Do you support the u.s.?

[Jethiel]

I prefer to believe that, yes, this action is needed but is being handled the wrong way...after knowing more about Saddam there isn't a chance that I'd want him running my country. Oppression is the main topic of the day - they've wanted to be free of Saddam since 1991, but I do agree that the U.S. is stepping in for their own sake, and then the world's sake. So I do not agree with what they are showing on the news...the U.S. aren't steamrollers...and the numbers aren't adding up. U.S. intelligence has declared that there are anywhere between 350, 000 and 400, 000 troops in the Iraqi army...where are they then? There's a lot of desert between the Coalition troops and the coast. Honestly, my opinions on this aren't that strong...we'll see what this stirs up

 

[RhYNo]

I would have to agree with you.

Saddam needs to be removed from power because the Iraqi people have been extremely opressed while he has been in power.
It looks to me though that the US is not doing this for the Iraqi people, and realistically, Saddam poses no threat to the US. I think that the US has a greater goal that no one knows right now, but Iraq is not their final target...

 

[Interoceter]

Next target.... Iran

More tomorrow lol.


Inter <------ Vehemently opposed to this war.

 

[[7F]Piet]

Inter... while I agree with you, I am opposed to war as a general rule... there are times when it is the last resort.

My parents lived in Holland during the second world war, and let me give you my view on Neville Chamberlins decision not to be involved in the war. He could have saved thousands of lives by getting involved earlier.

Saddam has murdered thousands of people in the last ten years, and this does not make the news. His sons are taking up the family business. At what point do you say enough is enough.

While I believe that the US handles foriegn policy like a bull in a china shop, at least they are doing something. Iraq has had 8 years to disarm and stop killing people... how much longer do they need?

The real victims are the people of Iraq... for the last 10 years...

 

[Interoceter]

I don't think anyone would dispute the notion that Saddam is an evil evil man, and that he needed to be removed. I am not against getting rid of Saddam, I'm against the duplicity, hipocracy, unilateralism, and deception behind American foreign policy. I am also concerned by the un-stabilizing effect this might have in the arena of world politics.

Certainly the Iraqi people suffered a great deal under the reign of Saddam. How odd that the Americans supported most of his reign, turning a blind eye to his gassing the Kurds, purging dissidents, and using chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, only to notice ten years later that he was a menace. The Americans armed him with billions of dollars in loans and military credits. They found it usefull to support the region's mini-Hitler, so long as he was waging a war with unfriendly Iran. Neville Chamberlain wasn't materially supporting Hitler; he was, perhaps, evading the issue, or trying to stall the Germans. Reagan, and Bush Senior SUPPORTED Saddam, even in light of genocide, a terrible human rights record, and aggression against neighbouring nations. Perhaps we should try these two for war crimes, as they, directly, or indirectly funded the Iraqi war machine.

Bush, his cabinet, and the Pentagon continuously portray this as a coalition effort. Only three nations have contributed more than two hundred troops. This is a pretty feeble coalition compared to the world's participation in the first Gulf war, and Afghanistan. Both previous conflicts had UN support. This time, the UN supported additional time for weapons inspections, to determine whether the Iraqi military had WMDs or not. Rather than patiently waiting it out, the United States thumbed their nose at the world, and decided to go it almost-alone with Britain, despite condemnation from most of the security council, most of Europe and Asia,  the bulk of the Arab world, and religious leaders of all faiths. This isn't the first example of this sort of behaviour. The Americans have refused to have anything to do with Kyoto, the global effort to ban landmines, the world court, and they pulled out of their treaty with Russia banning the development of anti-missile technology. I can almost hear them saying (and I'm paraphrasing lol) "To heck with you world. We know whats right. Might MAKES right".

Whats right? Breaking UN resolutions is fine, so long as the US is your ally. Isreal has been in violation of UN resolutions for close to fifty years now. Have there been sanctions? No. Has the US invaded Isreal? No.

What about other nations pursuing weapons of mass destruction? Is the US threatening to invade India? Pakistan? Isreal? North Korea? South Africa? Brazil?  Argentina? No, No, No, No, No, No, No. Iran? No.....well not yet anyways. After Iraq is occupied, Iran is pretty much surrounded by American forces. I'm guessing they're next.

The 'weapons of mass destruction' angle looked pretty thin as a pretext to go to war, when Hans Blix and company came up with nothing (WMD-wise), and needed a few more months to look. Now we have the 'Iraqi Freedom' pretext. Everyone thinks Iraq will be better off with the Saddam ousted. But I don't think its going to be as simple as that.

With the current regime gone, and the sanctions lifted, life in general might be better for the Iraqi people. Still, there are three ethnicities within Iran that have contrary goals. The Sunnis want to maintain their power. The Americans will expect them to share it with the rest of the country. The Shiites want some of that authority and say. Will the Sunnis be willing to share? The Kurds want independence (totally understandable after the treatment the received at the hands of the Iraqi government). The Americans, Turkey and probably the Sunnis don't want to see that happen. Hello Balkans. It wouldn't surprise me if another twenty years of war and suffering ensue the moment the 'coalition' leaves, with the three parties squabling and fighting amongst themselves, while trying to fight off interference from Iran and Turkey. It doesn't matter how much oil Iraq has; if this sort of chaos ensues, the quality of life will be no better than it was under Saddam.

Of course, the US may decide to occupy Iraq on humanitarian grounds, or to launch a war against Iran. This will not rest well with the people of Iraq. On the news today, they were saying that already, six thousand Iraqi men have re-entered Iraq to fight for their country. These aren't Ba'ath party members. These guys left to escape the government. Still, they see the coalition as an invading force, and feel compelled to resist. A prolonged occupation will lead to constant guerilla warfare and terrorism......

Which leads me to my next point, which is the US contention that this is in part, to maintain their own domesticate security (and world security too for that matter..... those Republicans...always thinking of us). If anything, this will breed millions of potential terrorists. Although a few secular Arabic goverrnments are paying lip service to the invasion's legitimacy, the Arabic people as a whole seem pretty angry (paraphrasing here too!). There aren't going to be fewer terrorists, there will be more. The Ossama's of the world can open their arms wide in vindication, and say "See? I told you so! They're all anti-muslim imperialists." The US executive must have seen this coming. I can't believe that they thought the Arab world would welcome this 'liberation'. They chose to tear down any bridges they might have built during the gulf war, and after 9-11, and further alienate twenty percent of the worlds people. I think they will get some unexpected regime changes in addition to Saddams. Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia have been challenged by insurgents who wish to set up governments based on Islamic law ala Iran and Afghanistan. This is just the sort of instability to set these sometimes fragile regimes to crumbling.

This has strained other relationships in the world. The White House has not been shy in sharing its very negative rhetoric directed at those who do not support this war. It will be a while before relationships return to normal between Russia/France/Germany/China and the US. Even our relationship with them has been strained. A recent Liberal cabinet meeting discussed censoring, even ejecting! the American ambassador for his recent comments. If the Americans decide to go after Iran next, things will really go to pot. Russia and China have close ties with Iran. I don't expect them to stand by if Iran is attacked. Three nuclear powers slugging it out. Great.

I spent the first twenty years of my life in a cold war. It sucked. Between Reagan and his "We bomb the Kremlin in twenty minutes!" comment, the Soviets invading Afghanistan, the constant barage of nuclear rhetoric (no one should have to learn about mutual assured destruction in school lol), things were really kinda creepy and uncertain. The last ten or fifteen years have been different. The world seemed to be working together. The Americans even took an interest in multi-lateralism. I heard rumours they were going to pay their UN bills.

Democracy was creeping across the world. Even China showed signs it was beginning to lighten up. Apartheid was over, Idi Amin was gone, we hardly heard a peep from Kadaffi, the IRA was disarming, Iran was beginning to open up, and even Castro could not have lived much longer. The guy smokes thirty cigars a day for cryin out loud.

Now all that is being tested. If the US/British coalition stays in Iraq for very long (more than twelve months, I'd say), or if it attacks Syria or Iran, I think the most probable outcome is a very less stable world, marked by regionalism, ethno-centrism (is that even a word?), angry rhetoric, terrorism, and another fourty years of military and political brinkmanship. The net result of this war will be MORE suffering, even for the Iraqi people.

I have spent the last two weeks wondering how the Iraq war could be avoided. I'm stuck. I'd love to see Saddam gone, but without a war, or an assassination. I've actually gone to bed thinking about it. This sort of thing horrifies me. I spend half the night searching for news from many sources so I can try to develop a true and unbiased picture of what really is going on. It seems to me there has been, and will be, a great deal of suffering on both sides of the conflict. Perhaps war could not have been avoided. Nevertheless, the US and Britian should have done more work at proving/arguing that the war was neccessary. Those nations objecting to the war are not lead by idiots. I'm sure they all can see that Saddam is not fit to lead a nation. Who in the world (beside the Ba'ath party) would be brazen enough to publicly support the Iraqi government (aside from the Americans under Reagan, and Bush senior)? A little more evidence, a few more months for the weapons inspectors, the odd aid package, and time for a more careful assesment of the conditions within Iraq, and I'm sure a UN resolution would have been passed to remove Saddam, and a legitimate multi-lateral effort would have been launched, easing the unstabilizing effect of the war.

Whats next? I know there will be a lot of death, destruction, and despair. I also wonder if there is a hidden agenda behind all this. My guess right now is war in Iran, and the further erosion of American civil liberties in the name of homeland defence.

I sure hope there are a few more posts on this. I'm always looking for alternative view points and opinions. The religion oriented threads always do so well.  It surprises me that the few political threads don't seem to follow suit  

 

[mpty]

I think your point about Iraqis coming back to fight the Americans is quite intriguing. Hatred for the Americans is quite rampant in parts of the world, and this may be due to some of their heavy-handed activities in world policing. I think that Saddam has to go, better sooner than later, but well, I still don't like the American stance. I tend to lean more toward Chretien's "Let the UN do some more crap" stuff. I also find the US messing up relations between countries that don't support them very... suspicious. This isn't very fair, is it? Americans are proud of their free speech etc, but aren't other countries entitled to that too? (Without reprecussions of a nasty sort) I've probably taken all this too far, and have not made any sense, but I'm all congested after spending a day at WEM without my pills. Forgive mee! The perfume and stuff... REALLY gets to me. I hate spring, with all it's snow molds and junk... *frown*. Anyhow, good uh... "article explaining my position on the war in Iraq that will have no consequence on anything done there anyways because Bush won't listen to a lonely Canadian like you". You should get it put in a newspaper or something: "An 'extensively disscussed' view from the point of a normal (hopefully) Canadian citizen." Ok, yeah. I've gone off the deep end now. *drowning!* Let's all forget about this and shoot me instead

 

[mpty]

In cs, that is. I value my life, limbs and liberty to be able to see, move, speak etc. Please don't actually hunt me down and blow me away with a mac-11 <-- it's illegal in one of the States... or something!

 

[[7F]LarryBoy]

right. We'll just awp you then, cause that's a legal weapon in any province/state

 

[[7F]LarryBoy]

oh - and i'll do the awping, so that way you'll die of old age first.

Except last night, hehehe...