sempi wrote:
but you want to talk about mass murder. Lets talk about a real mass murder spree. Heard of the Congo? Know about the civil war going on there? you want mass murder? how about 1000 deaths a day? all civillians, too. its not just a civil war, tho, foreign military is mixing it up too..
Indeed I have heard and quess what, they are even using one sort of biological weapon there. They send men with HIV to rape womens in different villages as a sort of ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately I cannot give you a link since Finnish magazine where I read it does not publish in internet.
What about Balkans? Macedonia? Albanians? Chechnia? How about those for mass murder?..
They are and I condemm them.
Yet you compare what is clearly mass murder in these countries, with what is clearly NOT mass murder, what America is doing in Iraq. Thats dumb. Do you see Americans sending in people with AIDS to culturally infiltrate Iraq? Poisoning the water supply? Or any other of these horrid or even more traditional means of war?
there was politcal risk to leaving their villages standing. They died because he took the money for humanitarian aid from the UN and bought Nightvision and Jamming ECM technology from Russia illegally, and rocket technology from France as recently as last year, also illegally.
And I'm willing to bet they didn't even need a single bomb from a plane to reach those deathtoll numbers. Maybe a missle loaded with sarin, but probably no bombs...
As you say. starvation, poor health care, etc. As Albright said to a question of hundreds of thousands of children who have died 'It's a price I think we are willing to pay', emphasis on word 'we'. btw, don't forget how US-UK throttled with oil prices late 2001 to worsen the humanitarian situation. Here is a good piece from UN document.
<i>
Causes of Suffering Sanctions are not the sole cause of human suffering in Iraq. The government of Iraq bears a heavy burden of responsibility due to the wars it has started, its lack of cooperation with the Security Council, its domestic repression, and its failure to use limited resources fairly. However, the UN Security Council shares responsibility for the humanitarian crisis. The United States and the United Kingdom, who use their veto power to prolong the sanctions, bear special responsibility for the UN action. No-fly zones, periodic military attacks, and threats of regime-change block peaceful outcomes, as do vilification of Saddam Hussein, pro-sanctions propaganda, and other politicization of the crisis. Though real concerns about Iraq’s security threat undoubtedly are legitimate, commercial interests, especially control over Iraq’s oil resources, appear to be a driving force behind much of the policy making.</i>
Okay, this is a fundamnetally unsound arguement.
Iraq bears a heavy burden? No Iraq bears ALL of the burden. It doesn't make logical sense to state that because aid from an outside government has diminished that it is the outside goverments responsibility for the welfare of that populus. In short, We aren't responsible in the least for the suffering of Iraq's people politically, because the Iraqi Regime had ALL IT NEEDED to take care of its country, no matter what the sanctions in place were. The Iraqi Regime had money, materials, and even trade agreements to furnish enough to take care of matters of state, health care, road building, education, Etc. But Saddam spent it building palaces and statues of himself, buying weapons, and smuggling illegal annd forbidden technology from Russia and France, and even Korea we've found. If Iraqi Regime had all the money to do these things, then no other country had any obligation to do anything to help them. Those countries should spend their money on truly poverty stricken nations, like in South America and Africa.
Now, on the grounds of Morality, we may have felt the need to try and help these people, and that is good, but no matter what help we try to provide, Saddam would always maneuver it to help himself, and then flame the very people the aid came from in the first place. Food for oil? he took that. HUmanitarian air drops? he had those burned. Humanitarian convoys? Seized. We tried to send them in under military guard to make sure they GOT to the populus, but then he cried out that we were 'invading' him. and that we're the evil opressionists, nevermind the money we gave him to buy food to stave off rising bread prices over there.
I denounce any arguement that sanctions placed on this regime caused any suffering on the part of the populus of iraq that Saddam was not already causing in the first place, therefore I denounce the arguement that imposing any sanctions is in any way responsible for the suffering of a people under a dictator who doesn't take care of them to begin with. Lifting sanctions would've only made Saddam richer faster.
Go read your history, thats how its always been in Iraq since they declared independance in the 30s. from the communists, to the socialists. They were fake closed governments made up of military eleet.
BTW, since this conflict began, oil prices per barrell have dropped several dollars.
I would not blow myself up for any cause. It maybe stupid but it's certainly not cowardly behavior. No point crying about war crime since...well...the guy who did it is dead.
okay. I never said it was cowardly. If I mislead to believe that, then I apologise. Obvoiously it either takes deep (if stupid) convictions to decide to do something like this (kamikaze), or a lack of sanity, but i never said it was cowardly.
Now to suicide bomb a mcdonalds? thats cowardly. And as for war crimes, well thats left to the men that ordered them to do those bombings.
It would certainly been justified after Kuwaiti invasion to take Saddam for trial and with less arab resentment. US did withdraw support from rebels, Bush senior saying 'we don't want get sucked into internal conflict of Iraq' and I don't think people will forget that quite soon. History shows many examples how people first greeted military occupation but pretty soon turned against them.
Yes, but you know why he said that? He said that "because the coalition formed would fall apart if we pressed on." Bush Sr. WANTED to finish the job, but knew that world opinion on the coalition would be a tough sell, especially the Arab nations where he had troops currently stationed. particularly the political unrest having FEMALE soldiers in Saudi was causing. Yes we are all greatly disappointed that Bush Sr didnt push on in hindsight. and at the time, we probably had reason to believe his government would soon collapse on its own anyways. But we were wrong. Not -enough- people rebelled when we encouraged them to, and they got flattened because we didn't help them then. We, America, failed the Iraqi people in 1991. Hopefully this will rectify that eventually.
okay, and your point? My point was, since when have Iraqi soldiers cared about survellience or distinguishing a specific target? Since when has Saddam cared about the difference between civillians and military targets, except where he can use it to benefit him? Why don't you go ask the Kurds for an answer to that one. . .or Kuwait for that matter. . ..
Iraq is not shooting your country is it? Kuwait is a legimate target, after all it's a staging area for an invasion. Besides, they probably don't even have the technology for 'precision' bombings in those terms we understand it.
I think you misunderstood me. Your original quipp was that you compared coalition Spotters, special ops, and CIA agents who dress in plainclothes instead of uniforms, to the Iraqi soldier who dresses in civillian clothes and pretends to surrender for the purpose of killing as many people as he can trick.
they are not alike. Our Special ops and CIA officials who ARE in plain clothes undercover are seldom armed because it would give them away. their jobs are to find out what is a military threat and target, and what is not a threat and civillian. They don't walk up to an iraqi camp (not that a white or black man could) dressed in plainclothes, pretend to surrender, then shoot as many people as they can.
My point was, since when do these plain clothes killers of Iraq care about what is and what is not military target? They sure didn't when dealing with Kurdish uprising, and they sure didn't when they invaded Kuwait. Indiscriminant killing is standard hat for Saddam's army.
Yes, well, when Finland contracts slave labor, starts slaughtering Jews, and installs a bogus communist or socialist government with a military official being the head of state to accomplish all of these things while threatening to invade other scandanavian nations, then you may justifiably be in a position to worry about America or Britain missling your military.
Military goverment, like Pakistan, bogus goverments like Ukraine, slave labor like in Sudan or India. Pakistan = ally, Ukraine = in coalition, I don't know about Sudan but India seems to be in good terms with USA. Double standards anyone? Saddam has not been a threat to his neighbours since 1991 and only people he has threathened are Iraqi civilians (which is also very bad thing) and US does not seem to care if same thing is done by allies. And please, don't drag holocaust into this (otherwise this thread will soon end when Godwins law is broken)
This is the arguement that always pisses me off the most. So by YOUR logic here, because we have rough spots in our foreign policy with some countries that have problems similar to, but nowhere NEAR as bad as Iraq, we shouldn't get Saddam out while we can?
What kind of dumb thinking is that? Because i have a bad relationship with my father, i shouldn't try to be friends with my mother? Because I have a tough time making ends meet on my budget and income sometimes, I shouldn't try to help run the companies i own stock in from making bad financial moves?
Because my music videos suck, i can't give C&C to another creator?
Not to mention most of the relations we even HAVE with those countries were secured by Clinton, or Carter back in the day.
The policy bush set in place is against terrorism, and against anyone who wishes harm against america and its allies, and any other peace loving people. We will come for you. If those countries need help containing terrorism, we will help. If those countries ARE the source of terrorism, we will take steps to remove their threat, first diplomatically if possible.
However, wrecking the country with bombs because your president is scared that someday, someway, someone in the world could hurt him (with no solid evidence either) is dubious at best.
your assumption that the country is wrecked with bombs is wrong. most of the populated cities we hit still have electricity. This begs the question. Have you ever seen a bomb detonated? HAve you been around when a JDAM exploded, or a bunker buster, or an MOAB? I have not, but I have been around rock quarries that use TNT in blasting which offer a fraction of the destructive force of an actual bomb. TNT is MORE than enough to level a building, and the blast range of the amount that i was near when detonated was enough to throw a fierce wind for about 100 yards away.
now consider that a bat in the eye of Ordinance bomb. now consider that we have dropped over 12,000 bombs since beginning THIS time. And now remember they still have TV broadcast and electricity. Running water (where it was available in the first place.) I wouldn't say that qualifies as wrecking the country.
and no solid evidence? HANS BLIX HAD FOUND LONG RANGE MISSLES! Before we even invaded, we had the evidence we needed. Not only were they not to have chemical weapons, but almost every type of missle was forbidden for them to have. They claimed they didn't know where they came from, that they had destroyed all their missles, and there werent any more after that. On top of that, it wasnt enough for France to realise the jig was up. Despite their twisted logic, if we found even a handful of these missles, then like cockroaches, there must be hundreds more nested somewhere. That, or France was scared that we would find more weapons that just happened to be French made & were sold to Iraq within the last year. And then just a few days into it. . .they shot those missles they said they didnt have at Kuwait.
He probably thinks himself as St. Augustine: <i>"We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace."</i> Sounds Orwellian to me...
when will the rest of the world learn. . . Freedom is not free. You don't need to be a saint to understand that, do you?
But one important thing. Finland does not have anything that falls under 'american interests'. (expect clean water in a two or three decades) Therefore a military dictator would be quite free to roam in here. Fortunately we learned our lesson in our civil war at 1918 and build a welfare state (which is currently under attack by few large companies) which hopefully ensures that people have no need to turn weapons against a fellow man ever again.
well good for you. Democracy isnt the only way to a prosperous state and i never said it was, any more than Chirisitanity is the only way to providence. There are alot of things broken about the US, but our WORST problem pales in comparison to what the people of iraq had to put up with under Saddam.
oh, before you say that Iraq breaks UN resolutions, remember that US also goes against UN with this war. Not to mention how US allies themselves have broken UN resolutions with the help of US veto.
no its not. Show me a resolution that says 'it is illegal for US to war with the iraqi regime." We are resuming hostilities from non compliance of iraq under resolution 678; and independant from the UN, we are acting in our best intereste for national security, both abroad and home.
Ok, whole Kenya article was a bad mistake and I agreed you won on this front. I just comment few other things.
no, YOU won when you realise that the article was not written to report and be informative, and that the journalist from the BBC who ran this was a bad one indeed. You're free to still disagree with whatever you want, I just want you to back it with more convincing info and arguements.
Okay, this was just dumb. It sounds to me like YOU need some sex education there, stud puppy. Abortion is the removal of an undeveloped child from the mother by essentially inducing death/stasis/ stop development. whatever term you're comfortable with. that means ABORTION IS NOT A METHOD OF PREVENTION. YOU HAVE ABORTIONS WHEN YOU ARE ALREADY PREGNANT. ABORTION IS A METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL.
Oh and guess what. Condums don't protect you from any disease, did you know that? No condum works to protect you from any disease or pregnancy, and that is a fact. All they do is REDUCE THE RISK. You can still get pregnant by using a condum with sex, and you can still transmit STDs while using condums.
You misunderstood me. I meant it in terms how some people call abortion 'prevention'. It works like this. They say condoms (and other methods) reduce pleasure and therefore they rely on abortion should they have an 'accident'. I do know what abortion means.
Oh and God forbid we reduce pleasure . . .thats just repugnant.
Risk. and keeping firealarm does not make sure you will not die in a fire, it just reduces the risk. I don't know what you are smoking but please give me some too.
Bad correlation, think of something else. A fire alarm is passive; it doesnt do anything to fight a fire or prevent it from starting.
Sure, condoms can break if you mess around with it or use oil based lubricants. Heck, even a guy at store might be nasty and push needle through condom packages, but as of now, they are about the best protection against diseases and unwanted pregnancy.
You say that like its your right to not get(someone) pregnant so you can have sex whenever you want and have condoms so you can do just that. You have no such right, and whoever filled your head with such nonsense should be drug into a orphanage nursery and forced to care for them until they're old enough to have sex.
and it ISN'T the best protection. the BEST is Abstinance.
But you know there is one contraceptive and one preventative measure that almost completely PROTECTS you from pregnancy and from STDs? and its very cheap, and available throughout the whole world.
Its called abstinance.
Ok, we are clearly light years apart in this issue. Finding true love immediately is a nice dream and well used in anime but IMO, it just does not happen very often in real life.
What in the hell does finding true love immediately have to do with abstinance?? And if you think it does, then what the hell does sex have to do with true love??
To Cataclysm: The situation in Africa (and elsewhere) is not really that women have a choice. In many places the choices are: Have sex or get beaten up and raped, both options being pretty much the same (expect the beating):
http://www.hrw.org/women/index.php
Hate to butt in cataclysm, but I just have to say. . . . . if the situation in Africa is that women have to live with these social conditions, then they have alot bigger problems to deal with then if they can get an abortion or a monthly birth control injection.
I guess you missed his state of the union address where hes sending a bill to congress to approve 400milllion dollars of AIDS relief money to Africa. Get your facts straight and make a real arguement, or have the nerve to say "I don't like Bush or America and I don't really have a substantial reason." I have more repsect for the person honest with themself than a person who tries to add excess to that which is simple.
This was a mistake and I can honestly say it.[/quote]
Thats fine, but thats still missing the point I try to make. Disliking someone or something is reasonable mostly. Hating usually is not reasonable. I find hating America is a social response, not usually founded in thorough education but in a lack of information and a social group tendancy.
Trust me, We know about racism and hatred as a social disease in America. The only people who know more are those who suffered genocide.
and i havent forgotten the 'why' bit. . .
