Saddam captured!!!

[sleeve]

I would imagine their infrastructure now is stronger than it was the week before we attacked. Saddam wasn't exactly a master civil politician.

Maybe, aside from the daily suicide attacks and assorted terrorist provocations of course.

Saddam violated about 18 different UN treaties/decisions/fiats, all of which authorized war - whether or not the UN voted for war, the US was following through on previously agreed-upon UN resolutions.

Which ones, the ones that say the US can ignore Security Council decisions and do whatever the hell it wants, even when most of the UN and the international community disagrees?

The country was defying US requests and defying UN requests. I still don't understand why people think we ought've waited until a bomb with "Iraq's" engraved on it fell on an American to get rid of the bastard.

To quote burgundy:

"Where are the WMDs?"

We need a military base in the area, removing our bases from Saudi Arabia gives us one less reason to cater to the Saudis, and a base next to Syria exerts more pressure on Syria than a base in Saudi Arabia.

As if supporting Israeli militarism wasn't enough pressure?

Fair enough. Are we debating about cost now? What if we could've done the mission at half the price? Accomplished all of the things we've accomplished by liberating Iraq at half the cost?

Uhh, we can't. Not without committing tens of thousands of troops, long term, to a decades-long rebuilding project. In terms of human cost and economic cost, it just isn't worth it. Explain your grandiose neocon plans to the families of the servicemen and women who have to, you know, actually follow through on it.

"Look, guys, you're going to have to stay here for another decade give or take, so we can impose a new American hegemony on the Middle East. You don't mind, do you?"

[burgundy]

Hell...even if we do find WMDs, I'm still not sure an invasion would be justified.

There is a middle ground between going in with guns blazing and waiting patiently to get hit first. It's called containment.

[Gohron]

You see in Gohrons world Terorism is not a problem if the US is suportive(the terorist attacks against Turkish targets in the 80s by Armenian terrorists, the financial backing and support Basque seperatists and IRA received from within the US etcetera) of the terrorist acts, its only a problem when the US is attacked.
Nevermind the fact that the entire world mobilised behind the US after 9/11 and agreed on the invasion of Afghanistan, that doesnt matter, Gohron here has these ideas in his head whereby the US is the poor little victim and the rest of the world wants to kick the poor old US down in the dirt, the rest of the world in his view of course has never had to deal with terrorism so how could they understand what the US is going trough.
No sir Turkey didnt have the PKK and Armenian fractions to deal with, Greece didnt suffer from The November 17th group, and surely The Shining path are just a bunch of south american philosophers, IRA are choir boys etcetera etcetera.

The funniest thing about this little rant is that I never implied anything that he argues against me about. I admit it was pretty late at night and I just made a stupid little response but I believe any country has the right to tell the international community to fuck themeselves when it comes to catching terrorists that have inflicted casulties upon their country and other ones.

And in addition, Almaci you would be bitching like a motherfucker if we invaded the part of Pakistan Bin Laden is believed to be in, we might not find him, then it would be all about inconclusive evidence and the evil of "the superpower". You will find no middle ground it seems, you'll just keep endlessly bitching about something and continue to believe what you want.

[frostwolf ex]

re. burgundy's containment theory
Just ask the people of cuba how much it benefits them.

[Kenshin]

Do you mean "redundant" or do you mean "noncompatible" or something like that? I don't know how the descriptions could be "redundant"; even I wouldn't go so far as to say that the two groups are wittingly buddies of each other.

No, I meant "educated left-winger" and "uneducated right-winger" are redundant descriptions, as in the adjective implies something that's already a quality of the noun. Like "sweet sugar"

[frostwolf ex]

No, I meant "educated left-winger" and "uneducated right-winger" are redundant descriptions, as in the adjective implies something that's already a quality of the noun. Like "sweet sugar"

or unimportant canadians

[burgundy]

re. burgundy's containment theory
Just ask the people of cuba how much it benefits them.

Ask the people of Iraq how they feel about American occupation, et al.

Which is totally besides the point. I'm asking Americans how this American military intervention, ordered by the American President, is benefitting Americans, and I haven't even seen anything very close to an answer.

The closing thing to an answer came from Stone in another of the myriad war threads, when he posited that an American presence in Iraq provides an appealing target to terrorist who would otherwise attack the American mainland. I mulled this over for a while before I decided that, because the American mainland is both more appealing and more difficult a target, and because American military action is undoubtedly agitating lots of additional anti-American sentiment, this logic is fallacious. Not to mention that it would make a wholly unacceptable justification for war.

The other fantasy that I've seen bandied around is that Saddam and company were involved with or financing direct attacks on American soil, and I'm not aware of any evidence to that effect.

[Almaci]

The funniest thing about this little rant is that I never implied anything that he argues against me about. I admit it was pretty late at night and I just made a stupid little response but I believe any country has the right to tell the international community to fuck themeselves when it comes to catching terrorists that have inflicted casulties upon their country and other ones.

And in addition, Almaci you would be bitching like a motherfucker if we invaded the part of Pakistan Bin Laden is believed to be in, we might not find him, then it would be all about inconclusive evidence and the evil of "the superpower". You will find no middle ground it seems, you'll just keep endlessly bitching about something and continue to believe what you want.

No I don, how much bitching did I do about the ousting of the Taliban?
Go on tell me.
What I do bitch about tough is the fact that the world has left Afghanistan to die yet again, the third time in as many decades, its sickening.

[Almaci]

And Stone here you go again, you go of attacking me personaly and make a big shout out with wild allegations directed towards me personaly in the hope that it will obscure peoples visions from the points I brought forward, yet again you continue witouth addresing the points I bring on.

You should become a politician, much bla bla and no substance whatsoever and when cornered go for the direct attacks in the hopes of smothering out valid points brought by the other party.

You sicken me.

[burgundy]

Let it go or take it up with him personally or in Fight Club. I'm not going to tolerate any more attacks or outright disrespectful remarks directed at other posters.