Tendo City

"Virtually Everybody" allowed airspace? No... while a lot of nations did, a few major ones didn't, the biggest of those being Turkey.

As for the coalition, while 30 nations expressed support, only 2 or 3 (UK, Australia, Poland...) of them sent combat soldiers... unlike Desert Storm with its large coalition of troops from many nations... you CAN'T say that the cooalition is nearly as strong as the 1991 one was and tell the truth...

Oh, and there has been NO use of chemical or biological weapons by the Iraqis after 2 days of war. NONE.

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
"Virtually Everybody" allowed airspace? No... while a lot of nations did, a few major ones didn't, the biggest of those being Turkey.

As for the coalition, while 30 nations expressed support, only 2 or 3 (UK, Australia, Poland...) of them sent combat soldiers... unlike Desert Storm with its large coalition of troops from many nations... you CAN'T say that the cooalition is nearly as strong as the 1991 one was and tell the truth...

Oh, and there has been NO use of chemical or biological weapons by the Iraqis after 2 days of war. NONE.

A few points:

>The Coalition includes nearly 50 nations now, making it considerably larger than the Desert Storm Coalition.

>It doesn't matter how many combat troops are sent, because WE DON'T NEED ANYONE ELSE'S. Few in the prior Coalition offered anything consequential in that regard.

>Iraq has already used SCUD missiles, that they claimed not to have. So as of now, Bush was right. And there haven't been any gas attacks yet, but the war is only two days old. Not to mention, the Iraqi military is shattered. Many are surrendering, and many more have shown signs of it. They haven't used any gas weapons, and God forbid they ever do, but that they blatantly lied about the SCUDs means it goes without saying that they've got worse things hidden better.

The war is going extremely well, and it looks like casualties of all sorts will be light if the mass surrenders keep up. I just know that's pissing you off, because your predictions of doom and gloom will never come to pass. Sorry, pal.

Anyway, ABF, visit this site: http://www.humanshields.org

I'm sure they'll still welcome you.

Yeah, SCUDs alone prooves they had illegal weapons.

Thats not been confirmed its still in dispute. But if he atatcks Isreal that will pretty well confirm it.

"Virtually Everybody" allowed airspace? No... while a lot of nations did, a few major ones didn't, the biggest of those being Turkey.

Yes--Turkey HAS granted us airspace...for days now. And almost every other country has too.....not that we need it, we're already at Iraq, and we're not flying circles around it, so how much airspace DO WE need?

Quote:Originally posted by Dark Jaguar
Yeah, SCUDs alone prooves they had illegal weapons.

They've got you there, ABF.

I was watching Fox News when they started bombing Baghdad and all I can say is "Woah". It was really an incredible sight to see, there were huge explosions everywhere. I can only imagine how shocking it was to the people there.

Iraqis in Liberated towns are destroying statues of Suddam Hussein and tossing objects at posters. Now after this is all over we will probaily learn alot of things about what went on in Iraq beyond foreign eyes.

Wow, it's like the end of Jedi SE when Vader kills Palpatine and they cut to Coruscant and show statues of Palpatine being pulled down and everybody celebrating.

The ending of RotJ was perhaps the best, most exciting and rewarding ending to a film, ever.

Yes, I agree. It's also my favorite SW movie.

I wonder if they will blow fireworks off at the end of the war?
Or will it be Suddams scud arsenal?

Well, here and in Britain there may be celebrations...but I fear that in France, Nazi-land and the USSR, they'll be mourning more akin to Luke's ending in RotJ....Chirca, Schroeder and Putin will be standing sadly around Saddam's funeral pire, even as F-16s soar overhead and little Ewoks are dancing in Baghdad! LOL

Oh for the love of peat moss...

Let's just start making Star Wars analogies of everything and get it over with.

Oh shut up, you nerf-herder.

You have much to learn my young apprentice. :p

Blast, this is why I hate flying.

Well, its only a few days into the war but it looks like the military has almost won it, at this rate... and there is still no confermation that Sadaam is still even alive... huh. Not surprising... I knew that Sadaam's regeme was a paper tiger... but that, as I've said, was never the point... I do hope that now that we are fighting that we win soon (and with as few civilian casualties as possible), of course, but if Bush had had any sense or tact or diplomatic skills we never would have gotten into this situation...

Oh, and as I said before, becoming a willing human shield is incredibly stupid...

As for banned weapons. If you read my older posts, I never said that they had no banned weapons. Never.... actually I did think they had some. But does that justify war? NO WAY! It justifies STRONGER INSPECTIONS! :hammer:

12 years of putting up with Saddam is more than he deserved. Would we have really wanted to put up with 12 more? I seriously doubt that tougher inspections would have made him change; he was too dead set on getting things that he wasn't supposed to have and he just would have found better ways to hide his WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] or shipped them off somewhere else.

In my opinion Iraq as well as the rest of the world will be better off without him hanging around.

You miss the point. Explain this to me, do you not believe a treaty with a country promising they can stay in power ONLY if they don't develop any weapons of mass destruction gives the right for us to tear down that leadership the second they defy the treaty? If you do not believe that, then I suspect you miss the entire point of a treaty. The idea behind them is that the threat of war promotes peaceful behavior. If that threat is revealed to be non-existant, people stop obeying treaties.

Oh, and let's not forget most of the citizens of that country actually are glad America is there.

Look. Iraq is better off without Sadaam. So is the world. Sadaam's army is pathetic. Sadaam is a brutal dictator with a history of killing his own people and using chemical and biological weapons. Those are all true.

But NONE of that is relevant for what I'm trying to say.

Its about international law! Any other good nation that isn't in isolation tries to follow international law. They generally follow the rules.... and when they don't they get punished by the international community. No matter what you call this war, there is one thing that is a unquestionable truth: By the rules of international law, this is NOT a legal war. A legal war requires either a action in defence of your nation, or the approval of the UN. Neither is remotely the case here. Not even close. This is NOT a war of defending the US from anything. Iraq poses NO threat to US security and is not, to any knowledge that any public group knows, funding any terrorists other than the Palestinians. There isn't just no proven link between Sadaam and Bin Laden... there's extremely good reasons why that link is nearly impossible! Why? Well, Sadaam is a secular leader. Try as much as he does to try to pretend to be a religious leader leading a war against the evil western powers, he is at heart secular, not religous. Building lots of mosques won't change that. Bin Laden is a religious leader. He believes very strongly in his twisted version of religion. I VERY, VERY much doubt that he'd have ANY interest in someone like Sadaam... they are polar opposites on the scale, I'd have to say.

So no terrorism connection to the US. No even remote proof of any new threats from Iraq to the US. Nothing new happening in Iraq that hadn't been going on since 1991. Nothing. Except 9/11. That gave Bush a perfect opportunity to take out Sadaam -- someone that his good friends the Washington hawks had been gunning for ever since Bush Sr. left him in power... and what's better than making them happy, making up for Dad, and getting rid of a "terrorist threat"? Not much, naturally...

So. Bush presents his extremely flimsy "evidence" that Iraq has broken the many UN resolutions so much that war is necessary. Thankfully, some powerful nations didn't buy into his nonexistant "proof"... so no resolution authorizing force.

In case you were wondering, 1441 does NOT authorize us to do what we did. No way.

And you know what? When we act all alone like this (Yes, we have a 'cooaltiion'... a coalition of leaders who realize that they have ot suck up to the US to get more foreign aid and this is a great way to do that...), it makes people in the rest of the world, who UNLIKE most of you actually CARE about stilly little things like "law", MAD. They see it as us flexing our muscles and saying "we won't tolerate anyone who we dislike". What a great message!

So who's next? Ayatollah Khameni? Kim Jong Il?

And who else will we snub so effectively? We've already alienated France and Gernany... who's next? Will we turn on Britain on some issue? With Bush here, I wouldn't take any moronic ideas off the table...

That uncertainty -- of this totally unprecedented in US history unilateral use of force on a nation that didn't deserve it -- makes other people angry with us... sure we're the big man on the block, but that doesn't mean that it's alright for us to go string up those varmints! (using words Bush might understand... :) )

The fact that the war is a blatant oil grab in the face of all that is sane in foreign relations just makes a terrible situation truly intolerable.

Of course if you don't care that we have managed to nearly destroy NATO and hurt the UN somewhat, I guess you wouldn't care... of coures that'd be a EXTREMELY shortsighted, isolationist policy to follow, as not caring about what everyone else in the world thinks, while just fine 200 years ago, juuust isn't able to cut it in the modern world...

And is it alright for us to choose who runs which country in the rest of the world with which form of government because we are the strongest and no one can stop us? I DON'T THINK SO! Sure, I hate those dictatorships too, but I feel that following international law (actually FOLLOWING it and letting it work, as opposed to what we've been doing it and fighting it as hard as we can... and getting everyone angry at us -- not exacty the way to get anything you want...

When you break the law you get punished; is there something about that that is so hard for people to understand?

Resolution 1441 called for "severe consequences" if Saddam disobeyed it. I guess most countries thought that "severe consequences" meant sitting back and doing anything.

European union idea of consiquences is having your seat removed and you are then expeled, Yet are still free to do what ever you want.

Say No to French cheese!
Say no to German Nazi wuffles and pies.

but if Bush had had any sense or tact or diplomatic skills we never would have gotten into this situation...

Don't you blame Bush for standing up and having some balls! Blame EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD for letting Saddam think no one was paying attention. If the Security Council had stood up on two feet Iraq would've acted differently...your dissension allowed him to divide the world, and now we're the bad guys!

1441 did mention "consequences", but NOT military action. I'm not just saying that it wouldn't count as legal... I'm basing the statement on a article I read inte the paper that said that international law experts agree that if the case was attempted that 1441 authorized military action, it would lose. It does not.

That is a true statement... if Bush and his team had ANY diplomatic skills or tact, we'd either be in Iraq with a TRUE cooaltion and UN support or would be supporting stronger inspections... but Bush and the hawks clearly did not want that. They tried REALLY hard to (and succeeded in!) making this a unilateral war with very little outsiide support. As someone on PBS said yesterday, its as if the hawks who Bush takes his orders from were afraid that the world would actually agree with us on the issue and make some multilateral action and did their best to sabotage that and get them to hate us... because there isn't much else to explain how Bush did SO MANY THINGS to enrage the rest of the world in so short a timespan...

Well it worked. Really well. And now the world HATES us.

Have you noticed that yet? When terrorism increases in the near future you will... because the Arab world is now VERY, VERY mad with us. This war is a gift on a silver platter for people like Bin Laden... it gives him a instant new army of angry people who want to kill us. Great job in increasing security there, Bush & co!

Well it worked. Really well. And now the world HATES us.

Theres no doubting that...but within ten days, the US support ratio has gone from 51% to 70%...3/4 people support the war here now. In Britain, it's boomed in 10 days fro, 30% to just over half! As for the whole world hates us, they NEVER liked us...and in all of Europe, only Germany, Belgium and France (and Russia if you count that as European) are against us. Spain, Italy, Iceland, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Holland, Estonia, Albania, Bavaria...etc. etc.


Have you noticed that yet? When terrorism increases in the near future you will... because the Arab world is now VERY, VERY mad with us. This war is a gift on a silver platter for people like Bin Laden... it gives him a instant new army of angry people who want to kill us. Great job in increasing security there, Bush & co!

Why...you're right! We should impeach Bush, and send all 70% of American (250,000,000 people) to die at once, so that the hippies and welfare recipients marching in the street can solve all the worlds problems...once they're in power, Bin Laden will be our new president...we won't bother the rest of the international community; we'll scrap our navy and armed forces, and leave the world to the control of Chirac and Saddam! You're right!!

What did the U.S do for Bin Ladin to order 2 planes to destory the WTC?

What did the Goverment do for Tomthy Mc Veigh to blow the Oklohoma city Federal building.

So Terrorism would happen regardless of what the U.S does.

But you have made allies along the way , "Afghanistan" (former enemy) soon Iraq will be no different.

Well, in all honest, as far as I can tell, Afghanistan is more of a Vichy puppet right now...lol.

What did we do to incite Bin Laden? Plenty, actually... remember the first Gulf War? 12 years ago? Yeah, that one. It was a HUGE influence on him. Why? Because people like him were infurirated when the US sent troops into the Gulf, and even madder when the Arab nations let them stay... I remember hearing that Saudi Arabia was the biggest problem. They didn't want the "infidels" even in the same country as Mecca... and it REALLY got them mad.

Oh, and the US's abandonment of Afghanistan in the '80s sure didn't help either... we helped them just long enough to defeat the Soviets and then left them alone... and we all know how THAT turned out...

Terrorism will always happen? Yeah, that's true... but it would be a LOT less common if we'd actually do things to try to make the people who become terrorists LESS angry instead of more angry...

Also, it is true that since the war started support is up. England did go from 36% to 50something % since the war started... and I'd expect that. And as for other nations support, while a lot of those nations have governments supporting war, many populations aren't... like Spain and Austrailia...

I haven't been paying much attention to the war because I've been extremely busy, but I know that many Canadians do not support the war on Iraq...the French Canadians especially. At a recent Montreal Candiens game against the New York Islanders, the American national anthem was showered with boos. This being a free country, you can do that no problem. It is very distateful, though. At the next Candiens game (last night or the night before), Canadien (as in he played for the Candiens) hall of famer and hockey legend Jacques Bellevue gave a speech about sportsmanship and how the playing of both anthems at hockey games is a fifty year old tradition... the Canadiens fans cheered during the off-key anthem. The reason? The fans respected the hockey legend a hell of a lot more than George Bush. Heh, shows what kind of city Montreal all is.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to get across is that this war has led many Canadians to hatred of George Bush and America in general. But Canada not joining the coalition is crap, I think. We turned our backs, and the Americans would have been there for us. One of the reasons why we apparently didn't join is because of the focus of the war on terrorism...whis is respectable enough. But there has to be more of a reason than that.

The main reason is The prime ministry was not willing to let canadian troops die in a war he didnt believe was necessary.

I still though ottawa should offer support for the U.S Invasion and offer funds to rebuild Iraq after the war.We should honnor the americans decision and not critize them over it , we should not boo or disrespect the U.S and show good sportsmanship.
Just as Deputy prime minstry John manley said we should be sensitive of our neighbors in the currrent circumstances.

In the invent of a chemical attack or the discovery of WMD , Canada should pledge its arm forces into the war in such a event.

Alien Space marine...

Bin laden is pissed at us for what happened years ago when the USSR invaded Afganistan. We sent all these weapons and then promised to help rebuild their country. Sure we sent them the weapons, but we never did help them rebuild and get back on their feet. That still doesn't excuse what he did, Afganistan is lucky we helped them in the first place.

ABF...

Consequences. Strange, I thought asking Suddam and his sons to leave the country or face military action sounded like consequnces, what did you have in mind, giving him a big hug? We gave him 12 years to change, and he didn't.


All in all, it comes down to this....

"What kind of world are we living in when the best golfer is black, the best basketball player is white and the Germans don't wanna fight?" - Chris Rock

Quote:Originally posted by Nick Burns
Alien Space marine...

Bin laden is pissed at us for what happened years ago when the USSR invaded Afganistan. We sent all these weapons and then promised to help rebuild their country. Sure we sent them the weapons, but we never did help them rebuild and get back on their feet. That still doesn't excuse what he did, Afganistan is lucky we helped them in the first place.

The U.S should not have abandoned afghanistan after the soviet invasion.It would have changed alot of things I hope the U.S finally learns that lesson.

The only other posible reason for the U.S pull out of support back then is perhaps if they did americanize Afghanistan back then the Soviet Union would have retaliated.

That wasn't the reason. The presidents then (Reagan and later Bush) just didn't care enough to want to spend money on a country that was as obviously irrelevant as Afghanistan once the evil Commies were stopped by US-armed Islamic radicals like Bin Laden.

Resolution 1441. I am not saying that you can't try to make it imply that combat is sanctioned by it... you clearly can if you interpret "conseqences" correctly. But that isn't what I'm saying. I am saying that according to people who know international law, the resolution does NOT authorize force. If it had I am sure that it wouldn't have passed the UN...

Oh, and when you look at Bin Laden's motivations I'd say that the Gulf War (as i described before) was at least as important, if not more... the US putting troops in (to them)the most holy country in the world was considered a hugely offensive act... and it gave radicals more support, as well as some 'justification' to fight us.

Jesus Christ, Black Falcon! Are you half Afghan or something, so ardently supporting Bin Laden, terrorism and Afghanistan like that? Why is it that a Canadian is chastising us for not going with Afghanistan all the way; what the hell was Canada doing in the 1980's...? How dare you blame us for only going "half-way" with Afghanistan...thats more than ANYONE ELSE ever did for ANYBODY in the middle east! Who are you to critique us; if you love Afghanistan and Iraq so much, why don't YOU go do something?

Huh? Darunia, your post makes absolutely no sense... I can't really figure out your points, if you have any... you sure don't seem to have coherent, sensible ones.

Quote:Are you half Afghan or something, so ardently supporting Bin Laden, terrorism and Afghanistan like that?

Uh... give one place I said anything remotely resembling that and I'll believe you but you can't because I didn't...

Quote:How dare you blame us for only going "half-way" with Afghanistan...thats more than ANYONE ELSE ever did for ANYBODY in the middle east! Who are you to critique us; if you love Afghanistan and Iraq so much, why don't YOU go do something?

Look. In the '80s, the Soviet Union attacked Afghanistan. It quickly took over. Then, the US did what it did in many nations -- tried to stop the Communists. We armed the Mujahadeen fighters who managed to get the Soviets into a very long war they never won... similar to Vietnam for us... and in the end they gave up. We won. However... at this point, for some idiotic reason, our government decided that they didn't need to help Afghanistan recover from the war. We did nothing after that to try to improve anything for the Afghanis... and what was the resilt? Years and years more of civil war... cumulating in the victory of the Taliban.

Now, if the US had only sent in stuff (economic aid mostly, maybe peacekeeping troops, etc), that would never have happened... but we thought a small, minor nation like Afghanistan didn't matter so we left them alone for years and let the extremists win... and the result? The Taliban and their full state sponsorship and support for terrorists. And a lot of people we armed in the '80s were among them... like Bin Laden. Just great.

But in those days (ie before the Soviet Union collapsed) it was US policy to support any group of terrorists or thugs there was, as long as they weren't commies or terrorists attacking us... thus we supported Sadaam very strongly when he was fighting the Iranians and the Islamic radicals in Afghanistan when they were fighting Soviets. It also led to stuff like supporting the Contras in Nicaragua (paramilitary army who tortured and killed lots of people) because they fought the left-wing government... we have a very dark history of overthrowing socialist and communist governments and killing people and supporting essentially terror states just to contain communism... suppressing democracy (by not letting people in other countries choose their government type -- whenever communists won a election somewhere, in came the US army or US-backed dictators...) to save the world for democracy? Umm... great...

(Note... Communism. Its a system that works very well on paper and in the mind, but completely fails when applied to the human race... you see, it relies on people being perfect to work, and people are far from it... like how everyone made the same amout of money. Great idea, right? Sounds like it at first... no unfair wages... but the result? Shoddy workmanship and FAR less drive to do well because no matter how poor your work (or how little you work), you knew you'd never lose your job... so why work hard? Oh, and the fact that applied communism has ineviably meant dictatorships sure doesn't help its appeal any...)

Well, the '90s came and Communism collapsed on itsself. The Taliban continued to support terrorism (and terrorize their own people) in full swing until 9/11 when we finally realized that leaving them like that wasn't such a good idea after all. The real tragedy is that we didn't realize that 15 years ago and cut this off before it ever happened... without Afghanistan to build big training camps in and the US abandonment of the country (and sometime later the Gulf War and US troops in Saudi Arabia), we'd have a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller terrorist problem now... but back then they only looked at how it'd cost a lot of money and not have a apparent direct benifit to us. Clearly flawed logic in hindsight...

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
the US putting troops in (to them)the most holy country in the world was considered a hugely offensive act...

Those wacky Muslims and their holy lands...

Christians did the exact same thing in the Crusades...

Quote:Originally posted by Darunia
Jesus Christ, Black Falcon! Are you half Afghan or something, so ardently supporting Bin Laden, terrorism and Afghanistan like that? Why is it that a Canadian is chastising us for not going with Afghanistan all the way; what the hell was Canada doing in the 1980's...? How dare you blame us for only going "half-way" with Afghanistan...thats more than ANYONE ELSE ever did for ANYBODY in the middle east! Who are you to critique us; if you love Afghanistan and Iraq so much, why don't YOU go do something?

We did , we offerd relief aid and the red cross which is about as much as we can do since we are not the super power.

If America is this shinning glory from heaven as your presidents proclaim, why did'nt rebuild a afghanistan in the 1980's and early 90's instead of letting it go down the toilet into oblivion only having to come back some years later to clean the place up.It all boils down to "Greed"! If the Afghans had Oil like Iraq or were wealthy you would have rebuilt them from day one.

Just like Kuwait!

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Christians did the exact same thing in the Crusades...

Yes, but that was around a thousand years ago.

Yes, but in many ways the much of the Middle East is well behind the times...

Oh, and its beyond question that if Afghanistan had had oil it'd have gotten LOTS of foreign aid and a full contingent of peacekeepers in there... like Kuwait got. But its dirt poor and has nothing so they were abandoned...

Canadians dont hate the U.S for having power , but their policies are hated for what they do with it.

At least we have foreign policies that go beyond whatever our populace happens to decide on that partciular week.

Oh, I forgot that democratic governments were supposed to ignore what their people thought... how silly of me to think that the popular opinion would have a influence on a government...

And its HARDLY some transient opinion. I just read a long article in the 3/24 issue of Newsweek... I recommend it. Very good. It says how there are currently three countries of the 192 in the world where over half the population supports this war: the US, the UK (since the war started only), and Israel. That's it. And anti-US opinion is the strongest it has EVER been -- 90% against war in Turkey. 70 to 80 % in Europe. That is unprecedented... and it is good to note that that hatred did not exist until after Bush took control. Did people dislike us? Sure! But we followed international law, listened to the international community, were curteous to diplomats and other leaders (One big point that article made was how the US is making lots of people very angry with the way this administration brushes off international opinion, ignores the rest of the world, treats diplomats like they and their nations are inferior and unimportant, makes state visits (of us to them or them to us) as short as possible, etc, etc, etc... it truly is astonishing how much this administration has done to antagonize the world... and very, very sad.), kept our obligations to the world (kept treaties, followed the procedures of the UN and NATO, kept peacekeepers in places the UN is peacekeepng, and acted like the rest of the world was relevant and mattered to us). Bush has done NONE of those things... actually he has done the EXACT OPPOSITE. He has totally and completely obliterated the best opportunity in MANY, MANY years (the aftermath of 9/11) to get goodwill to the US stick and to improve our world opinion. Totally and completely destroyed it. And even more terrible he looks absolutely sure that he is RIGHT. As I said before, he truly believes that his actions are what God wants him to do. He KNOWS that he is right and everyone else is 100% wrong. And that is a VERY scary thing, given what it has done so far to the world...

I am very, very scared for what he will do in the next two years... this administration so far has been so unbelievably terrible that if it gets reelected... well then all bets for how badly the world could go down the tubes would be off...

How DOES he do it? Right on target again... funny and true! :)

Not funny and not true.

that was not even remotely funny.

Yes it was... that strip does 'making fun of the conservatives' better than any I can think of... and every point the penguin makes is completely accurate... I still don't understand how anyone can actually believe that Sadaam had any real involvement in 9/11...

I never believed that he had any involvement in 9/11, but that isn't really the point of the war anyway. I do believe that it is possible he has ties with terror groups.

If by "funny" you mean "completely stupid and lacking of anything that resembles humor".