I certainly have no objection to people discussing political issues here.

What does bug me a bit is lazy intellectualism. People who believe that pithy statements are a substitute for a real argument.

Examples:
"The US sold Iraq weapons in the 80s.." And? The US did trade with Germany in the 30s. The US GAVE weapons to the Soviet Union in the 40s.

"Corporations run the world." And the evidence for this? None. It also, IMO, displays a certain lack of knowledge on history. You want to compare corporate control of governments today to what it was in say 1900? No comparison. But it seems lke some people feel it makes them look enlightened to say that kind of thing. Of course, the're usually the same people who think that war on Iraq is about oil..

"The US just wants Iraq's OILLL.." Iraq's GNP is 24 billion. Iraq isn't worth nearly enough to cover the cost of a war. It isn't about oil anymore than liberating France was about French wine (which incidentally is worth probably in the same neighborhood as Iraqi oil).

People can throw double standards around all day. It solves nothing.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this - Iraq is lead by a horrible dictator who is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Most observers agree that Saddam's redirection of the oil for food program costs at least 20,000 lives each year, mostly n children. He has violated 17 UN resolutions. The last of which explicitly states serious consequences if he did not IMMEDIATELY disarm. Iraq is located in the center of an area that keeps cranking out terrorists. Terrorists who have received financial support from Saddam (such as suicide bombers in Israel whose familiars are paid by Saddam).

History has shown that military action does NOT create more worldwide terrorism. The same thing was said in 1991. Additionally, despite the horrific human costs of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, you do not see terrorists from those countries.

Just because someone says something does't make it true. Just because someone says doing X will create more terrorism doesn't mean its true. Especially when history has shown the opposite to be true.

And the bottom line is, that's why it chaffes me when I read some debates on this subject. The Internet is a great equalizer. It allows people who have (obsessively) studied up on this thing over the years to talk to people whose knowledge on the subject is little more than buzz words and witty remarks in the absence of a coherent argument. Whether you agree with the war on Iraq or not, the anti-war protests, based on their signs, seem to be completely devoid of any knowledge on what these issues are about. And the same can be said of many debates on the Internet (on both sides).

Everybody believes what he wants and listens to who he wants to listen. That's why there are wars in the first place, and people to support them.

War has always been about economics. This one is no different and remember "the first casualty of war is truth".

Amen.

I simply couldn't be bothered to read the bulk of stuff said here already, because I'm sure the majority of it comes down to the usual patriotic nonsense mixed with a lack of political knowledge.

One comment that did stand out on my way through though was this:

'If we destroy Iraq, that's one less place for Bin Laden to hide.'

This strikes me as a typically American point of view. My apologies to all the Americans here, but you have to admit there's a certain lack of common sense throughout the US Military.

I disagree with this war. Not because I think Saddam Hussein is anything better than the monster we know him to be, but because of the need to make up 'excuses' to go to war. I'm sick of George Bush using terrorism as an excuse for military action.

My one enduring memory of recent weeks will be of a news broadcast I sat through one night. After a long report on the impending war and the discussion about how George Bush is trying to disarm a dangerous nation of all it's weapons of mass destruction, the news moved on to the proud unveiling of the world's biggest man-made bomb. An American bomb. A weapon of mass destruction.

Maybe we should be paying more attention to disarming the real global threat - America.

I definitely agree that it makes no sense to argue that going after Iraq decreases places for terrorists to hide.

Similarly, it makes no sense to argue that the US is a "global" threat.

20 thousand kids a year...350.000 Iraqi's killed by the allies during the gulfwar in a few months...lets see...that's about 17,5 years until that total is reached. I know I know, I have to stay out of this. But I just couldn't resist to put some other figures against it.

If the US can go against the UN whenever they disagree, then I'd certainly consider them a global threat. It seems to me that at this moment in time, the US can accuse any nation of being involved with terrorism and attack them at will. What exactly is this fantastic new bomb of theirs designed for anyway? Peace?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-American in the grand scheme of things. I'm just very heavily against any US government with a Military man as it's President. The President is supposed to be a wise individual who is skilled at diplomacy and strives for peace. I consider George W Bush to be an ignorant, warmongering man with almost no redeeming features. So I guess I'm just anti-Bush, and anti-war. If those two things can be considered mutually exclusive.

Bush has very little experience in foreign diplomacy

Lecrayon: where did you get your numbers? The count etimates vary, depending who is doing the counting and what they include, like postwar casualties. Also, the Gulf War lasted a little over a month. Not a few months.

Lecrayon: According to most sources, around 28,000 people died during the Gulf War of which around 3,000 were civilian.

Grayhaze: France is currently in the Ivory Coast and had gone down there without UN Approval. China conquered Tibet not so long ago, also without the UN. And Russia is currently engaged in a pretty nasty campaign in Chechyna.

While we're at it, Serbia was attacked by NATO without UN support. I might point out that Serbia, the direct cause for World War I, was an ally of Russia and Russia very strongly did not want NATO intervening there.

The US has 17 UN resolutions behind it supporting its actions on Iraq. Resolution 1441 explicitly stated immediate disarmament or it would face serious consequences (diplomatic speak for war). The US, UK, Spain, Poland, and countless other countries that support US action have the UN behind it.

I don't personally consider France's permission on anything to be relevant. And France is the only reason why there wasn't a second resolution explicitly authorizing force.

It really bothers me when people make these anti-American comments. Not just because I'm an American but because they seem to ignore the logical progression of what would occur. Let's say that everyone agreed with you Grayhaze. That the US is a dangerous world threat. What do you propose? Attack the US? Is that what you are suggesting? That maybe you should pick up a gun fly over here and start shooting us? Do you see how I might take that a little personally?

The United States is a democracy. In the weekend CNN poll, 71% of Americans favor military action in Iraq even WITHOUT a second UN resolution. One can't just say "Oh Bush, that damn cowboy, he's leading American down the path to hell.." He has the support of the super majority of Americans including me. You may not agree with that position but to start arguing that the US is the real threat completely ignores real peril that exists in the world today. I mean, how can anyone here talk about the US as being an evil entity while posting on an American website using the Internet that is largely powered by the US.

Are we not all, to various degrees here, friends? Let's not be so quick to equate the United States with Iraq or some other country whose people don't have the freedoms that many here seem to be forgetting.

thankyou....

Yeah, Spain. They (or their leaders) are sure very lucky to play a role in world politics now. I wonder if Aznar has a brown neck already. Sorry, I couldn't hold. Who cared for Spains opinion on any events before this crisis ? And all that eastern states like Poland ? Well, it is pretty obvious what their interntions are.

Grayhaze, the US didn't get UN approval for action in Bosnia and Kosovo. Kofi Annan didn't seem to have a problem with that then. Although the stated policy of pre-emption certainly gives other nations pause. And the US likely would have qualms about another nation adopting such a policy. North Korea, for example.

The previous UN resolutions and peace terms for Iraq could be viewed as authorizing action against Iraq now. The UN inspectors recently found arms still laying around that had been scheduled for destruction back when the inspectors were kicked out in '98. They hadn't been destroyed. I find it difficult to believe that Saddam would go ahead and destroy other more lethal stuff while the inspectors were gone. And as the current crop of inspectors noted, he has not provided the accounts to support his contention that they were destroyed. Under the terms of the UN resolutions it is up to him to provide proof and records that he destroyed his stockpiles of WMD, not for the inspectors to play hide and seek. Although I don't believe the current action is simply motivated by the Bush's administration's desire to enforce the previous UN resolutions.

An interesting Newsweek article which I believe DavidK earlier referenced:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/885222.asp?0cv=KA01&cp1=1

What I don't understand is how almost everyone highly distrust their governement in general, how the word "government" is almost synonym to corruption and hypocrity is "normal" times. But when the US government talks of war, all of the sudden, government speeches start to be believable and endorsable. How come does a distrustful government start being "right" as soon as the topic is not about internal affairs but of international scope?

Not everyone does believe that, Paxx. If it hadn't been for Sept 11 I doubt you'd see what support there is in the US for armed intervention elsewhere.

America knows for sure that Iraq ha posession of weapons of mass destruction, he even admitted 2 the fact that he did. But i has recently been saying he 'got rid of them.' Yet there is no proof to act as bulwark on his claims. And Saddam isnt exactly the kinda person one would trust that is why we are going to war.

SADDAM wont bomb us, but the fear is that he will let his weapons out the back door to terrorist groups, thereby allowing them to bomb us and allowing them to take the heat for his actions. In reality Saddam doesnt have the kind of weapons where he can just push a button and say bu-bye to washington, his weapons dont have that kind of range. But on the other hand this can turn into a huge war involving SEVERAL middle-eastern countries it's quite simple why. In the middle east not too many countries like Iraq, but however mush they hate Iraq they hate Israel 10 times worse, this is why the USA believe saddam will unleash his weapons on Israel in hopes they will retaliate (its happened once) thereby getting all those countries that despise israel on his side, which wont be very pretty. When you think about it, its scary!

But some say that the North Koreans are years ahead of Iraq and that Bush is niglecting to worry about them.

Then again, ordinary civilians were the targets in Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that's not out of line with US policy. - wombat_1

destruction of the homeland and civilian populace is what happens when your irresponsible government loses a war but won't protect its people by surrendering.
We could have invaded Japan, and fought across the islands village by village, town by town, street by street, house by house, completely destroying the infrastructure of the country and killing an estimated 1.3 - 2 million civilians in the process, but we chose not to be vindictive.

Sig: Precisely.

I don't trust governments, including our own. In fact, Americans distrust governments including their own that the US government is one of the weakest ones in history in terms of its power to act.

That's why the US can't get involved with things like Kyoto or the International criminal court. It has nothing to do with who is president, it has to do with the fact that the US government does not have the ability to actually enter into such agreements because it is so weak.

Compare the US constitution with the proposed one for the EU and the differences are striking. Basically, in the US form of government, if the constitution doesn't explicitly give the government the ability to do something, it can't do it. The EU is the opposite.

That isn't saying that one path is better than another. It's just that the US government can't actually do very much. Even on defense, the US couldn't do what it is going to do in Iraq without congressional approval and that meant going through BOTH houses of congress. Blair, by contrast, can order military action when he feels like it. Sure, he can get kicked out of power but not until after he's done the deed. In the US, it's the other way around. Once Bush got congressional approval he pretty much needs nothing else. The next election is't for 2 years.

Which is why I take such comments about howthe US is a threat personally. The only way the US could go on some nightmare like rampage would be if congress authorized it. And the only way congress would authorize it is if they had the support of most citizens because congressional elections are held very often. Therefore, major foreign policy decisions of the United States reflect the will of the people. If you don't like what the US is doing in Iraq, don't blame Bush. Blame the American people. They support it. They authorized it. Their representatives in congress explicitly authorized it.

By contrast, the US couldn't, as some of the more...creative posts here imagined, go and invade Belgium in the name of preemption without congressional support which would mean most Americans would have to support such a move and that's not going to happen.

People are posting from countries with parliamentary forms of government just don't seem to understand how weak the US goverment is in terms of actually doing anything. They really seem to think that things like the ICC and Kyoto or whatever have something to do with Bush. Presidents have nothing to do with treaties for instance, it's up to the senate (senate voted down kyoto 95-0 during the Clinton admin. though based on what some Europeans write, you'd think this was somehow Bush's fault, like he had a time machine or something).

Let me be succinct: Even after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, it took the US longer to declare war on Japan than it took Britain to declare war On Japan in defense of us. And without that declaration of war, Roosevelt couldn't have done squat about Japan.

The citizens fo the United States have historically not trusted governmnets. It's as simple as that. And so when they devised our constitution, they made it so that the US government couldn't do much outside a handful of very specific things. Just because a few hysterical people run around making claims about the US or point to some extremely isolated anomaly in behavior doesn't change this reality.

Do you think that if even france's humble military came to Iraq's aid that we would engage them? Do you think we would face the russian or chinese military in our quest for Saddam?

If the dissenting UN nations wanted to stop the US from attacking, they could, easily. If the world felt as strongly as it claims, there would be no end to the human shields and military support flowing into Iraq, instead of the hordes of antsy bureaucrats fleeing, and everyone else calculating their profit. Saddam Hussein and his government *must* be gotten rid of, and all the side-conflict is about is how much profit will be made for which nations in the process.

RESTATING my point about Hiroshima and Germany, since no one seemed to read/understand it.

Whether it was two bombs in Japan or tens of thousands on Germany is irrelevant. The causalities were unheard of in both nations.

Did we invade Germany house-to-house, reserving our supposed cowardess for Japan? No, we bombed them into oblivion, too. We bombed infrastructure with all the civilian population using it. We bombed all kinds of military manufacturing, and who do you think made boots and mess kits for the german army... elves? No, they had their Rosie the Riveter as well.

People feel justified for what the Allies did in Germany because they feel deeply the evils that the Nazi government committed. They either don't remember, or don't care about the equally evil, and equally destructive, acts that the Japanese government undertook at the same time. To feel justified for our acts in Germany, and ashamed for our acts in Japan is both ignorant and racist, imho. We should weep for both, for both were horrendous, necessary acts caused by evil governments bent on racial warfare.

This is relevant to the Iraq situation because the most vocal dissenting UN members have a long history of economically imperialist, anti-semitic, racist policies. I suggest anyone who brings up the history of the middle east and southeast asia as arguments against war take a hard look at france's history there.

Im really beginning to dislike france. They are one of the five countries that have veto power over any resolution. And they have already said that they will veto any resolution involving a military act. Earlier people thought this was because they were 'peacemakers' but now new research is showing that France has many buisnesses in Iraq and passing a resolution involving military action would cost them a great deal of cash.

when i say veto power and 'resolutions' i am referring to the un

I want to reclarify what I said before. I am in no way anti-American. I even lived in the States for a few months, and I'd love to return to live permenantly. My comments about what the 'Americans' and the 'US' are doing are meant to imply the US Government, and are in no way meant to be referring to the people of the country.

I can't comment on how the citizens of America feel about military action, as I am not one myself. However, here in the UK we are constantly being told how the majority of the population of both the US and UK are against a war. So if what Frogboy says is true, and over 70% of US citizens are in favour of war, then we're obviously being fed misinformation.

I can tell you that there is an extremely high majority of people here in the UK who condemn going to war completely. We have government ministers resigning all over the place because they don't want the war to happen in their names. I would bet the contents of my bank account on Tony Blair not being re-elected.

So it's not just France who don't want this war. Unlike here, they just seem to be lead by a man who listens to his country. I also wouldn't pay too much attention to anything you're being told about French economic interests in Iraq. In the eyes of the US media, France is bad because they disagree with Bush. They'll tell you anything to get you to agree.

Those people who committed that horrific act on Sept 11th have more to answer for than they could ever have imagined. They haven't furthered their cause, they've just given the US government a ticket to declare war on anyone they have past grudges against, and given them a way to gain the agreement of their citizens to any such action. I bet if Bush addressed the nation live on TV and told them that Bin Laden had been sighted in the UK and that there were people here directly involved in 9/11, then the result would be the same. It's just an excuse.

Bakerstreet: Frankly, I'm not sure the point of your point. The firebombing of German cities IIRC inflicted more casualties than the A bombs on Japan. The particular horror of course was that the A bomb was a qualitatively different weapon with radiation and the consequences. And it was widely publicized. After the war, again IIRC, most Americans at least were not aware of the firebombing of Dresden and other cities and its results.

As for who was working in the munitions plants and factories, no doubt there were civilians, but also there were forced slave labor from the concentration camps. Hence the reparations some German companies are still paying out today.

As for the present, if the US did not care to minimize civilian casualties it could easily undertake that sort of destruction with conventional dumb weapons which are far cheaper than the smart bombs, etc.

As for hypocrisy and nations' pasts and presents, well of course. As for the UN, Libya is the Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and Iraq is to chair the UN Conference on Disarmament. Iraq's co-chair for that conference is Iran.