Agreed, they did a ****ty job of enforcement.

And BOOM just like that a flame has been created. Rin - when you talk to Stonewall give him my prayers bro.

Stockton, an intellectual, I consider myself aware of the policial situation of the world. I think that I know more about our goverment, and the goverments of the world than most people my age. Most people my age are worried about getting drunk, high, and laid.

Myself, I know many things. I may be young, but I did pass Goverment at the high school level, and at the college level both with 95 averages. I believe that I understand the ways of the world. I understand why the world is locked into hate, war, crime, death, and destruction.

If you want, I could enliten you a bit, but I just ask you check out my political dedicated site;
http://www.lockesledger.tk

I may not know the most, but I promise you that I could tell you why America is currently the most hated nation on earth.

Bottom line, Saddam's regime was one of the most ruthless and brutal in the world and he needed to be removed from power. Amnesty International has been having conniption fits over the "government" there for years and years. Did he have WMD? Probably not, but what we did find out is that Saddam THOUGHT he did. He was funding these projects, they just weren't getting anywhere and everyone was too afraid to tell him. So if even he mistakenly thought he had them, we can be forgiven for doing the same.

Iraq was continuously in violation of UN sanctions since before the first gulf war, well over 10 years. The reason nothing was done was that some members of the UN staff and some members of the permanent security council (France and Russia) were engaged in very profitable illegal deals with Saddam. They didn't want to jeopardize their cash cow.

Saddam was certainly guilty of funding terrorism though. He was quite openly paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers about $10k American, which is a LOT of money in that part of the world. He had links with numerous terrorist organizations, and conducted his own operations as well. As Stockton pointed out, he attempted to assassinate Bush Sr. while he was on a visit to Kuwait. He also had several airliner frames at an intelligence service training camp where they practiced hijackings. I'm not even going to go into the rape rooms, torture chambers, mass murders, chemical weapons use, or brutal repression.

So did Saddam need to be removed? Absolutely. Since so many of our "allies" were too busy lining their own pockets to put a stop to it, we did. I'm proud of that, and you all should be too. Have we made mistakes? Absolutely. Abu Ghraib was a huge fubar. But don't lose sight of the fact that we shut down 100 places worse than Abu Ghraib. Have we accidentally killed women, children, and innocent civilians? Absolutely. But far less than were intentionally killed by Saddam and his goons. We've made mistakes, but we're learning and adapting.

Now, I'm not completely against you guys here. I do fully agree that we went into Iraq at the wrong time. We should have fully taken care of Afghanistan and captured Osama first. But even if our timing was wrong, I think we've done a good thing. And I think you're wrong Zoso, things won't collapse the second we leave. If we were to pull out tomorrow, they might, but we won't be out of there for years. The insurgency is already enjoying much less popular support. They kill many more civilians than we ever did. Those people have mothers, father, brothers, sisters, children who are against the insurgency now. More and more tips are coming in, leading to the arrest or death of insurgents. Things are getting better, but the good stuff doesn't make for as good "news" as the horrible stuff. You get better rating by scaring people.

Saddam was a monster, his sons were worse. The world is a better place because of what our troops have done over there, and I'm proud of them beyond words.

that exactly what i WANTED to say psion hehe, but you put down your thoughts much better than me!, you see what you are dealing with when ender calls bush the biggest terrorist in the world,, the left is so loony that they dont want us to go after bad guys and they dont wanna shut our borders to them, they wish for a perfect world that will never exist and call u a racist if you really are a realist and know that our border security and immigration policies are a threat to this nation,.. now on that point bush isnt doing a good job and that is one of my major criticisms of him.. as much as i dont wanna be a republican i have to because of how crazy and left the demo's have gotten..

that may be a generalization, of course there are many good moderate america loving democrats, but the loudmouths of the party are the ones who have peoples ears, i will guaruntee you Michael Moore helped bush win this election.. what is it with this guy? first he supports nader in 2000 and pushes bush to a victory, then in 2004 he is so outrageous and hateful towards american tradition that he motivated people to go out and vote for bush.. i know i did for that reason.. WOOT ohio baby.

i gotta chime in.
i agree with traitor, god won't save you.
good training and attention to detail will.
i assure you, before you go overseas, you are trained for the situation. (i assume prolly alot more now than back in 03)
i also assure you, that when you guys say "i wish those troops would come home, bush is bad for making them go there.. etc..."
i say this:
who signed the dotted line?
when you sign up for the MILITARY, you aren't thinking "hmm, if i don't like this job, i'll just quit"
it's not ****ing walmart. the first thing that EVERY member of the military is taught is how to fight/shoot/etc.. basic training is not the same as orientation to work the photoshop.
it is our JOB to goto war.
we VOLUNTEERED to join.
do not pray for your troops.
do not ask for them to come home.
when you see a soldier,
thank him.
go up, shake his hand.
trust me, one person coming up and saying thank you means more to a soldier than a million prayers or complaints to senators.

i agree wholeheartedly with psion.
saddam was evil and needed to be removed.
we cheated and made up wmd.
did we remove a horrid regime and bring freedom to millions? yes.
the ONLY reason that osama bin laden is alive is because of bull**** politics.
we've had him OFFERED to us (pre-9/11) multiple times. we declined.
we've had him in our SIGHTS! (pre and post 9/11) each time we had to either not shoot, or hold too long for political reasons and lose our opportunity.

i suggest this.
everyone who has any opinion about war.
goto google.
look up pat tillman.
he is dead because of war.
he gave up millions of dollars to sign up.
he knew what he was risking.
unfortunatly, training and attention to detail where not up to par and he died to friendly fire.

unless stonewall gets crosstrained as an MP, he should be very safe. even if he get's crosstrained, he still should be safe.

Slim

(p.s. you can still pray for your troops, write angry letters, or pick your nose, i don't really care, it's your choice)

Okay, think I will chime in now too. Psion, right for the most part. period. As one who WAS there the 1st time out and saw what Iraqi troops are/were capable of, supposedly "under orders", and who has rather close friends there NOW, I think most of the "opposers" out there need a reality check. No WMD's you say? Does the 1000's bodies of elderly, women and children, DRESSED IN THEIR SUNDAY BEST, in a MASS grave sorta, maybe, kinda offset it? Or are you too stubborn to admit, well, okay he was EVIL? Most of our soldiers are rather proud to be over there doing WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. So the excuses to go in were maybe just that. But morally, can YOU look the mother of a raped 12 yr old Kuwaiti or Iraqi girl in the eye and say.. sorry YOUR problem, not the US? Try it sometime and see how you sleep and when you do, what you dream of. So you don't agree with the war, fine, okay. But don't demoralize and downgrade what they accomplished and are striving still to accomplish. It may be a long way off, but they DO still have internet access. Next you guys will be treating them as the Veitnam Vets were when they came home. This started out as a dedication to Stonewall and look where it went to.. so to put it back on track:

Stonewall, God bless and protect you while away from home
Go and do what must be done, we support and understand.

Please forgive my unformed rantings all. It is and always will be a rather touchy subject

quote:Originally posted by Daniel_E_Higginbotham

And BOOM just like that a flame has been created.

Well, duh! How the heck else is Stonewall gonna know he's really missed if we don't have a full fledged flame war about it. [:D]

Anyway,
The extreme right is no better than the extreme left. Both extremes use 9/11 as political currency. Both sides are trying to polarize their base by making the situation we're in seem worse than it really is. It makes me ill. It's about control. Fear = Control. Step back a few feet, and you can clearly see how both sides are using fear to gain support for thier side. I find it particularly sickening that the self-styled "people of faith" are so easily swept up into the fear-mongering. Their faith should be a shield against it.

Eventually America will remember that it's not fear that makes us strong. Nor has fear ever united us. Freedom is our strength. Freedom at it's heart is the absolute rejection of fear. Freedom isn't something you can spread. It's something that people must choose.

We could debate forever on this, but it's not really worth it. Besides, it's all in the past and we cannot change history.
I am glad Saddam is no longer in power.
I am sad for all the lives lost.
But mostly I am mad.
That Bin Laden got away.

That pretty much sums it up.

Zoso
-One hoppy Candain frood who drank too much and lost his towel. [:O]

quote:-One hoppy Candain frood who drank too much and lost his towel.


Worst intergalactic hitchhiker ever.... sigh

Slim I agree with you on walking up to a soldier and thanking him, it does make a difference to the soldier. I know from being there myself, Stormrider you have some good points as well as some others. I personally don't base my feelings on what one potitician or the other says, I base what I say on the matter from being there from the start,( before Desert Storm)and during Desert Storm. I personally don't like politicians in general. But some I do, if their heart is in the right place and they do what they say, and now days that is really rare.

Psion you said it all in a nutshell.

Also my prayer to Stonewall goes out to him from one soldier to another, who knows what it is like there where he is going.

Stonewal, Bro, take care over there, and come home in one piece.

Vulcan

I think I'm going to chime in also. Bush acted on what his intelligence officers found out. Whether right or wrong, he HAD to act. Iraq had WMD's. This was borne out by the thousands of Kurdish dead. That none were found doesn't mean much. The COMPONENTS were found buried in the sands. Yeah, perhaps things could have been done differently but they weren't and now our young men AND women are in harms way once again.

Personally, I think we should pull all of our people back, tell anyone who definitely wants peace to evacuate, then send every B-52 bomber we have flying wingtip to wingtip over the insurgent strongholds and bomb them into the stone age. No nukes, just conventional bombs. If we do this with every city that harbors the militant element then perhaps our people can come home.

Well, I just have one question for you all, what makes us right? What gives us the right to tell other people how they should live? What makes us so right, and the rest of the world so wrong...?

We don't gas innocent civilians, run rape rooms, brutally put down dissension, engage in ethnic cleansing, or the systematic brutalization of our populace. And it wasn't just us, remember that. Iraq has been under UN sanctions forever and a day. We're just the only ones who would step up and do anything about it. We do it because no one else will. If everyone sat around and said "What gives us the right?" there would be complete anarchy, nothing would ever get done. It would always be someone else's responsibility. The buck has to stop somewhere.

I totally agree, Psion.