Good Bush

[seinfeldrules]

and the removal of a democratically elected government in iran circa 1953 you ignore? still doesnt vindicate the death squads, the support of tyrants, murderers and despots ...google Dan Mitrione or Juan Bosch or Patrice Lumumba or Mobutu Sese Seko or General Suharto or General Castelo Branco or Arosemana or Trujillo

I'm sorry, but I wont hide in a corner for actions my country commited 40+ years ago. Different time, different context. I suppose Germany should still be kicked down in the shitter if that was the case.

 

[CptStern]

The reason we invaded Iraq instead of other Middle Eastern Countries is because they were posing the biggest threat to the US and its allies.

name one incident where an iraqi under saddam's direct orders attacked an american

Iraq threatened America, Kuwait, Israel, and all our allies, because first and foremost, The Iraq government hated us, for kicking Saddam out of Office the first time.

excuse me? when did saddam leave office?

(Although, we should have gotten rid of him permanetly, instead of just kicking him out.) When he came back, he had a hatered of the US and its allies.

really? could that have possibly been fueled by the deaths of over 1 million iraqis at the hands of the west?

And he had Biological weapons, and plans for WMD.

excuse me? when did they ever prove saddam had wmd?

sorry but I'll take their word for it over yours

Which country would you go after first, a country in Civil war, or a Country that already has a somewhat stable government with Biological weapons and possibly WMD's, with a passionate hatred of you?

well then you'd better saddle up cuz most of the free world hates you ..or at least your foreign policy

 

[seinfeldrules]

name one incident where an iraqi under saddam's direct orders attacked an american

Shot at the planes in the no-fly zone.

 

[gh0st]

The US viewed Iraq as legitimate threat as well as a humanitarian crisis.

We had no basis to view them as a legitimate threat except shady intelligence, thats it. North Korea has a far more developed nuclear weapons program that they admit to having, THEY are a legitimate threat.

We didnt view them as a humanitarian crisis two decades ago when he was ACTUALLY killing tens of thousands of people.

Was it any different before? There are a few key differences I see now:
1. No more Saddam
2. The future only looks brighter, not darker (unlike the past 30 years)

1. Yes.
2. I dont know, but I doubt you or I are in any position to speak of the hopes of the iraqi people, never having lived among them. All I have to say is at least they had water under saddam. They dont have to like the man but I'd say that, for the average iraqi, the past decade has been better for them than it is now. at least saddam kept these hardlining fundamentalists in line.

I didnt say that those lives were insignificant, but the entire Iraq War is insignificant when compared to Vietnam on overall scale.

In scale yes, but in principle no.

He was shooting at our planes. He had attempted to assasinate Bush Sr. He kicked out the inspectors.

Should any of these things lead us to war? We've assassinated many people in the history of our nation, particularly in latin america. they've never been belligerant towards us (well, some have). None of these is any basis for war. Would you throw your life away because saddam kicked out the inspecters? That seems preposterous

Thats the liberal media getting to you. Sounds like a page right out of F 9/11.

Nothing liberal about it. Humans needs food, and water to live. To the iraqi, I doubt that democracy is as important as the necessities of life. its easy for us to say that freedom is this or that but they arent in a position to say that.

They just would have been training there, not fighting (not specifically Al Qaeda).

proof of these terrorists having been training in iraq? notice you add not specifically al qaeda... if not them, then who?

Again, things wont instantly happen, it will take time and dedication. Something that I think the American public lacks.

Agreed.

 

[seinfeldrules]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html

That is my only response as of the moment as I need to sleep and then go to work.

The people being trained were Iraqis in one group, and non-Iraqis, or foreign nationals, in another?

Non-Iraqis were trained separately from us. There were strict orders not to meet with them and not to talk to them. And even when they conduct their training, their training has to occur at times different from the times when we conduct the Iraqis our own training.

Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001.[Editors Note, June 2004: A year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there has been no verification of Khodada's account of the activities at Salman Pak. It should also be noted that he and other defectors interviewed for this report were brought to FRONTLINE's attention by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a dissident organization that was working to overthrow Saddam Hussein.]




So you were training Iraqis, Saddam's fedayeen, members of the militia in Iraq. And someone else, other groups, were training the non-Iraqis?

They were special trainers or teachers from the Iraqi intelligence and al-Mukhabarat. And those same trainers or teachers will train the fedayeen, the Iraqi fedayeen, and also the same group of those teachers will train the non-Iraqis, foreigners who are in the camp. Personally, my profession is not this kind of training. My profession is to train people on infantry, typical infantry training, such as training on machine guns, pistols, hand grenades, rocket launchers on the shoulder and this kind of training. The special training that I'm talking about, such as the kidnapping and so, is conducted by those trainers who are not from the army; they are from ... al-Mukhabarat.And there was a person who is very famous. They call him Al-Shaba. [ph]. This is Arabic word means "The Ghost," who was responsible for all the training, and those trainers or the teachers.

 

[CptStern]

The US viewed Iraq as legitimate threat as well as a humanitarian crisis.

no they didnt ...oh and they manufactured the humanitarian crisis, so that justification is null and void

Was it any different before? There are a few key differences I see now:
1. No more Saddam
2. The future only looks brighter, not darker (unlike the past 30 years)

and that's why every single report out of iraq says that iraqis are worse off now than before?

He was shooting at our planes. He had attempted to assasinate Bush Sr. He kicked out the inspectors.

so that's enough of a reason to declare war? you attempted to kill saddam dozens of time, you committed war crimes against the people of iraq ...surely that enough grounds for an invasion ..is it not?

Thats the liberal media getting to you. Sounds like a page right out of F 9/11.

why? because it's the truth?

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/06/us_general_acco.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-01-25-dean-iraq-today_x.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001968744_gao30.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0406-01.htm
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mideast/iraq/1689.html
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1081265435894_76674635?s_name=&no_ads=
http://www.boston.com/news/world/mi.../06/blix_iraq_worse_off_now_than_with_saddam/


U.S. General Accounting Office: Iraq Now Worse Off than Before War:

"In a few key areas - electricity, the judicial system and overall security - the Iraq that America handed back to its residents Monday is worse off than before the war began last year, according to calculations in a new General Accounting Office report released Tuesday.

"The 105-page report by Congress' investigative arm offers a bleak assessment of Iraq after 14 months of U.S. military occupation. Among its findings:

"-In 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, electricity was available fewer hours per day on average last month than before the war. Nearly 20 million of Iraq's 26 million people live in those provinces.

"-Only $13.7 billion of the $58 billion pledged and allocated worldwide to rebuild Iraq has been spent, with another $10 billion about to be spent. The biggest chunk of that money has been used to run Iraq's ministry operations.

"-The country's court system is more clogged than before the war, and judges are frequent targets of assassination attempts.

"-The new Iraqi civil defense, police and overall security units are suffering from mass desertions, are poorly trained and ill-equipped.

"-The number of what the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority called significant insurgent attacks skyrocketed from 411 in February to 1,169 in May.

"The report was released on the same day that the CPA's inspector general issued three reports that highlighted serious management difficulties at the CPA. The reports found that the CPA wasted millions of dollars at a Hilton resort hotel in Kuwait because it didn't have guidelines for who could stay there, lost track of how many employees it had in Iraq and didn't track reconstruction projects funded by international donors to ensure they didn't duplicate U.S. projects.

"Both the GAO report and the CPA report said that the CPA was seriously understaffed for the gargantuan task of rebuilding Iraq. The GAO report suggested the agency needed three times more employees than what it had. The CPA report said the agency believed it had 1,196 employees, when it was authorized to have 2,117. But the inspector general said CPA's records were so disorganized that it couldn't verify its actual number of employees.

"GAO Comptroller General David Walker blamed insurgent attacks for many of the problems in Iraq."

They just would have been training there, not fighting (not specifically Al Qaeda).

no


"....But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. "

Again, things wont instantly happen, it will take time and dedication. Something that I think the American public lacks.

well if history is any judge this will go on for gnerations ...I'm confident history will record this as a black mark on US foreign policy

 

[gh0st]

stern it's kind of scary how much we agree about in reality.

 

[CptStern]

stern it's kind of scary how much we agree about in reality.

I was about to say the same thing ...what the hell happened for you to do a 360?

 

[iyfyoufhl]

CptStern is on fire, go go go

 

[Dag]

name one incident where an iraqi under saddam's direct orders attacked an american

Shot down planes in a no-fly zone. Gassed the Kurds. Also, To pose a threat to America and its Allies, you don't have to attack anything.

excuse me? when did saddam leave office?

During the 1980's Gulf War, where he was expelled from office, only to return a few years later.

really? could that have possibly been fueled by the deaths of over 1 million iraqis at the hands of the west?

Due to the fact that thier dictator was invading and comtting Genocide to other countries?

excuse me? when did they ever prove saddam had wmd?

Again, you miss the point. I said,

And he had Biological weapons, and plans for WMD

Plans, not real WMDs. Do you really have to twist my words to get the point across?

well then you'd better saddle up cuz most of the free world hates you ..or at least your foreign policy

You mean like Britain? And Germany? And Spain?

 

[Sprafa]

gh0st fighting seinfeldrules... next time I come around CptStern will be volunteering for Anti-Quebecois United Militia :O

 

[CptStern]

gh0st fighting seinfeldrules... next time I come around CptStern will be volunteering for Anti-Quebecois United Militia :O

vive le resistance!!!



yes it's kinda freakin me out

 

[baxter]

I'm sure somewhere, though heaven forgive me I can't see it , there must be a return. Here is the running cost of the war in Iraq, setting aside the human suffering.
This is how much it as cost the US finically.

http://costofwar.com/
Seems he is good at spending tax payer’s money.

 

[seinfeldrules]

Briefly:

no


"....But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. "

......

They just would have been training there, not fighting (not specifically Al Qaeda).

 

[Dag]

Long live the political fight. :cheers: