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Politicians' silence on Iraq speaks volumes

So Bush has come out to say that the currnet route of training and arming the Iraqi will take time - agreed. He says that the Iraqis will take the forefront in the fight on terrorism - agreed. Then he states that "We will stay as long as necessary to complete the mission." Now is that in defeating the teerorsits or getting their governement up and running. Because if we're to show that we don't plan on staying their indefinately, and we plan on winning this war how can we do both?

Does anyone really expect us to keep troops in Iraq for another 10 years to kill this insurgnecy? Or these terrorists?
 
YNKYH8R said:
Does anyone really expect us to keep troops in Iraq for another 10 years to kill this insurgnecy? Or these terrorists?
Yes, if that's what it takes.
 
KCConservative said:
Yes, if that's what it takes.
Hmm. I see.

Okay...let's try this another way? How many years (maximum) would you be willing to allow for the troops to remain in Iraq? Taking in to consideration effectivness, increase/decrease of resistance, and civil unrest from Iraqi citizens. (Notice I mentioned nothing about American unrest; we'll keep them out of it for now.)
 
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YNKYH8R said:
So then you don't see a connection between tax cuts for the rich (especially the American Oil Companies), an unjustified war in a country that is oil rich, an Administration made up of former corporates of industries in Oil, and warfare technologies? Like I ssaid it is all legal just unethical.

Without a doubt very suspicious.

Hey I am not rich and I got a great tax cut.............How do you explain that?
 
Navy Pride said:
Hey I am not rich and I got a great tax cut.............How do you explain that?
What is your grade and DOS? Where are you stationed, dependents, are you on disability, how old are you?

I live in one of the highest taxed states. So my take home is usually 1/4 the amount after taxes. Otherwise I can't explain your tax cuts, but if you owned a larger national corporation with more than 1000 employees, and you just happen to know some people in congress or the senate that can pork barrel deals through fast than barries through a goose than we've got something.

Either way you slice it your breaks are not as big as some other peoples.
 
cnredd said:
But what if a "regular-Con" says it and you start to realize that not everyone that agrees with the President on certain issues is a "Neo-Con" and find your repeated use of the term as offensive as when a forum member repeatedly says that "Liberalism is a mental disorder" and gets himself suspended for a few days...

Then what?...


OOOH! Burn.
 
YNKYH8R said:
I chose not to wear blinders.


Yes you did and still do. There is no illusion to what the Middle East is and the changes that must occur to effectively ensure our future securities. The necessary changes were obvious to Presidents as far back as Carter.

This notion that Bush and his administration has us "fooled" is ignorance. They didn't create any of this. The scenario has been presented to us by this Muslim civilization and we have ignored their extremist's insistence to wage war upon us until 9/11 occurred. Without dealing with the civilization, arresting and killing terrorists where ever we find them or waiting for them to "prove" to us that they are dangerous accomplishes nothing.
 
GySgt said:
Yes you did and still do. There is no illusion to what the Middle East is and the changes that must occur to effectively ensure our future securities. The necessary changes were obvious to Presidents as far back as Carter.

This notion that Bush and his administration has us "fooled" is ignorance. They didn't create any of this. The scenario has been presented to us by this Muslim civilization and we have ignored their extremist's insistence to wage war upon us until 9/11 occurred. Without dealing with the civilization, arresting and killing terrorists where ever we find them or waiting for them to "prove" to us that they are dangerous accomplishes nothing.
Mmmm Hmmm.
 
YNKYH8R said:
Mmmm Hmmm.
Oh...I guess all of those books, novels, studies, and commentaries and reports from the intel world, intel officers, and Middle East experts regarding the Middle East and our future with them never existed before Bush. :roll:
 
You know I can understand your position. Being in the Department of the Navy you probably can't even conceive of the idea that what is coming from Washington as being anything less then false. There is a lot of deep training involved and I know that honor and prestige are of the highest order of the Department of the Navy. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. :shrug:
 
YNKYH8R said:
What is your grade and DOS? Where are you stationed, dependents, are you on disability, how old are you?

I live in one of the highest taxed states. So my take home is usually 1/4 the amount after taxes. Otherwise I can't explain your tax cuts, but if you owned a larger national corporation with more than 1000 employees, and you just happen to know some people in congress or the senate that can pork barrel deals through fast than barries through a goose than we've got something.

Either way you slice it your breaks are not as big as some other peoples.


I am retired military and Defense Department and take home about $50K...With the presidents tax cuts I have saved about $100. a month and when I file my tax return I actually got about $400. back the last 2 years where as under "Slick Willie" I use to pay every year...........

Thank you President Bush.........

Oh and as far as tax breaks for the rich the left wing talking points......The top 10% of the wage earners in this country pay about 80% of all income taxes and provide for most jobs in this country........

Have you ever heard of a poor person hiring people for jobs?
 
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Navy Pride said:
Well when someone tells me there is no proof that Saddam had Rape Rooms and Torture Chambers I can only surmise that they are defending Saddam.........

Who told you that?
 
Iriemon said:
Who told you that?

You did.....

With all the pictures and the hundreds of statements about rape rooms that are claimed to be out there, can no one can give me a link to anything that actually substantiates these rape rooms?

Sure I've heard of them -- just like I heard about weapons of mass destruction and reconsitituted nuclear weaopons and yellowcake and training Al-Queda terrorists and hundreds of tons of chemical weapons and and and
 
Originally Posted by Navy Pride
Well when someone tells me there is no proof that Saddam had Rape Rooms and Torture Chambers I can only surmise that they are defending Saddam.........

Iriemon: With all the pictures and the hundreds of statements about rape rooms that are claimed to be out there, can no one can give me a link to anything that actually substantiates these rape rooms?

Sure I've heard of them -- just like I heard about weapons of mass destruction and reconsitituted nuclear weaopons and yellowcake and training Al-Queda terrorists and hundreds of tons of chemical weapons and and and


That quote to you, is me saying: "there is no proof that Saddam had Rape Rooms" eh?

The record speaks for itself.

And I'm still waiting for anyone to provide some source data that verifies this statement.
 
YNKYH8R said:
You know I can understand your position. Being in the Department of the Navy you probably can't even conceive of the idea that what is coming from Washington as being anything less then false. There is a lot of deep training involved and I know that honor and prestige are of the highest order of the Department of the Navy. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. :shrug:

You're insulting yourself. It doesn't take Washington to tell us anything and until Bush came along...Washington looked the other way. There is a plethora of books written by scholars, University Professors, and experts that are not from "Washington." Military experts on the region that have written books are not of "Washington." You will find this material going back to the mid 80's. Oliver North even talked of this civilization being a future problem for us and mentioned the name "Osama Bin Ladden" to a laughing panel of politicians during the Iran/Contra Hearings. Even back then, intelligent men who have studied and faced the region knew of this civilizations symptoms and the threat it poses. Every President has known and seen the reports and intel briefings of the future and ignored them, because how do you fix an entire civilization? Only one listened, but it took 9/11 for him to realize the validity and our inevitable involvement. Whether you can see it, refuse to see it, or pretend not to see it, the problem would have gotten worse if the Middle East continued the status quo. Wishing that all would just go away by closing your ears and covering your eyes will not make it so. Islamic Extremists are determined to wage war upon us and they do not change. There are milions of Islamic extremists in the Middle East that act as cheerleaders to their "martyrs" or are future "martyrs" themselves. The only fix is a changed Middle East that lifts them from their oppressions, offers the free flow of information, no longer subjected to a dominating religion (Arab blasphemous version of Islam), and stop seeing us as their imagined enemy. So whether you like it or not...you are being protected.

Of course, like you implied...I'm just a robot and I have been brain washed to think that any of this exists. Like wise for my experiences. Civilians who don't study any of this, never seen a terrorists, and far less have no idea of what this civilization is would know far better than all those lying experts.:roll:
 
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GySgt said:
You're insulting yourself. It doesn't take Washington to tell us anything and until Bush came along...Washington looked the other way. There is a plethora of books written by scholars, University Professors, and experts that are not from "Washington." Military experts on the region that have written books are not of "Washington." You will find this material going back to the mid 80's. Oliver North even talked of this civilization being a future problem for us and mentioned the name "Osama Bin Ladden" to a laughing panel of politicians during the Iran/Contra Hearings. Even back then, intelligent men who have studied and faced the region knew of this civilizations symptoms and the threat it poses. Every President has known and seen the reports and intel briefings of the future and ignored them, because how do you fix an entire civilization? Only one listened, but it took 9/11 for him to realize the validity and our inevitable involvement. Whether you can see it, refuse to see it, or pretend not to see it, the problem would have gotten worse if the Middle East continued the status quo. Wishing that all would just go away by closing your ears and covering your eyes will not make it so. Islamic Extremists are determined to wage war upon us and they do not change. There are milions of Islamic extremists in the Middle East that act as cheerleaders to their "martyrs" or are future "martyrs" themselves. The only fix is a changed Middle East that lifts them from their oppressions, offers the free flow of information, no longer subjected to a dominating religion (Arab blasphemous version of Islam), and stop seeing us as their imagined enemy. So whether you like it or not...you are being protected.

Of course, like you implied...I'm just a robot and I have been brain washed to think that any of this exists. Like wise for my experiences. Civilians who don't study any of this, never seen a terrorists, and far less have no idea of what this civilization is would know far better than all those lying experts.:roll:
Hey, don’t blame me for the US involvement with Afghanistan and the Soviets during the Cold War. I already knew about that. And as I seem to remember there was a Republican in the Oval office for all of the eighties.

Just because hind sight is 20/20 doesn’t mean America is learning from her mistakes.

I'm not saying you are a robot. I'm saying you should put more scrutiny into what comes down from the hill.
 
YNKYH8R said:
Hey, don’t blame me for the US involvement with Afghanistan and the Soviets during the Cold War. I already knew about that. And as I seem to remember there was a Republican in the Oval office for all of the eighties.

Just because hind sight is 20/20 doesn’t mean America is learning from her mistakes.

I'm not saying you are a robot. I'm saying you should put more scrutiny into what comes down from the hill.

What does Republican/Democrat have to do with the reality of this threat? From Carter (Who appeased Iran) to Reagan (Who neglected the bigger region) to Bush Sr. (Who was the head of the CIA and did not take the opportunity Saddam gave us) to Clinton (Who ignored every terror attack for 8 years) - everything suggesting an inevitable clash with the Middle East involving our security was ignored. This would be your problem. You seem to be looking at things through political lines....not for what it is. This civilization does not care who you voted for or what political party owns the White House. We are all the enemy and their are millions of cheerleaders in the Middle East who have been raised to hate and praise "Allah" everytime one of their zealots murders.

What would you know about what our Government is or is not learning? What inside scoop do you have? What direct line to the CIA, White House, foreign intelligence, or any double agents do you have? Our government has learned. It took Bin Ladden and 9/11 to smash it in their faces. 20/20 should tell our government that they should have listened to the experts a long time ago. Bin Laden is not just a "rogue" of Islam. He represents the threat and this threat has many symptoms. Saddam was one of them.

I don't care about what comes down the hill, because I know it will never be the absolute truth regarding this situation. It can't be. There is no way to deal with this civilization that would involve the absolute truth being presented on international TV. I put more scrutiny on my (over) decade long studying of this region and my experiences. Bush hasn't come along and made this stuff up. He's just listening and many Americans are still clueless to the Middle East and the threat we were (or are) headed towards. For decades we have seen terrorists and extremist behavior from mass amount of groups and organizations and they have come from Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. These are the biggest countries that form the Middle East. They form a civilization - one that is failing and they've done it to themselves. They blame an imagined enemy....you.
 
KCConservative said:
Do you see any terrorism on this list:

-- Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.

-- According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."

-- Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

-- Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

-- Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

-- Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.

-- The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths.

-- 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.

-- Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.

-- According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south."

-- Refugees International reports that the "Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran."

-- The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime, from the "central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in the oil-rich region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."

-- "Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 27, 2003)

-- Under the oil-for-food program, the international community sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine, but the regime blocked sufficient access for international workers to ensure proper distribution of these supplies.

-- Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people that had been diverted by Iraqi military forces.

-- The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors. From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq.

-- The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for "the sheer number of executions," the number of "extrajudicial executions on political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."

Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including:

-- 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984;
-- 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998;
-- 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign";
-- 22 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000;
-- 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001;
-- At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001


http://www.state.gov/s/wci/fs/19352.htm

You were saying.....?


You did not answer the question. Why did America attack Iraq? I admit that the Sadam regime was a bunch of nasty people, but How did any of what you described above threaten the USA.
 
dragonslayer said:
You did not answer the question. Why did America attack Iraq? I admit that the Sadam regime was a bunch of nasty people, but How did any of what you described above threaten the USA.

We attacked Iraq because rightly or wrongly (No one will probably ever know for sure) we thought Saddam had WOMD and that if he had the opportunity he would either use them himself or sell them to some terrorist organization to use on us..................

One thing we know for sure though, this world is a better place with Saddam out of power and he will never use WOMD on any country or his own people ever again........
 
dragonslayer said:
You did not answer the question. Why did America attack Iraq? I admit that the Sadam regime was a bunch of nasty people, but How did any of what you described above threaten the USA.
First of all, we didn't attack Iraq...not in the way you are insinuating. We have no beef with the good people of Iraq, and you know it. Our president told us on September 12, 2001 that we would fight terror wherever it was. In Afghanistan, in Iraq, even here at home. Why is there so much insistance that there be a direct bin-laden and Saddam link, or a direct WMD link? Does anybody disspute that Saddam and his minions were terrorising an entire nation? I sure don't.

Read the list in post #94. You can't ignore that list of facts.
 
dragonslayer said:
You did not answer the question. Why did America attack Iraq? I admit that the Sadam regime was a bunch of nasty people, but How did any of what you described above threaten the USA.


The threat is a region. A civilization. It is not one man or a group of men in a terror ganization. It is not a single country or a dictator. It is a civilization and Iraq is a part of that civilization. Iraq was the only country in the Middle East that did not have the capacity to change. Now they do. Never before in the Arab world have a country's citizens been permitted to vote on the laws that would govern them. Even if Iraq must endure further blood shed, this is a historic moment in the Middle East. One that is necessary to ensure that this civilization doesn't continue to raise extremists that will one day get their hands on a nuclear bomb. Syria and Iran have already wanted a change towards a more democratic society. Iraq will influence them.
 
Navy Pride said:
One thing we know for sure though, this world is a better place with Saddam out of power and he will never use WOMD on any country or his own people ever again........

Not only did he have them but we found the WOMD! Didn't you hear?

Two months into the war, on May 29, 2003, Bush said weapons of mass destruction had been found.

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” Bush told Polish television. “For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

Oh wait!

On Sept. 9, 2004, in Pennsylvania, Bush said: “I recognize we didn't find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there.”
:Oopsie :rofl
 
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Gibberish said:
Not only did he have them but we found the WOMD! Didn't you hear?

Two months into the war, on May 29, 2003, Bush said weapons of mass destruction had been found.

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” Bush told Polish television. “For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

Oh wait!

On Sept. 9, 2004, in Pennsylvania, Bush said: “I recognize we didn't find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there.”
:Oopsie :rofl

Every politican said Saddam had WOMD including Kerry, both Clintons, Pelosi and others........
 
Navy Pride said:
Every politican said Saddam had WOMD including Kerry, both Clintons, Pelosi and others........
Doesn't matter, NP. They were just 'mistaken'. BUsh, however, is a liar. Right, Gibby? :rofl
 
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