I'm baffled by the Saddam Hussein sympathizers who frequent this site. He is a tyrant. Duh! To compare our government's action, not all of which I agree with, to those of his regime is ludicrous.

Try the following exercise in free speech and get back to me:

Take a trip to Washington DC, stand in front of the White House, and shout "George Bush is a murdering fool!" Hmmm, no big deal. What's up with those menacing Americans?! Next, catch a flight to Baghdad, find a busy street, and repeat the message using the name "Saddam Hussein." Chances are, we'll never hear from you again.

Now I've never been foolish or angry enough to try this myself, but I'm sure that one of our org Saddam-sympathizers would be assured of fair treatment in both cities.

If we have the chance, we should provide a service to rest of the civilized world. Take him out. You'll thank us later.

AFTER READING ALL THESE POSTS, I CAN ONLY QUOTE DAVID BOWIE:

I´M AFRAID OF AMERICANS!!

I often wonder what the rest of the world has done to deserve such "leadership". Leave us alone, thank you. You are not attacking Iraq for humanitarian reasons but only for greed, greed, greed. And sooner or later, you will pay for it...again. It´s only karma, baby.

Personally I think that Europe's collective voice as being more evolved/morally superior to US etc (which you hear all the time on this site) has more to do with being so close to the situation rather than actually being a moderate voice. If Europe as a whole rallied against the trouble states in the middle east, they would pay the price. There would be 9/11s left and right.

Europeans underestimate the American public's ability to understand complex issues like our foreign policy and how it is like creating Frankensteins. Nobody I know is blindly following the government's stance. I strongly agree that one thing our nation needs to learn is that when you lie with dogs you get fleas. Pestilence, in the form of nations we now oppose that we once supported (Iran, Afghanistan). Unfortunately the Bush administration is charging full steam ahead with their agenda with or without input from the other branches of government, let alone the people.

I'm not in favor of just going in and blowing up Iraq. But something does need to be done. What happens when we leave the situation alone and suddenly Saddam detonates their first nuclear weapon in the Iraqi desert? How could you possibly reign him in at that point?
[This message was edited Tue Aug 27 22:33:41 PDT 2002 by SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy]

A few points of clarification:

1) I am completely unimpressed with both "Bushes," especially the current one. He's an embarrassment.

2) I'm not interested in a "war" with anyone. On the other hand, a "surgical strike" to remove Saddam Hussein from the face of the Earth sounds completely reasonable to me.

3) We've been attacked. I am completely okay with vigorous self-defense. In my opinion, the Bin Ladens and Husseins of the world should pick their fights a little more carefully. But they haven't. The reason: they rely on our restraint. If we were half the aggressors that the sympathizers here have suggested (repeatedly), we'd be talking about the middle east in the past tense.

I know that a major part of our engaging in Desert Storm had to do with protecting our interests, but let me point out that OUR interests are YOUR interests too.

Let's look at the early 90s scenario. Saddam took over Kuwait. He then had his eyes on Saudi Arabia, who owns the largest oil reserves. So say we stayed out of it completely and Saudi Arabia is taken over by Iraq. Iraq's reserves along with their ill gotten gain in Saudi Arabia makes them the top owner of oil. Now America is held hostage because of our need for this oil. Without our ability to function on normal levels, we are unable to sustain our status as a world power, not militarily but ECONOMICALLY. Where does that leave the rest of the world that so depends on our help, millitarily & economically? Would Europe be there to pick up the pieces?

So now Saddam is able to wield incredible power due to his control of the oil market, do you really think that he'd stop at controlling the middle east?? He'd be in Europe's backyard before they even knew what hit em.

That's something to think about when deciding whether or not it's a good idea to oust Saddam. Again, I'm not in full favor of war but we need to think about the consequences of "staying out of it".

This region will continue to be unstable with or without Sadaam's departure. It isn't until TRUE equality among peoples is acheived, regardles of class, sex or ethnic origin. As long as dictatorships flourish in that region there will always be trouble. And as long as we support these regimes, even if they are our ally today, that part of the world will never stop hating us.

AND...let's not forget that he used chemical weapons against his own people!! If he's willing to use them against his own nation, how much more so anyone else?

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Back in 1988, when this happened (against a curdish rebellion in the north of iraq), the US army supplied the plans for this attack. the interest is simple: the war against iran was still in full rage, and saddam needed the north of his country under control to focus on the war. so the US helped. they have protested against the method (the use of gas), but that was it. they pretty much didnt care, as long as saddam was strong enough for the struggle against iran.

President Bush has full authorization to attack Iraq from a a joint resolution PASSED by Congress on Sept 14, 2001. It gives the President sole power to decide to go to war against a country aiding the terrorists, Al Qaeda. This was also mentioned in many of his speeches, which is the Bush Doctrine. "To terrorist nations, you are either for us or against us."

They've been given a choice. The majority American people are behind the ousting of Saddam in opinion polls. He has U.S. support at home.

IceNine said:

I think it's too late for that. Normally, I'm not for going around and starting up wars around the world. Peace-keeping missions, yes. But this is something we started when we were at odds with Iran and then again in the early 90's. This is a mess we created that we have to fix. If Europe and the rest of the world doesn't like it, so be it. They can either help us out with this, if we do it, or if we don't, they can deal with the aftermath.

Sitting around saying "we should stay out of it" is all well and good until some major shit goes down. Like September 11. Or Anthrax. Or possibly the arrival of West Nile virus in the US. Some chemical or nuclear attacks go down, launched from Iraq. Then the world will point at us and ask why we didn't do anything to stop it. Or will be looking for emergency relief funds to fix the fallout from the catastrophe.

All over the world, people hate us for sticking our noses in where it doesn't belong (Kosovo). And when we don't, they ask us where were we (Rwanda, I believe?)? That if we aren't going to help one group of people, we shouldn't help anyone else. That's bullshit. We shouldn't help these people over here who are in trouble just because we dropped the ball with these others? Two wrongs suddenly make a right?

And how about WWII? A rather common argument is that the US got involved too late. We were doing then exactly what they want us to do now. "Stay out of it." 40-50-60 years later, they're saying we should have gotten involved earlier. This is a repeat of WWII. All this handwringing about whether we should leave Saddam alone. Let him invade Kuwait, let's keep out of it. Let him build an arsenal, let's keep out of it. Didn't Europe basically just turn a blind eye to Hitler for quite some time? Sacrificing certain countries to him just so they wouldn't have to face a war? Until it went so far that there was no turning back? And he was right in their backyards? Saddam is in your back yard. After Isreal, where do you think the next place he'll aim missiles will be? The US? Don't think so. Too far away. Heads up Europe. I hope you don't talk us into staying out of Iraq like you tried so long to talk yourselves out of going up against Hitler. You might not recover from this one. Will you still want us to stay out of it when it's time to clean up from the total destruction of your countries? Like last time?

Which do you want? Go ahead, say we're evil. Think we're evil. Hate our foreign policy. I don't care. But ask yourselves who'll be the first person your countries run to when your chips are down.



Edited because I have more to say...
[This message was edited Tue Aug 27 19:38:12 PDT 2002 by Aaron]

SO TRUE

America was provoked several times into action by Bin Laden. First Trade center attack, South Africa bombing of the US embassy, and the USS Cole in Yemin.

Our "Government" could have protected NYC long before the towers fell and over 3,000 people lost their lives.

International cohesion has never been on the priority list for America... now its just gonna be sink or swim.

The thought of war just blows my mind!

I can't even imagine the sound of a blast... and the screams of a another human being!

sag10 said:

since we DONT live in utopia isnt it a question of us or them right now..???

god i dont want to sound heartless but


Sept 11 made me scared as hell that any day there is going to be another attack because we havent bucked up and put an end to the idea that america is vunerable.

I will settle for safer...


the U.S. has been doing nasty shit to people all over the world for so many years. Christ they do things to the citizens that are considered abusive and would b in the same catagory as animal testing.


We just gotta remove the threat of biological, nuclear, and violent attacks on U.S. soil.


Which is an arrogent demand because so many other countries live with death and war on a daily basis. But thats why i live here. However after Sept 11.. Toronto is looking better every day
[This message was edited Wed Aug 28 11:21:22 PDT 2002 by ADORA]

bonojr said:

lol...where is this information coming from? most recent polls show that approval to attack Iraq has dropped down to 45%. Why do you think Bush has been forced to try and sway public responce?

and while the resolution *does* allow Bush to act against terror...Bush's explenation for attacking Iraq has always been his hatred for America and his having weapons of mass distruction...he has *yet* to prove that he outright supports terrorist...which is why the rest of the world isnt supporting us on this..im interested in finding out where u are getting your information from...

They seem radical in the face of a dominately liberal media, liberal bias in the media.

bonojr said:

Funny the libs make the same argument somewhat more convincingly about the current discourse in the media being dominated by conservs... The reigning news network at this moment (ratings wise) is FOX with OReilly Factor as the lead, who's pouncing Donahue's show.

AFTER READING ALL THESE POSTS, I CAN ONLY QUOTE DAVID BOWIE:

I´M AFRAID OF AMERICANS!!

I often wonder what the rest of the world has done to deserve such "leadership". Leave us alone, thank you. You are not attacking Iraq for humanitarian reasons but only for greed, greed, greed. And sooner or later, you will pay for it...again. It´s only karma, baby.

NuPwrSoul said:

If you want to see exactly how liberal the media isn't, check www.dailyhowler.com for info on the number the Washington press corps worked on Gore in 2000.

And you can see exactly how liberal the media is by checking out BIAS by Bernard Goldberg, which the President also read, and SLANDER by Ann Coultier, both number one best sellers. Save yourself some time and except it as fact, there's more evidence to support this issue than I can count.

Aaron said:

Yes and we know just how fair and objective the President must be in choosing his reading. And Ann Coultier? Even her former editors had to let her go after her very racist and xenophobic statements about Arabs and Muslims.

The fact that she is and Goldberg are best sellers and "the President" reads them certainly shows that that "Liberal bias in the media" must really be working, huh?

I was unaware of any racist comments by the lady, of which I don't support, but the book deals with liberal bias issue in the media. The President read the Bernard Goldberg book, the other, I've no clue. Thanks for info though.

bonojr said:

She was fired from the conservative National Review for one of her post 9/11 columns. Here's the National Review's official statement on the matter:

http://www.nationalreview...0301.shtml

Of course there are much less flattering articles on the subject that a google search will turn up.