What. The. Fuck?!?
If I was the POTUS, I would lose my fucking mind if I heard aobut this! I would remove every single troop from the country and make an announcement that we are severing ties with Iraq and that unfortunately we can't afford to repair anything we make accidentally break, so we won't be helping them in the future. Then just let the shit show begin as Iran comes over the fucking berm taking land until Iraq is known as Kuwait's little brother.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/17/us-iraq…
This is like a homeless person begging for change and you give him $5 bucks so he can get some food and then him saying, "Only $5? I think I deserve a bit more than $5."
How on earth does that country have the audacity to demand money from the US?!? And "destroyed our beutiful city". Are you fucking joking?!? I've been to Baghdad and the only things I considered remarkable were Saddam's extraordinary palaces and the momuments that were built for him, by him (Arc of Triumph/Hands of Victory, the portraits and statues of himself, etc.).
Regards
Dude that must be some great crack that you're on. Where can I get some?
Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what sort of damage Iraq sustained because of the US invasion? You may naively believe that it's just a shit hole (obviously after what the US did to it), but Baghdad is actually the cradle of civilization. There is so much history there, that has just been ravaged over the past decade. I think a billion dollars is a bargain if that's all they want. That's only a thousand dollars per Iraqi death at the hands of the US.
While you've got your calculator out would you mind figuring out what that amounts to per Iraqi death that occurred at the hands of Saddam? Granted that would just be crude value considering there is no way to actually determine the amount of people he would have killed had he remained in power, but I assure you that determining a terminal value and trying to discount that back would be pointless because you would still be Canadian, thus incapable of understanding the cost/importance of freedom.
Regards
Still idiotic.
I agree
They deserve it.
Who deserves what? If you're saying that Baghdad deserves the 1B, then I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Bachdad deserves the $1 billion
Suddenly I believe we need more history majors in the finance area...
So, they want this $1B on top of what we are paying and giving them already? Ok, if that's it, I agree... let's pay the $1B and withdraw all non-monetary support and payments.
I assume that the $1B must be the remainder of what they want.
Shit if we could write them a $1 billion check today and withdraw all military support, it would be the best possible thing that could happen to our budget.
Here's another idea. How about you guys accept that your country was wrong to rape another country (regardless of how worthless you think that part of the world is), and graciously pay the reparations quietly and without the bitching. It's okay to spend hundred of billions of dollars a year to destroy a country, but it's not okay to pay a fraction of that to fix it?
We are and have been rebuilding Iraq for how many years now? At who's expense? Give me a break bud.
We should immediately withdraw troops and get our boys home.
If your definition of "rape" includes free elections, women's rights, democracy, free market oil auctions (which US companies did not win), religious freedoms, and a host of other not previously enjoyed rights, then yes I'd agree with you we "raped" the shit out of Iraq.
Otherwise, you are completely uninformed.
^^^THIS times 1000
free elections.. democracy.. are u joking? lol
MBP, i knew it was only a matter of time before your inner canadian emerged. Must be easy to condemn another country for defending themselves when you can just sit back and do nothing cause big brother will always protect you...
Idiotic
Disagree.
Regards
I propose we leave Iraq and tell them to go fuck themselves
We should send all those troops to the border of Mexico and stop illegal fucking immigration. I take public transportation to work so the immigration problem is really starting to piss me off.
I like how we all comment on shit like this as if we know everything there is to know.
Umm... I'm an investment banker. I DO know everything there is to know, particularly about international diplomacy and war reparations. Right down my alley.
Do you know? What would French diplomacy dictate if I were to go and take a huge shit on the top of the Eiffel Tower?
Ol
Lol this is why americans hate bankers l
Hold on a sec. That guy (Saddam) who oppressed free elctions, women's rights, free mkt oil auctions (whatever the fuck that is), religious freedoms etc etc recieved a shit-ton of military aid and weapons from the US.
That argument is the biggest fucking fallacy going and really just shows the how pent-up anti-Americanism perverts minds all around the globe.
The question is not how he got those weapons and got to a place where he could oppress people, but the fact that he HAD THEM AND DID OPPRESS PEOPLE. Whether or not America was right in the first place long ago is a completely separate argument (I feel that they were 100% right in the context of the Cold War, and I would be happy to discuss that with you.) It bears nothing on the fact that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. You're suggesting that it's excusable that he was a murderous tyrant because the US perhaps helped solidify his position, hence, should the US try to end his tyranny that would be a greater crime than the tyranny itself? Complete disconnect between the two arguments.
It's like saying a scientist created a robot that suddenly went out of control and started killing everybody, but the scientist has no right to do everything in his power to shut that robot down and stop the killing because he was involved with creating it? Hence, it is morally correct for the scientist to standby and watch the robot kill people, but morally incorrect to destroy the death robot? Nice Leftist reasoning you got going for you there.
Wow. Just wow. That robot analogy was overwhelming. You win.
$1B as an exit op? Not a bad deal. We're paying twice that much a week to run shit over there, this is a gift to Obama....cut a check and dump them.
This is why I was more in favor of simply whacking them as opposed to going over and building them a nice, shiny new democracy - nothing we do will ever be enough, and trust me, I was part of the opposition to the Iraq war...I was in favor of toasting Iran [the peaceniks disgust me, so please no flaming here] Why should their system be built with our country's blood and money? Seriously, fuck them.
If it had been Russia or China going in, there would be no democracy, and the oil would be flowing directly out as opposed to paying anything for it. This concern for human rights would not be an issue either.
Psych + Religion Double and 15 years following this shit....maybe I can help until we find one:I'll be charitable: the whole region, Afghanistan in particular, is not much more than a primitive, tribal, corrupt, herione fueled kleptocracy with a population whose leadership blinds them with over religiosity to mask the fact that they are fucking them over on a massive scale while using the poor and ignorant as cannon fodder. Not since the Ottoman Empire has anyone been able to establish any type of lasting foothold of civil society there, and speaking kindly; they are long overdue for a Reformation. Somehow they got stuck in the period that Western culture called its dark ages, and they need to move on.
Cradle of Civilization indeed, HARUMPH!
That's actually a pretty accurate breakdown of why the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran suck.
How the hell was the Iraqi war about defending ourselves? Afghanistan was about defending ourselves. Iraq was an immature cowboy president deciding he wanted to go take down the man his daddy had beef with. That's IT.
And I have a ton of friends who spent years in the military (including several tours in Iraq) who feel this way, and before you start cracking army jokes, they are all extremely intelligent.
Beef, over a million people have deployed to shitholeistan with the military in the last 8 years. Saying that you know someone who was there and thinks XYZ is a weak argument. I know of couple guys in the army that think we invaded iraq for secret maps to treasure (a la 3 kings). Doesn't make it true.
Dude I'm a Polisci major and let's be honest, this is complete bullshit. If Iran falls to this new wave of protests, I say we cut, run, and say "fuck you" because of this proposal. What is the fucking GDP of Iraq?...12.6bn this is almost 8% of their GDP...FUCKING RIDICULOUS
I would love for us to cut a billion dollar check and get out, but I would also love for Iran not to grab control of Iraq; somehow I don't think their definition of rape is quite as kind as ours, though I'm sure they'd be happy to take Iraq off our hands (well, they actually have already done that, we've just been kind enough to keep paying the bills for them).
I will say that I object to people picking on Canadians, for the same reason I object to people picking on the French; I wasn't a history major, but I do know that we wouldn't have won the Revolution without the French, and that in WWII US citizens who wanted to kill Nazis enlisted in the Canadian Air Force because we were being pacifist pussies.
That's nice in theory I'd like to agree, but today's French and today's Canadians are a far different animal than those of the past. I'd like to appreciate them too, but it's a different breed now. Even if we did appreciate them, they wouldn't care,
BTW - perhaps the sample size is not large enough and it's generally a poor argument to say "All the people from X that I knew were...", but I just must say from my experience the French people I have met all tended to be relatively moderate on the topic (far different from the loons you see on TV and the internet everyday), while the Canadians I have known, have been left-wing and anti-American enough to make Chairman Mao proud. Wondering if anybody else has had this experience.
Yeah drexel, I have to agree with rebel here. While I don't proactively try to give French or Canadians shit, because there are plenty of good ones (supposedly, j/k, j/k) it irritates me to no end listening to them (particularly Canadians) preach about how we are ravenous warmongers and such, knowing full well that they only reason Canada isn't Russia lite is because the US is here.
And rebel, yeah I have experienced that, just yesterday as a matter of fact...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-politics…
Regards
Canada only has one good export, BC bud
USA shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place...
I disagree.
Regards
What's your reasoning then?
Dude, we lied to basically bomb the shit out of that country and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians you arrogant litle prick. We owe them more than a billion.
Wow, what an amazingly fresh take and breadth of insight on the situation. I think you really changed all of our opinions with your in-depth analysis of all the nuances related to what took place.
And it's so refreshing to see yet another fellow American in his 20's so opposed to American interests abroad. It's comforting to know my country is going into this ultra-competitive century armed with a population of kind-hearted folk who put the interests of other "peace-loving" nations first. Happy times these be.
It doesn't change the fact that what I said was true. And American interests abroad? The rest of the world fucking hated us for illegally invading Iraq.
And it's a good thing you presupposed a concept of "international law" (a law determined by other nations who don't have self-interests of course) by labelling the war as "illegal." That helps contextualize just what an awful and hideous thing it is to disrupt the day to day operations of any sovereign nation, because all "sovereign" nations are legitimate, for who is anybody else to judge?
Hey asshat, if you are happy to live in a nation where the administration lies to you to garner support to invade a sovereign nation because we don't didn't like its leader then fine. You are in the minority though. You are trying to justify breaking international law and killling hundreds of thousands of civilians due to "nuances". Well oh enlightened one, please explain to us pleabs how the Iraq war was justified. Did you know that Bush can't even set foot in some European countries in fear of being arrested for war crimes? I am going to side with the governments of 95% of the world's developed nations, not some arrogant douchebag on a wall street forum.
Odd, because you don't seem to be willing to live in 95% of the world's developed nations or have attended school in 95% of the world's developed nations. Seems funny huh?
Regards
I just read an article the other day, forgot where i read it though, but it said that the iraqi defector that told the USA that Sadam had WMDs was not appolegitic for lying to the USA. He was glad that the Americans came in and removed Sadam, and that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi citizens are extremely thankful for the Americans.
Im with the "fuck what the rest of the world thinks" crowd. They preach their high horse shit but the come begging us every time they need something. Its a two way street, you play ball the way we want or gtfo
I think whatever your interpretation of your own shortcomings, it proves that you are both willing and predisposed to speak on things about which you know very little.
Look, to everyone whose main line of defense is "We gave these savages democracy and freedom.......", you are making one of two idiotic assumptions.
a) That the US invaded and nearly destroyed Iraq for altruistic reasons. They absolutely did not. Bush and his administration did not give a shit about the plight of the Iraqi's under Hussein's rule. They did this only for their own gain, and in the process, decimated the population. Whether this damage was collateral or targeted is irrelevant. The point is that the US had no right to be there in the first place, and rebelcross, you facetiously dismissing this claim is not evidence for the contrary. Give me a real reason why the US had a right to go in.
b) Even if the US intentions were altruistic, that their approach to "liberating the savages" was anything short of reckless and downright moronic. Rather than providing an argument, let me just paint an analogy for you guys: Imagine that a hundred years ago, when women couldn't vote and blacks were slaves, there was a more refined power in the world that just decided "these Americans are fucking savages and institutionalizing the enslavement of the millions of black people and not allowing the women to vote - let's go in there and fix it for them". Then this power decided to use it's massive military advantage, despite an outcry from the rest of the world, and just bomb the shit out of America to oust their tyrranical government (in restrospect, it was worse than Saddam). In the process, this power killed a million of the people they were trying to "help" and destroyed the entire country's infrastructure. How do you think you Americans would have responded to this? Would you welcome this invasion because it was intended to liberate you from your savage and barbaric ways? Or would your curse it?
Let me tell you something. The reason we value our freedom and democracy is because it came from within. We were barbarians and eventually saw the error of our ways. There were internal protests that eventually led to the abolishment of our savage practices. Nobody forced it on us. It took us 400 years to get there. What makes you think you can just force it on any other country now?
I've never contended we invaded Iraq for altruistic reasons. If we did, I would be disgusted with my government. We invaded Iraq because it is an important strategic asset, because we thought Saddam was reckless and dangerous, and because we wanted to further US interests in the Middle East. Let me be clear: I don't give a fuck if Baghdad is damaged, as long as it doesn't cause some stupid Iraqi to grow up to be a terrorist and hurt US interests. Maybe a billion dollars of clean-up will save us money on bullets down the line; if so, it's a good expenditure. If not, it's a waste of money.
Also, the scenario you painted, of a foreign force invading North America to rescue it from barbaric ways, happened. His name was Christopher Columbus, and he committed genocide on a scale that makes Iraq look like a fourth-grade rendition of The Nutcracker. We waged chemical warfare on the native americans; we raped and pillaged Hawaii and the Phillipines; we continue to actively back despots and dictators all over the world. The king of Bahrain sent his police to shoot sleeping children in the face the other day, and the US continues to support him, until such time as not doing so is more convenient. And you know what? I have no problem with that. It's the way of the world. Your idea that we've evolved from barbarians is ridiculous and naive; we just couch our actions in more pleasant terms, and have become sufficiently good at protecting American interests that you can sit at home and disavow any participation in such.
Thank you for making my point. The invasion was only to further the US interests, and their sentiment was that if it destroys another country and kills millions, then so be it. The fact that you support this is, quite frankly, disgusting. The fact that so many Americans think like this is why we Canadian, in general, believe we are so much better than you guys. You don't care about human rights, just American rights. Your whole statement has just proven that you think an Iraqi life is worth nothing.
MBP, I do not post very often on this board because i am not comfortable advising people on finance careers and career paths because I have no experience. With Iraq, on the other hand, I have tons of experience in. I was an intelligence officer until very recently. I sat in on reconstruction talks, election planning meetings, and government oversight discussions. I met Iraqis, rich/poor, powerful/common. Not everyone there liked the Americans in their country. Honestly, if you had 100,000 18-26 yr olds with weapons right outside your house, would you be happy? However, every single Iraqi I met acknowledged and believed that their country was better off and their lives would be much better in the post-Saddam era.
I don't believe we invaded Iraq for altruistic reasons. We needed altruistic reasons to form "the coalition of the willing" and convince the UN security council, which never happened. The reasons we invaded Iraq was for our self-preservation and the preservation of our allies. Since Pearl Harbor, the US has always maintained the First Strike capability to protect itself. If you are in a bar, are you going to wait for that dangerous, drunk asshole to punch you or are you going to drop his ass first and then worry about the rest later? Iraq had a history of controlling and manufacturing chemical weapons. If you have any questions about that, refer to the classified material dump thats available on Wikileaks. Additionally, the 2nd most dangerous terrorist in the world, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was being harbored in Iraq and training Al-Qaida. Since we could never find Bin Laden, we had to assume that he had at least access of this right-hand man. Which then made AMZ just as important.
In the post-9/11 world, the US was unwilling to get kicked in the nuts again. Did the intelligence ultimately prove to be wrong, yes... somewhat. But, let me refresh your definition of weapons of mass destruction. WMDs are commonly referred to Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons or NBC. Again, check Wikileaks to see if we ever found any WMDs in Iraq. The politics of the country and the public opinion of the then-President permanently skewed the discussion on Iraq.
If you follow the Washington Post, New York Times, etc then you will obviously feel like we "raped" Iraq and had no legal basis for invasion. That's fine. That's your viewpoint.
You can completely discount my opinion because it is inherently biased, however, I have gotten my information from places other than NYT or HuffPost. I hope this clarifies things for you and I'd love to continue this discussion.
Thanks for your post. I'll think about the facts you've presented before I respond. I appreciate the tone and maturity of your response.
Great post. I will warn you that it is likely to be dismissed. I've shared my experiences in Iraq (as an Intel analyst) and they are often dismissed, either because people feel I'm biased (and I probably am, somewhat) or I've been told, "this is the internet, you can say you are anybody and have done anything". Needless to say, some of the weakest arguments I've ever heard but even more so, a sad commentary on how important it is for people to not be swayed from the opinion they've already formed.
I've also pointed out that there were WMDs in Iraq, just as you've described, but for some reason, if it wasn't a ICBM with a nuclear warhead attached, then it equates to a wad of paper shot out the end of a lunchroom straw.
Sadly peoples own discontent with American and Bush cloud their ability to see some of the facts. Anyways, I echo your sentiment exactly and appreciate your take on the matter. Thank you for your contribution and thank you for your service.
Regards
ANT, Eddie, where the heck are you guys?
The bleeding hearts on here make me uneasy.
What else do you want us to give them? We've given them far more than $1B!! People die in wars, that's a fact.
That's a convenient position. What if instead of calling it a war, I call the assault on Iraq a terrorist attack. Would you have the same stance? How would you feel if someone said "people die in terrorist attacks (referring to 9/11), that's a fact", in an attempt to trivialize the plight of the families who suffered through it. Keep in mind, Iraq went through the equivalent of over 300 9/11s at the hands of the US. Are you telling me that the hostility isn't justified?
What?!? You are silly.
What if I changed "terrorist attack" to "shark attack"?
I'm fairly certainly we never crashed planes into their buildings to kill INNOCENT Iraqis just because we didn't like them. I love hearing all these analogies and justifications. Just remember, Iraq was like 1M really, really late term abortions.
If Iraq is pissed because the US perpetrated a terrorist attack on their soil, they should load up their fucking tanks, put them on a ship and paddle the fuck over here. And since so many other developed nations believe the US is a fuck-up and some sort of imperialist regime, they should help them.
9/11 was a deliberate attack to harm US civilians...there is no rational comparison. Again, you're Canadian, your country and people weren't attacked, so I don't expect you to understand.
Regards
This is the problem with your line of reasoning. Anything that is not fringe right or libertarian (though you can't support the war and call yourself this) in thinking you think is just the bleeding heart liberals spouting their hippy nonsense.
Is it that crazy for me to want government accountability and for our president not to lie to us and make up an excuse to invade a sovereign nation? This is not radical, its common fucking sense.
We fucked up their country, and are now rebuilding it is not an argument. Its a way to skirt responsibility and accountability.
I just don't understand how you can justify killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and act as if its no big deal. It turns my stomach.
I wasn't in favor of the war. I want absolute clarity from every f'n person in the government! I never said it wasn't a big deal. It sucks people died, but that's a fact of war. If you feel so bad for them, I bet they wouldn't mind you sending them some money to their families. But, you won't because you're like all the rest of the liberals. Talk big until it comes time for you to write a check.
You can call it whatever you want. I never said I agreed with the war in Iraq. We are past the point of doing anything about that. The thread is about some money they feel we owe them. I simply feel we don't owe them shit since we are rebuilding their country and making it better that it was before. I've personally never been to Iraq, but from what my brother and countless friends told me who've been there, it is a shithole.
I would kill X number civilians to prevent Saddam from killing many times that number were he to remain in power then pass that power along to one of his sons who were, arguably, more ruthless than he was.
Ahhhh, now you are truly showing your liberal colors. Only wanting to do what best suits you...
Conversely, why the fuck should I pay my tax dollars for illegal social agendas? (you remember some of our socialist discussions in other threads right?)
Keep drinking the cool aide man. You are pretty hopeless. A progressive income tax system and raising the top income bracket by 2% and lowering everyone elses taxes is not socialism. And it is certainly not illegal.
Telling the world that a dictator had a nuclear/chemical/biological weapons programme when it was known that he didn't is definitely illegal. The fact was there was no justification to invade Iraq without this false information. We can pretend we were trying to spread freedom or prevent terrorism or whatever but that it bullshit and you know it. If even wall street professionals eat that shit up then this country is screwed.
If we really cared about preventing terrorism we would have invaded Saudi Arabia or Iran. Sadam was simply not a threat to our security, this is pretty well known now.
First, some people would argue that taxes are illegal, in and of themselves. Outside of that, what justification do you have for discriminating against someone because of their level of personal income and taking more from one person than another?
Could you post where it's written that it's "illegal" to tell "the world that a dictator had a nuclear/chemical/biological weapons programme when it was known that he didn't"??? Also didn't we already establish that (1) a main source of information (for the justification) recently admitted that he lied because he thought it would be best for the Iraqi people and that he still doesn't regret it? (2) various chemical agents (which fall under the description of WMDs) were actually found in Iraq? Funny how it used to be, "there are no WMDs, there is no justification for being in Iraq" and now it's, "there wasn't that much WMD, you shouldn't have been in Iraq".
Dude, who said SA and/or Iran aren't on the list? We have to reload our guns first and let our boys rest, lol.
Obviously you can't understand this concept because you spell 'program' with an extra "m" and an unnecessary "e", but there are often times a strategy to military campaigns. As it was pointed out early, sometimes it's necessary for this country to make tough choices to further it's own interests and sometimes the tough decision is doing nothing. Do you think having NK playing around with nuclear reactors is a good thing? No, but you have to approach different situations in different manners. We could invade NK but it would be a blood bath...or we could bomb the shit out of them, but neither of those options would be in our best interest...so we haven't done it.
No one is happy or proud or glad that Iraqi civilians died, but collateral damage is an unfortunate, but absolute consequence of conflict. In this case, having a fledgling democracy in the midst of the chaos, turmoil and repression that runs rampant in the middle east is of great importance to the US now and in the future.
Regards
Hey hey hey now guys, today is a Friday.. take a chill pill and pop over to the 18 year old post and take some anger out on him...
Have you completely missed where I said I didn't support Iraq war? Don't let that mislead you into thinking I don't/didn't support our troops.
Please, never come back to America because we have enough of these mental disease infested people we call liberals.
So if the healthcare bill fixes it, who would pay for them?
Wow, just saw where this thread has gone.
First of all CPH, you don't have to apologize to anybody at all. Stop justifying your positions by saying that maybe you are biased because you have seen x, y, and z. Your positions are absolutely right because they are grounded in logic and reasoning. That's all we need to go on here. You don't owe these clowns justification of any position.
As somebody who was also in the Army, I will tell you that I am not a little bit biased, I don't give a shit. I just want to see what's right because it's right and I want to eliminate what's wrong because it's wrong. And it is right to support your own nation's interests, as your own nation is the only nation that can ever protect you if some other nation were to want you or your family's life.
This is why the argument concerning "95% of the world's population feels" is another one of the most fucked logical fallacies that you leftists try to purport upon people. Get it straight, this is a ZERO-SUM game. When Russia wins, Americans lose. When America wins, Russia loses. When the flag-bearer for capitalism wins, socialist sympathizers in France and Sweden lose. It's that simple, and let's face it, in the end that's what it all comes down to. All of the pacifism and all of the U.N. rhetoric really comes down to a very fundamental philosophical split between left wing and right wing politics. And people have aligned themselves based on those grounds. You make the awful argument that the world hates us in light of the Iraq War...let me give you a little anecdote:
When I lived abroad, and I lived abroad FOREVER in a nation whose interests were in direct conflict with ours , I remember every time that Bush came on television the room would go quiet. People were seething, they hated him, and every time there was mention of the Iraq war, people were deeply offended. And you know what, it made me feel GREAT, because I knew that the same people that were opposed to everything I stand for, that being American liberty and America's ability to defend that liberty through strength, were upset at the direction of the world and the direction of my nation. That all changed when Obama would come on TV. Then, those same people that wanted to destroy everything I stand for, had something to cheer about, something to make them feel good. And you know what, that makes me feel very uneasy.
Secondly, let's address this idea of an "illegal" war. This war was illegal by who's definition? By your definition? By North Korea's definition? Would Saddam slaughtering civilians like they are chickens be considered an illegal act? Would it not then be more illegal to stand on the sideline and watch men and women die knowing full well you have the power to do something about it? So let's end the idea of "illegal" now. And, no, we can't free every nation, we can do this kind of thing only when opportunity strikes. Furthermore, as for that being justification for the war and that pissing you off. Guess what princess, we didn't ask Saddam Hussein to throw out U.N. weapons inspectors. We didn't ask Saddam Hussein to run a barbaric murderous regime. We didn't ask Saddam Hussein to mislead the world and threaten the idea of WMD's. We didn't ask Saddam Hussein to make America enemy number one and even go so far as to suggest he would have liked to assassinate a previous president of ours. We didn't ask Saddam Hussein to run a dangerous unstable nation in the Middle East.
What pisses me off is that that asshole could have saved his head so many times. When, by all means, we had every right to deal with him years ago considering how awful he was, and, yet only after all of that nonsense and a terrorist attack on our own soil did we finally do what needed to be done. Scares me to think in the future what will it take to get rid of the next little Hitler that comes along.
Thirdly, in the context of a War on Terror, it was a correct strategic decision to eliminate the biggest enemy and hater of our nation in a region where terrorist activities were and remain a direct threat to the lives of our citizens. It is not unreasonable to think that Saddam Hussein would have gladly helped facilitate any threats to us within the region. That's his fault not ours. Al-Qaeda aside, you will find a rich history of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and other less extreme terrorist groups. So spare me your tears.
What's offensive to me and pisses me off is that a person like awm is more upset at the idea of America declaring war on what everybody would admit was a "bad guy" nation than is happy at the idea that a murderous rogue tyrant no longer walks the Earth. And you know what the sad thing is, you people are so fundamentally damaged psychologically in your rabid anti-Americanism that, we both know, even an American like awm, would be happy on the inside if he were to hear that American interests abroad were threatened even further by the likes of natural enemies like a China or a Russia. He would be thrilled at the idea of Russia owning all the oil in the Middle East, because that would really put the Americans in a bad situation. Even though, he is a direct beneficiary of America furthering its strength and capacity to protect him as an American citizen. This is tantamount to the kind of suicidal mentality that lead to a great mind to once declare that "Liberalism is a mental disorder." And don't give me the "I'm a moderate" shit, we all know you're a little Liberal Nazi at heart.
Yea, what he said.
After this inspiring post I wish I could give you all my future silver bananas. Well said by a TRUE AMERICAN!
Great post
The most dangerous position a country can be in is when the people blindly follow their nations interests to the point where they never question whether what they are doing is right or wrong. You literally just said this. You want to know what this is called? Its called fascism, seriously, look it up.
And you are calling me a Nazi? Fucking moron. You just described EXACTLY what the 3rd reich did to Germany.
I don't owe this sophmoric post attention, but just for the record, I'm actually very opposed to a lot of what America does. I hate our Asia strategy, espeically our wishy-washy stance on Taiwan and our continued appeasement of North Korea, etc. I mean, there are several things I'm opposed to, I'm not going to list them all, but spare me your "people blindly follow" talking point. Regardless of that, way to address the points made CPH, Drexel and myself in your arguments.
And I don't even know what your last line means.
I have to disagree. I think the most dangerous position a country can be in is when its people blindly follow the rhetoric of their nation's enemies.
It's sad that you would attempt to draw comparison between what the US, and other nations, has done in Iraq, with that of what Hitler's Germany did; it reflects poorly on yourself and analytical capabilities.
Regards
Alright guys, I enjoyed the discussion (could have done without the loads of monkey shit), but I'm gonna withdraw from it now. It was fun debating with everyone, and I apologize if I offended anyone.
Yeah, I think I manged to double my shit count today. Oh well, it was worth it. Thanks for participating.
Regards
Why did I get monkey shit for this comment?
Haha, sometimes you can't win. I think I've gotten shit on for every one of my posts in this thread and probably doubled my shit count today. It's like someone issued a fatwa that said I must be pelted with monkey turds.
Regards
If you spent the last hour reading this thread while waiting for the Fed to settle...YOU MIGHT BE IN OPERATIONS
Disclaimer: I'm in BO
Drexel can be a dick sometimes, but the guy is smart. I completely enjoy how he dismembered AWM.
You figure out what a semi auto is yet kid.
Hahahahahahah
Most people supported Afghanistan and Iraq when it happened. Yeah, you are correct. Right now most people probably have negative opinions on the war. People were strongly against WW2 before Pearl Harbor. History will truly tell if it was a good thing or not.
Calling people names doesn't benefit your case too much. Also, how is his opinion any different than yours. You try and come off as some specialist or expert in things. You have an opinion, just like everyone else.
I am in no way an expert. I never said that. But I am getting attacked for stating the general consensus among people in this country and abroad.
No one here is an expert, awm. There is a lot of discontent flying around here. For argument's sake, could you at least cite this domestic and international consensus?
I'll post one article that I think you should read. Public opinion is completely in the eyes of the beholder.
US Withdrawal from Iraq: Baghdad Residents Mourn Departure of Former Enemy (German News) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,714592,00.html
December 2008
On December, 11-14, An ABC News/Washington Post Poll of 1,003 adults nationwide, found 64% felt the Iraq War was not worth fighting, with 34% saying it was worth fighting, with 2% undecided. The margin of error was 3%.[18]
64% said it was not worth fighting. Not that it was wrong. Also, you see a decline in the polls for every war. It is plain fatigue. People lose interest and do not care. Since the military is all volunteer fewer people are effected.
Not totally disagreeing with you, just saying.
Holy shit storm. 47 monkey shits from this thread alone. Unbelievable.
think i got more, really says something doesn't it
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