crozby

I have friends in NI (not IRA or anything paramilitary) that when they were teenagers used to play chicken with the British army roadblocks in their cars, just because they were bored and the army presence there pissed them off so much. I can't imagine people doing that with their own children in the car though. The panicing because they thought the road block was insurgents sounds likliest to me. Maybe the kids will shed some light on this at some point.

There really is no need for that. There seems to be a misconception by some people on this site that women are treated badly in all Muslim societies. I think this has stemmed from the fact that women in Afghanistan were subjected to brutal treatment based on Sharia law. I was just pointing out that Iraq was/is a secular state where women are able to go out to work pretty much like they are in the USA or other western countries. I'm genuinely sorry if you find that offensive - it wasn't meant to be.

LOL. i was having a depressing afternoon until I read this. Thanks.

No, all I'm saying is that SH admitted he had them (as opposed to them being discovered), as you say - in an attempt to avert invasion at the 11th hour. I still can't find anything that made owning those Migs a crime though...

that is insane. why the fuck would anyone with 5 kids in their car even attempt to drive through a checkpoint without stopping?

Can you provide some evidence to back up this statement? And this one? You confuse my criticism of the invasion with support for Saddam. Let me clarify my position: The guy is a total shit-head and it is a good thing that he is gone, but the end (if it ever comes) does not justify the means.

This report makes no sense. Saddam ran Iraq as a secular state (like Turkey). The mistreatment of women, by people wanting to convert the place to Sharia law, is something that has occured since the invasion. Rihab Taha al-Azawi al-Tikriti was one of the women in Saddams employ. The press gave her the nickname Dr. Germ. She was one of several women in a senior position in Iraq.

Go check the forum rules. No personal attacks and no advertising.

Unfortunately SH was allowed these Migs. What he wasn't allowed was set out by UNSCOM. Specifically: (http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/General/basicfacts.html) The only 'smoking gun' I could find were the missiles that in tests went 114 miles which is over the 94 mile range limit. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2755851.stm

If this was simply a 'Thankyou' thread why wasn't it posted in, or subsequently moved to Bonfire? Are you aware that your own post does exactly what you are criticising other people for?

Did the UN actually ever tell SH that he wasn't allowed to bury old Migs in the Iraqi desert?

He writes a good article. If we assume what this guy writes is true, i.e. that pretty much every single foreign reporter in Iraq is bullshitting us about the situation there, why the fuck are they ALL doing it? Isn't it weird? I don't recall this happening with Afghanistan or with the first gulf way, so why this time? (edited for the usial spling mstks)

I think it'll be less successful than the Afghanistan election, but like you say it'll be a start. I know nothing about Haiti - how has democracy taken hold there 10 years on?

Some Iraqis were being interviewed on the TV the other night and they were asking how they were supposed to vote for a candidate they knew nothing about who had policies they weren't aware of. If that is in any way representative of common Iraqi feelings the turnout wont be high regardless of the security situation on the day.

Juanesky if I thought you would argue the point in the spirit of SC i would respond to that, but I've watched the way you repeatedly go after Botellines and Chistelabine and I just don't want to play that kind of game thanks all the same.

You think there actually have been terrorist attacks on US soil but they've all been thwarted and not only that but it has happened in total secrecy, maybe several times? Is that really your explanation for there being no explosions in the USA since 9/11 and no explosive devices found in the USA since 9/11 and no terrorists convicted in the USA since 9/11?

What is so funny? Did you read the links? In case not, here is a summary of the evidence: Independent researchers in different parts of the planet measuring the intensity of sunlight hitting the ground have evidence that there is a large fall in solar radiation over the whole planet 22% in Israel since 1950, 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to 1-2% globally per decade between the 1950s and the 1990s. Different scientists using a measurement called 'pan evaporation' - how much water evaporates out of a known sized tub of water each day (evaporation primarily caused by photons pushing water molecules into the air) noticed a dropping in evaporation that corresponds to a reduction in solar radiation that matches the results found by the guys using photosensors. A multimillion dollar international project using the northern and southern Maldive islands (northern islands are under an air stream heavily poluted by India, southern islands under clean air from the antarctic) confirmed previous studies. The evidence is there. Google about a bit, see what scientific evidence there is and then decide if it sounds so silly after all.

Got any evidence for that? I did listen to the turd on many occassions. If you actually paid some attention to TB before and after the war you'd be a whole lot more confused about the reason for the war, and for good reason. Here are some of the key statements made by the prime minister about Saddam Hussein's weapons - before and after the war. 10 April 2002, House of Commons "Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. "He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also." 24 September 2002, House of Commons "It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability..." 25 February 2003, House of Commons "The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. "The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death." 11 March 2003, MTV debate "If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them." 18 March 2003, House of Commons "We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd." 4 June 2003, House of Commons "There are literally thousands of sites. As I was told in Iraq, information is coming in the entire time, but it is only now that the Iraq survey group has been put together that a dedicated team of people, which includes former UN inspectors, scientists and experts, will be able to go in and do the job properly. "As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction." 8 July 2003, Evidence to Commons liaison committee "I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong. "I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes." 16 December 2003, Interview with British Forces Broadcasting Service "The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles." 16 December 2003, Interview with BBC Arabic Service "I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them." 4 January, 2004, Speech to British forces near Basra, Iraq "Repressive states are developing weapons that could cause destruction on a massive scale." 11 January 2004 , Interview with BBC Breakfast with Frost What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam's programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that, it's the case throughout the whole of the conflict. I remember having conversations with the chief of defence staff and other people were saying well, we think we might have potential WMD find here or there. Now these things didn't actually come to anything in the end, but I don't know is the answer. And what I do know is that the group of people that are in there now, this Iraq survey group, they produced an interim report." 25 January 2004, Interview with the Observer newspaper "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the intelligence was genuine. "It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation." 3 February, 2004, evidence to Commons liaison committee "What is true about (ex-Iraq Survey Group head) David Kay's evidence, and this is something I have to accept, and is one of the reasons why I think we now need a new inquiry - it is true David Kay is saying we have not found large stockpiles of actual weapons." 6 June, 2004, BBC Radio 4 Today programme "What we also know is we haven't found them [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq - now let the survey group complete its work and give us the report... They will not report that there was no threat from Saddam, I don't believe." 6 July, 2004, evidence to Commons Liaison Committee "I have to accept we haven't found them (WMD) and we may never find them, We don't know what has happened to them. "They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed." 14 July, 2004, statement on the Butler report "We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons after we entered Iraq. "But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy." 28 September, 2004, keynote Labour conference speeech "The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it. I simply point out, such evidence was agreed by the whole international community, not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighbouring countries. "And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam. "The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power." "I can apologise for the information being wrong but I can never apologise, sincerely at least, for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison." 29 September speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme The prime minister was asked about UN secretary general Kofi Annan's assertion that the war with Iraq was illegal. "That is his view - it is not our view," Mr Blair said. "The view we took at the time and we take it now is that the war was justified legally because he [Saddam Hussein] remained in breach of UN resolutions."

Well said. It really is utterly unimaginably irrational in light of the seemingly endless evidence to the contrary that people still think SH had any WMD or that Iraq was a terrorist threat to the USA (or anyone else for that matter) and that the coallition has any legal right to be there whatsoever.

Here's the problem isn't it. What if a US city got nuked because the terrorist in custody who knew where the bomb was planted wouldn't tell. If the government said "We did all we were allowed to do, i.e. we played loud music, made him dance around in his underpants for hours on end and kept him up really late, sometimes till 4 in the morning" there would be total outrage that they hadn't tried a bit harder wouldn't there? (edited pants to undies!)

The media do that here too big time, but it is a serious problem nonetheless.

In case you missed the point he is making: Would you sacrafice the rest of your family so that you could obtain the right to vote? Would you sacrafice your neigbours so that you could live in a democracy instead of in a dictatorship? There is a difference between volunteering to lose one's own life for a cause and having the loss of ones friends and family inflicted on one for a cause imposed on you by a foreign country far away, isn't there? That is the point he is trying to make. I think.

I though we were there to liberate the Iraqis from the evil clutches of Saddam Hussein, so it certainly isn't fair to them if that is not what we are doing there. I'm guessing from that statement you believe that if the US wasn't fighting the insurgents in Iraq you would be fighting them in the USA, is that right? If so, why do you suppose they aren't taking advantage of the fact that so much US attention and so many US troops are over there, to slip a few suicide bombers over the Canadian/Mexican borders and blow up some shopping precincts? Why hasn't that happened, and why has no one even been caught trying (and not subsequently released due to lack of evidence)?

In a similar category I put movies featuring skydiving. I hate them, but i can't help grinning because they are SO bad. I can't remember the names of the films, but in one Charlie Sheen goes up for a tandem jump and gets dropped out of a trapdoor in the plane and then his Tandem Instructor - a lady - waits a (very long time) then jumps out, swoops down and does if i remember right a Mr. Bill? And another film Patric 'Dirty Dancing' Swazie and a group of mates leap out of a plane and have a conversation for several minutes in freefall. WTF?

Yeah, central government has, but many local councils are still saying they will impose restrictions. There's a real binge dinking epidemic here amongst the 16-25 year olds, I dunno if the new laws will make the situation better or worse and i'm not sure the government does either. The centres of most UK towns and cities become like drunk warzones every Friday and Saturday night, with lots of fighting, puking and pissing in the streets and people being carted off by the police. The only place i can compare it to I've seen in the US is Bourbon St. in New Orleans except without the fun holday atmosphere of the place.