Thread: ABC's John Miller Interviews Osama Bin Laden (1998)

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Ya the last time they used WMD's on the Kurds? In the late 80's right? If that was a big deal for the USA you guys would have used you're good diplomatic relations with Iraq at the time to alleviate the situation for the kurds.

Their history plus the fact that they became our enemy amounted to the threat. Whether we did everything we could for the Kurds is completely off point. The Hussein regime showed what kind of government they are and then turned on us. That was a big problem.

I don't think they would have made friends with the Kurds as result of any persuasion from us.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

The truth is Iraq was not an imminent threat to anyone at all there was no imminent catastrophy at that point in time. Nothing sitting down and talking couldn't have fixed with time. The US approach was just ended up destabilizing a whole country and costing loads of unnecesary Iraqi and American casulaties. Furthermore I beleive the UN said their would be consequences for non compliance(which did happend) and that those consequences would be determined by the UN not by any country but by the UN!.

Sitting down and talking? They wouldn't even comply with weapons inspections. They violated our ceasefire for twelve years. Do you really think a conversation would have gotten that suicide bomb government's middle fingers out of our faces?

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

A threat but not by any means an imminent threat as in they were not openly threatening war with any other country nor was a confrontation with a nighbouring country expected.

We had just been attacked. We obviously had an enemy that wanted to target large numbers of our civilians. The Hussein regime was a government that, based on the intelligence we had, could have given Al Qaeda or a similar terrorist organization WMD's for such terrorist attacks. Even if they couldn't right then, they could have at some point. We wanted to go ahead and get rid of that threat because it looked imminent and was definitely there. Plus there are lots of other reasons for the invasion of Iraq.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

A threat but not by any means an imminent threat as in they were not openly threatening war with any other country nor was a confrontation with a nighbouring country expected.

People have to make announcements to be an imminent threat? Al Qaeda didn't make any announcements about what they were about to do.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

In that day and age Iran shared a border with the Soviet Union and Iran and the Soviet Union were the only two countries to have a coastline on the "Caspian Sea". Its not unreasonable to assume that Iran and the Soviet Union would have had a good relationship. and its not un reasonable to blame them for having one since Russia was a huge potential exporter/importer of Iranian goods.

Things were much more serious than just that. It went beyond just having a good relationship. It was about support of the Soviet cause. That was dangerous stuff. I am not sure how it should have been handled, but we were fighting Soviet expansion, which is one of the two biggest threats the world has ever faced, and maybe sometimes the U.S. government went overboard in handling it. Hindsight is 20/20, and we had possibly the most serious situation ever to handle. Even if the overthrow was not the best possible move, it was still done with the intention of preserving the bigger picture of democracy. That ultimate goal was accomplished.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Excuseme, dissing democracy? Britain and the US overthrew a democractically elected government and replaced it with a brutal tryant and im the one who is dissing democracy? The fact is Mossadeq was democractically elected.

I just cleared that up.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

You talk about the USA wanting to protect democracy. Your country went to extreme lenghts to arm and aide israel because they were a "democracy". Why not Irans (at the time) fledgling democracy? Why did you guys have to overthrow him and put in a dictator if protecting democracy was you're aim?

You could have done a number of things to foster a benifital relationship with the Iranian Democracy at the time. Your country could have given them large sums of Money as aide as you have been doing with israel. I have read statistics that claim that America has pumped a trillion dollars into israel so far. Im not sure if its true but if it is surely you could have diverted some of that cash. You could have donated arms to Iran like you have done to israel to help stabilize the countries democracy. You could have brought agricultural producsts at inflated (above market price) prices to help support the countries poor farmers, You could have exported below markter price (cheaper)food items to Iran to help make food cheaper.

an example of this would be Venezuelas relationship with Cuba. Venezuela sells Cuba Petrol at below market price because Cuba can't afford to pay the Regular market price and Venezuela exports petrol at cheaper (below market price) to Cuba to help keep gas as cheap as possible for Cubans.

The USA and Britain could have bolstered and strenghtened Irans democracy in any number of ways instead of overthrowing him, i gave a few suggestions myself above. All that did was exasterbate anti western sentiment in the region.
Now why did they overthrew him. The UK had a monoply of sorts over gas/oil fields in Iran (in the persian gulf). Iran derived little profit from their most important resource and in turn Britain made lots of profit from it.

I beleive Mosadeq tried to negotiate with Britain but the negotiations disintergrated and he nationalized the Oil putting the countries most important resource back into Iranian and out of foreign hands.

It was at this point that Britain enlisted the USA and together they ousted him from power. Mosadeq is widely viewedd today as an anti imperialist and the coup d'etat is widely regarded as an act of imperialsm. A similar fate happend to Guatemala when they tried to nationalize their most important resource and Railyway. The excuse ofcourse was an assertion of Soviet ties which if im not wrong turned out to be propaganda. Anyway im not an export on the Guatemala and UFCo situation.

You are harping on that one situation way too much. There is a major U.S. Cold War rationale for the overthrow of Mosadeq. You assume it was propagana, and I don't. Like I said, the Cold War was one of the two most serious situations the human race has ever faced. I am sure the government went out of bounds a few times in that severely important struggle. It is inevitable in every war. Stopping the Soviet Union was not easy.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

OK i admit that is true. The USA has. For example that thread i made about the American govs report. If the USA was in control of Palestine at the time the Americans would have allowed the arabs to have self determination and choose their own fate rather then the british option which has produced chaous.

Alleged involement of the USA in attempted coup I personally beleive there was american involvement in the attempted Coup in Venezuela just like there was in Irans coup and Guatemalas.

Why do you keep talking about the overthrows of corrupt leaders during the Cold War? The Cold War was our ultimate act of preserving democracy. Taking a microscope and looking for Cold War moves where governments got worse treatment than they should have does not disprove our ultimate goal in the Cold War.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

That is not in itself evidence of WMD's. If there were said WMD'S in iraq then surely there would be a whistel blower or some documents discovered in Iraq? If someoen in iraq had knowledge of Weapons of Masss destruction you guys would of had it by now...but not. You have n't found it and you haven't had any credible sources that can lead you to any definitive proof.

We did have credible sources. Very few people in the Hussein regime would have had knowledge of their location. It took major snooping from the intelligence agencies of six governments and the U.N. to get the information. The people who know where the WMD's are now are either dead or refuse to talk.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

haven't you heard any of bushes speeches? Iraq had to be free of that tryant dictator and the iraqy people had to be freed". What you should be paying attention is to what he is not saying. He is not talking about weapons of mass destruction. If he had any sold proof of the stuff he would have included something about them in his speecheds " the invasion of iraq was neccesary to disarm saddam from his WMD's and free iraq from a tryant" but his speeches now adays dont include talk about WMD's because his excuse feell through the floor. He is a politican trust me he wouldn't stop talking about his success in disarming iraqs WMD's if there were actual WMD's discovered.

It is a fact that six governments and officials at the U.N. reported the intelligence. The WMD's have not been found, the Hussein regime no longer exists, and Saddam Hussein is dead. Why would Bush need to talk about them now? Until he comes up with a plan to dig up the whole desert area of the Middle East and Northeast Africa, Bush has no reason to talk about WMD's.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

To answer youre question I don't think israeli children deserve to die at all but i think Palestinians should be able to do whatever need be to free their country from the Usurpers. I don't care if they were born there thats irrevelant to me. YOu can break into my house and lock me in teh closet for 40 years and raise a family with all the children born in my house and still the house is not yours. palestine is like that house in my opinion.

So you don't think the children deserve to die, but you do think it is okay for the Palestinians to deliberately target and kill them? Please tell me how that campaign is working out. Have all of these dead children resulted in a Muslim take over of Israel?

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Umm no im not a white or arab supremacist at all. I don't think one race is superior over onother and such an idea is just ludicruous.

I think the palestinians need to reclam their homeland thats all.

I didn't say you are a white supremecist or think one race is superior to another. I used an analogy. I am saying you hate an entire group based on their ancestry and do not respect the individuality of the people in the group. You side with one group against another, based on ancestry, and talk as though what some people in one ancestral group do is the behavior of everybody in the group. That is what I am saying is KKK thinking.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

How can people stop thinking in group terms? The region is divided relegiously,racially and lingustiically lots of Israeli arabs dont speak Hebrew and lots of Israeli jews dont speak Arabic.And plus the communities tend to live apart in different municipalities although there are exceptions like Jerusalem and Haifa and even then its divided by nighbourhoods or "ghettos" if you wanna call them that. Its all sepereated by group. Its not like in the USA where you have lots of mixed neighbourhoods. IN Palestine/israel there is not much group interaction socially at all. Actually i heard from an israeli jew that the relationship between jews and arabs is that of master over slave. But to be fair the israeli jew is on the arab side so hes probably biased.

All you are arguing is that too many Jews have group prejudice too. I agree. What you said does not justify hating individuals and wanting to take away their land because of their ancestral group.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

I meant to say something like 60% plus of israelies have a FAMILY HISTORY of only 60 or so years at the most in the region. Ok lets calculate that again ok. S'fardie and Mizrahi jews only make up about 30-45 percent of Israels population. they only date back for the most part to after israels inception, look up Jewish exodus from arab lands again and you will know what im talking about. In the 1990's Israel received atleast 1 million soviet immigrants. So there we have it atelast 50 percent probably more of Israeli jews only have a family history of atleast 60 or so years in the region. You can't argue with numbers.

You aren't going to calculate in the number of 1948 Israelis who are dead now?

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Keep on dreaming not gonna happen.

Then they will always be at war.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

UMMMM NO.

Fighting for Muslim rule cannot possibly under any circumstances be a fight for freedom. The two ideas contradict each other.