IRAQ vs USA/UK

L

Lester

Guest
To move the subject on a little....

Russian equipment and possibly instructors have been discovered in Iraq. Vested interests coming to the fore once again perhaps.

And if there are no WMD I would bet that the Americans would "find" some pretty quick.

There are no good guys in this, only really bad guys and not terribly good guys.
 
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nath

Guest
But embattle: pro war people often take that line. "What would you do to sort it out".

Avoidance requires there to be a situation to avoid. I don't think (with regards to WOMD) that there was a situation. If you can't accept that this is my belief, suit yourself: but don't label me as having an intractable opinion just because I feel strongly about something.

Also, the reason that your arguements don't sway me is that I've heard them all before, and hence have already thought about them and had this debate (in my head and with friends) loads before. As a result I'm quite firm in my ideas. Like I said, I started out on the center, weighing up pros and cons of war. The more I find out about this stuff, the more anti it I become.
 
E

Embattle

Guest
"What would you do to sort it out".

^Avoidance Reply expected, often given as:

no but.....but war isn't the answer

Also meaning they don't have a clue how to sort it, although same reply expected:

no but.....but war isn't the answer

Originally posted by Embattle
thus not really worth my time to list and explain all the pro and cons of the current situation

What arguements, so far I haven't really said much at all about my reasons one way or the other or what I truely think about the whole situation.

I just said yours and maxi--, the person who joins the forum just tell us the same crap stale views/answers, are weak and have been heard by myself and others here through the TV, Radio and Internet by protesters.

You can become anti all you want, it makes no difference at all now, neither did the 1 million people taking a stroll through London last month.
 
D

Daffeh

Guest
Originally posted by nath
But embattle: pro war people often take that line. "What would you do to sort it out".

Avoidance requires there to be a situation to avoid. I don't think (with regards to WOMD) that there was a situation. If you can't accept that this is my belief, suit yourself: but don't label me as having an intractable opinion just because I feel strongly about something.

Also, the reason that your arguements don't sway me is that I've heard them all before, and hence have already thought about them and had this debate (in my head and with friends) loads before. As a result I'm quite firm in my ideas. Like I said, I started out on the center, weighing up pros and cons of war. The more I find out about this stuff, the more anti it I become.


OMG DID U READ A MILLION BABIES WILL DIE!"!"!"!!!!!!!!!!!
 
X

xane

Guest
Originally posted by nath
But embattle: pro war people often take that line. "What would you do to sort it out".

I can't think why :rolleyes:
 
T

Tom

Guest
Originally posted by nath
Avoidance requires there to be a situation to avoid. I don't think (with regards to WOMD) that there was a situation.

So can you explain how Iraq cannot produce any evidence to support their claim they have destroyed the WOMD that they definitely had? And thats only the stuff we know about!

Iraq is a big country! And don't try telling me they never had chemical stocks, because they certainly did.
 
W

Will

Guest
Originally posted by Embattle
You can become anti all you want, it makes no difference at all now, neither did the 1 million people taking a stroll through London last month.
Is it just me, or is that fact that one million people actively went to protest, and that it made not one single bit of difference to the governments stance, not a little bit worrying for our democratic society?

I have to say that I'm with nath on this one. I can see its not worth going into depth discussing it, everyones opinion is set already. To me, the whole war is disturbingly personal, firstly demanding Saddam leaves the country, and attacking him directly with the first shot of the war.

And the fact that we had no choice about this war doesn't mean we have to like it.
 
D

dysfunction

Guest
Originally posted by Will.
Is it just me, or is that fact that one million people actively went to protest, and that it made not one single bit of difference to the governments stance, not a little bit worrying for our democratic society?

No because people who were pro war did not have a demonstration to show their support...which I'm certain would have been a lot more than 1 mill!

A protest of 1 mill doesnt mean anything really. Thats why you elect a government when you vote....I think you will find at the next election that Labour will win again because I think most people believe the government is doing the right thing at the moment. Saddam has not left any alternatives other than going to war.
 
G

gremlin

Guest
View from the other side of the fence... sorry it's long - but worth reading, especially the part about the use of DU shells...

Robert Fisk, "The Independent": Anglo-American Lies Exposed:

BAGHDAD, 24 March 2003 - So far, the Anglo-American armies are handing their
propaganda to the Iraqis on a plate. First, on Saturday, we were told -
courtesy of the BBC - that Umm Qasr, the tiny Iraqi seaport on the Gulf, had
"fallen". Why cities have to "fall" on the BBC is a mystery to me; the
phrase comes from the Middle Ages when city walls literally collapsed under
siege. Then we were told - again on the BBC - that Nassariyah had been
captured. Then its "embedded " correspondent informed us - and here my old
journalistic suspicions were alerted - that it had been "secured".
"Embedded" reporters are those traveling with the American or British forces
- and who are now subject to a censorship that is willfully misleading the
BBC's listeners, not just in Britain but all over the world.

Why the BBC should use the meretricious military expression "secured" is
also a mystery to me. "Secured" is meant to sound like "captured" but almost
invariably means, in the kind of parlance that the "embedded" reporters now
adopt, that a city has been bypassed or half-surrounded or, at the most,
that an invading army has merely entered its suburbs. And sure enough,
within 24 hours, the Shiite city west of the junction of the Euphrates and
Tigress rivers, proved to be very much unsecured, indeed had not been
entered in any form - because at least 500 Iraqi troops, supported by tanks,
were still fighting there.

At one point on Saturday, the BBC introduced us to an "embedded" reporter
"in Basra". This report fell to pieces when the correspondent admitted that
he was not "in Basra itself"; which is why the BBC anchor in London later
signed him off as a correspondent "in southeast Iraq". Quite so.

But it's not the nonsense that these journalists are churning out to us that
matters. It's the treasure trove of point-scoring that it hands to the
Iraqis. With what joy did Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan inform us
all yesterday that "they claimed they had captured Umm Qasr but now you know
this is a lie." With what happiness did the Iraqi information minister,
Mohamed Said Al-Sahhaf, boast yesterday that Basra was still "in Iraqi
hands", that "our forces" in Nassariyeh are still fighting.

And well could they boast because, despite all the claptrap put out by the
Americans and British in Qatar, what the Iraqis said on this score was true.
The usual Iraqi claims of downed US and British aircraft - four supposedly
"shot down" around Baghdad and another near Mosul - were given credibility
by the Iraqi ability to prove that the collapse of their forces in the south
was untrue - quite apart from the film of prisoners obtained last night.
Indeed, the Iraqi government is slowly getting its own propaganda act
together and was able, yesterday - courtesy of a real live senior army
officer (Gen. Hazim Al-Rawi) - to read out what it claimed were the latest
three dispatches from its army units in Basra and the marshes to the north.
These reported that 77 civilians had been "martyred" by US cluster bombs
dropped in Basra.

It's not just the misleading American and British reporting emanating from
what would once have been called the "pool". It's also what we know is not
being divulged to us. We know, for example, that the Americans are again
using depleted uranium (DU) munitions in Iraq, just as they did in 1991.
Before the war began, they stated that they intended to use these warheads,
which are manufactured from the waste of the nuclear industry - to pierce
armor - and which are believed by thousands of Gulf War Syndrome sufferers,
along with Iraqi doctors, to be responsible for a plague of cancers.
Yesterday, the BBC told us that the US Marines had called up A-10 strike
aircraft to deal with "pockets of resistance " - a bit more military-speak
from the BBC - but failed to mention that the A-10 uses DU rounds. So for
the first time since 1991, we - the West - are today spraying these uranium
aerosols in battlefield explosions in southern Iraq; and we're not being
told. Why not?

And where, for God's sake, does that wretched, utterly dishonest phrase
"coalition forces" come from? There is no "coalition" in this Iraq war.
There are the Americans and the British and a few Australians. That's it.

The "coalition" of the 1991 Gulf War does not exist. The "coalition" of
nations willing to "help" with this illegitimate conflict includes, by a
vast stretch of the imagination, even Costa Rica and Micronesia and, I
suppose, poor old neutral Ireland with its transit rights for US military
aircraft at Shannon. But they are not "coalition forces". Why does the BBC
use this phrase? I repeat, why? Even in the Second World War, which so many
journalists think they are now reporting, we didn't use this lie. When we
landed on the coast of North Africa in Operation Torch, we called it an
"Anglo-American landing".

And this is an Anglo-American war, whether we - and I include the "embedded
ones" - like it or not. The Iraqis are sharp enough to remember all this. At
first, they announced that captured US or British troops would be treated as
mercenaries, a decision that Saddam himself wisely corrected yesterday when
he stated that all prisoners would be treated "according to the Geneva
Convention."

All in all, then, this has not been a great weekend for Messers Bush and
Blair. Nor, of course, for Saddam although he's been playing at wars for
almost half the lifetime of Blair. One of our own Tornadoes is shot down by
the Americans - after the British lose personnel in three helicopter
disasters - and we haven't even totally captured the first town over the
border from Kuwait. And even those journalists who have most bravely tried
to see for themselves what is going on without the protection of their
armies - an ITV crew near Nassariyeh, for example - are in mortal peril of
their lives.

So here's a question from one who believed, only a week ago, that Baghdad
might just collapse, that we might wake up one morning to find the Baathist
militia and the Iraqi army gone and the Americans walking down Saadun Street
with their rifles over their shoulders. If the Iraqis can still hold out
against such overwhelming force in Umm Qasr for four days, if they can keep
fighting in Basra and Nassariyeh - the latter a city which briefly rose in
successful revolt against Saddam in 1991 - why should Saddam 's forces not
keep fighting in Baghdad?

Certainly, Iraqi history will not be complete without a new story of
"martyrdom" in the country's eternal battle against foreign occupiers. The
last fighters of Umm Qasr will become, in the years to come - whatever the
fate of Saddam - men of song and legend. The Egyptians long ago did the same
for their men killed at Suez in 1956.

Of course, this might all be a miscalculation. The pack of cards may be more
flimsy than we think. But suddenly, this weekend, the quick and easy war,
the conflict of "shock-and-awe" - the Pentagon's phrase is itself a classic
slogan from the pages of the old Nazi magazine "Signal" - doesn't seem so
realistic. Things are going wrong. We are not telling the truth. And the
Iraqis are riding high on it all.
 
X

Xtro

Guest
my view from the other side of the fence is obstructed by a garden shed and a rosebush.
 
X

xane

Guest
Originally posted by Will.
Is it just me, or is that fact that one million people actively went to protest, and that it made not one single bit of difference to the governments stance, not a little bit worrying for our democratic society

Went to protest what exactly ?
  • No war under any circumstances ?
  • Give inspectors more time and then war ?
  • Go to war only with a UN Resolution ?
  • Go to war only with a Referendum ?
  • War only if NBC weapons are used ?
  • War only if NBC weapons are found ?
  • Try diplomacy for another 10 years and then war ?
  • Get more countries to go to war with you ?
  • Impose harsher sanctions until the Iraqi people just dissappear ?
So what exactly was the protest about ? All these people had nothing beyond a general opinion with no real answer, you can't run with serious decisions like that, you have to make a stand, it's very easy to simply oppose something, but normally that doesn't actually get you anywhere unless you propose a solution yourself.

I disagree that it had no effect whatsoever, the politics of this country work by lobbying representatives in a democratic assembly, sometimes directly, sometimes through a show like a demonstration, maybe some MPs were swayed by the protests, but clearly not enough, there was a House of Commons free vote on the issue, the government action was backed 412-149, only if the vote had been critical and the government went ahead could you charge them with being ignorant of opinions.

The point is, and the reason why I keep linking to the UN Resolutions, is we have reached then end of the road with Iraq, the negotiations have been tried and failed, the UNSC was adamant last year to get a final absolute no-more-chances ultimatum with Iraq and it failed, we find ourselves in a nasty position of a straight choice - war or no war, there is no compromise, there are no more other answers.

It just that some people cannot accept this, you can't just say "no war" any more, you have to give a solution.
 
M

maxi--

Guest
not once have i seen a decent argument against any of the 'crap/stale' points i made, those pro-war are guilty of the same thing that those antiwar are, running dry of answers, if i produce a good set of questions, reply....

"its too late now"

if a pro-war guy produces the killer question "so what else should we do?"
which i answered (and which was ignored)
i know MANY anti-war protesters cant answer that. But like nath has said, and its a good point, what makes you think that there NEEDS to be a solution?


You dont think ive heard all your arguments before too on TV and Radio?
This is a public gaming forum, hardly where its at when it comes to political debate...just look at the flames on this thread alone to work that out.

its stalemate, cos like Will said, we're all set with our opinions now, and only time will tell...


*edit* Du shells too, good guys, yeah...
 
X

xane

Guest
Originally posted by maxi--
But like nath has said, and its a good point, what makes you think that there NEEDS to be a solution?

There does not need to be a solution.

But you know as well as anyone that leaving Saddam alone would result in a lot of death and destruction.

The US was fiercely condemmed over its stance during WW2, it was isolationist and eventually only entered the war when it was attacked directly. Britain on the other hand, declared war as soon as Poland was invaded, violating a promise made to the British government, even though there was still no clear threat to UK interests, but it recognised the nazi menace for what it was.

You can't have it both ways with Saddam, you either close your eyes to the death and brutality of the regime, or the death and brutality of the war to remove it.

The idea that by leaving Iraq alone will bring peace and prosperity to the region is a hard argument to support, I myself have often pondered over it, but that is exactly what "no solution" is, what it is not is an avoidance of the answers. Just like the radio clip you eventually have to answer why Saddam should be left in power.
 
T

Tom

Guest
Originally posted by maxi--
not once have i seen a decent argument against any of the 'crap/stale' points i made,

Naths world:

Western Europe controlled by Fascist government (Nazis)
Middle East controlled by Nazis
All Jews outside US dead
Colonial rule in Africa
China and SE Asia ruled by Japanese Empire
Isolationist government in US trading with former enemies
Dictatorships galore in S.America
 
N

Nos-

Guest
ehahahehaha??//

After that bollocks Tom, nothing you say can be taken seriously, ever again.

Ever :/
 
N

nath

Guest
Xane.. Saddam Hussein is a monster, but as has been said before: if you honestly think that the US is going to war to ease the plight of the Iraqi people you're very very naive.


p.s. nos is right, you're a retard Tom.
 
D

dysfunction

Guest
Originally posted by nath
Xane.. Saddam Hussein is a monster, but as has been said before: if you honestly think that the US is going to war to ease the plight of the Iraqi people you're very very naive.


p.s. nos is right, you're a retard Tom.

They are just going there to steal all the black gold...:rolleyes:
 
Y

~YuckFou~

Guest
Latest pic from the battle front...



20.jpg
 
G

Gumbo

Guest
Originally posted by nath
if you honestly think that the US is going to war to ease the plight of the Iraqi people you're very very naive.

That may not be why they are going to war, but surely it's a good thing for the Iraqi people in the long run?
 
N

nath

Guest
Maybe so Dysfunction. I don't know, it becomes difficult to see the real reason because that's a matter of just guessing and seeing what fits. As for working out that America feeling guilty that they left the Iraqi people in the shit at Gulf War mk.1 and thus going back to help out the poor folks: well it's clear that's bullshit. You only have to read up about some of the policies that Bush has implemented to realise that the guy does *not* care for human beings whatsoever.


edit: Gumbo, well maybe. I often thought this war was a farce but if the end result is free Iraqi people then perhaps every cloud etc... After seeing (on Al'Jazeera) some Iraqi people (not soldiers) saying that they don't like saddam but would die for him if it meant not giving up an inch of their country to the US/UK.. I started to have doubts. Also, I've seen a fair few Iraqi folk marching in the protests who have family in Iraq. They say their family HATES saddam, but do not want a war. How can we justify it, if the people we're trying to liberate do not want it done this way?

Does the end justify the means? I very much think not.
 
G

Gumbo

Guest
It may be there are some Iraqis that marched and are against the war , but there are plenty too who are very much in favour of it, like the fella on that radio clip.

Apparently there are 2 million Iraqi exiles around the world who fled Saddams regime, we'll see I guess what the country is like in 5 years or so. I know that Afghanistan is a better place to live now then 3 years ago, unless of course you are Taliban or Al Qaeda.
 
X

xane

Guest
Originally posted by nath
if you honestly think that the US is going to war to ease the plight of the Iraqi people you're very very naive.

The US has made clear its objectives, to enforce a regime change and disarm Iraq, as per the conditions laid down by the UN Resolutions. You can speculate as much as you wish what will happen when that is complete, we have to see if they forfill those promises.

Everything depends on what is revealed at the end of this messy business, we may see WMD or their production facilities, we may see terrorist training camps, we may see mass graves, we may even see recent French and Russian military products, we may see many things, this "war" will continue way beyond when the fighting stops.

My view is best left till after this is over, but one thing is clear to me, if we leave Saddam in power then by the time we find out the above things are true, it may be too late.

On the other hand, maybe we find nothing. In which case we have to seriously question why Saddam took his country to war over the issue in the first place.
 
N

nath

Guest
We probably will find WOMD, he obviously wasn't disarming. My point is that I don't feel that this fact made war worthwhile. I didn't think he was enough of a danger to warrant it. 1441 was not a trigger for war, so breaching it is not an automatic excuse to bomb the shit out of him. After that you have to judge just how much of a risk you think he is, and whether it's worth ignoring the UN to deal with that risk.

As I've stated plenty of times, I truely think that Saddam was no risk to other countries. Simply because he's not stupid.

I've not mentioned the whole tyrant evil sod thing because I've noticed that this always gets brought up to counter the 1441 angle. I'd rather stick to one point for the moment and cover the madman thing later.
 
X

xane

Guest
Originally posted by nath
I didn't think he was enough of a danger to warrant it.


So the fact he has used WMD on his enemies, his own people and threatened to use them on forces ejecting him from Kuwait doesn't sway you ?

And you accuse me of being naive ?
 
N

nath

Guest
Those just suggest to me that he's a psychopath. I still think that he's very intelligent, and given the entire international community had it's eye on him, I think he'd be a fool to do anything. He's not a fool.


Oh, and the Kurds aren't his own people. (not that that makes it acceptable)
 
P

Perplex

Guest
Originally posted by nath
Oh, and the Kurds aren't his own people.

Amen to that. If I hear one more ignorant fuck call the Kurds 'his people' I'm going scream
 

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