The 2003 war in Iraq - does anybody still fully support it?

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Say what you want re: George W, at least he's killing Arabs.

[narcimund 0]

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Say what you want re: George W, at least he's killing Arabs.

I live near some arabs. Should I kill them?

First Class Citizen Twice Over

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ok

[ErricoMalatesta 0]

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Say what you want re: George W, at least he's killing Arabs.

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hate posts will not be tolerated in any forum

Ignorant gets you a warning, what does this get billvon?

[Kernel_Panic 0]

I might be ignorant, but at least I know the proper use of the word.

[niu 0]

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Say what you want re: George W, at least he's killing Arabs.

Really?Thought he sent others to do it.

[ErricoMalatesta 0]

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I might be ignorant, but at least I know the proper use of the word.

Now you have to tackle understanding a ten word sentence

[shropshire 0]

I vote "No, at any stage" because it was just plain wrong. There was no justification, as far as I can see. I have no idea what the real, under-lie-ing [sic] reasons were/are but we have been fed a pack of porkies from scum bags and countless (really) people have died because of them. I hate them with a passion because of that alone.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Remster 30]

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Say what you want re: George W, at least he's killing Arabs.

I live near some arabs. Should I kill them?

I dont know yet.

Do they congregate in groups of more the 2?

How about speaking in tongues?

Do they dress funny?

Remster

[vortexring 0]

Thanks for the replies.
Wonder why we're lacking explanations from people who supported the war from the start and sill support it now?

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[philh 0]

"Go ahead and dig them up they were probably ridiculous the first time around but sure give me a second laugh.

I might as well also point out the elephant in the room… A very simple way to test your theory is if they had been given evidence and then rejected it and still not handed him over. It didn’t even get that far and nor was it given time to, the US had a goal and that goal was immediate retaliation at a defenseless target. "

Ok yet again then:, this was an interview with Mullah Omar shortly after Sep 11th:


Omar: This is not an issue of Osama bin Laden. It is an issue of Islam. Islam's prestige is at stake. So is Afghanistan's tradition..

VOA: So you won't give Osama bin Laden up?

Omar: No. We cannot do that. If we did, it means we are not Muslims... that Islam is finished. If we were afraid of attack, we could have surrendered him the last time we were threatened and attacked. So America can hit us again, and this time we don't even have a friend. "


So it was the policy of the head of state of Afghanistan to support and harbour terrorists that had declared war on the USA. Note also Mullah Omar was married to OBL's daughter. The Taliban also claimed that Saddam Hussein was behind the East Africa emabssy bombings. We now know they were lying to cover OBL. Or do you believe them? Did Saddam Hussein orchestrate the East Africa attacks?
THE US had warned Mullah Omar in a declassified document you can find here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB134/index2.htm
the State Department reiterates "that the U.S. reserves the right to take military action concerning bin Ladin and will hold the Taliban directly responsible for any terrorist activities bin Ladin engages in." .
The Taliban were warned, they harboured and protected Aq and they were also one of the worst abusers fo human rights in the world. Human rights Watch claim the TAliban practiced ethnic cleansing killing thousands of civilians due to their Hazara origin, Taliban troops killed those that refused to protest "Death to America"before the US invasion (Source The Indepent Newspaper 11/9/01), and that is on top of a policy of bruning schools with women in it (often with them literally inside) and of course the obvious horrenodous opporession of women.

Most importantly I would refer you to the discovery (and Ill show you the refernce in a well know left wing British newspaper The Guardian and its Sunday version The Observer :http://observer.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,596988,00.html):

"Other documents seen by Observer reporters make clear the scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions for a global jihad, including a notebook detailing plans to assassinate Western leaders. Other evidence uncovered at al-Qaeda sites indicates that major power plants in the US and Europe - some of them nuclear - were being targeted for attack.

Other documents, apparently prepared by Pakistani diplomats and intelligence officers, make it absolutely clear that the Taliban, far from simply hosting bin Laden's network, was involved in every stage of the plan for global jihad against Western interests and had repeatedly ignored warnings before the 11 September attacks that it faced bombing by the US or Russia if it continued to support terrorists.
The most damning documents were discovered at two sites in the former diplomatic district of Kabul, both of which were scattered with forms labelled 'al-Qaeda Ammunition Warehouse'. The presence of al-Qaeda documents in the first - a Taliban Defence Ministry building - is compelling evidence of the inseparable links between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "

Another point, Al queda provided its elite Birgade 055 and intergrated into the Taliban armed forces, according to Wikipedia
"The 055 Brigade was an elite guerrilla organization sponsored and trained by Al Qaeda that was integrated into the Taliban army between 1997 and 2001. It comprised mostly foreign guerrilla fighters from the Middle-East, Central Asia and South-East Asia whom had some form of combat experience, either fighting the Soviet invasion during the 1980s or elsewhere."


This is from Al jeezeera, not exactly considered a mouthpiece for the US government:
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10207

"bin Laden quickly established ties with the fledgling Taliban group, led by Mohammed Omar, and by providing funds and weapons at a crucial time helped the group rise to power. Thereafter al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and a measure of legitimacy as part of their Ministry of Defense."

According to Asian Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD08Aa01.html on the assisantion of Northern Aliiance commander Masoud 1 day before the 9/11 attack

"Masoud himself had told this correspondent, two weeks before he was killed, of the incestuous link between bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISI. A 2002 Asia Times Online investigation would later establish that Masoud was killed as a gift from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, "

Perhaps you shoudl do your research a bit more throughly,in 1999 the UN imposed sanctions against Afghanistan for refusing to hand over Bin Laden over his connection with East Africa bombings, this was set out in UN security council resolution 1267. following this , the Taliban had this to say on OBL

"He is a great holy warrior of Islam and a great benefactor of the Afghan people," said Abdul Anan Himat, a senior official at the Taliban's information ministry in an interview with the Associated Press. "We won't hand him over to America under any circumstances. It is our stated policy."


Is all this funny enough for you?

[Royd 0]

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By the way Royd, why do you want London to be a battlefied in thsi battle? Can you elaborate please?

Sorry. That was a typo that I didn't catch in my proof read.

Basically, I was saying that there will be a war with radical Islam coming to a town near you, soon!

[shropshire 0]

You may be correct, but was one coming anyway or did 'we' initiate it?
Depends upon your point of view, I guess.









"What if they gave a war and no body turned up?"

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[joedirt 0]

I supported it, I just went through this in another thread why I thought it would behoove us to have a friendly stable Iraqi government. Answer my question and I'll answer yours. Explain why you said this

"The trend of these opinions seemed to relate to personal education and social standing".

and I'll give you an answer so I can get flamed again.

[Royd 0]

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Uhoh it’s the magical “some people” again! When you figure out or can properly define the “some people” clan maybe you can come back and let us all know about them and just exactly what or who they are


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In Reply To
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Have I missed something in my observations?

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Yes and you have also missed something in your definitions

Some people? Well, let's give the phrase some thought using rather recent history.

Let's play teacher/ student, OK?

In the last century can you name several groups [some] of people who chose not to live peacefully with others around them, and had to be dealt with severely[ the sword]?

Oh, by the way, this is a history lesson, not a vocabulary lesson.

Germany/ WW1
Germany, Japan, Italy/WW2
Iraq/Gulf War

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My questions in the previous post were rhetorical to make a point. I didn't really expect an answer.

The point was that those who treat others in their society harshly only respond to that same level of harshness, in order to teach them a lesson.

And yes, I believe that we are in a global ideological war spawned by the religion of Islam.
Some people; oops, there are those words again, aren't going to figure it out until they are picking glass out of their face from an explosion at the local mall.

[philh 0]

"And yes, I believe that we are in a global ideological war spawned by the religion of Islam. "

Agreed. There are those in Islam that want to replace democracy and an open society with a totalitarian theocracy. One might also point out that there are those in Christianity that want to do the same and in the past ( the dark ages) were very succesful in doing so.

[vortexring 0]

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I supported it, I just went through this in another thread why I thought it would behoove us to have a friendly stable Iraqi government. Answer my question and I'll answer yours. Explain why you said this

"The trend of these opinions seemed to relate to personal education and social standing".

and I'll give you an answer so I can get flamed again.

I said it through what seemed to be a personal theory. I'll be more than happy to elaborate later.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[ErricoMalatesta 0]

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Is all this funny enough for you?

That all pretty much amounts to nothing as far as why you attacked Afghanistan.

They STILL asked for evidence, the majority of the world STILL asked the US to take a diplomatic route and the US still bombed the country in under 30 days.

I am not denying Omar refused to hand him over or that they also denied directly speaking to the US at all. I’m only denying that it hasn’t the slightest thing do with the reasons for attacking the country.

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Some people? Well, let's give the phrase some thought using rather recent history.

Let's play teacher/ student, OK?

In the last century can you name several groups [some] of people who chose not to live peacefully with others around them, and had to be dealt with severely[ the sword]?

Oh, by the way, this is a history lesson, not a vocabulary lesson.

Germany/ WW1
Germany, Japan, Italy/WW2
Iraq/Gulf War

Not only is this ridiculously irrelevant it also completely fails to answer the question. Who are the “some people” you are referring to? You haven’t clearly indicated whether It is all Muslims, the Taliban or terrorists in general.

Further more, as what I was speaking about was based around the discussion of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have NOTHING to do with exporting jihad against the west. The ideology of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda groups are different and from what you have been saying you don’t even seem to know that much about Islamic jihad.

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And yes, I believe that we are in a global ideological war spawned by the religion of Islam.

Spawned by the religion of Islam? There are clear reasons for why Islamic jihad is carried out against the US and its mostly because the US “spawn” terror actions in the first place through ruthless foreign policy.

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Some people; oops, there are those words again, aren't going to figure it out until they are picking glass out of their face from an explosion at the local mall.

Some people clearly know nothing about this subject

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"And yes, I believe that we are in a global ideological war spawned by the religion of Islam. "

Agreed. There are those in Islam that want to replace democracy and an open society with a totalitarian theocracy.

Yeah they might like to do that but that isn’t the reason for jihad against the west. “the terrorists hate our freedom” are you speaking on a time phone from 2001?

[billvon 2,991]

> Some people; oops, there are those words again, aren't going to figure
>it out until they are picking glass out of their face from an explosion at the
>local mall.

Tens of thousands of people in Iraq likely think christianity is the worse of two evils. (Well, they did before they died, at least.)

[philh 0]

"That all pretty much amounts to nothing as far as why you attacked Afghanistan. "

It wasnt me that attacked Afghanistan it was NATo forces, Im not even a member of any armed forces, let alone the NATo armed forces that attacked Afghanistan. The reason for the attack on Afghanistan was simple, the US was attacked by terrorists who were in alliance with the Afghan government, terrorists who had declared war on the USA and were in allaince with the ruling government of Afghanistan.So NATO deployed troops to remove that government from power and capture the terroisst who were bent on destroying the Western way of life and replacing it with an Islamic theocracy.

What would be the point of wasting time showing the Taliban the evidence against BIn Laden when they categorically stated they would not hand him over under circumstances?

Ill remind you of OBl himself says was his number one request for the West. Was it withdrawl fo troops from Arabia? No . Was it to stop support for Israel? No. Was it to end the sanctions against Iraq? No Was it to end the sanctions against Afghanistan? No
Was it to stop propping up the oppressive house of Saud? No.
Here in his own words is his number one demand:
It was written in a letter to the West following the 9/11 attacks.

"The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all."

Whats his number 2 demand?
Again in his own words:

"The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest. "

So you can fantasise all you like about the nature of the enemy, that they are simply trying to stop Americas bully boy tactics and imperialism, but its a fantasy none the less. They have stated clear as day what their motivation is, it is for all of us to accept an Islamic theocracy.They are prepared to kill as many innocent people as it takes to get what they want. This is an enemy we need to fight. Or should we just sit back and wait for the next attrocity ?I doubt if even a few nuclear bomnbs going off in the West would be enough for you to see the reality of this.

[vortexring 0]

You know mate, regarding what you said here:

"What would be the point of wasting time showing the Taliban the evidence against BIn Laden when they categorically stated they would not hand him over under circumstances?"

I believe you'd develop your understanding of the Afghan situation, and perhaps even your own reasoning, were you to research that 'assertion' and delve into it a bit deeper. I'll provide you some links, later.

Have a look about from whatever sources you have available.

It should interest you.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[Royd 0]

> Some people; oops, there are those words again, aren't going to figure
>it out until they are picking glass out of their face from an explosion at the
>local mall.

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Tens of thousands of people in Iraq likely think christianity is the worse of two evils. (Well, they did before they died, at least.

Please explain how we have tied any aspect of this war to Christianity.

[NCclimber 0]

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> Some people; oops, there are those words again, aren't going to figure
>it out until they are picking glass out of their face from an explosion at the
>local mall.

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Tens of thousands of people in Iraq likely think christianity is the worse of two evils. (Well, they did before they died, at least.

Please explain how we have tied any aspect of this war to Christianity.

If it can be imagined (US troops = Christian soldiers), then it can be considered likely? .... especially if it supports your POV.

[Amazon 7]

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Gee your Incompetent in Charge framed it in EXACTLY those words....he certainly believes it. We are supposed to take him at his word right????

George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."





Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.

For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040920/carroll

Ok Bring on the whole Rapture thing when ever you are ready.....mmmmmkkkkkk

[narcimund 0]

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Ok Bring on the whole Rapture thing when ever you are ready.....mmmmmkkkkkk

Don't think they won't.

First Class Citizen Twice Over