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Truley amazing link UM, you never get to see the good pics anymore, people seem to only like to take the bad ones.
Ok, now lets dig up the photos of what depleted uranium does to people. I am sure the deformed children and dead baby pictures will make a good contrast to the staged photo ops you put up.
Do you remember what you said about how Iraqis don't appreciate what we have done? That is not so true across the board, is it? The fact that they vote in higher percentages than we do, despite the death threats, speaks volumes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
http://k53.pbase.com/u39/kburch/uplo...0.IM000049.JPG
I'm glad to see you think that.Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonoverlord
Yeah, the media is so damn negative is is outrageous. Soldiers return here and are amazed by how one-sided and negative the media is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volcon
Have you ever seen the photos of the people Saddam had tortured, maimed, and killed? The women and CHILDREN he had gassed? I'm afraid I wont be allowed to post them on this website.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
VX and Sarin do much worse things than DU Sabot rounds.
Dammit, why do so many of the photographs I post turn into red x's? Here is one of the links...
http://www.pbase.com/kburch/the_pict...ee_in_the_news
What you think is a competition now? You know the old saying, two wrongs dont make a right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Half/Dreaming
But, "Fight fire with fire," does have validity when you want to stop the neighborhood from burning down, especially when the neighborhood fire is threatening to burn down other parts of the city.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
That might be true if you weren't talking about poison gas and radioactive ammunition.
UM, you're ignoring history, and dragonoverlord, you're ignoring reality. The West made this mess, Britain in the mid 20th century by carving up the region without
regard to who lived there, then bailing. The U.S. then stepped into this unbalanced region under C.I.A. head and then V.P. George H. W. Bush. We funded, armed, and trained totalitarian leaders like Saddam and local terrorists like the Iran Contras, then bailed. Somehow, this strategy made us more enemies than friends.
It started going really wrong in '91, when George I's attack dog got off his leash and bit the neighbor. George I stood up and proclaimed, "We've never seen this dog before, but someone's got to stop it!" In we went and fought to a rousing stalemate, and reifying our policy in the region, our troops shot themselves and each other in the foot in alarming numbers.
With the U.N., we spend the next decade starving all of Iraq except Saddam and his pals, who at least don't have money for guns, then when people roughly the same color as Saddam attack us, George II and his cadre of ex oil execs take the opportunity to play through on dad's bogey and clear the way (had we been successful) for Cheney's dream pipeline. Practicing selective intelligence gathering, Britain and the U.S. pass the same dummy report back and forth citing each other as sources while ignoring weapons inspectors on the ground who try to point out, "Hey, they can't afford bullets, much less uranium."
Our strategy going in was "Shock and Awe," which may sound like a bad idea on the surface, but in practice it's a really, really bad idea. We immolated thousands and brought the infrastructure down in a matter of days. While the resulting shock made it easy to march to Baghdad, it also confirmed everything the people had been told about the U.S. and fueled the insurgency that followed. We proceeded to employ thousands of non-military personnel to accomplish very little for a great deal of money--building 1/2 a water treatment plant, 2/3 of a power plant, or a dozen uninhabitable school buildings, and let them hire unregulated mercenaries for protection.
The one thing we've done right this time is to stick around after we knocked down the hornets nest, where historically we've backed off and waved our stick while the people of the region suffer for our errors. As UM pointed out, a lot of the people who thought they were "freedom fighters" three years ago are fighting alongside Iraqi and U.S. forces now. Most remaining insurgents are fighting for power, vengeance, or out of desperation (we have killed quite a few mothers, brothers, fathers, etc., and a lot of the country is at least as shitty a place to live as it was ten years ago).
So yes, we had a big hand in creating the enemy we're facing, but no, pulling out before democratically elected government(s) can defend themselves would not make it all better. It was neither smart nor ethical to invade, and it's far too soon to say whether things are improving our just in a lull, but bailing now would be a repeat of how we helped make this mess.
What history did I ignore?
And why are were we ever supposed to be the feeders of Iraq? Are you going to bitch at Norway and Mongolia about not feeding them too? How could we have starved them? Don't you think maybe their leader did that to them?
Not familiar with how sanctions work? Sure, it eroded their faith in Saddam, but it didn't do much for our reputation either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Taosaur, Im guessing your post on the other page was toward me. I do not believe the majority of the force there now is fighting us because they think we are opressing them, we are letting their people do what they want. They know that if the country was stable, we would leave, so why do this and try to force us to leave? It doesnt add up there. Minus some sort of propaganda.
I do know the history of the region though, and I know we have done some bad things, but history also shows that the US doesnt occupy a country if it is stable.
I was not talking about eroding faith. I was talking about the moral nature of our sanctions, which were a matter of inaction and not action. I keep hearing and reading that we have no business meddling in the affairs of other nations no matter what they do to their people and no matter what kind of threat they pose to other nations, but on the other hand I keep coming across the same people's point that the U.S. somehow had the responsibility of trading with and providing charity to Iraq when Saddam was their dictator. Which is it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
I don't agree with sanctions any way. I believe in charity and in not taking charity away from civilian populations that could use it. That does not mean I think the U.S. is responsible for the starvation in Iraq. I just think we could have done more to prevent it, which is very different.
Even Bin Laden bitches about the sanctions, and he cites them as one of his reasons for attacking and declaring war on us. He thinks we should keep out of the Middle East, yet he thinks we had an obligation to give charity to Iraq. That is a bizarre double standard.
That is a very, very important point. I don't think anybody here is worried that the U.S. will ever invade Canada (big time oil rich), France, Australia, New Zealand, or Sweden, etc. We have good reasons for our military actions, though sometimes the actions are flawed and sometimes the pretenses turn out to have been flawed on some level. We are not the sociopathic bullies our haters try to make us out to be. There is no comparison between our actions and something like a Chinese invasion of Canada.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
I am not talking about our very early days, by the way. The U.S. really did do messed up stuff back then. We are much more civilized now.
Its not that simple Universal. The US worked with the UN and other countries to ban trade to Iraq. The effect isn't that they weren't able to trade with us but they had a hard time trading with anyone. So they weren't able to get many of the supplies they needed.
Its kind of like creating an embargo and stopping all trade to them. Its really not a double standard because in some cases sanctions can even be considered an act of war. Putting sanctions on a country isn't the same as leaving them alone, and is normally an aggressive action.
Instead of invading a country, you stop all trade and you basicly starve them out. Thats what happen in Iraq, we tried to starve them out and hundreds of thousands people died because of it.
As I said, I don't agree with sanctions. But it is relevant that we didn't make the decisions of those other countries. Each one made its own decision. Some people in our government encouraged their inaction, but inaction is still what it was, and each country is responsible for its own inaction. I never hear those other countries being mentioned when this subject comes up. I see all of the blame put on the U.S. for our inaction and encouragement of other inaction, as if we are the daddy of the world. But very importantly, I don't agree with the sanctions. They affected the wrong people and assumed Hussein gave a damn, which he of course did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
UM, the point is that if our actions to date have created the conditions for terrorism to arise, as well as eroding our support among our allies and our own people's faith in their nation's goodwill, then we need to take great care to understand and avoid repeating those mistakes. Killing terrorists will not stop terrorism if the root conditions remain, namely poverty, disorder, and the communication gap that provides a basis for enmity.
Adding stability and prosperity to the region would go a long way if we can do it. So far we're still just plugging leaks and watching others spring up, getting Iraq somewhat under control while Afghanistan and Pakistan go to shit. Meanwhile, our main support in the region has consisted of another military dictator, a monarchy under sharia law, and the most reviled and most militant nation in the region, who recently decimated the only other stable democracy nearby, killing some terrorists but also broadening support for a terrorist group, much as we did with our invasion of Iraq.
I hope, and concede the possibility, that we encourage stability with our continued presence, but as in the past we're scoring about a 3 out of 10 for consistency with our stated values and goals.
Its not our inaction though, putting sanctions on a country is an action. A US company might want to trade with iraq, well you put the sanctions in and its now illegal for the company to trade with them. Then someone else wants to trade with them, we tell them no, we wont allow it, and we have troops right there to stop it if we want.
You keep saying our inaction caused Iraq problems, but no thats not it. It was our actions that caused the problems. When you physically stop trade from going to a country, its not inaction.
We did a kick ass job with Japan. They are one of the greatest countries in the world now. I think that in time Iraq and Afghanistan will go the same way, but they have a lot more ground to cover than Japan did. I think Eastern Europe will be a great place once their Wild West factor dissipates enough. I have a lot of belief in the effectiveness of liberation, but I don't expect immediate results with it. The results take a long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
That is a good point. But the end result is still inaction. We forced the inaction in our country, so I guess that much of it could be seen as an action.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
I said that our inaction resulted in not preventing problems that could have been prevented. I don't claim that our inaction "caused" the problems. Deciding on sanctions was an action, but not trading and giving charity was a matter of inaction. Iraq is not an American state. Anything we ever did give them was a gift and not something we owed them. They were not giving us charity either. Should we blame Argentina for the poverty that we have? Remember that the other countries made their own decisions. We are just one country. How many countries are there in the world? Like 200 or something? I think the blame that gets put on us for Iraq's past poverty is way out of balance. I wish the rest of the world would adopt our economic system so they could be wealthy too and we would not stand out like a sore thumb and be treated like we are the world's parents. At least now we have set things in motion for Iraq to not be so dependent on other countries.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
The problem is there wasn't any choice for the other countries. If all trade was banned from the US our country would fall apart too. It has nothing to do with charity. They weren't made we wouldn't give them free stuff. They are mad because they tried to buy food and they couldn't get it.
Though to be fair, you should probably blame the UN for it. Even if the US was pushing for it.
We cut off our trade and charity. I hope the situation will always be a reminder that sanctions are a bad idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
Well personally i think sanctions like the ones that were on Iraq are a bad idea. They end up punishing the people of the country who in that case had no say in the matter (Military Dictatoriship).Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
On the other hand i prefer sanctions were you punish the ones directly involved in the matter at hand (Leaders and in the case of Iran, Nuclear technicians). Such as freezing their foreign assets and preventing them from traveling abroad.
Yeah, I'm all for that. I just don't believe in sanctions on populations.Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonoverlord