings. Think about it...every night millions of people watch sticoms, "reality" t.v., news, movies, porn, sports, whatever. It is a gigantic ratings battle, the broadcasters get more money with the more people that watch because advertisers pay more for airtime on that channel, therefore why wouldn't a teleprompt typer be told not to misconstrew the truth? It helps get them ratings and ratings = money = power. Most of what you see on the news/newspapers/magazines/etc. is stretched truth and some of what you see is 100% false and made up bullshit. Example: The word "hacker" was coined to mean "create". Now the term "hacker" means to 'destroy' or 'a person who deliberately infiltrates computer networks for the sole purpose of gaining secret knowledge to use for evil + terrorism and/or destroy the computer(s) and network(s) itself. What kind of bullshit is that? Visit 2600.com to learn some truth on that.

I don't recall what his name is but some guy on this post wrote that President Bush = deusche bag. You need to be punched in the fucking mouth. He is the President of the United States and whether you agree with his view or not, he still worked his ass off to be in that seat and technically is the most powerful person in the world and some say universe. That is a scary thought for a lot of people but to call that man a deusche bag is disrescpectful and immature. Yet while some of you read this you are flaming me in your mind and saying "well he is, well he is, well he is." Well that is the great thing about America...that guy can call the President anything he wants, and I can tell him to fuck off/eat shit/toss his fathers salad because it's a free mother fucking country. Don't you think everybody in the world should be allowed to have the freedom to call their own leader a deusche bag? I don't believe it's right to say that but that much freedom is very, very fucking nice.

President Bush gets blamed for a lot of shit that isn't his fault. He's being blamed for the "economic crisis" (what crisis? We gotta pay 30 bucks to fill up our gas tanks instead of 25? Who the fuck cares? It's called inflation people get over it.) But why is he to blame? Because he is President now? That's horseshit, Clinton trying to get bills like S Con Res 23 Budge Resolution is why the economy is "in shambles." You think when a bill is passed we instantaneously see/feel the effects of it? No. Do I think President Clinton did some things well? Hell yea he helped raise a lot of money for schools. Do I think he did some things poorly? Hell yea the man cheated on his wife with a secretary he hired just for head and is the reason or economy in a very MINOR slump.



In conclusion,

Peace.

 

[Mr.Wonko]

First off I think it's completely rediculous that everyone is put in political parties. Hell, even those who consider themselves non-partisan (myself included) are basically stuck with a label and considered a member of a certain group.

I agree whole heartedly. This is bad.

Some random information:

Fact: War is the natrual flow of life. People die everyday of retarded shit, but thats the way it is. I believe us invading Iraq is helping and will help a lot of Iraquis finally get a taste of freedom. Yes some of our troops are dying. Yes we are killing a lot of Iraqui civilians and troops, but a lot of Americans/British/Aussies/Canadians/Mexicans/French died in World War II as part of the Allied Forces and because of that we are speaking English in America and not German or Japanese. I know some will argue that we had a better reason to go into WWII because bombs were dropped in our back yard, but the world will never learn to like America if we don't rush to get their backs. We are the most powerful country in the world and we willingly sacrifice for the benefit of other countries.

There was a clear and legitimate threat in WWII. A marauding army was charging around Europe, spouting stuff about the master race, and setting about six million people on fire. This isn't the case now.

Fact: The media lies all the time. First off they only report what they are given and even then they fabricate the truth as much as possible to get the best ratings. Think about it...every night millions of people watch sticoms, "reality" t.v., news, movies, porn, sports, whatever. It is a gigantic ratings battle, the broadcasters get more money with the more people that watch because advertisers pay more for airtime on that channel, therefore why wouldn't a teleprompt typer be told not to misconstrew the truth? It helps get them ratings and ratings = money = power. Most of what you see on the news/newspapers/magazines/etc. is stretched truth and some of what you see is 100% false and made up bullshit. Example: The word "hacker" was coined to mean "create". Now the term "hacker" means to 'destroy' or 'a person who deliberately infiltrates computer networks for the sole purpose of gaining secret knowledge to use for evil + terrorism and/or destroy the computer(s) and network(s) itself. What kind of bullshit is that? Visit 2600.com to learn some truth on that.

Again, I agree. The media is a bunch of lying gits, but I think it's more because of their focus. I'd elaborate but I have to go to class.

I don't recall what his name is but some guy on this post wrote that President Bush = deusche bag. You need to be punched in the fucking mouth. He is the President of the United States and whether you agree with his view or not, he still worked his ass off to be in that seat and technically is the most powerful person in the world and some say universe.

Are people not allowed to have opinions? And yeah, all that dereliction of duty and coke orgies really helped him pull those incredible Cs.

 

[Halifirien]

As much as I dislike having Bush as our president for another four years, I'm actually sort of grateful. It's done wonders for me on a professional level, because I started writing a semi-weekly column for my newspaper. There's nothing like getting paid to bitch about Bush.

 

[Dirgesong]

I don't recall what his name is but some guy on this post wrote that President Bush = deusche bag. You need to be punched in the fucking mouth.

Cry me a river, I don't like Bush, I have nothing to do with the US electoral process, and I still think he's a dousche.

You don't like it??

Oh well.

<edit!> I have hereby decided not to engade in intellectual debate with someone who's first reaction to my slander of Bush is a punch in the Choppers.

That is all
</edit!>

 

[Neyla]

If you're worried about people blowing up your house - be real, and put the Red Dawn and Invasion USA DVDs away - let's remember the first major terrorist attack in America during our lifetimes was committed by one of our own - Timothy McVeigh. Then there's Eric Rudolph and the idiot support network who helped him stay on the run for so long. We worry about international terrorism - and rightfully so - while the poisonous elements of our own population carry on about their merry way, unmonitored by a distracted government and a media who knows they won't sell newspapers or keep viewers around long enough for the next Viagra commercial. (The government and the media want to sell you a more potent, more exotic kind of fear, no matter how unlikely its success actually is.)

Also, even our own government - including the president - admit there was no connection between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's network of operatives. One really wouldn't expect a radical Islamist like bin Laden to tolerate a flagrant secularist like Saddam Hussien, who only sometimes brought up religion as a means of stirring the idiots influenced by it. For connections to bin Laden and people who planned out the Sept. 11 attacks, let's look at the country where most of those madmen were from - Saudi Arabia. Don't see any bombs being dropped or sanctions being called for while they let terrorist groups train and recruit within their borders, do you? No no, there's gold in them there pipelines.

Our own government also admits, as has been pointed out, they aren't going to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (i.e. "Well, shucks, we were kinda wrong about the whole basis for this war. Our bad. Mad props to all the widows and fatherless children out there."). Were there chemical and bioligical weapons at one point? Absolutely. Where did they come from? Well the folks at the CIA admitted they supplied some of it so Hussien could use it in his war against Iran. Ain't it funny how we fund people and get them into power only to have hit bite us on the ass later? (Hussien, Noriega, the people who became Al-Qaida and the Taliban.) It's what you get for shoving your nose into other people's business. Saddam Hussien was by no means Hitler. Saddam Hussien could barely pass for Mussolini.

As for Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives, there are plenty of Republicans who dislike Bush as much as the Dems. Even that nutball Pat Buchanan thinks the war is total crap. And I'm a Libertarian, so I see absolutely nothing conservative about the social engineers and Big Brother-ish, big-time spenders running the GOP these days. Democrats and Republicans are all equally full of shit.

 

[Neyla]

P.S. - My mithra wants to marry Wonko because he's so damn adorable in that picture. :lol:

 

[Mr.Wonko]

Yes!

 

[Xelos]

Saddam Hussein?.........more like.....

SO-DAMN INSANE!

(Simpson's joke )

 

[CubsWoo]

Thorr, I may agree with your viewpoints (in general, since we're obviously both Republicans) but for chrissakes, telling people they're misguided and calling them names is no way to get someone to listen to your viewpoint.

That being said, I've been away from this topic (how, I dunno, I normally can sniff these out pretty quickly) and here's my take.

Mr. Wonko: Congress approved the use of force and gave the President the ability to declare war. Of course, I call it 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' because, well, that's the name.

Palum: 'War for Oil' is such a fisked talking point that it doesn't deserve a response, the economy has steadily gotten better since the start of 2004 (YOU try to recover an economy that had the .com bubble that Clinton let grow to insane proportions burst PLUS the massive hit that 9/11 had on the nation's economy as a whole.) Economic plans normally take 3-4 years to fully show their results. If by 2006 we've recovered, Bush did his job. If he didn't, the Repubs will lose seats in the House and Senate and the Dems will look very strong going into '08.

As for Iraq vs. North Korea: You have to pick your battles. All of our intelligence (UN, US, you name it) showed Saddam having possible nuclear capabilities and the ability to deliver a missile to Israel within the next few years. We spend over 12 years and 17 U.N. resoultions telling Saddam to simply show us that what he had, he didn't anymore. All he had to do was prove that he was complying, and we would have never had a US invasion. But evenutally, someone had to have more bite than bark. Kim Jong Il is, for lack of a better term, batshit insane. There's a huge difference between someone who has the possibility of gaining nuclear weapons, and someone who already has them. You need to tread much lighter with someone like Il, because if you piss him off he may just fire that nuke at Japan, or Russia, or Taiwan, or who knows where. The trick is to make sure the crazy dictators are taken out of power before they have the ability to change the rules.

Mr. Wonko part II: RE the environment: I've seen studies that say we're causing global warming. I've also seen studies that say we're causing global COOLING. But most of all, what I see is that most of the people who talk about the environment simply can't tell us if what we're doing is the right thing, the wrong thing, or maybe both at the same time. We're trying to draw massive conclusions based on less than 30 years of studying global temperatures, and signing a sweeping, massive international agreement (i.e. Kyoto) is rank stupidity when we're basing that judgment off what can be considered junk science right now.

Veovis: I don't see how this is 'revenge' or 'vindication' at all. Bush Sr. liberated Kuwait, Dubya is liberating Iraq.

On to Mr. Kerry. I listened to the same debate you did, and all I heard were empty promises. He continually called the war 'wrong war, wrong place, wrong time' and then, in the same breath, said he supported the troops. I agree, mistakes were made in Iraq, there's no arguing that. But Mr. Kerry portrayed the troops as fighting with spitballs and grocery bag armor. And how he was going to pay for all his promises when he had voted - almost his entire political career - to cut military funding made him hard to believe. I do, however, agree with your anger at Thorr, because anyone who goes out and calls you misguided is wrong. I, too, disagree with your viewpoint, but I'd much rather debate you in a gentleman's fashon and not resort to personal insults.

Mr. Wonko part III: To be fair, most people had no idea the Holocaust was going on until we marched into Germany and saw it for ourselves. Some people still think it was a Zionist conspiracy to garner support for the Jewish state. We stayed out of WWII until Pearl Harbor because we were following isolationist policies. We gave support to England in the form of food and aid, but not really manpower until the Axis struck first. Before Pearl Harbor, America as a whole was strongly against getting involved in Europe or Asia, mostly because nobody wanted to see another Great War. And in the end, of course, we lost more US boys every week (appx. 2000) then we have in the whole of the Iraq conflict.

Neyla: By 'fear,' I'm sure you can lump AIDS into that. All I ever hear is how I'm going to be the next person to contract it, when al the CDC facts show that for the past 20 years, the most at-risk groups have been, and still are (according to a 1999 study of 751,965 persons, living or dead, with HIV/AIDS

Appx. 50% were men who had sex with other men.
28% were IV drug users.
6% were in both of the above categories.
Appx. 2% were hemophiliacs or had contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.
13.5%, 99,483 cases, were categorized as 'heterosexual contact.' But this gets broken down into more subsections.

About 35,000 of those contracted AIDS from someone who was an IV drug user.
4,000 of them were contracted from a bisexual male.
Another 1,681 contracted it from a hemophiliac or from someone who had a blood transfusion.
Then we get 58.571 people who are classified as 'risk not specified.' Even if we consider EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE CASES as simple heterosexual sex with someone not in an at-risk group, that's still only 7% of all cases nationwide. But in that group, you're sure to get liars. If people lie about where they got syphilis, or warts, or whatever - isn't the same likely with AIDS? We may never know how many heterosexual people get AIDS from straight sex with another person who has not engaged in high-risk activities or been with someone who did. Whatever the number, it's too high. But it's hardly the fearmongering epidemic we've been led to believe.

Ahem. Kind of got on a tangent there.

Anyway.

As for the Saddam-9/11 links, I think what evidence there is is shaky, so I leave it to you to take it or leave it. Just for those interested:

Saddam's philanthropy of terror
Evidence of cooperation between Saddam and Osama
Part 2
Ansar al-Islam, Iraqi intelligence, and Saddam
Iraqi Intelligence Chief met with bin Laden in Khartoum
Saddam Killed Abu Nidal over al-Qaeda Training
Sabah Khodada: Iraqi Intelligence trained al-Qaeda
2nd 9/11 Hijacker tied to Abu Nidal, Iraq
Federal judge finds Saddam culpable for 9/11

The Saudis, as opposed to the rest of the Middle East, are actually doing things to prevent terrorism. Because as much as the US needs Saudi oil, the Saudis need US protection. Should Iran gain nuclear capabilites, their second or third target would likely be Saudi Arabia for being US sympathizers (Israel and a free Iraq being #1 and #2.) I can also see Bin Laden and others recruiting Saudis to the cause simply because it's much easier for a Saudi to gain American citizenship and do the necessary training and planning in America as sleeper cells as opposed to, say, an Iraqi or Palestinian or Afgani during the Taliban's rule.

I also believe that you, as obviously intelligent as you are, can see a bigger picture than just the 'hunt for WMD's.' It was a main point of our reason to go to war, yes. But so was removing Saddam and bringing freedom to those people stuck under despotic rule. And they're happy to finally be able to vote in an election that has more than one candidate. From Iraq's Ministry of Planning:

72.4 % of all of those polled said they would participate in the elections. [In comparison, 54% of American eligible voters voted in 2004, and we had our largest turnout EVER.]

97% of Iraqis in Kurdistan said they would participate in the elections.

96% of Iraqis in the southern provinces (mainly Shiite areas) said they would participate in the elections.

(NOTE: These were the groups targeted by Saddam and his regime.

33% of Iraqis in the central provinces (Sunni Area) said they would participate in the elections.

10% of Iraqis in Central provinces (Sunni Area) said they have not yet made their mind if they were going to vote or not.

(NOTE: In comparison, these are the Saddam-supportive areas. Sunni clergy were often employed by his government.)

62.1% of those polled said that the elections will be neutral and free.

17.8% said elections will not be neutral and free.

66% said that the elections must take place under current circumstances.

53.3% said the security is good in their area..

21.7% said that security was average in their area.

25% said that security was bad in their area.:

(Final note: So 75% of Iraqis say their security is 'good' or 'average.' A lot better than the picture you see painted on the nightly news, no?)

As for installing Hussein, the Taliban, and the others - it was a matter of the devil you know vs. the devil you don't know. At the time, we preferred the Taliban to the Soviets, and Hussein to Iran and their mullahs. Hindsight, as we all know, is 20/20. What we won't know is if things would have been better had we not 'stuck our nose in their business.' Also remember we 'stuck our nose' in Germany in the 80's and all we did there was knock down a silly little wall.

In the end, I'm proud to be a Republican, I'm happy that Bush won, I think the country's on the right track, that the world is, by and large, a good place to be - and that it's going to get better. And while I may disagree with what a lot of you have to say, I both respect your right to say it and enjoy debating my personal point of view against yours.

 

[Neyla]

I don't disagree with you on the AIDS thing. It's a concern, of course, but there are alarmists doing their cause a disservice with misinformation.

As for Germany, I'm too tired to say anything about that one.

 

[CubsWoo]

It's that whole 'a picture is worth a thousand words' thing.

 

[Summerbreeze]

/sigh

I have soooo many reasons why Bush should not be in office.

As a teacher and a woman just thinking about what he's doing makes me want to cry.

But all in all it doesn't really matter anymore. He's elected. We're stuck with him for the next four years. He doesn't care what any of us think anymore.