this might have already been a topic, and if so im sorry, but do you agree with the war in iraq?

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This is a difficult topic for me to deal with, as I am most definitely of two minds on it.

On the one hand, Saddam Hussein was a terrible despot, who terrorized his own people and minorities under his rule. He made it impossible for his own people to revolt against him, and so I believe that it was the international community's responsibility to remove him from power. I do not believe that it is ever right to condone inhumane treatment, from any country, and that for most offences, economic sanctions and diplomatic actions should be enough, but when they do not work, military action is necessary.

I do not support the 'rationale' of our leaders - I really, truthfully, don't care that he was 'able' to hurt us with *snickers* Weapons of Mass Destruction (like empty trucks). However, he was hurting his own people. It is like watching a father beat his children - it is our responsibility to stop him.

However...people are dying.
There have been 1,928 coalition troop deaths, 1,741 Americans, 89 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 25 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of June 28, 2005.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

There have been between 22,582 and 25,590 Iraqi civilian deaths

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I could not find totals of Iraqi soldiers who died defending their home, Iraqi police forces, or the current resistance fighters or those people they have killed.

I do not think that, in the end, this war was worth that. I think that this war needed better planning, more commitment, mostly from the international community, partially from the U.S. and the U.K. (our soldiers shouldn't need to scrounge for scrapmetal for armor), and a better rebuilding strategy. I work with someone who fought in Iraq for about 10 months. He doesn't talk about it much, but we were talking about Bush once, and the war, and I mentioned Bush's failed "Mission: Accomplished". He just looked away, furious, almost crying in his anger and frustration, and he said - "Yeah, and we still got 10 guys dying every day."

In the beginning, I supported the war - I understood that many people would die, that this would last longer than anybody really thought it would, but I never expected this quagmire of faux nation-building. In the end, I don't know that it was worth it all.

I don't object to the war in principle and by itself. Military intervention to remove a murderous despot is, by and large, okay by me.

But. But but but but but.

Firstly, we were lied to. We knew that from the start. Bush and Blair lied, they kept lying, I'm almost 100% certain that they're still lying. As recently as a few months ago Donald Rumsfeld was continuing to insist that there were ties between Hussein and Al-Qaeda. Public trust in the government has been shattered.

Secondly, the war has been (and is still being) botched beyond belief. Iraq has been shot all to Hell, and is continuing to rip itself apart. It won't recover for a long, long time. It's for the Iraqis to decide whether being liberated from Hussein has made their current state of affairs worthwhile, I suppose - I'm not certain.

Thirdly, it is in the wake of this war that the torture and abuse committed by US soldiers on those they have captured has flourished. The reluctance of the US Army to punish anybody involved in these horrific abuses is extremely worrying.

In the end, I'm going to have to side with Dave in saying that I really don't know if it was all worth it.

Despite holding pacifist views, because I also recognise that sometimes pacifism allows evil free reign, I would have supported the war in Iraq had it not been illegal and had we not been lied to. I'd have been overjoyed had they gone in with a coherent plan for what to do afterwards rather than just thinking hey democracy will happen naturally, had they the support of the UN and had they said we're doing this to remove Sadam from power. They use that excuse now, if you question the war people will say"Oh aren't you glad Sadam isn't in power then?" but that wasn't their concern at the time, they had left him there for years and previously supported him. However they don't treat prisoners much better than he did and more people are dying in the time span than under the previous government. This war was wrong, it enabled our governments to lie to us and get away with it, and because of it human rights abuses are occuring at the hands of Iraq's supposed liberators.

I would probably have agreed with the war had it been not been based on a big set of lies about WMD, and been better planned and executed. Considering how long Bush and Blair had intentions to invade Iraq before it was widely known, you'd think the war would have been better planned. Sending our troops into a war based on a lie is one thing, sending them into a war based on a lie without the right armour is quite another.

I get really quite annoyed when anti-war protestors start screaming for the troops to be brought home. We turned the country tits up, so it's our responsibility to fix it. Coalition forces do provide a lot of protection to Iraqi civilians, who'd be blown up even more regularly if it wasn't for the troops. It's particularly annoying that people want the British forces out. We have the best trained and experienced soldiers in the world when it comes to peacekeeping in urban areas (Northern Ireland anyone). Granted, they've got it relatively easy down in Basra, but what they're doing now is a peacekeeping operation not waging a war. Somewhat different for the Americans, however, but pulling the largest military force in Iraq out of the most troubled areas won't do Iraq any good.

heh. I disagree with the bit about the US not treating people much better, at our worst we can't fully compete with Saddam. I remember the A&E biography, two incidents leaving a deep impression of the man. There was this religious leader, I forget the exact term. Anyway, he had enough repuation to be a threat to Saddam. So he decided to have him killed. After raping his sister repeatedly in front of him, they beat him, pounding nails into his skull and lit his beard on fire. The next was a woman going to Saddam and pleading for her husband's life. He promised she'd get him back. So he killed him, had him cut into pieces and sent back to her. It was apparently one of the few promises he'd kept.

This is the man that kept torture chambers openly, secret underground prisons and had dozens of polictians murdered. The one that frusterates me about the opposition to the war is the people that can suddenly find self-righteous indignation. Where were these 'holy warriors' when fellow muslims were tortured and dying? When religious leaders were killed and Saddam mocked their religion by claiming things like a relation to Muhammed? Its hypocritical at best. If it is such a deep wrong when the US did, it should have been just as great a international outrage when Saddam did much worse to all those innocent people. I can't fully respect the people that didn't manage to care beyond a few editorials or sad faces, but now manage to protest deeply, generally.

That said, I don't know what to think. All the evidence suggests lying, spin control and things I'm not comfortable. I don't think most of us can have comfortable assurance that Bush/Blair did this for some noble reason, especially with things like Chaney's oil company getting the contract. And on and on, ad nauseum. I also would have felt better if we'd helped with the rebellion we encouraged instead of forcing a war. >_o There's no arguing that he and his sons deserved this if anyone did though.

believe: but morality isn't relative. The atrocities committed by Saddam, however horrific, don't make the atrocities committed by American troops the slightest bit more acceptable.

Commie: Of course not. I find the bad US acts horrific and embarassing. What bothers me is not that people rightly object to some US troops doing horrible things. Its that random activists suddenly have a passion for the cause that I don't remember before. Some people did notice and care, I just don't remember it being on near this scale. I certainly can't blame people for disliking the war in Iraq, I just think that any and all torture should provoke this much outrage. The rape in Darfur should be getting televised protests too.

Thing is people did care, just not enough to make any sort of difference. They don't treat all Iraqi's like he did, but they are not much better to their prisoners. Admittedly they haven't set fire to anyone yet.
Of course all torture needs to provoke outrage, but when a culture sets itself up against something, to then practise that thing itself in the name of preventing it happening needs to be given more coverage to show such hypocracy and double stqandards will not be tolerated.
And now we're in there we damn well need to stay until it's sorted out.

Also, maybe they're only getting involved now because it's easy to protest about this but maybe they've only just become aware of the full extent. Many people were vaguely aware that atrocities were being commited but now there's so much media coverage people can't help becoming very aware. And even if people only join a cause because it's cool, atleast they then help it.

I don't like the way that we (australia) was roped into it because our stupid prime minister wants to be friends with the big boys regardless of how many Australians objected to it.
For those that don't something like 8 million australians were making peacefull anti-war marches on a week day ie missing work,school,etc

As far as supporting it, I say that all these anti-war protests in America accomplish absolutely nothing except hurt the morale of our troops. In times of war you should support your country no matter what your stance. If we just bail out now Iraq could very well become a terrorist breeding ground.

Remember that the troops over there enlisted by choice. They wanted to serve in Iraq to protect our freedom, and we should all support them for that.

For one thing, I wouldn't generalise about US soldiers (link contains strong language used by soldiers pissed off at the White House).

Secondly, do anti-war protests hurt troop morale? We want our troops to not get killed for somebody's stupid decisions. I think most of them also don't want to get killed pointlessly.

Thirdly, no, we should not support our country no matter what. If the UK started invading peaceful countries and massacring civilians, should I support it because I was born there? Hell no. Patriotism is not a moral vacuum. You don't surrender your conscience and your moral sense just because you get a freaking passport. Right is right and wrong is wrong no matter which country you're from.

Oh, and also: yeah, they enlisted by choice, but most of them didn't know they were going to be sent to Iraq based on paper-thin lies when they enlisted, did they?

I'm totally with Commie on this. Arachnidoc, blindly supporting what your country's military does is (in my opinion) one of the stupidest, morally-incompetant things a person can do. If British troops were to invade Belgium, then rape and kill every single Belgian woman for no good reason, should I support that? Of course I bloody shouldn't - it's vile and dispicable, and morally indefensible.

Here's what I see as facts:
1: The 'coalition of the willing' wanted to invade Iraq - the Downing Street Minutes show this intent from before 9/11. They just needed to rouse popular support.
2: The war was sold to the US public as revenge for 9/11, but the fact is that Saddam and Iraq had no link to Al-Quaeda (sp?) and Osama. Then it was sold as 'for security'. Anyone who believes that the world (and especially America) is more secure today than 4 years ago is living in a dream world. Then it was sold to us as 'liberating the poor Iraqis'. Sure, the Iraqis were living under a brutal dictatorship, but so is a sizable portion of the world. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that there are any number of more brutal leaders elsewhere who ought to have been higher up the list of people to 'liberate'.
3: More people in Iraq are living below the poverty line than they were under Saddam (sorry - no link at the moment, but I'm pretty sure of that one). Yeah, nice one, that's much better. And the brutality of Saddams secret police has been totally fixed. *cough* Guantanamo *cough*
4 : The war started with no clear idea of what 'victory' was. As a result, we've got an endless war, because we're never going to know when we're finished. Is it when Saddam's deposed? No, because then there's no indigienous security apparatus. Is it when the Iraqi police and army are formed and trained? No, because then there's still insurgents. Is it when the insurgency is cleared up? Maybe, but how do you put an end to a loose-knit network of guerilla fighters who are fighting in response to your military occupation of their homeland against international law?


So, no, I see nothing to applaud in the way the war was planned, executed, and monumentally screwed up. The whole episode makes me sick to my stomach.

The light at the end of the tunnel for me is that the US Army is now missing it's recruitment targets by progressively more and more each month, which means that the army isn't getting enough fresh recruits in to maintain troop levels. No wonder when American soldiers die every week - no-one wants to sign up for that. So, either the US will have to pull out, or institute a draft, which will be political suicide for Bush. My fear is that the Dems will get in in 2008, and this debacle will still be dragging on, leaving them to mop up the mess which the Republicans will spin as a 'Democratic mess'.

Bleh - I'm done.

You ought to support the troops, particulaly as they have no choice as to where they're stationed and which wars they fight for (excluding those who joined up when the war was already in progress). It's the government who makes the war and then sits nice and cosy while the soldiers die; therefore if the war is unjust we must oppose the government and the war, but not condemn the troops themselves, again excluding specific soldiers who of their own free will commit atrocities.

And I supose you would rather let the Germans win WWII because your countrymen would die? War sucks, but shit happens. We couldn't have stopped the Nazis with big, sparkly flags that say "let's be friends."





And what if the US bombed all of Europe? We're talking about probable events, here.

That's what patriotism is, you should support your side during times of war, not bitch about everything and expect everything to be able to be solved by diplomacy.

Difference? We were colluding with them, sometimes we even installed them in the first place. We had nothing to gain from Saddam remaining in power anymore, so suddenly he's The Evillest.

Alright, fine, let's talk about a freaking probable event. Let's talk about the French colonisation and rape of Cambodia. Had I been a Frenchman at the time, ought I have supported that? No, because whether I'm a Frenchman or not, it's wrong. Or the Soviet mass murder of the Georgians? Should I, as a Russian, wholeheartedly support Stalin's purges? I don't think so, really.

You know, I'm part German. I guess that means I am morally obliged to support the Nazi invasion of Poland, am I right? Is that what you're saying? Because I don't think I'll be doing that.

The German government already publicly apologized for that, so I'd guess not.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what your ethnicity is, I'm Polish, German, and Mexican, however my home country is not Mexico, nor Germany, nor Poland, I am part of America. I have lived in America since day one of my life, and I support her.


/conservative nut job

Do you support her whatever she does? If she started a programme of mass genocide, would you still support that endeavour? I don't care how "improbable" it is, would you?

If that happened, I would be convinced that someone's been fucking with the system.

But that's part of patriotism, I trust my country wouldn't do that. As far as I'm concerned, this country has earned my trust and it does a damned good job.

If your country completely fails you, you shouldn't have trust in it.

Patriotism isn't just blindly supporting whatever goes on in your country!

I myself feel very patriotic, and i go to peace rallies and walk-outs. Patriotism is the ability to support what you think is right for your country, not following whatever idiotic decisions elected officials make.

arachnidoc17: You can love and admire people whether you approve of everything they do. You can be mad when someone else is hurt for other's stupidity, but still support the people getting hurt. If I can do all these things normally and in other circumstances, why is it only different if my government and American soldiers are involved? My grandfather was a WW2 vet, my father was in Vietnam. I have vets I love and know. I support our troops and thats why I hate seeing them die for the wrong and half formed reasons. The government is not our army and I don't have to give the government blanket support to support an entirely different entiety. I don't have to support oh.. PETA to like animal rights within reason (ie no torture, humane death, ect), do I?

Speaking of WW2, I'd love to see (some of) America get off its high horse about that, as if that one event justifies any other ones that happened there after. We were dragged into a war, ending up doing a great thing, sure. But that doesn't justify every violation of human rights or event of war that happens thereafter. One good thing isn't a license to go do evil.

See, that's where I disagree. I think you shouldn't support one's own side, you should support the morally supported side. Hence, if I was alive during WW2, of course I would have supported the Allies, as the Germans were the agressors. However, with Iraq, I can't see any moral justification for the invasion, so I don't support it.

As far as I'm concerned, I AM supporting the troops by attending anti-war demonstrations. I'd rather they survived than died. Support doesn't get much more black and white than that.

Again, if patriotism is supporting your side in times of war, are you pro-Guantanamo abuse? Is that supporting the troops? Yay for torture! Woo-hoo! Hurrah for tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian deaths *waves flag*

[EDIT] Incidentally, here's some anecdotal evidence of why my idea of supporting the troop is to bring them home.

Hmm, I guess I'd question whether killing millions of Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be classed as a 'great thing' or not.

Closer to about two hundred thousand, I believe. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, at least, important military targets. Some of the German cities firebombed were not.

Yeah, good point - got carried away by the big numbers. Nonetheless, let's say 200,000. How many of them were 'important military targets'? And how many civilians? And I'm equally disgusted with the Allies bombing German civilian targets too. The fact is that both Japanese cities were densely populated civilian areas, which were targetted with indiscriminate weapons.

I was thinking of the nazi's. Which I probably should have specified. SS officers dying doesn't fill me with sadness. The Japan bombings are much messier. >_o

Torture? To quote Tom Clancy,"Back in pre-Revolutionary America "cruel and unusual punishment" meant the rack and burning at the stake... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television ... or just overcrowding in the prisons."

Those damn Dem officials who bitch about how bad it is haven't even stepped foot inside those freaking places.

If it were up to me these terrorists would be in a 3 x 6 cell with just food, water, toliet, and no pray.

Yep. Terrorists. The Government didn't just go "Hey, let's take that guy, that guy, that guy and that guy and throw 'em in Guantanamo!"

Actually, during roundups in Iraq, sometimes innocent civilians were brought into Abu Ghraib, or relations of a person so they could tell where the said person was. I'll search for proof of this if you'd like... edit: from the same article below


From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_to...e_(no_pictures)



I don't know, sounds like torture to me.

Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay are not synonyms.

I understand your compassion for the troops, and I also wish them well, but they can't just walk out of Iraq. The problem of terrorists (most people call them "insurgents") in Iraq isn't going to solve itself, and I'll be damned if we get another safe haven for terrorists. I think if it as an immunization. Stop it now before it gets worse.

This is true... but I was trying to play off of Jonman's point about supporting your country no matter what. Sorry I didn't make that clear. I guess what I meant to do was take Jonman's question and insert "pro-torture" as applied to everything America does so far.

Neither have say, you. Nor have you been in the war or opposing side, that you've mentioned. Which suggests you know about as much as they do, or likely less do to information they might receive.



We convict innocent men /here/. With juries, police investigations and everything else. Not on purpose and hopefully not that often, but it happens. Are you suggesting that in the middle of a war and bombing while they interview detainee's or suspects whose language most of them don't speak.. that no mistakes happened? That in all that chaos, they only nailed terrorists who'd done bad things each and everytime? I believe most of our soldiers are good people and that there some really fine men over there. They're also in a stressful, dangerous situation and I expect them to be and act human. That includes mistakes and sometimes taking the wrong person.



I agree we have to try and fix what we started, but that doesn't mean we should 1) realize our mistakes 2) try to learn from them and 3) not make them again, if possible. Part of this uproar might be bitching depending on the source, but these points are still valid. Mistakes were made and that affects our troops and countless civilians. The men that made this mistakes need to be accountable, just like they would be if they ran a business, CEO'd a company, ect. The fact that some people are abusive about it, doesn't change that fact.

And speaking of not making a terrorist breeding ground.. whether you consider them proper tortures or not, the abuse and the publicity is doing just that. Its emphasizing a stereotype already shown by some actions and some information (false and true) shown to the Muslim world. When we do something that makes them think we hate muslims, are bullies and hypocrites.. that does not help us. It doesn't protect our soldiers and it makes a bad situation worse.

America has done (if to a lesser degree) some of the same things we protested Saddam and other countries doing. This gives us little credibility. The Amnesty International reports? You may or may not believe them, but having them out their damages us. It gives the terrorists fuel for their fire and Al-Jazeera news stories to blare over many countries and millions of households. Winning the war won't stop terror by itself, the US would have to start making more respectful foreign policies choices and actually acknowledge when they do, do something wrong. Israel has won many a war and that hasn't stopped the suicide bombers or made them less hated. heh.

I personally believe that the atrocities at Abu Gharib do not represent the actions of the United States, rather a few individuals.

1. I don't preach to other people about how good/bad it is. (I think)

2. Assuming they actually recieve information and don't just pull it out of their asses.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/conte...-name_page.html

There, Guantanamo Bay torture. But I assume you'd feel the same way as you would about Abu Ghraib...

Not quite, but you have seemed somewhat vehement about our right to protest and whether we can do so patriotically.

"He said".
"He claims".

I find it very unlikely that both that website and the detainee are both credible sources.

So you're "patriotically" hoping for us to lose the war.

Go ahead, protest all you want. I'm not gonna stop you because there's no legal way I can.

arachnidoc17: And I said that.. where? If you're going to be insulting, I'd like to be about something I actually said. I never said that and I don't appreciate the insinuation.

I don't think we should have gone into this war, but that is a very different thing from 1) hoping we lose 2) wanting our men and women to die at all (let alone in the higher numbers losing implies or 3) that I'm not patriotic. One thing (not liking the war) does not equal the other 9hating America, wanting innocent people to die), let alone in the unqualified sense. Whether you agree with my views or not, it would be nice if you realized that.

And while I don't believe the majority of American soldiers torture people.. do you expect them to report if they do and when? The captives may exaggerate or outright lie at times, but they aren't less credible then expecting the bad soldiers that are torturing or covering it up to report on themselves. Abu Gharib stuff wasn't revealed by military men and women investigating and punishing abuses, as I recall. Obviously the good soldiers are upset and horrified, but as much as I admire our military, I realize that any and every organization has some very bad apples.

For one, I was implying that backing out of the war would show the terrorists that America is easily pushed around, which would really just hurt us in the long run. I honestly didn't mean to offend you as I hate that kind of person in a debate (not that I'm too good at debating anyway.)

Secondly, remember that the detainee was the only source of infromation about these places- and I'mn sure he would LOVE to bad-mouth the prison as much as he could to shut it down, even if he was lying.

It might. My problem is that I don't feel we're sending a good message now either. We may look strong sometimes, but we're also getting press for doing abusive things which will just confirm any prejudiced notions of us. If you're hearing about anti-us proganda, see pictures of the civilian casualties which we can't even imainge and then hear about Guantanamo.. its a lot easier to believe in the worse. Especially when things come about the lack of evidence for the invasion, ect in our own media. All these things have already made us look bad. Strong maybe, but abusive too.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the answer is or what I want. I would like our people to leave in one piece and I suspect leaving a la Afghanistan would be a very bad thing.. but we also appear to be in a very bad thing. For withdrawl, I'd want to hear an actual military person's opinion on the odds and such before I really attempted to comment.

My issue with our government and the war is just that. If people can't even admit to evidence thats been revealed or seem to (like Rumsfield saying we're winning or whatever that comment was) lie outright, it disturbs me for several reasons. Because the government can't seem to admit or necessarily learn from mistakes, that we may have been lied to quite a bit potentially and will have trouble telling whats spin and whats the truth and the fact that it could appear indictive of potentially bad motives.

I'd like to believe the best about President Bush and the others, actually. It would be far more comfortable. But things like Haliburton, ect give me doubts I'm not happy about. It doesn't change how I feel about soldiers, but it definitely affects how I feel about our government leading us into a war that they don't seem prepared for. Thats the difference I'm trying to get across. Its not like people have talked bluntly, own up to mistakes clearly and given us reason to think that they're getting in under control and everything will be fine.



Maybe. Not all men lie, just because they don't like their enemies. Believing we're wrong doesn't automatically make him evil or liar. That he was imprisoned there needs to be kept in mind for that reason, but we can't rule out every prisoner's report because of that either.

Sure. But not backing out of the war shows the terrorists that America doesn't give a crap what the rest of the world thinks, and will happily invade, overthrow and occupy a sovereign nation; capture, hold and torture it's civilians without due process, and then open up the country's economy to foreign markets, so that American CEOs can make huge bonuses at the expense of the Iraqi people.

That's how the terrorists will see it. You think that will discourage them? I don't.

There's a yawning gulf between the rhetoric that comes out of the White House about spreading freedom and democracy, and the reality on the ground in Iraq, where invasion, occupation, and domination through military might is the order of the day.

Incidentally, as an aside, as a supporter of the war, would you consider joining the US Armed Forces? And if not, why not?

1. I don't trust planes. Call me paranoid, but if you're in a plane doing the death spiral, you're pretty much boned.

2. I never go to places I can't drive back from. That includes all of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and volcanic islands.

3. If I were to enlist, I would be in the coast guard.

Would you enlist your child? While it is easy for us to judge whether or not wars are 'just', the people fighting it are still being put in harms way. No matter how just a war may be, people's children will die for it

That would be his/her choice alone, and I would neither force or condemn him nor her to do so.

It would take the shifting of an entire culture (the Western culture, that is) to convince the Middle Easterners that we are by any means good people, and it's gonna be a cold day in hell before that happens.

There's still such a thing is not giving them ammunition and then more ammunition. There's other cultures they disagree with, but don't actually try to destroy. There's a reason for that and it would be good if the US woke up enough to see that bias or no, actions have consquences. And the ones we are reaping sowingly, are our own fault in many ways.

1. If there's christians in our society, they'll hate us. In many parts of Jihad Muslim communities, bible possesion is punishable by death. They don't hate us because we are bad people, they hate us because they are prejudiced.

2. People were being chopped up by industrial-sized shredders and bathed in acid during Saddam's reign every day. Ever heard of the "rape rooms"? If not, they're pretty self-explanatory.

3. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not all silver f****** lining in the real world. If there's one thing I learned during my entire life (ha, ha) it's that you can't just leave your problems to sit there and cultivate 'cause it's eventually gonna end up worse. There's not one time in my entire life where I have proven that formula wrong.

EDIT: Excuse my, er, colourful language, I've been a little agitated today and I become a little uppity around ten P.M.

Okay. Assuming that's the case, how do we fix that prejudice? By dropping bombs and invading? Because then they do think that we're bad people.

It's also my feeling that that's grossly oversimplifying the problem.



Yes, they were terrible. But again, the perception of the American occupation by Iraqis is likely going to be similarly terrible. From an Iraqi's point of view, how are things better now than when Saddam was in power? Yes, Saddam's tortures no longer take place. But instead, it's the occupying forces that arrest and hold people without charge and are publicly known to torture them. How is that better? There's more poverty and starvation, and less running water and electricity than there was before the invasion. How is that better?


If you can add an edit apologising for your language, you can sure as hell edit your language out while you do it.Clicky clicky

Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain all have Catholics and Christians as well. Hell, the Vatican is in Italy and a huge important piece of Catholicism. Various important Churches are scattered over Europe and our symbols are Christianity's past, including the Church in Bethelem. Yet, while some of these countries have terrorists issues or the occasional threat, they do not reach the sheer level of hatred that the terrorists focus on the United States. These churches and symbols are not routinely singled out for attacks and Bin Laden's statements do not focus on these countries near to the degree that he does the United States. Neither is the bulk of Anti-Western literature speeches by various religious figures and literature pointed at them to the degree it is focused on America.

So if its about Christianity, the reaction would be the same to all such countries with Christian populations. It would have been the same to Christian Palestinians long before Israel was founded. Which was not the case as those Christian families had lived there years, unharmed. Its true a lot of Muslims resent Christians at the point, but that has directly to do with US actions, support for Israel and lovely things like our involvement in Iran. They resent these actions and as we claim to be a Christian nation, make the mistake of assuming this behavior is 'Christian'.

And yes, preaching another religion is forbidden in many muslim countries. To death in some cases, yes. This still does not account for the hatred direct at the US as opposed to any Christian population. Hating a country as evil is different than reacting violently when people preach what you consider a false religion.



I've heard other stories, though not that one. I'm glad Saddam is captured and that his sons died. If anyone deserved a violent death its them. However, thats not really the point. Saddam's doing evil things, does not give us the right to do evil things, even if to a less degree. It doesn't make us doing evil things good. If we'd had really went to war to save the Iraqi people, we would have gone in when we encouraged rebellion (years ago) and they were trying to topple Saddam themselves. Then and not when we decided to play world police in a conveniently oil rich country.

And yes, I hate the hypocrisy where people were almost okay with Saddam, but suddenly willing to portray the US as Satan. I've said that elsewhere in this thread and it makes me far less impressed with some of the righteous muslim outrage thats popped up and Al-Jazeera's coverage. However, thats still not justification for what we do wrong.



Saddam was a threat to his own people not us, which would be the slight flaw in that strategy when applied to this case. There were no Al-Queda links and we were not in active danger from Saddam. They haven't even found the weapons of mass destruction. We pay money to other countries with noted terrorists links and funding. This would the people with no ties and no weapons are the bigger threat than all those countries (cough, saudi arabia, cough) and a threat that requires going to war to defend ourselves against?

Fixing our problem by fanning more hatred, potentially losing Iraq to terrorists, spending loads of money and making ourselves an even bigger target of hatred and terrorists does not fix our problem. Its making it much worse.