655 000 killed
- Started
- Last post
- 194 Responses
- Cactus0
Hehe, your persistance (and absence of rancor) are very admirable, vespa.
Ritter has changed his opinion often on Iraq and is now singing the same defeatist tune about Iran. Blix was also decieved by Saddam during the 90's. The UN's "Oil for Food" program was a giant morass of corruption. The only reason there was any progress at all in gaining access to Iraq was because The Americans were massing troops on the border.
With this in mind how long do you think Iraq could have been "contained?"
- Cactus0
"It's pretty spurious comparing present day North Korea and Darfur to Iraq in 2003."
Why? You are against any sort of intervention. What are you ideas? What sort action would you take?
- vespa0
How was Ritter "defeatist"? The inspections he was leading were doing exactly what they were supposed to do: they were establishing whether or not there were WMDs, and they were successfully containing the "threat" of Iraq.
As you are asking, I think this policy of non-violent containment could have carried on indefinitely. Instead we now have a state of bloody carnage that is set to carry on indefinitely. Are you seriously saying that the latter option is better?
- vespa0
100th post in honour of General Richard Dannat, the head of the British army, who last night said that Britain must withdraw from Iraq soon or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society.
- Cactus0
Iraq is a bloody mess.
Iraq was a bloody mess before the invasion.
One can argue about the degree of which period is/was worse and who is to blame. But I think you paint an very rosy picture of the pre-war situation. You seem to have forgotten all the "dead and malnorished Iraqi babies" and the ongoing corruption at the UN. Kurdistan was a virtual American protectorate and southern Iraq had Allied warplanes involved in daily bombings because they were being shot at by Saddam's missile defence systems. He was paying for suicide bombings in Israel...
How long was this situation supposed to go on?
Indefinately?
I don't think so.
Again, Saddam was only giving ground on inspections because of American and British troops massing on his borders. As soon as they went away so would have the inspections.
- vespa0
well i'm glad you agree that it was an invasion.
i don't mean to paint a rosy pre-war picture. it was shit. but it is now shitter.
- Pak-Man0
It’s not about “intervention” and “non-intervention”. It’s about the use of war and violence. War and violence should be a last resort – not the default setting enshrined in a macho muscle-flexing ideology. “Intervention” is a nice way of saying it. What Iraq was/is subject(ed) to is war and occupation. Maybe you think that all global annoyances can be resolved with war and occupation – but I think uniquely different situations require uniquely different policies; with the use of violence and the ensuing chaos as a last resort.
- Cactus0
Please define 'last resort."
- vespa0
Please define 'last resort."
Cactus
(Oct 13 06, 04:54)when there are no other options. the containment option was actually working.
when the premise for proposed war mongering has been proven beyond doubt.
- Pak-Man0
All reports show that all of Iraq’s biological chemical weapons stockpile were destroyed after the first gulf war in 1990 – no other programme was resumed, even in the intervening 5 years after weapons inspectors left the country and the invasion of Iraq.
Saddam continued to masquerade his military might so as not to appear weak to Iran, with whom he had fought an 8 year US sponsored war.
All this was known to security experts and security services – that his military had a loud bark but no bite. Nevertheless tendentious evidence was used to falsely construe the case for war, with Saddam posing an imminent threat to global security, which did necessitate a “last resort” recourse to violence.
- Drno0
cactus you sound like a dry psychedelic plant,
stop licking yourself!!
thank you have a nice day
- Cactus0
Hmm...
That's odd. I seem to remember practically every intelligence service in the world, at the time, believed Saddam still possessed WMD. The question was not if, but what to do about it. But your retrospective view of it appears to be infallible.
Massive conspiracy, I suppose.
- pavlovs_dog0
" Iraq is a bloody mess.
Iraq was a bloody mess before the invasion "
lolz @ you!
really lolz....
there are always two solutions, a and b.
...one of these solutions is always absolutely right.
- pavlovs_dog0
Massive conspiracy, I suppose.
Cactus
(Oct 13 06, 05:32)lolz again...
saddam was faking to hold onto power and bush got played.
many weapons inspectors and the cia knew this. ....bushie didnt want to hear that.
- pavlovs_dog0
and yea, iraq was headed for a civil war...
but now the can blame the u.s!
and we paid for it!
agian, bush played like a toy.
- Cactus0
Here come the experts.
Cactus is going home to "lick himself."
out
- vespa0
Actually British intelligence didn't believe that at all. It was just presented that way by Tony Blair and Colin Powell.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp…
Have you already forgotten about the Dodgy Dossier?
- mr_snuggles0
If there were more slides, nobody would mind, sliding, even if it's to your own death, would probably be fun...
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
- Concrete0
vespa said what I was going to say.
Cactus, have you ever heard of a saying 'don't believe everything you read in the papers?'