You have to get permission to protest about anything these days. New rules. The poll tax marches couldn't have happened legally today (even if they hadn't been misappropriated by so-called "anarchists").
Although you do have a point there anyway - given that the new laws on protesting apparently got passed without much of a struggle.
Wow. Cool. It's a good thing, too; otherwise, Saddam might have tried to use it to bribe people, and stuff.
Even cooler; that way, nobody would get killed, and stuff.
Actually, I think that what remains of the insurgency, is mostly Mahdi Army, helped with some Iranian supplies. And btw, it's not technically a "haven," if one is liable to get killed, there, by American and Iraqi soldiers.
It includes various vaguely-defined stuff such as what would enable somebody to maintain a despotic government and brutalize the citizens (if there were such a person, which I'm not saying that there was...)
Ooooh! Philosophy! And with "faith" excluded. Hmm...that's a tough one. Well, for now, I'm gonna go with: no. Did I get it right? Huh? Did I?
At no point did I suggest that Saddam Hussein was worth preserving. You, on the other hand, are trying to make the point that Iraq was invaded to somehow control terrorist acts by Islamic militant groups in the western world, which have only increased following the invasion of Iraq.
So even if that was the basis for the invasion (which everybody with a functional brain knows it wasn't), it has been a spectacular failure. Much like all the other US-led military actions in the last 50 years.
And if your secondary justification - removing a brutal despot from power - was a secondary consideration by the US-led forces, then why has Iraq been a bloodbath ever since? More civilians have died since the invasion than were exterminated by Saddam Hussein throughout his entire reign. All the invasion has achieved is a bloody power struggle by Iraq's various conflicting political interests - something which anybody with even the most rudimentary understanding of the history of the region could've predicted and at the very least planned for before deciding to invade. Which the USA singularly failed to do.
Frankly it doesn't help your global image as an insular nation which understands nothing beyond its own borders.
Not taking sides here, Kev, but it sounds like you're taking it on faith that the invasion WASN'T about preventing terrorism just as much as David's taking it on faith that it was.
Your stance seems to be that the Iraqi government may have had some links to people who wanted to commit some sort of terrorist act against the US, and that was absolute justification for invasion.
So do you believe that Britain should have invaded Ireland in the 1970s? The Irish links were more clear, and made significantly more evident by the fact that the attacks actually happened.
And please don't use the argument that we did it for the Iraqi people because that is ridiculously naive.
Actually, my opinion is that the invasion of Iraq was reasonable under the circumstances - which included:
1) The contemporaneous threat of terrorism against the USA, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq's significance wrt being a potential or actual state supporter of such terrorism
2) Saddam's persistent violations of Gulf War ceasefire agreements - the promised consequence of which, was the resumption of the war and his likely removal from power
3) His continuing threat to his own citizens
- and that (his) removal would have been an inevitable necessity, eventually, inasmuch as:
1) He was a continuing nuisance wrt "containing" him, since he was:
a) Shooting at patrolling aircraft
b) Bribing foreign and, apparently, UN officials, in order to obtain international support for eliminating the sanctions that were designed to "contain" him
c) Pursuing further acquisition of more dangerous weaponry, while having demonstrated an inclination to aggression and having reportedly stated ambitions to be the prominent manifestation of Arab leadership, such as had been historically exemplified by Nebuchadnezzer and Saladin
2) When, eventually, he would have died, he was almost certainly to be succeeded as ruler over the Iraqi people, by one or both of his sons, who were at least as horrifically cruel and arrogant, as himself
I am not sure of your historical reference; I can only surmise that you are referring to IRA terrorism, generally. Anyway, I shall not presume what I would have regarded as appropriate to circumstances of which I know so little.
Indeed, I am quite ignorant of why the British pursued their policies. I know only the fact that Tony Blair, and several of his countrymen, actively supported the USA in its Iraqi policy. For that (and furthermore, for the persistently supportive and cooperative alliance between the USA and UK, almost since the founding of our nation), I am grateful.
Thank you for putting into words what I've had at the back of my mind but couldn't find a way of putting. It's a bit like arguing with the White House spokesman.
I was referring, particularly, to the British soldiers.
Well, you should have been able to recognize that a White House spokesman would not likely regard you as competent to argue about what the White House thinks.
There was no intelligence basis for it, according to the UN. I would've thought you'd need a bigger reason than unreliable intelligence to take a country to war. And of course the UK got involved and actively fabricated evidence to make Hussein look like a threat - why would they need to do that if the CIA already had compelling information?
No. Based on David's logic, the US would have already invaded some of the countries that joined the "coalition of the willing". There were some tiny central Asian states that joined the coalition who have leaders that make Saddam Hussein look like Mary Poppins. One in particular had a reputation for boiling his opponents alive.
But there was no specific threat. You cannot invade a country because of what you percieve are it's intentions, simply because those perceptions may be wrong. And in this case, they were wrong.
It's true that the Iraqis took pot shots at British and US planes, which was a bit of a nuisance, but the fact is that Iraq had been contained successfully for a decade. It's capability of waging war was nil, as was made clear during the invasion.
As I said, the US, British or any Government couldn't give a toss about the Iraqi citizens. For starters, there's a huge list of countries in the world whose citzens are suffering like the Iraqis were. If America were on a serious mission to rid the world of tyranny it would start in Africa. But there's no profit in Africa, no gain. That's not a dig at the US Government, it's the same for any Government. They work to one system - to do what's in the best interests of its own people and no more.
There has never in British history been protests of the scale there was against the Iraq war in Britain. The intelligence service never suggested an invasion was necessary, many senior members of the military were dubious about the plans, the public was certainly against it and members of the cabinet resigned over it. Make no mistake, it was Blair's war, not Britain's.
I'm too young to remember the 'poll tax', but I read into what it was not so long back and the scheme seemed perfectly sensible to me. It must have been quite easy to whip the population into a frenzy in those days
You can't know a country's intentions anyway. Either way you are going by what you perceive... I mean, if someone is standing outside your door, ringing your doorbell, and they have an assault rifle with them, you would perceive them as a threat and call the police. But you don't know for sure that they meant to harm you. Every conflict is based on perceptions. It's just human nature. It is striking how similar every single country actually is, because no matter what language someone speaks, who they want to kill, who they perceive as an enemy, they are still humans, and think the same way as everyone else.
I think USA thinks it owns the world. Haven't you heard? You don't!
From now on, where I say "you", I mean USA...
I find it amusing how you think you can stick your nose everywhere just because you find it right. Or worse, you find it economically/geopolitically interesting. It doesn't help the fact I'm reading 3 pages of arguing about a military invasion, and people still approve it. Maybe I just live in another world, but I don't really think reducing 3 thousand years old cities to dust (I won't even enter in the matter of the lives lost/broken by it) because some paranoid lunatic wants to free the world of all evil (oh the irony...) is a smart thing. Mind your own business, and let people take care of their problems ffs.
We who live in America (see, America is NOT USA) are used to your dirty tricks. Countless governments all over the continent were raised and killed (sometimes literally) with the "help" of your "intelligence". We've learned in our history that you do whatever it takes just so your interests are never in risk. You are overprotective, you overtax our products so we can never have a fair competition, you don't care about pollution if it can slow your economy, you don't care about other's disgrace if it can slow your economy, you don't care about bombing the world if it can accelerate your economy.
In short, we don't like you, and I'm certain that this is a common sense in Latin America.
That being sad, there are a lot of countries, rich and poor, that aren't any better than that. And I have nothing against the people, unless someone really thinks gunpowder is a good way of dealing with problems.
Absolute nonsense. If you perceive them to be a threat, you go look for evidence that your perception is either right or wrong. If there is no evidence (as was the case here) you re-evaluate your perception.
If they were ringing your doorbell and didn't have an assault rifle, would you call the cops on the assumption that they might have some other deadly weapon hidden on their person somewhere?
I can imagine pizza delivery guys get tazered a lot in the USA.
All "evidence" is perceived. Everything is perceived. Everything looks different to everyone. No-one hears anything exactly the same. No-one sees anything exactly the same. For example, a color may seem more red to one person, and more orange to someone else. Your physical features come from your DNA, but how you perceive the world does not.
People don't seem to understand my philosophy. I'm not talking about specific countries. I am talking about human nature. Why is everyone so quick to apply labels. It seems that it is human nature for people to feel superior to others. Racism is sort of human nature. Everyone is racist, everyone is sexist. There is no-one that does not discriminate. There is no such thing as not being offensive.
I feel a bit threatened by wheel4hummer's recent posts. He seems to be supporting aggressive behaviour, which suggests he may become aggressive himself at some point in the future.
I think we should kill him just to be on the safe side.
Not at all, you cannot prove what someone is thinking. You seem to have misunderstood me. Why? Because you perceive things differently then me, and that's okay. I can try to make you understand what I am thinking, but there is no point, so I will not bother to correct any misunderstandings. Furthermore, what does it mean to understand someone? You never know if someone truly understands what you are saying. Therefore there is no point in getting angry when someone misunderstands you, or when someone says something you don't agree with. Even if I were advocating the existence and punishment of "thoughtcrime", what difference does it make? Are you trying to make everyone think like you? If you are, then that's also okay, because everyone wants everyone to think like them. That's what I am doing right now. Why? I'm not even sure.
will have to stock up.
