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Tiny RC Tanks That Fight
Daniel Rutter writes "I've just reviewed a couple of Konami's Combat DigiQs - tiny little remote controlled tanks that can shoot each other. You can stage a two-, three- or four-tank battle, every tank for himself or in teams of two, on a coffee table. They rock."
alright, and my first first post . . .
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
I thought the U.S. destroyed all the Republican Guard divisions.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
I'll buy into this troll.
I, like a number of other Americans, have had deep misgivings about the war in Iraq. On one had, Saddam is a really brutal dictator with a proven track record of killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, not even counting the empire-building military misadventures of the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait. And the grab for nukes, chemical and biological weapons which are further chilling due to his past regional aggression.
On the other hand, the US has its own dodgy track record of trying to impose a political and social template that can wreak havoc of its own, and that's when we have been altruistically motivated.
With that in mind, while not entirely satisified we're doing the right thing for the right reasons, at the end of the day ending Saddam's despotic regime seems like the right thing to do, even though it will cost a lot of suffering because it should prevent the truly evil suffering Saddam was imposing on his own people. The Iraqis will at least get a shot at running their own country in a democratic fashion rather than having a dictator impose further rape, murder and torture on them.
That being said, what's the "No War In Iraq" camp's answer to Saddam? That's the part I don't get. If toppling his regime through military force isn't the right answer, what is the right answer? I haven't heard one yet, usually there's a lot of shrill, one-sided political analysis of what the US has done in the past and nothing more. I can't help but think that failure to posit alternatives is complicity in Saddam's crimes.
Then we are all complicit in Mugabes crimes, in Than Shwe's. Heck we don't even have a solution to North Korea?
My thinking is that 5-10 years time Iraq will be back as a dictatorship, not because arabs are incapable, but because the Oil that generates the majority of the wealth (and power) in the country is so easy to control.
The solution, diversify the economy, if that is possible with the western countries sucking up lots of the educated individuals.
What we could have done was instead of imposing sanctions, encouraged the middle classes to generate non-oil wealth weakening Saddams relative power base, indeed that is the strategy I would employ for Iran.
Social justice didn't really come about in western europe until the landed gentries monpoly of the money was eroded by the industrial revolution.
That's a terrible attitude. And sorry to bring up the past again, but supplying him weapons was literally complicity in Saddam's crimes.
Here's my suggestion, anyway: should've ended the sanctions, (that would've prevented huge numbers of Iraqi deaths over the last 12 years), and kept up with the inspections.
Of course, asking that question now is pointless now that the war is in full force. I can only sit back and hope the middle east doesn't fall apart in the next few years, hope that Iraq doesn't become another Islamic theocracy, and hope the US doesn't do anything stupid like invade Syria.
Hands in my pocket
Fix our own problems, and let the Iraqi's fix their own.
Fix our own problems, and then topple Saddam via military force.
Wait, and let him die while fixing our own problems.
Wait, and gather international support for military action.
Wait, and let arms inspectors find weapons of mass destruction [or not]
Wait, and preasure the UN [and iraq] on their humanitarian issues [while fixing our own, and doing the same to the dozens of other countries with atrocious humanitatiran records]
Wait, while sponsoring subversive covert operations in Iraq.
Wait, while sponsoring enemies of Iraq.
Assassinate him.
Wait until bin Laden is captured/killed/tried and threaten/attack Saddam.
Nuke the entire country and be rid of it.
Send N'Sync on a cross Iraq tour.
should've ended the sanctions, (that would've prevented huge numbers of Iraqi deaths over the last 12 years)
Oh, do you mean via starvation? Because Saddam had the UN food and medicine for oil plan. That would end starvation. So what deaths do you mean?
Oh, I get it... you mean the non-economic deaths based upon the KILLING OF HIS OWN CITIZENS. I think you have no cogent argument about the UN sanctions causing the deaths of Iraqis. Please respond. I would love to hear your justification that the UN caused more deaths of Iraqis after the First Gulf War than Saddam did. Please back it up with facts.
Saddam kills his own people. I want to see Defense Department documents that prove we were complicit in the death of Iraqis that you claim. I can show you videotape right now that says that Saddam was a killer. You need to get your priorities straight, and stop reading websites that have outrageous claims and no proof.
He never said whose side he wanted to fight on ;-) Who are Bush's evil-doers? The US Army? Or are we refering to those who Bush calls evil-doers?
;-)
Just get your facts straight before accusing someone like this
As for my opinion, I think that Saddam is evil and has been for decades, but he has been most evil when we were supporting him (like in the 1980's for example). And the US government must know he has WMD's because they have the receipts... Why did the DoD and DoC approve those Anthrax samples being sent to the Iraqi Atomic ENergy Agency in the 1980's anyway????? So there is plenty of blame to spread around and a fair amount of it unfortunately falls on my government (in the US). I guess it is far easier to see the evil abroad than see it at home. Lets hope the Iraqi *people* have more perspective as they are being *liberated.*
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP