IraqBodyCount.net is a site with an agenda. I don't trust their numbers. Especially since there is little way to tell dead civilians from dead "insurgents".
> There are only 14 million Jews in the entire world. There are only 4.8 million Jews in Israel.
And the Muslims are pissed because they're so close to killing all the Jews, but the United States (and other Western powers to an extent) won't let them.
> So, are you saying that we should have stayed the course in Viet Nam?
We did stay the course in Vietnam, and eventually turned a bungled war into a peaceful truce between North and South. Nixon's "Vietnamization" pretty much worked.
After the war, though, Congress voted down any monetary or equipment aid to South Vietnam. The Soviets kept supplying the North, and two years later North Vietnam invaded and conquered the South.
Result? Now all of Vietnam is a repressive communist hellhole. Kind of a shame, seeing as we spent so many lives over there, that they didn't follow it up with a little harmless monetary aid. (We seem to throw around foreign aid quite liberally nowadays.)
Despite all the retcon bullshit about invading Iraq for humanitarian reasons, the USA will be the last country to take an interest in intervention in Africa. Look what happened when Liberia begged us for help.
The humanitarian benefits of the Iraq war were always kind of a side benefit, but they were stated from the very beginning. Not quite retcon.
The reason the humanitarian argument keeps on being brought up, is because many in the anti-Iraq-war community keep trying to portray the Iraq war as anti-humanitarian.
As far as Africa is concerned, I have two things to say:
1) The United States can't help everyone, so does that mean we should help no-one?
2) You say that America is "the last country" to want to intervene in Africa. And while I will admit America is pretty reluctant, it is far from the last.
Look at the ongoing Sudan crisis, for instance. The U.S. is pushing the United Nations to declare it a genocide. The Europeans don't want to declare it a genocide quite yet. And the Arab League are dead set against any intervention. So are you sure the U.S. is dead last when it comes to Africa?
20/20 hindsight my ass. Before the war plenty of people raised questions about the possibility of this sort insurgency. But they were called "traitors" and were accused of giving "aid and comfort to the enemy."
Actually, I seem to recall the Bush administration specifically warning about resistance from holdouts of the old regime.
Though I don't think anyone predicted how involved foreign terrorist groups would become.
And give up the "global test" bullshit. Kerry did use those words but he preceeded them by saying that he'd never cede our security to any foreign power.
Hey pal, I'm willing to give Kerry a lot of leeway on how he wants to define a "global test". And I mean a lot. But the sad truth is international concensus is hard to come by.
Actually, Hans Blix said that he was pretty sure they didn't have weapons. How did he arrive at this miraculous insight? Well, turns out the intelligence services gave him a lot of places to look for weapons. He went there, didn't find any weapons, and drew the oracular conclusion that Saddam didn't have any real programs. The inspection was working.
Old Hans also said that Saddam and Co. never complied with the inspections, and constantly played games with them.
That's an interesting phrase, "The inspection was working." It implies that the inspections, the sanctions, and the no-fly zones were meant to be permanent measures. That is was okay for Saddam to try to weasel and bribe his way out of his cease-fire obligations, as long as he hadn't gotten far yet. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
The other thing- sure, Saddam may have had connections. Does that justify anything? Bin Laden and most of the hijackers were Saudi, so if "connectedness" is your metric, then the US should bomb Saudi Arabia.
Hey, I'm not the one who brought up "connectedness" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The only connections I'm interested in were Iraq's direct links to known terrorist groups. The only reason to bring up al-Qaeda in this instance, IMO, is simply to drive home the point that these third-parties were bad people.
Also, if Saddam has complied even as much as the Saudis are complying, we wouldn't have ended up invading.
I heartily encourage you read the document I have linked in my sig. It's short, official, and explains things far better than I ever could.
Eh, there's a difference between Kevin-Bacon-esque linkage, and having both people support some of the same terrorist groups.
It'd be more akin to linking John Kerry and Michael Moore, by pointing out that they both have strong ties to the Democratic Party (but not to each other directly).
Assertion: Bush et al said Iraq had serious stores of WMD, lots of nasty gas, biological agents, etc.
"Et al" in this case must mean "and numerous other intelligence servies around the world, and the United Nations."
Bush et al said (or strongly implied repeatedly) that Iraq had significant connections to Al Qaeda
They did have significant connections (friends in common). They just weren't working directly together. Perhaps you should look at the findings of the 9/11 Commission a little more closely yourself.
The question now is, could it have been handled better, and is it reasonable to expect that it should have been?
Ah, the miracle of 20/20 hindsight. But for all of Bush's mistakes during the Iraq war, John Kerry hasn't convinced me that he'd do anything other than cut and run. That just isn't acceptable.
This is what Kerry meant by a "truth test" in the first debate.
It was "global test", and, like it or not, there are some actions that will never pass any sort of "global test".
For instance, anything even vaguely supportive of Israel (like its right to exist) would resoundingly fail in the court of international opinion. Heck, not even interventions to stop genocide (Rwanda, Sudan) can seem to pass muster at the U.N..
It's especially infuriating if you consider that Donald Rumsfeld probably sold these WMDs to Saddam Hussein personally in the early eighties. The US were Saddams best friend when he used his WMDs (compliments of Ronnie Reagan) on his own population in the early eighties
Except that the United States never gave and WMD to Iraq. None whatsoever.
Plus, Iraq didn't use WMD on their own people in the early eighties. It was the Iranians that gassed that Kurd village (accidentally). It wasn't until the late 1980's when Saddam used WMD on his people, and by then relations with the U.S. had cooled.
Huh? None of the shells found have been duds. Being fired from an artillery piece would have broken the membrane between the two component chemicals (which mix in-flight to become Sarin).
Even assuming some kind of miraculous soft-landing where the shell wasn't destroyed, tests have proven that what was inside the shell was the unmixed compounds (unmixed because the shell was used improperly).
By the way, I highly recommend you check out the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, or at least read their Key Findings document. (Less than 19 pages!)
Well, no. According to the CIA and Osama himself, they never worked together. Though Osama was supposedly aware of the CIA operating in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
"It makes no difference for us which of the two parties wins the elections," Iran's top national security official Hassan Rowhani said in an interview on state television.
"We have not seen any good coming from the Democrats, so we won't be happy if the Democrats win," he said.
Except that they didn't. Here's the full quote that's not being reported by the Associated Press:
"It makes no difference for us which of the two parties wins the elections," Iran's top national security official Hassan Rowhani said in an interview on state television.
"We have not seen any good coming from the Democrats, so we won't be happy if the Democrats win," he said.
> Never mind the fact that Bush just got endorsed by Iran
Man, you anti-Bush zealots are desperate. Here is the full quote:
"It makes no difference for us which of the two parties wins the elections," Iran's top national security official Hassan Rowhani said in an interview on state television.
"We have not seen any good coming from the Democrats, so we won't be happy if the Democrats win," he said.
So, you see, they simply have no preference, and consider America "the great satan" either way.
That's a terrible idea. We have enough problems making sure voting fraud doesn't happen now, and adding thousands of convenience stores into the mix isn't going to help anything.
> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.
You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?
I guess some people really dig the idea of perpetual (and literal) "class warfare", and endorse the idea of forcible brain-washing for everyone. Sheesh.
Slashdot Mirror
IraqBodyCount.net is a site with an agenda. I don't trust their numbers. Especially since there is little way to tell dead civilians from dead "insurgents".
p leted_uranium.shtml
> http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/DU/faq_de
Because of a law passed in the 1990's.
We were supposed to leave the country in shambles immediately after Saddam was captured? What a terrible idea.
Elections are on track.
We hardly close any newspapers. Only those that directly incite violence. (In fact, the same standards apply here in the U.S.)
One incident of abuse at a prison versus decades of torture, slaughter, and oppression? Good to see you have some perspective.
Cluster bombs were judiciously used, and depleted uranium is not as harmful as you probably think.
> and that the populace might object.
The populace doesn't object, by and large. If they did, you'd be seeing a lot more casualties on the evening news.
I think that was the poster's point -- that we can't fight wars like the terrorists do. (And we don't)
Uh, yeah. I think you'd prefer the Saudi royals over what Osama has in mind for "needed" change.
> There are only 14 million Jews in the entire world. There are only 4.8 million Jews in Israel.
And the Muslims are pissed because they're so close to killing all the Jews, but the United States (and other Western powers to an extent) won't let them.
We did stay the course in Vietnam, and eventually turned a bungled war into a peaceful truce between North and South. Nixon's "Vietnamization" pretty much worked.
After the war, though, Congress voted down any monetary or equipment aid to South Vietnam. The Soviets kept supplying the North, and two years later North Vietnam invaded and conquered the South.
Result? Now all of Vietnam is a repressive communist hellhole. Kind of a shame, seeing as we spent so many lives over there, that they didn't follow it up with a little harmless monetary aid. (We seem to throw around foreign aid quite liberally nowadays.)
The humanitarian benefits of the Iraq war were always kind of a side benefit, but they were stated from the very beginning. Not quite retcon.
The reason the humanitarian argument keeps on being brought up, is because many in the anti-Iraq-war community keep trying to portray the Iraq war as anti-humanitarian.
As far as Africa is concerned, I have two things to say:
1) The United States can't help everyone, so does that mean we should help no-one?
2) You say that America is "the last country" to want to intervene in Africa. And while I will admit America is pretty reluctant, it is far from the last.
Look at the ongoing Sudan crisis, for instance. The U.S. is pushing the United Nations to declare it a genocide. The Europeans don't want to declare it a genocide quite yet. And the Arab League are dead set against any intervention. So are you sure the U.S. is dead last when it comes to Africa?
Actually, I seem to recall the Bush administration specifically warning about resistance from holdouts of the old regime.
Though I don't think anyone predicted how involved foreign terrorist groups would become.
Hey pal, I'm willing to give Kerry a lot of leeway on how he wants to define a "global test". And I mean a lot. But the sad truth is international concensus is hard to come by.
Old Hans also said that Saddam and Co. never complied with the inspections, and constantly played games with them.
That's an interesting phrase, "The inspection was working." It implies that the inspections, the sanctions, and the no-fly zones were meant to be permanent measures. That is was okay for Saddam to try to weasel and bribe his way out of his cease-fire obligations, as long as he hadn't gotten far yet. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
Hey, I'm not the one who brought up "connectedness" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The only connections I'm interested in were Iraq's direct links to known terrorist groups. The only reason to bring up al-Qaeda in this instance, IMO, is simply to drive home the point that these third-parties were bad people.
Also, if Saddam has complied even as much as the Saudis are complying, we wouldn't have ended up invading.
I heartily encourage you read the document I have linked in my sig. It's short, official, and explains things far better than I ever could.
Eh, there's a difference between Kevin-Bacon-esque linkage, and having both people support some of the same terrorist groups.
It'd be more akin to linking John Kerry and Michael Moore, by pointing out that they both have strong ties to the Democratic Party (but not to each other directly).
"Et al" in this case must mean "and numerous other intelligence servies around the world, and the United Nations."
They did have significant connections (friends in common). They just weren't working directly together. Perhaps you should look at the findings of the 9/11 Commission a little more closely yourself.
Ah, the miracle of 20/20 hindsight. But for all of Bush's mistakes during the Iraq war, John Kerry hasn't convinced me that he'd do anything other than cut and run. That just isn't acceptable.
It was "global test", and, like it or not, there are some actions that will never pass any sort of "global test".
For instance, anything even vaguely supportive of Israel (like its right to exist) would resoundingly fail in the court of international opinion. Heck, not even interventions to stop genocide (Rwanda, Sudan) can seem to pass muster at the U.N..
Heh, looks like you were modded "-1 Conservative".
It happens.
What's really funny is that Kyoto and the ICC are two subjects that both the Democrats and Republicans have agreed on.
Making the big assumption that the study was fair, mind you.
On the other hand, the Japanese and German governments weren't hated like the Iraqis hated Saddam's Ba'ath government.
Except that the United States never gave and WMD to Iraq. None whatsoever.
Plus, Iraq didn't use WMD on their own people in the early eighties. It was the Iranians that gassed that Kurd village (accidentally). It wasn't until the late 1980's when Saddam used WMD on his people, and by then relations with the U.S. had cooled.
> If the 155-mm shell was a "dud" fired long ago
Huh? None of the shells found have been duds. Being fired from an artillery piece would have broken the membrane between the two component chemicals (which mix in-flight to become Sarin).
Even assuming some kind of miraculous soft-landing where the shell wasn't destroyed, tests have proven that what was inside the shell was the unmixed compounds (unmixed because the shell was used improperly).
By the way, I highly recommend you check out the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, or at least read their Key Findings document. (Less than 19 pages!)
> Wasn't Osama Bin Laden trained by the CIA?
Well, no. According to the CIA and Osama himself, they never worked together. Though Osama was supposedly aware of the CIA operating in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
We've got to nip this rumor in the bud.
Except that they didn't. Here's the full quote that's not being reported by the Associated Press:
Man, you anti-Bush zealots are desperate. Here is the full quote:
So, you see, they simply have no preference, and consider America "the great satan" either way.
Defend democracy with mandatory brainwashing? Even if everyone voted for it, you'd still have to force it on those uppity third-worlders.
Western values? Ah, you must mean equal rights for women, freedom of religion, anti-slavery laws, democracy, etc.. Yeah, those are pretty terrible.
That's a terrible idea. We have enough problems making sure voting fraud doesn't happen now, and adding thousands of convenience stores into the mix isn't going to help anything.
> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.
You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?
I guess some people really dig the idea of perpetual (and literal) "class warfare", and endorse the idea of forcible brain-washing for everyone. Sheesh.
> Patent is, of course, pending
Oh yeah? Well I just filed a patent for using the same process, but over the Internet.
I'll make millions!