L
lotarJD said:What are the positive signs?
Actually, there are none.
Oil prices have risen sixfold.
Al-Quaida spread its influence all over the world.
Iraq got looted (in the sense of global historical and cultural monuments)
A whole nation has been cast in a state of chaos; the country is in ruin and two - or even three - generations of Iraqi people will be excluded from the global progress process
the educational system is destroyed, there is no medical maintenance, the economy of the state got disabled, environmental situation is in crisis…
lotarJD said:First Results of the War in Iraq
. In Russia, the head of the Chechen gunmen has been headhunted at last.
RightatNYU said:Really? Was that before or after they were cast into the sad state of disarray they're in now?
Arch Enemy said:NYU your did an easy job of bashing this fellow, which was defiantly needed, but you can't say for sure that you know AL Q is in a state of disarray, Yes we great-fully demolished them in Afghanistan but they are a guerrilla terrorist group, they know how to project stealthy attacks and keep a low-profile, they didn't know how to rule a country.. we caught them off guard on a war they couldn't have won even at full-strength.
I just hope one day we can finally catch Osama.. this is getting ridiculous.. America has lost track of the most-wanted terrorist TWICE.
Arch Enemy said:I'm still really confused on this... people talk of the insurgents as one organized Army who have one leader who tells them what to do and when to retreat. I've always pictured the Iraqi Insurgents as renegades (so to speak) more like Mercenaries who share a common enemy.. Their "exit plan" may not be the end of them, but I think once the Iraqi Police forces are able to take control of Iraq without US aid then the insurgents will stop their attacks due to the lack of morale of "fighting my own people"
Gandhi>Bush said:We've killed there people too. I don't think it's much different. Killing is killing. I think they're alot smarter than we give them credit for.
We never should have gone in the first place. This is a job for the UN, if it wasn't so corrupt, and the CIA, if it wasn't so useless.
A bomb falls from an American plane. It just happens to kill an innocent. I think we can all concede that this has happened, and not just to a couple of people. Every person has at least two people that are effected: Mother and Father. They may or may not have brothers and sisters, sons or daughters, countless friends, acquaitences, etc. No matter if you're for or against the occupation of your country, even the accidental death of an innocent loved one will spark a desire for revenge. When you've been raised in a religion that can be easily bent to fit your revenge combined with a not quite up to par education, you exact your revenge. But how does a such a small group fight the US? Roadside bombs, traps, etc. They fight dirty, and they still lose. From that one innocent's accidental death, hell is wrought.
ONE LIFE.
That's it.
The moral of my stupid little rant: Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Notice the preceding clause. It has no dependent clause. There are no buts, there is no unless, there is nothing other than a command. Don't kill.
I hate war.
I digress so much. I forgot any rational excuse of a point.
Gandhi>Bush said:No it's will. Reality comes from ideas. It's easy to call nonviolence idealistic when you have a gun in your hand. 50,000 lives save at the cost of 20,000 others? and you call that a good trade? That's not realistic. It's disgusting.
Don't you think the "toppling of Saddam" could have been achieved in a more "idealistic" way. I'm not saying we all hold hands and ask him to leave. I'm saying there are so many ways in this day and age to liberate 50,000 without killing 20,000.
The target of this war was Saddam Hussein being "toppled." Well 20,000 people dead and Saddam is still alive. The CIA could have handeled this. They've done stuff like this in the past, but that's really not the focus of the thread (that is the CIA as an alternative to this war).
And your idea of killing one to subvert killing two. That kind of ideology leads to the deaths of 20,000 for 50,000. Ohh wait...
It took how many years between the first trade center bombing and 9/11? What makes you think they would have attacked again?
aQ came out hard against USA and many Muslims said, "Well the US are really assholes, but they're not that bad and they're NIMBY."But now they're saying, "Well, I guess UbL was right, they are that bad and they are IMBY."RightatNYU said:Really? Was that before or after they were cast into the sad state of disarray they're in now?
Would you be so kind as to provide a citation for these numbers, please?benganter said:what educational system? what medical care? 60% unemployment rate before the war compared to a 40% unemployment rate after the war!
Would you be so kind as to provide a citation for this information, please?RightatNYU said:While it is loosely organized, the insurgency is still run by a core group of fighters.
Would you be so kind as to provide a citation for this number, please?RightatNYU said:By toppling Saddam and liberating Iraq, we've saved the lives of over 50,000 Iraqis, so far.
Gandhi>Bush said:I'm sorry was it Iraq that bombed the world trade center in... 1993(?).
You think US Congress giving a dictator an ultimatum will work? I thought I was the hippy...
The CIA has assassinated all kinds of people all for debateable reasons. The only one that comes to mind(I'm no expert) that we can't succeed in nuetralizing is Fidel Castro, and that's still beyond me.
Let say the CIA bumps off Saddam. Hell, they make it look like a roadside bomb that some "terrorist organization" set. Can you say Power Struggle? Uday and Qusay emerge from the rape rooms to fight for the seat and God knows who else. While things are amiss people start thinking, "you know what sucks? Communism." I think we've seen through the elections that they did want a change. It's hard to enforce sedition laws in the middle of a vie for power that I think Saddam's neutralization would cause, especially something that looked like a rebel group in the first place.
Worst(?) case scenario they say that one of Saddam's body doubles have been killed. People still see a rebellion. People start thinking. Bad people still wanting power.
Rebellion! The CIA funds it. They've done this in the past as well.
Simon W. Moon said:aQ came out hard against USA and many Muslims said, "Well the US are really assholes, but they're not that bad and they're NIMBY."But now they're saying, "Well, I guess UbL was right, they are that bad and they are IMBY."
Our erstwhile allies in Turkey have suddenly found more sympathy for aQ et al:
Extreme Anti-Americanism in Turkey
"It is difficult to detect the difference between what Osama bin Laden said in his 19 audio and videotapes since September 11, 2001, and what some Turkish journalists write. If anything, the Turks outvenom bin Laden.
This would be hilarious if not for the incontrovertible fact that it is believed not only by Islamist extremists but by countless millions of Muslim fundamentalists ...
Anti-Americanism is a relatively new phenomenon in Turkey. Throughout the 1990s in Turkey, 60 percent of the people had favorable views about the U.S. and its policies. The 2003 Iraq war closed many minds.
Would you be so kind as to provide a citation for this information, please?
Would you be so kind as to provide a citation for this number, please?
RightatNYU said:No, it wasn't, and Iraq didn't (specifically) precipitate 9/11 either. That's my point.
RightatNYU said:That's my point! I meant that congress gave Bush the right to go to war. Ultimatums dont do anything.
RightatNYU said:Are you suggesting that the CIA just assasinate those who we should instead pursue war against?
RightatNYU said:Completely wrong. Even if we succeeded, all that would do is make Saddam a martyr, killed by the unbelievers. It would result in a crackdown, and any governmental power struggles would be limited in order to expand power. Civil war ensues, an even more hardline gov comes into power, and the WMD we were worried about are now even more dangerous. Bad idea.
Gandhi>Bush said:You don't think that the people would be able to do anything? You think that the old Iraq government was stable enough to just move on if Saddam's silly limo or... camel was blown up? I hear those camel bombs can be quite deadly... I could be wrong, I really could, but I don't think that these people would, without blinking, stablize. The civil war that enues is what we take advantage of. That's what the people take advatage.
I think it was 60% that voted in the election? I could be wrong. 60% are glad Saddam is gone. 60% are supporting democracy. Who knows how many of the unsung would have voted and supported democracy. I think that's enough for a revolution.
So, can you offer any evidence to refute the assertions? Or are you content with mere hand waving dismissal?RightatNYU said:You're quoting newsmax, the incredibly biased, alarmist media stop.
Why would the anecdotal stories from "the incredibly biased, alarmist media stop" NRO present a better picture than a broad survey of Turks?RightatNYU said:If you want a better picture of the situation in Turkey, check out www.nationalreview.com/tks/tks.asp for Jim Geraghty's comments. He's living there.
While these things you mention are not new nor surprising, what was posted is that is that many moderates have taken to hating us. This is new.RightatNYU said:None of your other statements provide anything new. It doesnt surprise me at all that by invading Iraq, we've alienated many muslims. It's not a surprise that people see us as a threat. It's not a surprise that many terrorists hate us for doing so. Nothing new.
Your citation disagrees with you:RightatNYU said:Basically, there is a core group of extremist fighters, msot foreign, and a periphery group of Iraqis who are fighting more half-heartedly.
This is a very clever piece of analysis. However, it's missing at least one crucial aspect- the reason to believe that past performance is indicative of future results. It would be helpful to your case if you could demonstrate that this killing would've continued apace. Your case could be bolstered by something as simple as a graph with time as one axis and number murdered as the other. However, IIRC, these instances of mass murder occurred sproadically in response to specific, idiosyncratic incidents rather than as a part of a general trend or in regular periodic intervals. It would greatly benefit your case if you could show that these specific idiosyncratic indicents were likely to repeat themselves and produce similar outcomes despite occurring in a different enviroment.RightatNYU said:Saddam ... deaths.
(W/o addressing the issue of whether there has been a benefit [I assume you mean 'net benefit'] to the "average Iraqi,") I find this unsurprising.RightatNYU said:How anyone can say that this action has not benefitted the average Iraqi is beyond me.
RightatNYU said:I don't think you'll find many scholars who would deny that without the US invasion, there would never have been the successes in advancement in freedom in Iraq that there are now.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?