Fair enough -- benchmarks can certainly be tweeked. But I still have yet to see any comprehensive review (Toms, Anandtech, Hardware Central, anywhere) that has declared AMD the speed king. Intel just seems to be flat out faster on an overwhelmingly majority of the benchmarks.
Answer me this, where did this whole notion that P4s are somehow faster than AMD chips come from?
You might want to check this out. Find me a single benchmark that AMD took the crown in. You will soon discover that the closest AMD got to winning a benchmark was 2nd place on the Sysmark Office 2000 test. The rest of the tests placed AMD in 4th, 5th, and sometimes even 6th place (behind the slowest P4 in the test, the 2.53GHz).
This can all be explained if you consider Intel isn't so interested in making a great processor as it is making great fabrication processes
So basically, even though Intel isn't interested in making a great processor, they still make one that is superior to what you are promoting?
The only fair comparison would be a dollar amount comparison (a $200 AMD processor vs a $200 Intel processor), and Intel still takes the crown with that. An XP 2800+ is about the same price as a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, and the benchmarks still show Intel ahead on majority of the tests. The only thing we have to thank AMD for is the fact that we don't pay $5,000 for a superior Pentium 4 now.
Sure, people were suckered into buying "cheap" inkjet printers but don't try to tell me they did this in the full realization they would get ripped off on the ink.
Sure they were. I knew that $30 was a rip off on the cartridges for my first Canon printer 10 years ago. The point the parent was trying to make is that at some point in time the consumer will be paying for the total cost of the printer. It is either up front or down the road through ink margins, and the consumer has obviously chosen the latter.
I will not be buying an HP printer.
Good. This is how capitalism works. If enough people agree with you, there will certainly be a printer manufacturer that comes along offering the pricing structure that you prefer. Vote with you wallet, not by complaining on some anonymous message board.
The "system" doesn't owe you a $250k house. In fact, nobody owes you a $250,000 house. The only person who can get you a $250,000 house is YOU, and you are not going to be any closer to getting one if you sit around and complain about your $32,000 salary.
Ken Lay lost more money than anybody else did. He lost his entire fortune in Enron stock (no, he didn't sell his stock on time). The only person who didn't loose money was the CFO (Andrew Fastow), and he is in jail now.
If a few people make it from poverty to wealth, that doesn't mean there is room in the system for EVERY poor person to do that.
The only classless economic model is Communism, and that has not fared very well compared to capitalism.
Nobody said that there are not substantial obstacles for the poor to improve their situation. There are, and I don't think you have to be poor to recognize that. What capitalism (and conservatism) teach is that complaining about those obstacles will only guarantee that you will continue to have them get in your way.
wealth and competence, power and hard work, success and whatever quality it is you think poor people lack, are only occasionally related. You meet enough rich lazy idiots and enough poor people breaking their back trying to not be poor anymore, and you stop spouting that kind of foolishness.
I don't really understand your point. Do you mean to say that the wealthy and powerful get that way without hard work, competence, or success? If so, that is a foolish arguement. Obviously the rich lazy idiot did something right otherwise he would not be rich and could not afford to be lazy. There are only so many Kennedys and Rockafellers out there, and the rest of the rich earned their own money.
You see enough rich people actively working to better themselves at the expense of the poor. You spend some time in the real world, and realize the substantial obstacles to improving one's situation, and think "Gee, maybe it isn't entirely their fault after all. Maybe, were it not for luck or circumstance, that could be me."
What do you think would have happened if Bill Gates complained about having to code software in a grungy basement while other people got to work in fancy office buildings? What do you think would have happened if Sam Walton would have gave up because Bentonville Arkansas was too small of a town to run a business from? There are very few rich people out there who didn't have bad luck or circumstances to work around. Very few people get money handed to them on a silver platter.
GNUcash is excellent. It is elegantly designed, it works, it does the job, and it's being free insures my financial data will be usable, and accessible, ten, twenty, fifty, even a hundred years from now.
You have to be joking, right? The reality is that GNUcash will probably end up like 90% of the other open soure projects out there. The "developers" will either (a) commence with endless bickering that will eventually cause several splits of the GNUcash project that are all slightly incompatible with each other, or (b) decide that they don't want to work on it any more and leave you with an outdated program. Sure, you have the source code, but who really wants to (or has the ability to) debug a 5 year old software program so it will compile on the new 6.4.1.7.8.10.144.23.6 kernel?
When in reality what happens is the stock market tanks and unemployment skyrockets. Oh, and the middle class does get smaller under a republican admin also
Are you kidding? The republican economic record is solid. Reagans' supply-side economics produced a higher economic growth than any other president in the past 50 years. Here are some facts about the Reagan economic record as referenced in the above study:
Economic growth topped the charts at 3.2% under Reagan, as opposed to 2.6% under Clinton and 2.5% under Carter.
The unemployment rate dropped.2% per year during the Reagan years, as opposed to an average raise of.2% before Reagan took office, and no change after he left office.
Every income bracket showed an increase in real income during the Reagan years. Families with income less than $50,000 saw a 5.9% increase in real income, while families making more than $75,000 saw only a 2.5% increase
The poorest quintile saw an increase of 6% in real income during the Reagan years. This figure is -3% after Reagan left office.
Blacks and Minorities saw an 11% increase in income during the Reagan years, and only 2% increase after Reagan left office.
This data is especially significant when we take into account the fact that the Clinton economic legacy left us no better off after the bubble burst. In fact, we now know that many of the companies that were reporting economic "success" during the Clinton years were lying to us (see Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom, and a host of other companies). Is that an admirable economic record?
This makes sense. You don't like a law that a Democrat sponsored, a Democratic legislature voted for, and a Democratic president signed into law. Of course the obvious thing to do is blame the Republicans. Sounds reasonable.
Yeah, but just because you buy it doesn't mean they cannot put in protections so it is used how they intend it to be used.
That would be like demanding that Sony remove the "Warrantee void if seal removed" sticker off the back of your DVD player so you can open it up and modify it and still expect to get full warrantee coverage.
Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton Subsidary, did win a contract to put out oil fires. However, considering that they are widely considered the best in the world at putting out oil well fires, and the fact that there are only a half dozen fires burning now, this shouldn't be big news to anybody.
Amazing how people refuse to shut up, especially when they are right
I find it even more amazing when people refuse to shut up when they are dead wrong, especially when glaring facts proving them wrong are shown.
I notice you failed to address any of the conflict of interest issues. Not to mention failing to provide anything other than smoke re the ballot issues
I notice you failed to read his post, as all of those issues were addressed very well.
Fortunately for you, some Americans are worried about the breakdown of democracy in their country
We are also fortunate to have concerned and intelligent people like cheezedawg who actually think for themselves and research an issue, rather than blindly accept whatever drivel they read on Salon.com and pointlessly argue it by emotion and not fact.
As far as civilian deaths in the first gulf war, as tragic as they were, they could have been completely avoided if Saddam would have complied with the UN resolutions to remove his forces from Kuwait.
It is unfortunate that Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war effort. However, if you average out the estimated 1 - 2 Million Civilians that Saddam Hussein has killed in his 23 years of power, it comes out to about 115 - 230 civilians per day.
When I watch the bombs explode on CNN, I realize that these bombs are helping to remove a dictator who is responsible for millions more civilian deaths than we would ever cause.
The problem is that Bush and his Administration decided to go to war first, then started looking for a justification. When they did not find any, they went to war anyway.
The decision to go to war was made by Saddam Hussein 12 years ago when he refused to obey UNSEC 687. His defiance of 687 and the 16 other resolutions has given the UN security counsel members all the justification they need.
That is simply untrue. 1441 was only agreed upon by the security council because it did not include the automatic application of force by any country. Why do you think a security council with a majority of members opposed to war would have ratified a resolution that authorizes war?
Sounds like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the UN charter. The 17 UNSEC resolutions passed against Iraq were all passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter, which requires enforcement by one or all members of the security counsel.
1441 only threatens "serious consequences" of an unspecified nature (i.e. yet to be agreed upon) in the case of "a material breach" (which has not been declared to have happended by the UN)
It is not that hard to figure out what "serious consequences" means in the context of resolution 1441. And, yes, Hans Blix did say that Iraq was in material breach after they submitted an incomplete report on 12/8.
12+ years of chances to do what exactly? Destroy WOMD? Well, they didn't find any
They were not looking for WMD! They were looking for the proof that Iraq was required to provide that they destroyed the WMD that we know they have. Do you honestly think that Saddam secretly destroyed his WMD over the last 12 years (including the 4 years when the UN inspectors were kicked out of his country) and never told us that he did even though he knew he was required to do so? Do you think he would have killed his weapons chief if he had nothing to hide?
"If Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of sanctions and ignore the commitments he's made? Well, he will conclude that the international community's lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on doing more to build an arsenal of devastating destruction. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. The stakes could not be higher. Some way, someday, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal." -President Bill Clinton in 1998
The inspections were working flawlessly, no WoMD were found. No resolution called for a regime change.
The inspections were not working. UN inspectors were not assigned to go and find all the clever places that Saddam hid his WMD -- They were assigned to verify that the weapons we know they have were destroyed. This was part of UN resolution 687 and the 16 resolutions passed later as Iraq failed to comply. Iraq was to destroy its arsenal of WMD in the presence of UN observers and provide material proof that they did not have the capability to produce any more.
For example, going into the first Gulf war, Iraq admitted to having 25,000 liters of Anthrax, enough to kill the entire world population 3 times. You don't just dump 25,000 liters of Anthrax in the dumpster out back and claim its gone. It requires detailed proceedures to destroy and Iraq could not prove to anybody that they did it. Not even France is claiming that they did.
Well, how many people have to die under the American bootheels, until American oil barons have all the Iraqi oil contracts they covet?
Freeing Iraqi oil will only do one thing -- cause oil prices to plummet. Ater the first Gulf war oil was selling at less than $20 per barrel. If the "oil barons" were truly motivated by profit alone, they would be on the streets protesting this war more than anybody else. By maintaining the status quo and not going to war, the "oil barons" would continue to sell their oil at $35+ per barrel. Any argument that this is a war to get George Bushs' oil buddies rich is based on emotion and not logic or facts.
You cannot arbitrarily invade countries of whom you say they treat their citizens unfairly. Humanitarian concerns have not played a great part in the war debate, and very few people are as naive as to believe that the architects of this war are concerned with the Iraqi people.
From the get go this war has been about disarming Iraq. Nobody has claimed that the only reason we are doing this is to liberate the Iraqi people because it is not. That is, of course, a fringe benefit of ridding the world from a ruthless dictator who is hell bent on destroying the US.
You cannot pick and choose which bits of the UN system you "protect". France has veto power (which, by the way, is designed in part by the US), and therefore it is free to use it however it sees fit.
And France did not use this veto power when they voted for the 17 UN resolutions passed against Iraq that required military enforcement if Iraq didn't disarm.
The will of one nation with veto power is the will of the UN, by design.
And the will of the UN, through 17 unanimously passed chapter 7 resolutions, is to disarm Iraq.
Iraq is not the only country ruled by a dictator who oppresses his people. If you think that the US is just in going in and liberating Iraq, then you must then also approve of the US using the same forces to liberate equal or worse-off countries, such as Syria, North Korea, etc. What it comes down to is the US going in and beating up all the governments it doesn't like. THAT is what I disagree with.
Nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only oppressive country out there. They are, however, the only oppressive regime out there with 17 unanimous Chapter 7 UNSEC resolutions passed requiring them to disarm. This has nothing to do with beating up countries we don't like, but beating up countries that pose a threat to the security of the nation and the world.
Thidly, this isn't the first time the US has gone around beating up on regimes it doesn't like, nor is it the first time it's had its nose bloodied more than it expected
And this will not be the first time that the world is a better place because of what the US (and its Allies) do. By the way, nobody has ever claimed that this would be easy.
Iraq is not the only nation with WMDs. It is not even the biggest threat to the US. North Korea has nukes and missiles capable of reaching US shores. Iraq has neither. Why isn't the US focusing its attention on North Korea
Again, nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only country that has WMD, and nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only country that poses a threat to us. North Korea is a completely different issue that needs to be dealt with in a completely different way, but they will be dealt with. If you look at this logically, they would not be quick to advertise their nuclear capability if they really wanted to attack. If you want to attack one of the biggest military powers in the world, you don't wave your arms and tell them you are about to do it. The only logical explanation is that North Korea is manuevering for diplomatic leverage, which is desperately needed considering the economic state of the nation.
Then there's China, another not-so-friendly nuclear superpower
What? Who told anybody that China was a friendly superpower?
What about the dozens of UN resolutions that Israel is in violation of every day? The US is even supporting Israel with weapons, cash, and intelligence, while Israel breaks the very rules that the US claims to hold so sacred. What does it all add up to? HYPOCRISY.
All of the UNSEC resolutions passed against Israel and Palestine were passed under the 6th chapter of the UN charter, meaning the resolutions are not binding by other nations in the UN security counsel. Iraq has 17 resolutions passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter, which requires enforcement by the UN. If the US were to send troops into Palestine in an attempt to establish peace, then we would be in breach of the UN charter.
The Iraqi people are not celebrating their "liberation," as the US government believed they would. The "broken, tired, underfed and disloyal" members of Saddam's armies are not laying down their guns and surrendering to US and British soldiers. They're putting up a fight.
The latest count that I have seen is about 4,000 Iraqi solders taken prisoner. In fact, it would probably be more now if the Fedayeen gorilla fighters had not posed as surrendering troops before they attacked. They made it 1000x times harder for people to surrender now. There are British reports of massive uprising in Basra fighting the Iraqi government. What was that you were saying about the Iraqi people?
There is no Iraq-Al Queda link. There are no terrorist training camps in Iraq. Iraq doesn't have nukes. Iraq doesn't have ICBMs capable of reaching the US. Iraq is not a threat to the US. North Korea is
There is a clear Iraq-Al Queda link. Both Iraq and Al Queda have come out publically and stated that they support each other in the fight against Americ
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Yeah, and the fact that Netscape sucked didn't have anything to do with it...
Maybe you should get your degree based on what you want to do, not on what you think will get you a job. I mean, Philosophy? Really?
Fair enough -- benchmarks can certainly be tweeked. But I still have yet to see any comprehensive review (Toms, Anandtech, Hardware Central, anywhere) that has declared AMD the speed king. Intel just seems to be flat out faster on an overwhelmingly majority of the benchmarks.
Answer me this, where did this whole notion that P4s are somehow faster than AMD chips come from?
You might want to check this out. Find me a single benchmark that AMD took the crown in. You will soon discover that the closest AMD got to winning a benchmark was 2nd place on the Sysmark Office 2000 test. The rest of the tests placed AMD in 4th, 5th, and sometimes even 6th place (behind the slowest P4 in the test, the 2.53GHz).
This can all be explained if you consider Intel isn't so interested in making a great processor as it is making great fabrication processes
So basically, even though Intel isn't interested in making a great processor, they still make one that is superior to what you are promoting?
The only fair comparison would be a dollar amount comparison (a $200 AMD processor vs a $200 Intel processor), and Intel still takes the crown with that. An XP 2800+ is about the same price as a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, and the benchmarks still show Intel ahead on majority of the tests. The only thing we have to thank AMD for is the fact that we don't pay $5,000 for a superior Pentium 4 now.
Sure, people were suckered into buying "cheap" inkjet printers but don't try to tell me they did this in the full realization they would get ripped off on the ink.
Sure they were. I knew that $30 was a rip off on the cartridges for my first Canon printer 10 years ago. The point the parent was trying to make is that at some point in time the consumer will be paying for the total cost of the printer. It is either up front or down the road through ink margins, and the consumer has obviously chosen the latter.
I will not be buying an HP printer.
Good. This is how capitalism works. If enough people agree with you, there will certainly be a printer manufacturer that comes along offering the pricing structure that you prefer. Vote with you wallet, not by complaining on some anonymous message board.
I guess those stupid spammers need to buy one of those new fangled dictionaries that actually include numbers.
The system has failed for me.
The "system" doesn't owe you a $250k house. In fact, nobody owes you a $250,000 house. The only person who can get you a $250,000 house is YOU, and you are not going to be any closer to getting one if you sit around and complain about your $32,000 salary.
Not Ken Lay. Not the purpetrators
Ken Lay lost more money than anybody else did. He lost his entire fortune in Enron stock (no, he didn't sell his stock on time). The only person who didn't loose money was the CFO (Andrew Fastow), and he is in jail now.
If a few people make it from poverty to wealth, that doesn't mean there is room in the system for EVERY poor person to do that.
The only classless economic model is Communism, and that has not fared very well compared to capitalism.
Nobody said that there are not substantial obstacles for the poor to improve their situation. There are, and I don't think you have to be poor to recognize that. What capitalism (and conservatism) teach is that complaining about those obstacles will only guarantee that you will continue to have them get in your way.
wealth and competence, power and hard work, success and whatever quality it is you think poor people lack, are only occasionally related. You meet enough rich lazy idiots and enough poor people breaking their back trying to not be poor anymore, and you stop spouting that kind of foolishness.
I don't really understand your point. Do you mean to say that the wealthy and powerful get that way without hard work, competence, or success? If so, that is a foolish arguement. Obviously the rich lazy idiot did something right otherwise he would not be rich and could not afford to be lazy. There are only so many Kennedys and Rockafellers out there, and the rest of the rich earned their own money.
You see enough rich people actively working to better themselves at the expense of the poor. You spend some time in the real world, and realize the substantial obstacles to improving one's situation, and think "Gee, maybe it isn't entirely their fault after all. Maybe, were it not for luck or circumstance, that could be me."
What do you think would have happened if Bill Gates complained about having to code software in a grungy basement while other people got to work in fancy office buildings? What do you think would have happened if Sam Walton would have gave up because Bentonville Arkansas was too small of a town to run a business from? There are very few rich people out there who didn't have bad luck or circumstances to work around. Very few people get money handed to them on a silver platter.
Not sure why you chose to point this out. Rich people lost far more money in the Enron scandal than poor people did.
GNUcash is excellent. It is elegantly designed, it works, it does the job, and it's being free insures my financial data will be usable, and accessible, ten, twenty, fifty, even a hundred years from now.
You have to be joking, right? The reality is that GNUcash will probably end up like 90% of the other open soure projects out there. The "developers" will either (a) commence with endless bickering that will eventually cause several splits of the GNUcash project that are all slightly incompatible with each other, or (b) decide that they don't want to work on it any more and leave you with an outdated program. Sure, you have the source code, but who really wants to (or has the ability to) debug a 5 year old software program so it will compile on the new 6.4.1.7.8.10.144.23.6 kernel?
Are you kidding? The republican economic record is solid. Reagans' supply-side economics produced a higher economic growth than any other president in the past 50 years. Here are some facts about the Reagan economic record as referenced in the above study:
Economic growth topped the charts at 3.2% under Reagan, as opposed to 2.6% under Clinton and 2.5% under Carter.
The unemployment rate dropped .2% per year during the Reagan years, as opposed to an average raise of .2% before Reagan took office, and no change after he left office.
Every income bracket showed an increase in real income during the Reagan years. Families with income less than $50,000 saw a 5.9% increase in real income, while families making more than $75,000 saw only a 2.5% increase
The poorest quintile saw an increase of 6% in real income during the Reagan years. This figure is -3% after Reagan left office.
Blacks and Minorities saw an 11% increase in income during the Reagan years, and only 2% increase after Reagan left office.
This data is especially significant when we take into account the fact that the Clinton economic legacy left us no better off after the bubble burst. In fact, we now know that many of the companies that were reporting economic "success" during the Clinton years were lying to us (see Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom, and a host of other companies). Is that an admirable economic record?
This makes sense. You don't like a law that a Democrat sponsored, a Democratic legislature voted for, and a Democratic president signed into law. Of course the obvious thing to do is blame the Republicans. Sounds reasonable.
Yeah, but just because you buy it doesn't mean they cannot put in protections so it is used how they intend it to be used.
That would be like demanding that Sony remove the "Warrantee void if seal removed" sticker off the back of your DVD player so you can open it up and modify it and still expect to get full warrantee coverage.
You do. The Intel secret police will not come banging at your door if you circumvent the protections and overclock your own CPU.
If you own a piece of hardware, sitting in your hand, then you own it, not some subset of its functionality deemed 'acceptable' by its manufacturer.
And the manufacturer has every right to design a product that will only operate in that subset of acceptable functionality.
Preventing overclocking is just corportate bs
They have every right to limit how their product is used, just has you have every right to not buy it.
Check your facts. Halliburton is not getting any contracts in Iraq.
Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton Subsidary, did win a contract to put out oil fires. However, considering that they are widely considered the best in the world at putting out oil well fires, and the fact that there are only a half dozen fires burning now, this shouldn't be big news to anybody.
Amazing how people refuse to shut up, especially when they are right
I find it even more amazing when people refuse to shut up when they are dead wrong, especially when glaring facts proving them wrong are shown.
I notice you failed to address any of the conflict of interest issues. Not to mention failing to provide anything other than smoke re the ballot issues
I notice you failed to read his post, as all of those issues were addressed very well.
Fortunately for you, some Americans are worried about the breakdown of democracy in their country
We are also fortunate to have concerned and intelligent people like cheezedawg who actually think for themselves and research an issue, rather than blindly accept whatever drivel they read on Salon.com and pointlessly argue it by emotion and not fact.
The UN sanctions had no restrictions on Food, Water, Medicine, or Humanitarian Aid being imported into Iraq. The only reason the Iraqi people have not been getting this is because Saddam Hussein has not been giving it to them.
As far as civilian deaths in the first gulf war, as tragic as they were, they could have been completely avoided if Saddam would have complied with the UN resolutions to remove his forces from Kuwait.
It is unfortunate that Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war effort. However, if you average out the estimated 1 - 2 Million Civilians that Saddam Hussein has killed in his 23 years of power, it comes out to about 115 - 230 civilians per day.
When I watch the bombs explode on CNN, I realize that these bombs are helping to remove a dictator who is responsible for millions more civilian deaths than we would ever cause.
The problem is that Bush and his Administration decided to go to war first, then started looking for a justification. When they did not find any, they went to war anyway.
The decision to go to war was made by Saddam Hussein 12 years ago when he refused to obey UNSEC 687. His defiance of 687 and the 16 other resolutions has given the UN security counsel members all the justification they need.
That is simply untrue. 1441 was only agreed upon by the security council because it did not include the automatic application of force by any country. Why do you think a security council with a majority of members opposed to war would have ratified a resolution that authorizes war?
Sounds like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the UN charter. The 17 UNSEC resolutions passed against Iraq were all passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter, which requires enforcement by one or all members of the security counsel.
1441 only threatens "serious consequences" of an unspecified nature (i.e. yet to be agreed upon) in the case of "a material breach" (which has not been declared to have happended by the UN)
It is not that hard to figure out what "serious consequences" means in the context of resolution 1441. And, yes, Hans Blix did say that Iraq was in material breach after they submitted an incomplete report on 12/8.
12+ years of chances to do what exactly? Destroy WOMD? Well, they didn't find any
They were not looking for WMD! They were looking for the proof that Iraq was required to provide that they destroyed the WMD that we know they have. Do you honestly think that Saddam secretly destroyed his WMD over the last 12 years (including the 4 years when the UN inspectors were kicked out of his country) and never told us that he did even though he knew he was required to do so? Do you think he would have killed his weapons chief if he had nothing to hide?
"If Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of sanctions and ignore the commitments he's made? Well, he will conclude that the international community's lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on doing more to build an arsenal of devastating destruction. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. The stakes could not be higher. Some way, someday, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
-President Bill Clinton in 1998
The inspections were working flawlessly, no WoMD were found. No resolution called for a regime change.
The inspections were not working. UN inspectors were not assigned to go and find all the clever places that Saddam hid his WMD -- They were assigned to verify that the weapons we know they have were destroyed. This was part of UN resolution 687 and the 16 resolutions passed later as Iraq failed to comply. Iraq was to destroy its arsenal of WMD in the presence of UN observers and provide material proof that they did not have the capability to produce any more.
For example, going into the first Gulf war, Iraq admitted to having 25,000 liters of Anthrax, enough to kill the entire world population 3 times. You don't just dump 25,000 liters of Anthrax in the dumpster out back and claim its gone. It requires detailed proceedures to destroy and Iraq could not prove to anybody that they did it. Not even France is claiming that they did.
Well, how many people have to die under the American bootheels, until American oil barons have all the Iraqi oil contracts they covet?
Freeing Iraqi oil will only do one thing -- cause oil prices to plummet. Ater the first Gulf war oil was selling at less than $20 per barrel. If the "oil barons" were truly motivated by profit alone, they would be on the streets protesting this war more than anybody else. By maintaining the status quo and not going to war, the "oil barons" would continue to sell their oil at $35+ per barrel. Any argument that this is a war to get George Bushs' oil buddies rich is based on emotion and not logic or facts.
You cannot arbitrarily invade countries of whom you say they treat their citizens unfairly. Humanitarian concerns have not played a great part in the war debate, and very few people are as naive as to believe that the architects of this war are concerned with the Iraqi people.
From the get go this war has been about disarming Iraq. Nobody has claimed that the only reason we are doing this is to liberate the Iraqi people because it is not. That is, of course, a fringe benefit of ridding the world from a ruthless dictator who is hell bent on destroying the US.
You cannot pick and choose which bits of the UN system you "protect". France has veto power (which, by the way, is designed in part by the US), and therefore it is free to use it however it sees fit.
And France did not use this veto power when they voted for the 17 UN resolutions passed against Iraq that required military enforcement if Iraq didn't disarm.
The will of one nation with veto power is the will of the UN, by design.
And the will of the UN, through 17 unanimously passed chapter 7 resolutions, is to disarm Iraq.
Iraq is not the only country ruled by a dictator who oppresses his people. If you think that the US is just in going in and liberating Iraq, then you must then also approve of the US using the same forces to liberate equal or worse-off countries, such as Syria, North Korea, etc. What it comes down to is the US going in and beating up all the governments it doesn't like. THAT is what I disagree with.
Nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only oppressive country out there. They are, however, the only oppressive regime out there with 17 unanimous Chapter 7 UNSEC resolutions passed requiring them to disarm. This has nothing to do with beating up countries we don't like, but beating up countries that pose a threat to the security of the nation and the world.
Thidly, this isn't the first time the US has gone around beating up on regimes it doesn't like, nor is it the first time it's had its nose bloodied more than it expected
And this will not be the first time that the world is a better place because of what the US (and its Allies) do. By the way, nobody has ever claimed that this would be easy.
Iraq is not the only nation with WMDs. It is not even the biggest threat to the US. North Korea has nukes and missiles capable of reaching US shores. Iraq has neither. Why isn't the US focusing its attention on North Korea
Again, nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only country that has WMD, and nobody has claimed that Iraq is the only country that poses a threat to us. North Korea is a completely different issue that needs to be dealt with in a completely different way, but they will be dealt with. If you look at this logically, they would not be quick to advertise their nuclear capability if they really wanted to attack. If you want to attack one of the biggest military powers in the world, you don't wave your arms and tell them you are about to do it. The only logical explanation is that North Korea is manuevering for diplomatic leverage, which is desperately needed considering the economic state of the nation.
Then there's China, another not-so-friendly nuclear superpower
What? Who told anybody that China was a friendly superpower?
What about the dozens of UN resolutions that Israel is in violation of every day? The US is even supporting Israel with weapons, cash, and intelligence, while Israel breaks the very rules that the US claims to hold so sacred. What does it all add up to? HYPOCRISY.
All of the UNSEC resolutions passed against Israel and Palestine were passed under the 6th chapter of the UN charter, meaning the resolutions are not binding by other nations in the UN security counsel. Iraq has 17 resolutions passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter, which requires enforcement by the UN. If the US were to send troops into Palestine in an attempt to establish peace, then we would be in breach of the UN charter.
The Iraqi people are not celebrating their "liberation," as the US government believed they would. The "broken, tired, underfed and disloyal" members of Saddam's armies are not laying down their guns and surrendering to US and British soldiers. They're putting up a fight.
The latest count that I have seen is about 4,000 Iraqi solders taken prisoner. In fact, it would probably be more now if the Fedayeen gorilla fighters had not posed as surrendering troops before they attacked. They made it 1000x times harder for people to surrender now. There are British reports of massive uprising in Basra fighting the Iraqi government. What was that you were saying about the Iraqi people?
There is no Iraq-Al Queda link. There are no terrorist training camps in Iraq. Iraq doesn't have nukes. Iraq doesn't have ICBMs capable of reaching the US. Iraq is not a threat to the US. North Korea is
There is a clear Iraq-Al Queda link. Both Iraq and Al Queda have come out publically and stated that they support each other in the fight against Americ