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brgnorway

The Iraq Thread

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Denoir, there will be serious repercussions for Bush and the Republican Party in general if it is found that they lied about the pretexts for the war.

It has been found out! Wolfowitz said himself that the WMDs were a 'beaurocratic reason' that was just used to gather world support!

US Official Downplays WMD Issue as Reason for Iraq War

Quote[/b] ]Also, I hate to say it but the majority of Americans disagree with you European folk about the benefits of the invasion to the Iraqi people.

If it works out for them - that's good. That's not however the issue here. Do you really think Bush & Co invented the WMD hysteria as a cover up for a humanitarian mission?

This invasion had the positive effect of eliminating Saddam. Who says that there will be such an effect next time you go to war?

Quote[/b] ]I can't quite figure out why it is that you guys can come up with all of these logical and rational arguments against a war, and then be totally irrational and unrealistic in your expectations about the aftermath of such an action. Did you really think Iraq was going to instantly transform into a viable western style democracy a month or two after the fighting stopped? Give it 5-6 years. If things are still shitty, then you can say we fucked over the Iraqi people.

Things are looking about as positive as they are in Afghanistan. No. I don't expect a miracle over night, but I expect that after two months the looting could have been stopped. That basic supplies to the hospitals could have been arranged for. That people in Baghdad get back their water. There are a lot of things that are worse than they realistically had to be.

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One interesting development on Wolfowitz's statements is that Pentagon has released a transcript that they say is of the interview. It's a bit different than the short version that mainstream media has presented.

Here is the relevant part:

Quote[/b] ]Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into --

Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --

(Pause)

Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.

Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've witnessed, so --

Q: This is extraordinary.

Kellems: You had good timing.

Q: I'm really grateful.

Wolfowitz: To wrap it up.

The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.

Full Transcript

Now, what is interesting here (assuming that this is real and not edited and changed by the Pentagon)?

[*]The WMD issue was chosen because the different parts of the US government could agree on it (i.e Pentagon, State Department, Whitehouse.. etc)

[*]The supposed Iraq<->Terrorist link was a matter of controversy within the government. Not all parties believed in it.

[*]Helping the Iraqi people was not a sufficient motive for the war.

So (again assuming this transcript is real) he actually said that WMDs was one of three main reasons and was chosen as the primary factor because they could all agree on it. It's a bit different than what the edited version says.

But that leaves another problem. He said first that the humanitarian part was not enough justification. On the terrorism part he said that there were wide disagreements.

So it leaves the alledged WMDs - that first weren't used in the war and have not emerged in any way. Connect that also with Rumsfeld's comment that the weapons might have been destroyed before the war (as Saddam said that they were).

So what is left as a justification? And again we're left with the dilemma of choosing between deception and incompetence as the source of the big pre-war talk about WMDs.

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Another P.S.- Tovarish, do you play nationstates? It seems like I have done buissness with a leader named Tovarish in the game, my nation is El_Grande_Hombre.

Wow I'd totally forgotten about that..I did for a couple of weeks and got bored of it, my nation "The People's Republic of the Republican People" no longer exists...I don't recall doing business with anyone biggrin_o.gif.

*edit* makes a mental note to start reading weird names backwards.

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Tony Blair seems confident that iraq had WMD

Another thing I have noticed is Bush is trying to heal the rigt between the pro-war and the anti-war, probably wants to get the issue over and done with before too much negative evidence comes to light.

Quote[/b] ]*edit* makes a mental note to start reading weird names backwards.

Yes, spelt backwards the name reminds me of someone from long ago...

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E6Hotel, you're still in the service, right?

For a few more months, yes.

I just want to know if you're saying those things because you truly believe in them or because you're in the Corps and are expected to stick with the "party line"?

I'd prefer that you specify which statements you're curious about, but I assure you that what I write reflects my beliefs.  Of course, if my beliefs were not similar to Marine Corps ideals, I'd have gone to work for Deloitte & Touche or, heaven forbid, Arthur Anderson.  (Am I bull-headed because I'm a Marine, or am I a Marine because I'm bull-headed?  A question for the ages.)

At least I would imagine that having an anti-war stance would be rather detrimental to your prospects and/or relations with your colleagues...

Obviously, I don't have an anti-war stance.  I don't have a pro-war stance, either.  I'm situationally dependent.  Based on the ideas important to me (fighting oppression, peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, windmill-tilting in general) I'm satisfied that our causes are usually just.  The execution's never perfect, but then again, nothing's ever perfect.    

Semper Fi

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The question brought up wasn`t if prowar or antiwar. It`s been about the Bush adminstration lying to their citizens about such little allday things like going to a war. No matter how the outcome of such an illegal war is the american people have still been lyed at by their leaders. Lying politicians are nothing new, but the president of a country lying so obviously about a reason to go to war is pretty scary.

What scares me even more is that President Bush want`s to find all WMDs and evil weapons all over the world, but on the other hand he wants to build new mini nukes. Guess that`s how he wants to fight AIDS in Africa. Nuke it Baby!!!

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I'd prefer that you specify which statements you're curious about, but I assure you that what I write reflects my beliefs.  Of course, if my beliefs were not similar to Marine Corps ideals, I'd have gone to work for Deloitte & Touche or, heaven forbid, Arthur Anderson.  (Am I bull-headed because I'm a Marine, or am I a Marine because I'm bull-headed?  A question for the ages.)

Obviously, I don't have an anti-war stance.  I don't have a pro-war stance, either.  I'm situationally dependent.  Based on the ideas important to me (fighting oppression, peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, windmill-tilting in general) I'm satisfied that our causes are usually just.  The execution's never perfect, but then again, nothing's ever perfect.    

Semper Fi

I was curious about your support for operation Iraqi Freedom, regardless of the fact that the justifications for the war as given by your C-in-C turned out to have nothing to do with the actual reasons for it. But you did answer my question, thanks.

With "nothing's ever perfect" attitude you can let a hell of a lot of things slide... Let's take a hypothetical situation where you didn't believe that the cause of the moment pursued by your C-in-C is just. But being a marine you have to respect the chain of command and follow orders. So it's rather convenient and perhaps even necessary way of looking at things while in service?

edit: On a more general level, I guess what I want to is know is how do you deal with the situation when you're issued orders that you don't agree with. Yeah, yeah, I know, you don't have to like them, you just have to follow them... But how do you deal with a possible moral dilemma?

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Some of the developments:

Saddam Nostalgia in Iraq (BBC)

Quote[/b] ]A bizarre Saddam Hussein nostalgia has gripped some people. What they say is that if you did not want to threaten the regime, it would leave you alone. In return it delivered safe streets.

Petty thieves, one man explained to me, were sent to prison where they were beaten and taught a lesson.

Murderers and rapists were shot. One of Saddam Hussein's last acts was to empty the prisons. Out poured the thieves, and the murderers and rapists who had not been executed yet.

The popular belief here is that they are behind the crime and looting.

In quotes: Reasons for the Iraq war (BBC)

A question of trust (BBC)

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I was curious about your support for operation Iraqi Freedom, regardless of the fact that the justifications for the war as given by your C-in-C turned out to have nothing to do with the actual reasons for it.

Again, I don't concur with this interpretation.  WMD's were given as a justification and the search for WMD's continues.

On a more general level, I guess what I want to is know is how do you deal with the situation when you're issued orders that you don't agree with. Yeah, yeah, I know, you don't have to like them, you just have to follow them... But how do you deal with a possible moral dilemma?

There's a world of difference in receiving an order you don't agree with and receiving an illegal order.  Illegal orders, by definition, shouldn't be obeyed.  Our promotion warrants specifically require obedience to orders given by "Superiors acting according to the rules and articles governing the discipline of the Armed Forces of the United States of America."  

The question coming any second now by way of Sweden will be "But how do you identify an illegal order?"

The best answer I can give is that I'm 99% confident my superiors won't order me to do anything that I consider immoral.  The remaining 1% depends on my ability to recognize any immoral orders and use moral courage to refuse them.

Semper Fi

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I concur. I was pretty confident I would never be issued an illegal order during my service, though I was often issued a lot of orders I didn't personally agree with. Carrying out an illegal order is itself an illegal act punishable by court marshall. Not following a legal order you don't agree with is the same. I think most members of the U.S. armed forces have the mental wherewithall to recognize an illegal order if one were to be issued.

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Nice to see that they learned a lesson from how wardogs have been treated in the past anyway.

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Isnt it time to change the name of this thread into THE IRAN THREAD

lets be honest. The countdown to a war in Iran is a stable as an atomic watch. The US administration wont bother bringing back home all equipment and troops if it sees another "opportunity" to make us of them. The fixed-costs of the war were immense and must pay off   rock.gif

Countdown.GIF

Iran countdown begins

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I just wonder what the "reasons" will be this time. Not as if that would really matter. Maybe there are Glorks from Mars` alien weapons stored in Iran as revenge for the ID4 movie. I bet ID4 is Dubya`s favourite movie, because it shows the US president how he has to be!! HUUAAA!!! tounge_o.gifwink_o.gif

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Whys is US hated? - Friedman from NY Times.

Friedman wrote a book about globalization called "Lexus and Olive trees" (or something like that), and some others. He is the NY Times foreign correspondent. Pretty sharp person.

It was a funny introduction but his conclusions are all wrong. America has never since Kennedy been so popular in Europe as when Clinton was in power. During his administration the US influence in the world and the US economic strenght peaked. It's been on a sharp decline since the dot-com crash.

Second:

Quote[/b] ]During the 1990's, America became exponentially more powerful -- economically, militarily and technologically -- than any other country in the world, if not in history. Broadly speaking, this was because the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the alternative to free-market capitalism, coincided with the Internet-technology revolution in America.

The last part is pure BS. The internet revolution begun in the world after the World-Wide Web was introduced. WWW was created in CERN, Switzerland. While in absolute terms American dot-com industry was the largest, the internet revolution in Europe had far more impact on the society and internet users/capita (not to mention broadband user/capita) by far surpasses the US statistics.

We had a dot-com crash too that the economy hasn't recovered yet.

So that argument is crap too.

Why do people hate America?

Four letters: B-U-S-H

After 11/9 there was a huge sympathy in Europe for USA. Do you know that Chirac was the first chief of state to visit ground zero in NYC?Just about every country offered military help and gave full support for the "war on terror". What did Bush do? Bascially tell everybody to fuck off that America would handle it by itself.

In between he sabotaged two projects that Europe and the world have great hopes for and have put down a lot of energy to create: The Kyoto protocol and the ICC war crime tribunal. Clinton signed them and Bush withdrew the signature when he came to power. You can imagine the immense enthusiasm that this generated around the world.

And then we have Iraq... Ahh, Iraq. Let me see: Bush wants to attack Iraq. Saddam has dangerous weapons he says. The UN inspectors are recalled to Iraq and find nothing. But Bush knows that Saddam has been a bad boy and lying to the UN. Violating UN rules can't be tolerated so he started an illegal war against the wishes of the world (the UN). How many bonus points do you think America got from that move? In the process they also vilified France and the other countries opposing the war. The bastard Chirac had the nerve of representing the wishes of his people who did not want to start bombing without letting the UN inspectors finish their work! And now, when they havn't found any WMDs, instead of apologizing to France et al they still accuse France of some sort of betrayal. No sir, France did not betray USA. USA betrayed France. Friednship goes two ways and obviously France's position to let the UN inspections continue was right.

Your governement has in three years managed to piss off the entire planet. And then people ask: Why do people hate America? rock.gif

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I`ve just seen in the german 7pm news on TV that there will be no Iraqi National Council. The USA will only allow Iraqi advisors who can adress statements and wishes to the US administration in Iraq. Well...

I`ll spare you my comment, but I guess the Iraqi people will be pissed off even more. USA USA USA

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Isnt it time to change the name of this thread into THE IRAN THREAD

lets be honest. The countdown to a war in Iran is a stable as an atomic watch. The US administration wont bother bringing back home all equipment and troops if it sees another "opportunity" to make us of them. The fixed-costs of the war were immense and must pay off   rock.gif

Countdown.GIF

Iran countdown begins

I think you'll be eating those words. It would be stupid to interfere in the already collapsing power of the mullahs.

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Quote[/b] ]

The last part is pure BS. The internet revolution begun in the world after the World-Wide Web was introduced. WWW was created in CERN, Switzerland. While in absolute terms American dot-com industry was the largest, the internet revolution in Europe had far more impact on the society and internet users/capita (not to mention broadband user/capita) by far surpasses the US statistics.

The internet revolution began with the U.S military's DARPA.  oh and America was the center of the global dot-com industry. Per-capita arguments are BS.

Quote[/b] ]

Why do people hate America?

Four letters: B-U-S-H

Yes.. and your irrational hatred of him will haunt you because long after Bush is gone, we will still despise "Europe".

Quote[/b] ]In between he sabotaged two projects that Europe and the world have great hopes for and have put down a lot of energy to create: The Kyoto protocol and the ICC war crime tribunal. Clinton signed them and Bush withdrew the signature when he came to power. You can imagine the immense enthusiasm that this generated around the world.

sabotaged? lol.  Anyone who knows anything about these two "projects" will know that they'd be lucky to get a single ratification vote in our congress.  The American people reject both these "projects" heartily.

Quote[/b] ]Your governement has in three years managed to piss off the entire planet. And then people ask: Why do people hate America?

ahh.. typical Euro-centrism.  Europe is not the "entire planet". I know why Europe is angry - because Europe's ego cannot contend with the fact that it is a has-been.

Now.. to get back to lobbying the government to withdraw all troops from the region as well as any form of monetary aid. The German freeloaders have been conning the U.S out of hundreds of billions for half a century.

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Quote[/b] ]Yes.. and your irrational hatred of him will haunt you because long after Bush is gone, we will still despise "Europe".

I'm sure that a majority of your countrymen won't hold your ignorant views. If they do, then that would show the sate of the current mindset..... rotting and diseased.

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I'm sure that a majority of your countrymen won't hold your ignorant views. If they do, then that would show the sate of the current mindset..... rotting and diseased.

heh. we have a keen understanding of you. When Europe's global wars erupted, the American people had the correct gut instinct.  "Don't get drawn into those fools' wars".  Unfortunately, we had leaders at those times who thought we should get involved in your personal business and in doing so, destroyed the detached partition we had from recurring European barbarism.  They were wrong by dragging us into those wars. There should have not been an American boot on European soil in the last century. Now, the Americans are knee deep in Europe and are subject to European hatreds typically reserved for each other.  Great going Wilson and Roosevelt. crazy_o.gif They should have read more Washington and Jefferson. Monroe had the right idea imo.

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I'm sure that a majority of your countrymen won't hold your ignorant views. If they do, then that would show the sate of the current mindset..... rotting and diseased.

heh. we have a keen understanding of you. When Europe's global wars erupted, the American people had the correct gut instinct.  "Don't get drawn into those fools' wars".  Unfortunately, we had leaders at those times who thought we should get involved in your personal business and in doing so, destroyed the detached partition we had from recurring European barbarism.  They were wrong by dragging us into those wars. There should have not been an American boot on European soil in the last century.

Remember, the USA would not have got involved in the fight with Germany. Roosevelt wanted it, but the American public said no.

Remember, Hitler declared war on the USA, not the other way round.

As for the first outing, thatwas by choice as well. The US public were outraged by the sinking of their ships, and demanded revenge. That was a purely political move, as the British army was wrapping things up by the time US forces actually got involved.

Besides, I wouldn;t complain, those two wars made your country. The ecomonic benefits were astronomical.

(Oh, and just for a refresher, I remember a cetain country attacking Spain for dubious reasons, and seizing many islands in the pacific. Islands they still own to this day.)

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