The war has begun!

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The war has begun!

Reply #25 – 2003-03-20 10:41:23

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There are several more dictators of this kind around, is USA going to invade and start a war against every country governed from a evil dictator? What about China? Are they evil enough for Bush standards? Don't they have real massive destruction weapons?

If they do, it'll be most likely 'cold war' instead. You see in case of Iraq they first made sure in opposite.

But generally, looks like this is the plan.
I do believe though that you can't force your vision of state in all the countries.
Vast majority of current conflicts were 'inspired' by external interference.
Both US and SU had major failure in Afganistan, they shouldn't meddle in the first place.

Now again. You're not happy with regime in the country: support separatists, opposition, organize coup d'etat at last (haven't been done, since iraqi people are so suppressed). Still not happy: bomb it, invade it. Elect the right people. Got another regime? wonder why

The war has begun!

Reply #26 – 2003-03-20 10:46:35

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Looks like you are 1 of the billions of people blinded by the media!!!

Talk about blinded. I am through wasting reason and understanding on you. Short simple and sweet. You are a troll. A troll with no pertinant input and only pigheaded lies and insults to peddle. I make no excuses for the shortcomings of our countries past administrations. I don't jump to carry out dubyas every word. I have my own thoughts and oppinions on the subject. I am not the one that is blinded by nationalist meda. Take a look in the mirror to see that man my frined. It is no wonder that europen govenments do nothing but bicker if their ranks are drawn from people like yourself.

The war has begun!

Reply #27 – 2003-03-20 10:51:41

Just have to say 1 more thing before I stop posting in this thread!. I am on neither side! (I am against both sides!). History has shown that war solves nothing. If war did solve problems, why are wars still going on! History has also shown that it is always the inoccent civilians (women and children) who get killed. and the evil leaders, some how come out alive!

It just goes to show, if you are not with the americans, you are hated !

The war has begun!

Reply #28 – 2003-03-20 11:12:50

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Looks like you are 1 of the billions of people blinded by the media!!!

I think it's very hard to form an obejctive picture about the crisis. There's lots of both anti-war and war supporting -propaganda in action, so I think there's no way that one couldn't be blinded by the media, whether anti-war or war supporter.

The most easiest thing to say is (at least in Europe) "No war, lets not do anything. USA only wants the oil."
I think Bush and Blair made a very hard decicion knowing that it may very likely be the end of their careers, at least Blair's career.

I don't know if the war now was the right decicion or not. I'm just happy that I'm in no position to have any real influence on this in any way. All I know is that I'm not in the demonstrations screaming "Stop the war!" nor "Someone's gotta do it! Go USA!". I have opinions which both support the war and are against the war, and I think both Bush and Blair had also both kind of opinions, but as strong leaders, they made a very hard decicion. Maybe it's the right decicion, maybe wrong. Many people's opinion may be different after the war.

The war has begun!

Reply #29 – 2003-03-20 11:19:31

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History has shown that war solves nothing. If war did solve problems, why are wars still going on!

I always find the claim "History shows that war solves nothing" very weird. Wars are going on mostly because of the human nature, but that doesn't mean that wars couldn't solve anything.
History has shown very clearly that wars really solve things. Maybe it's just hard for the young people to understand what WW2 solved, and that we live now in totally different world than if Nazi Germany had won.

You'd have a hard time to convince most finnish people that "a war doesn't solve anything", because we defended our independence against full scale Russian attack during WW2 succesfully. That war also certainly solved our freedom..

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History has also shown that it is always the inoccent civilians (women and children) who get killed. and the evil leaders, some how come out alive!

Like Hitler???

The war has begun!

Reply #30 – 2003-03-20 12:08:34

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Democracy has not been ignored. America is not acting unilatteraly. America has the support of many countries and is not doing this on their own. Democracy does not mean that we only do something if 100% of the participants agree. All you need is a simple majority. And while there are no end of tiny countries who oppose the war. They have nothing to contribute and nothing to gain from it in any way. Those that are important(sorry little guys) have agreed enough that a majority in favor was reached.

My idea of a fair democratic vote is that it works by settled rules, made in the past. One such settled rule is that the French as well as the Russians and Chinese can impose veto's on decisions. If you disagree with the fairness of veto-rights, that's fine, you can go and propose to change that in a democratic procedure.

What has happened here is that the pro-war alliance has ignored UN opinions. Or, in your words: "those that are important" have agreed that "little guys" (like Russia, China, France ) can be ignored. Just deciding here who is important and who isn't, would be a unilateral imposal of some weird new rule.

If the proposal to start war today would have been taken to vote in the UN assembly, it wouldn't have made it. To me, that means, it simply did not have enough support. Your way out of that argument is to re-weight the significance of every UN-member...

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The UN has a hard time trusting anyone.(accept perhaps for Sadam to mend his ways.) That is not saying much.

Clearly, we differ so substantially in opinion, we'll never be able to end this discussion. I know the UN is not an institute without fallacies, but the principle of it is holy to me. It doesn't work flawlessly, but as an attempt to a worldwide forum of democracy, it must be taken seriously. I really can't believe you just wrote that.

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Political support would have ben sufficient from the French. And while having their oppinion now ignored may be a slap in the face to them. They delivered the first slap in the face in this situation.

They never ignored the American opinion. They just said they disagreed. That's not slapping anyone. Not bringing a motion for war to vote, is.

The war has begun!

Reply #31 – 2003-03-20 12:09:47

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Talk about blinded. I am through wasting reason and understanding on you. Short simple and sweet. You are a troll. A troll with no pertinant input and only pigheaded lies and insults to peddle.

Calm down Neo. If people can't discuss here without starting to call each others with names, then this thread will be closed.

The war has begun!

Reply #32 – 2003-03-20 12:23:49

I think we all can agree that we hate war and it should only be used in the gravest of circumstances.

That being said, I have agreed for some time that Saddam and Co. must be taken out. We waited way too long to do this. America made too many mistakes in the past and it brought suffering to a people that did not deserve it.

Don't label me as a Bush supporter, I didn't vote for him and I think he absolutely butchered the diplomatic end. However, I do think that war is the right thing to bring a lasting peace in that area. Look at WWII...after Germany surrendered we and the Soviet Union occupied it for 50 years or so. Yes, there was a COLD War, that is 100x's better then a real war. In the end, peace won and Europe is probably up there with North America as the most stable continent in the world. Think about it, ever since WWII the only war has been in the Balkins during the past decade. The whole place was rebuilt, democracy given a chance, and now countries are capable of making their own decisions.

I am hoping that Bush is able to start the process that will allow the Middle East to become a beacon of stability in the world. Like I said, his diplomactic efforts need a lot of work, but regardless in the end we would of ended up at war 1 way or another.

The war has begun!

Reply #33 – 2003-03-20 13:58:27

I think (or hope) what JEN means is that there is no such thing as a "good" war, anyone that looks at history knows that wars sometimes need to be waged.

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yes
stop the war and stop the usa.
i have nothing against american people but against its administration.

I can understand the stop the war part, but what do you mean by the other part? If you say stop the USA as a nation you ARE talking about Americans, there's no way around that.

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Well, if invading countries is the way to remove evil (no sarchasm here) dictators, we're fixed!! There are several more dictators of this kind around, is USA going to invade and start a war against every country governed from a evil dictator? What about China? Are they evil enough for Bush standards? Don't they have real massive destruction weapons?

I hear this argument all the time and I still don't understand the point of it. Is it just to show hypocrisy? If that's the point then the person using that argument implies that he himself lacks any sort of benevolence in that he is completely apothetic towards the "evil dictators".

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And, what to say to the fact that Saddam Hussein didn't become an evil dictator in 1992 when he invaded Kuwait? He's been the same bastard ever, even when he was supported from the USA back in the 80's. In fact , IIRC USA was the one that provided the bacteriological weapons and technology to Irak then.

He was indeed "supported" by the US in the 80s, particularly during the Iran-Iraq war. Apparently at the time Iran was seen as the greater of two evils. I don't know whether the US provided biological weapons, but it's well-known that France provided nuclear technology. They enabled Saddam the technology to process weapons grade uranium, fortunately the Israelis bombed the plant very soon after it went online. This was in the early 1980s. I'm not singling out the French connection, just that there are others with dirty hands. Basically this argument is a non-argument against what's going on in the year 2003. Things change.

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The international community had democratically come to the conclusion that the time is not now. Some superpower ignoring that is not a good thing imho.

I suppose that's debateable, but that same international "democracy" was completely impotent on so many important occasions where they absolutely needed to react.

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So america wants iraq to get rid all the weapons! why did america supply them the weapons and technology in the first place. Out of 40 or so wars today, 39 of these wars have american weapons. My questions is, then is america going to stop supplying weapons, and when are they going to get rid of there own weapons?

Let me guess, it doesn't bother you in the least that Belgium, France, and especially Russia and China also sell huge numbers of weapons systems to foreign regimes? Try to find a war in the last 30 years that didn't include AK-47s or Mosin Nagants. lastly be specific what weapons and technology you're talking about. Mirage fighter planes? No, those are French. Prohibited Scud missles (UN should have had them destroyed, oh yeah Saddam neglected to report them to the Inspectors)? Probably from
China or North Korea. AK-47s...

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Just because someone has american made weapons does not mean that America gave them to them. Companies in a free democracy are free to sell their wares to most anyone they like. And when that is not enough they sell behind the governments back.

Actually I don't believe that's true. I think they're limited to whom the US government allows the sale of weapons to. That may not be for rifles, but for heavier weaponry I doubt they're allowed to sell to whichever government they choose. I think the Iran Contra deals kind of highlights that.

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This is very true. But although the Americans probably have other than ideological reasons to take out Saddam, if the result is the same (freedom for the people) the war would in some sense be justified. Again, I totally agree with you that the American motifs for doing all this are pretty evil at that.

Where does this come from? You just go ahead and assume Americans lack any type of virtue and only operate under evil motives. That sounds a bit prejudiced.

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america says they want freedom! There idea of freedom is them in control of the world!

Any proof or are you just making that up?

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I know the UN is not an institute without fallacies, but the principle of it is holy to me. It doesn't work flawlessly, but as an attempt to a worldwide forum of democracy, it must be taken seriously. I really can't believe you just wrote that.

You may take the princible as holy to you, but we actually have to deal with reality. The UN security council is very hit or miss. You never know when it'll completely fail or not and it has failed bigtime on too many occasions to just dismiss them as a simple fallicy or whatever. Millions have died as a result of the UN talking but not doing. Think Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone... Despite that you would still live and die by the UN?

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They never ignored the American opinion. They just said they disagreed. That's not slapping anyone. Not bringing a motion for war to vote, is.

No France did not just disagree. Germany just disagreed. France went absolutely out of their way to hurt the US by threatening smaller eastern Eurpean nations that wouldn't go along with the French party line with blocking EU admission, going to Africa to get them in line and bribing the temporary SC members to go against the US. That's not just disagreeing and that's not something you'd expect from a supposed friendly nation to the US.

My opinion of this war is I'm not sure the actual motives, it's probably not as simple as it's made out to be. As far as I'm concerned any time is the right time to get rid of thugs like Saddam Hussein. If you're more interested in bashing Bush or America than concerned about how Saddam Hussein and henchmen behave, then I think you really need to re-evaluate your priorities. If you think Saddam Hussein's regime isn't a threat, history disproves that very clearly.

The war has begun!

Reply #34 – 2003-03-20 14:17:43

Currently, Saddam regime was not a threat for anybody. Not for surrounding nations, nor for their supposed support to terrorists.

With 1992 war and later UN inspector's work, Irak war resources were minimal. There has not been any proof of connection of Irak with Al-Qaeda terrorism. Also, note that with the exception ot Kuwait, none of the surrounding nations support the invasion. They don't feel threatened. Irak being presented as a threat is just a poor excuse for the invasion.

The war has begun!

Reply #35 – 2003-03-20 14:20:16

The not surprising thing is that most people who are against the war never experienced so called war.
The funniest thing though, is that even people who are near terrorism acts, don't get the hint.
The hint is that sometimes, there can not be negotiation. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, how much you try, and how much the terrorists tell you on TV they want peace and they want the "other side" to stop -their- evil actions, the acts of terrorism will continue. It is simple known terrorist strategies of decieving, puting blame, lying, hiding, beautifying all they do. And it is sad that people all over the world just don't get it.
If you were ever in a real army, not a bullshit army with fake soldiers who do nothing, but soldiers who are in real risk, who have to protect their country, you know better how things work. You may get to see things yourself, not on TV. You may get to experience the real fear. And you will get to know how insane terrorism is, and how brainwashed people are. Kids as well as adults who endlessly throw stones and molotov coctails on soldiers. For what? Endless shootings by terrorist organizations. Again and again stoping weapon smugglers with huge amounts of weapons in their trucks from getting into your country's territories. And you, the civilians, watch on TV the terrorists and terrorism supporters asking for mercy, their are so poor and weak, innocent and helpless, they want peace but the other side is so insane and just not willing to listen to anything, those poor people are being arrested, killed, "hunted". Some of us know shit, and see the transparent terrorist strategies, whether we learned about them in the army, or whether we're just intelligent enough to learn by ourselves. Some people don't care so much about it all, so don't learn about the facts, and choose to stick to brainwashing phrases like "stop the war! war is bad! we want peace!" while missing the whole point, while knowing nothing at all. As if we're happy about the war. As if it's not necessary at all for anyone, just insane USA going in to war like zombies ignoring you. And it's all because lack of knowledge and experience. Lack of knowing truths and wrongs about what the purely left-winged media decides to twist for you.

To all those who are so bitterly against the war, all i feel like saying is, respect yourselves and get some knowledge before you make world influencing claims. As an israeli citizen, who's been familiar with the army, who has many friends who are currently soldiers at various units in the army, from regular to elite, who tell me about their sufferings and frustrations, and who has suffered from acts of terrorism in his country directly and indirectly, i can assure you i know all i need to know in order to decide "the war" is indeed necessary. I sincerely wish to all of you to never experience war first hand and not know the suffering senseless terrorism can cause. Get yourself some real knowledge, because knowledge is your power.

The war has begun!

Reply #36 – 2003-03-20 14:25:36

We have several hundreds or thousands people killed by ETA assasins here in Spain. That doesn't change what I think about this stupid war. Please use some real arguments. If you feel threatened from Irak, take into accound that many arab nations feel same threaten from Israel. Please don't personalize this that much.

The war has begun!

Reply #37 – 2003-03-20 14:26:16

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You'd have a hard time to convince most finnish people that "a war doesn't solve anything", because we defended our independence against full scale Russian attack during WW2 succesfully. That war also certainly solved our freedom..

You were actually defending your independency, while SU was trying to 'fix' your state order to what it believed is right.
Now Bush & Blair are so sure they are doing the right thing.

Back to WWII, in long perspective US won (gained the most from) this war because it had more pragmatism in its actions. It surely lacks it now, IMO.

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In the end, peace won and Europe is probably up there with North America as the most stable continent in the world. Think about it, ever since WWII the only war has been in the Balkins during the past decade.

Yep, if we skip Afganistan, Korea, Vietnam, which were earlier.
Long term crisis as a result, instability here, civil wars there. Hope they'll be luckier this time.
But I think we'll gain just another time bomb, something to Bush' grandson to fix.

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The whole place was rebuilt, democracy given a chance, and now countries are capable of making their own decisions.

That's a nice interpretation. Now think if someone would try to rebuild US by separating it into parts, and then bomb it, just to secure achievements. There is such interpretation as well of what was done. Thought you might find it interesting.
BTW I'm in doubt that bombing in heart of Europe could promote sense of comfort and safety to europeans.

Anyway it's nice to know, that if your country happen to have a dictator or regime, there is someone to fix it.

The war has begun!

Reply #38 – 2003-03-20 14:38:16

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We have several hundreds or thousands people killed by ETA assasins here in Spain. That doesn't change what I think about this stupid war. Please use some real arguments. If you feel threatened from Irak, take into accound that many arab nations feel same threaten from Israel. Please don't personalize this that much.

Iraq is a threat, if you fail to realize this i don't know what to say to you. Anyway it's not just about threats for only your personal safety. If you feel that the killings there should be ignored forever and that there should be no war to stop this insanity, and the war is stupid, that's your choise.
I'm not afraid to give "real arguments", anything you will throw at me against the war i can contradict with reasonable arguments.
YOU should take into acount that you have no idea what you're talking about. No arab nation feels threatened by israel. Israel is no threat to any arab nation. If there is any nation threatened in the middle east by israel, it's israel, israel is definately threatened by the arab nations.
If you tell me how you got to the conclusion the huge arab nations are threatened by Israel, that would be great.

The war has begun!

Reply #39 – 2003-03-20 14:46:36

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If you tell me how you got to the conclusion the huge arab nations are threatened by Israel, that would be great.

Do you remember the Six-Days War? Or is Egypt a small arab nation?

The war has begun!

I don't think your comparison of Russia's attack to Finland against Bush/Blair attack to Iraq is very valid.

I don't think yours are valid either, JohnV. Hitler had already invaded many countries, and killed millions of people, when allied forces "fixed" him. Irak hasn't attacked anyone in 10 years, and it's not likely he was going do now.

Other countries have ignored UN resolutions ,with the help (veto) of USA, and nothing happened to them, nor is going to happen.

There have been and still are many dictators comparable to Saddam in Africa and Asia, but USA government did not try or is not trying to remove them, because they don't find any advantage in it. In fact in the past they helped raising some of them (Pinochet, talibans).

The war has begun!

Reply #47 – 2003-03-20 15:06:03

I'm not going to join the general debate here, save to say that the title of this thread is wrong. The Gulf War was never ended. There was a Cease Fire which would lead to peace if Iraq obeyed the conditions attached to the Cease Fire. This has never happened, so the war is not a new one, it is simply unfinished business.

Anyone who thinks this action is wrong obviously condones genocide and the use of biological weapons against ones own peoples. Get real!!

The war has begun!

Reply #48 – 2003-03-20 15:11:07

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This has never happened, so the war is not a new one, it is simply unfinished business.

This is quite a poor excuse, war started again just tonight.

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Anyone who thinks this action is wrong obviously condones genocide and the use of biological weapons against ones own peoples. Get real!!

I don't condone them, what makes you think so? This is not you are with me or with the dictator.

Are we allowed to start a war against any nation that makes suffer its own population, even when that war will make them suffer more, and when most of that population doesn't want the war?

The war has begun!

Reply #49 – 2003-03-20 15:12:31

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And palestinians say the territories belong to them and Israel should stop creating the colonies. UN and USA also says this.
Saddam also said that Kuwait belongs to the Iraq, but nobody else agreed..

Gee, what a nice comparison.
Well, palestinians are not wanted by their original country, they are simply not wanted. They can say what ever they want, the fact is no harm is being done to them. UN, well sure they'll say this, they're always against Israel and anything that goes against terrorism. USA, believe me, USA has no decision here and they know it. The public objection by USA for this is mild as well and basically so that they'll get support by arab peoples and UN, it's business. It won't change. What do you think palestinians would do without israel? They can't live without Israel's help.

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