[quote]Dustin wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Really? You speak for the entire Iraqi population now.
Iraqis have said that they were better off under Saddam. Why? Because they had stability.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Dustin
[/quote]
Wrong. Selective news reports claim some Iraqi’s said they were better off. NOT the whole country. There’s 35 million of them and only about 150,000 of us. If they wanted us gone, we’d be gone.
[quote]orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Ok, Orion. What is your experience in America? WTF do you know about SWAT teams? Nobody is going to jail for having anal sex (unless it’s rape). You have a twisted mind.
Just come out of the closet and join the insurgent movement. You already hate America, so why not join the fight against us?
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
[/quote]
Please explain. You mean America has laws that say it’s OK to stone to death a woman who commits adultery?
[quote]Jamougha wrote:
It irritates me no end that the Bush administration can state it’s objectives and reasoning in an unequivocal manner, and yet anyone who repeats them as a criticism is accused of being a conspiracy theorist. [/quote]
It indeed boggles the mind.
Until Americans start reading the foreign press and watch independent (as in not-corporate) news broadcasts, I’m afraid their perception of the world is never going to change.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Wrong. Selective news reports claim some Iraqi’s said they were better off. NOT the whole country. There’s 35 million of them and only about 150,000 of us. If they wanted us gone, we’d be gone. [/quote]
Iraqis themselves say they were better off before the invasion. I can perfectly understand that they would rather be under an iron-fisted dictator than living in total chaos.
I don’t see how you can challenge that claim when every single poll converges towards the same conclusion: Iraqis say unequivocally that things are much worse now than they were under Saddam. I would be happy to debate statistics with you in the following document about the issue.
It’s rock-solid evidence that the Iraqis were better off before the spring of 2003. The polled base was representative and their methods are fool-proof. There’s nothing ambiguous or “selective” about it.
Lixy of course at the moment they where better off, but and this is a huge part you dont seem to understand. when we are done they will be much better off.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Until Americans start reading the foreign press and watch independent (as in not-corporate) news broadcasts, I’m afraid their perception of the world is never going to change.[/quote]
Yes, indeed. I watch a total of about 30 minutes of news per week and it comes from one of three sources: BBC, PBS, or one of the three choices shown on World View (French, Russian, or German). It should only take 10 minutes to report the news per day…if there is any news at all.
We in America are “spin-a-holics” and need an hourly fix anytime of day or night.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
orion wrote:
OK, What insurgencey in Iraq is killing in the interest of anything other than Islam? I still have not seen a shred of evidence to back it up. Sure it’s possible, but it’s not happening that way. They are all killing in the name of Allah.[/quote]
Did I not post links concerning secuklar insurgnts earlier?
[quote]pat36 wrote:
orion wrote:
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
I am pretty sure their really stupid and intrusive laws get ignored too, whenever possible.
Really? Which ones? I know what they are, but I doubt you do. [/quote]
Iran f.e. is full of satelite dishes though they are illegal for a provate person to own.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Ok, Orion. What is your experience in America? WTF do you know about SWAT teams? Nobody is going to jail for having anal sex (unless it’s rape). You have a twisted mind.
Just come out of the closet and join the insurgent movement. You already hate America, so why not join the fight against us?
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
Please explain. You mean America has laws that say it’s OK to stone to death a woman who commits adultery?
[/quote]
No, but is ok to throw people in cages with rapists and murderers because they happen to like the wrong plants.
[quote]orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Ok, Orion. What is your experience in America? WTF do you know about SWAT teams? Nobody is going to jail for having anal sex (unless it’s rape). You have a twisted mind.
Just come out of the closet and join the insurgent movement. You already hate America, so why not join the fight against us?
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
Please explain. You mean America has laws that say it’s OK to stone to death a woman who commits adultery?
No, but is ok to throw people in cages with rapists and murderers because they happen to like the wrong plants.[/quote]
WTF??!!! What are you talking about?
[quote]orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Ok, Orion. What is your experience in America? WTF do you know about SWAT teams? Nobody is going to jail for having anal sex (unless it’s rape). You have a twisted mind.
Just come out of the closet and join the insurgent movement. You already hate America, so why not join the fight against us?
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
Please explain. You mean America has laws that say it’s OK to stone to death a woman who commits adultery?
No, but is ok to throw people in cages with rapists and murderers because they happen to like the wrong plants.[/quote]
Ok, now that I have stopped laughing…you really put a lot of thought into that, didn’t you. What happened? You come here on a visa, smoke a little weed and get busted?
All you got was thrown in jail. In some Islamic nations that is a VERY serious offense with severe punishments.
I bet some big bubba took advantage of your sweet, Euro ass.
The reason for your hatred of America is becoming clear.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
orion wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Ok, Orion. What is your experience in America? WTF do you know about SWAT teams? Nobody is going to jail for having anal sex (unless it’s rape). You have a twisted mind.
Just come out of the closet and join the insurgent movement. You already hate America, so why not join the fight against us?
I remind you that you have laws on your books that are as intolerant,irrational an full of fear as them.
Please explain. You mean America has laws that say it’s OK to stone to death a woman who commits adultery?
No, but is ok to throw people in cages with rapists and murderers because they happen to like the wrong plants.
Ok, now that I have stopped laughing…you really put a lot of thought into that, didn’t you. What happened? You come here on a visa, smoke a little weed and get busted?
All you got was thrown in jail. In some Islamic nations that is a VERY serious offense with severe punishments.
I bet some big bubba took advantage of your sweet, Euro ass.
The reason for your hatred of America is becoming clear.
[/quote]
You wanted an example for irrational laws based on fear in the US.
The WOD, a Djihad if you will that will never ever be won…
QED
And contrary to what you seem to believe, throwing someone in a cage is not a small thing. There should be more behind it than a victimless crime.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
2. Do you contest the notion that is the insurgents were not attacking the U.S. military and Iraqi civilian targets, that we would be gone? Do you honestly think anybody wants to be there?
To which Varqanir replied:
I contest it. A government that does not want to be in a country does not build the world’s largest embassy (anyone have any idea how many Marines will be garrisoned there as “guards?”) in that country’s capital.
Violence or no violence, we are planning to be in Iraq for a good long time.
Upon which Pat36 retorted:
Bullshit, you have no evidence of that. [/quote]
No evidence of the embassy? I thought it was common knowledge.
It is to be a completely self-sufficient mini-city, spanning 104 acres (think “eighty football fields”) with apartment buildings for the 5,500 American staff members, water and waste treatment facilities, a power station, gym, movie theater, and the largest swimming pool in all of Iraq.
It will also be one of the most heavily fortified installations in the Green Zone, with deep security perimeters, heavily reinforced buildings, five heavily guarded entrances, a surface-to-air missile station, and a large detachment of Marines.
If I were an ordinary Iraqi, the message I would infer from this 592 million dollar fortress is, “the Americans are here to stay.” And I would want to see evidence to the contrary.
[quote]Pat36 also optimistically said:
All that has been spoken and assured has indicated we’ll be out as soon as the place is stable enough for us to do so. [/quote]
How will this stability be achieved, and who determines how stable is “stable enough?” The State Department? The Pentagon? The President? Halliburton Corporation? The Iraqis? Who?
Do you see the conundrum? If the Iraqis “democratically” elect someone to rule them, it will likely not be the person Washington wants to do business with, AND he will probably be a Shiite, meaning on good terms with Tehran, which will further annoy Washington, AND it will still not stop the violence between the ruling faction and the other sects and factions. Instability ensues.
If Washington installs a puppet, he will likely not be someone the Iraqis want ruling them, AND you still get the inter-faction violence. More instability.
The only way to stabilize Iraq, short of gassing the entire population, or carving the country up into five independent nations (one for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis, one for the Baathists, one for the Shiites, and one for secular and Christian Iraqis, American oil companies and military personnel) is to find another Saddam: a strongman who can terrorize the populace into submission, while remaining relatively friendly… or at least, not overly threatening… to the United States.
Which begs the question, why did we remove Saddam in the first place?
[quote]pat36 wrote:
OK, What insurgencey in Iraq is killing in the interest of anything other than Islam? I still have not seen a shred of evidence to back it up. Sure it’s possible, but it’s not happening that way. They are all killing in the name of Allah.[/quote]
General Barry McCaffrey, testifying before Congress on insurgency in Iraq:
[i]The Iraqi Insurgency threat is enormously more complex than Vietnam.
There we faced a single opposing ideology; known enemy leaders; a template enemy organizational structure; an external sanctuary which was vital to the insurgency to bring in fighters, ammunition, resources; and relative security in urban areas under Allied/Vietnamese Government control.
Iraq is much tougher. The enemy forces in this struggle are principally Sunni irredentists-- but there is also a substantial criminal class determined to murder, rob, kidnap and create chaos.
We also face a small but violent foreign Jihadist terrorist element. These terrorists do not depend on foreign sanctuary. They can arm themselves with the incredible mass of munitions and weapons scattered from one end of Iraq to the other.
Finally, Iraq is encircled by six bordering nations, all of whom harbor ill-will for the struggling democratic Iraqi state. [/i]
Notice that the General pretty much refutes the idea prevalent around here that all or most of the insurgents are “Islamic Jihadists.”
An irredentist, by the way, has nothing to do with tooth and gum disease. The word refers to someone fighting for the restoration to their country of occupied territory.
Assuming that all Iraqi insurgents are “Islamic Jihadists” is somewhat akin to assuming that, because members of the French Resistance fought to remove the Nazis from their country, then they must all have been Jews.
And no, before some dumbass flames me, I am NOT implying that the American occupation forces are a bunch of Nazis.
[quote]lucasa wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
In other words, the executions will continue until morale improves.
By executions you mean the beheading of civilians, right?[/quote]
No. Sorry, I fucked up. The expression is, “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” Which is perhaps more to the point, since we are giving the country a hell of a beating… and taking one, too.
However, I was speaking metaphorically: we are in a vicious circle. We won’t leave until the violence stops, according to Pat36, and as far as I can surmise, the violence won’t stop while we are there. Nor will it probably stop once we are gone.
Neither. It was sarcasm. My actual argument is written a few posts above, but I’ll repeat it here:
One: neither a democratically elected Iraqi leadership nor a U.S.-selected and forcibly installed client leadership will likely lead to the cessation of violence that is allegedly necessary to precipitate our withdrawal. The only solution for long-term stability, in my estimation, is for another tyrant, capable of subduing all of the warring factions, to seize power. This, of course, the U.S. will not permit.
Two: The fact of our enormous and heavily fortified new Baghdad embassy is all the evidence any rational person should require that the U.S. has no intention of completely withdrawing from Iraqi soil anyway, so talking about the conditions under which the occupation will end is pointless. We have invested billions to build an Iraq that will do business with America (and will likely invest billions more), and it would be foolish not to stick around and protect that investment.
Simply put, my argument is this: regardless of what we should or should not do, we will be in Iraq until the Iraqis, like the Vietnamese before them, find a way to remove us.
Which I doubt they will.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
If you are serious with your errors (which I fear), then you need to realize that almost all of your premises are completely incorrect. I’m not talking subjectively wrong. I’m talking objectively and factually incorrect.
[/quote]
Incorrect? Like the fact that Saddam committed his worst atrocities while Reagan and Bush senior did nothing. Saddam was a top trading partner of the U.S. A fact that you’ve ignored when I posted it previously but provide evidence for in a later paragraph.
I don’t know. I surely wasn’t defending him. Saddam was hated by people throughout the middle east and rightfully so.
Thanks for proving a my previous point.
Saddam was known for killing innocent people when he felt they threatened his rule. The Kurds, for example. That’s pretty typical of dictators. It still doesn’t change the fact that Iraq was a stable country. As long as people towed the party line, they could go about their business. They sure can’t now.
No disagreement from me here. Saddam was an A-hole and committed these crimes and various others while being supported by the U.S.
Funny coming from a guy who lives in the magical world of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the mainstream government media.
Dustin
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Wrong. Selective news reports claim some Iraqi’s said they were better off. NOT the whole country. There’s 35 million of them and only about 150,000 of us. If they wanted us gone, we’d be gone.
[/quote]
They want us gone. Quit listening to the mainstream media.
If they wanted us gone, how would they make us leave?
Dustin
[quote]dustin wrote:
JeffR wrote:
If you are serious with your errors (which I fear), then you need to realize that almost all of your premises are completely incorrect. I’m not talking subjectively wrong. I’m talking objectively and factually incorrect.
Incorrect? Like the fact that Saddam committed his worst atrocities while Reagan and Bush senior did nothing. Saddam was a top trading partner of the U.S. A fact that you’ve ignored when I posted it previously but provide evidence for in a later paragraph.
What must it be like to defend saddam?
I don’t know. I surely wasn’t defending him. Saddam was hated by people throughout the middle east and rightfully so.
One of the most horrific examples of this is the March 1998 massacre of an estimated 5,000 Iraqi civilians in Halabja by Saddam?s forces, in a brutal chemical weapons attack utilising mustard gas and nerve toxins. “Entire families were wiped out and the streets were littered with the corpses of men, women and children”, reported the Washington Post (24/3/88). “Other forms of life in and around the city - horses, house cats, cattle - perished as well.”
Thanks for proving a my previous point.
Saddam was known for killing innocent people when he felt they threatened his rule. The Kurds, for example. That’s pretty typical of dictators. It still doesn’t change the fact that Iraq was a stable country. As long as people towed the party line, they could go about their business. They sure can’t now.
The children strive to understand what they saw: planes bombing, houses collapsing, soldiers fighting, blood, mutilated and crushed bodies. The children fight to forget what they heard: people screaming, desperate voices, planes, explosions, crying people. They are haunted by the smell of gunfire, fires and burned flesh." As a direct result of this bombing campaign, at least 25,000 men, women and children were killed. The Red Crescent Society of Jordan estimated 113,000 civilian dead, 60% of them children, the week before the end of the war. According to the Nuremberg Charter, this “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages” is a Nuremberg War Crime. These crimes are also in violation of Articles 48, 51, 52, 54 and 55 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention 1977.
No disagreement from me here. Saddam was an A-hole and committed these crimes and various others while being supported by the U.S.
If you are serious, seek help.
JeffR
Funny coming from a guy who lives in the magical world of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the mainstream government media.
dustin[/quote]
dustin,
Nice job glossing over the killing of children. Remember how the average 10 year old Iraqi was “safe” under saddam.
Typical.
Oh, yes, most of his atrocities were committed under Reagan and Bush’s reign. Add billy boy. However, I think the U.S. has paid in blood and treasure to at least ameliorate those sins.
I can’t say the same for the number one supplier of arms to saddam, germany. Nor can I say that for the bribed–france. Nor, others.
JeffR
[quote]JeffR wrote:
Nice job glossing over the killing of children. Remember how the average 10 year old Iraqi was “safe” under saddam.[/quote]
The average 10 year old iraqi wasn’t safe then, he isn’t safe now and will not be safe in the near foreseeable future. There is nothing you can do about it.