Fahrenheit 9/11

Re: What the....?

Ok you're scaring me now. You're not a stalker by any chance are you? If not please stay out of this thread, I'm actually enjoying the debate, no matter how retarded you (or anyone else for that matter) thinks it is.

 

Re: What the....?

i think the reason you're enjoying it so much is because you're borderline trolling. i don't know if you're doing it consciously or if you're geniunely stupid. you've ignored virtually all questions to you, ignored all counter-points, and have done nothing but misdirect and/or change the parameters of the argument. you've been mostly civil (which i think you do just to give yourself a false sense of class) but at this point that does little to separate your jabbering from outright trolling.

 

Re: What the....?

It's extremely difficult responding properly to four or five people all arguing from the opposite side of the fence. Then to top-it there's the clown Shang screaming constantly in the background for a bit of attention with no interest in the thread whatsoever.

I'm trying to keep the discussion on the rails as I find many of the points rasied interesting, and have read every piece of data posted on the thread, including your article.

 

Re: What the....?

I'm done with you. Instead of going out and looking at the information that's out there, you just sit back and say, 'Maybe this is why....because this way it fits in with my view of what happened." You don't bother finding facts to support your opposing viewpoints. You just turn your head, close your eyes, cover your ears, and stride blithely in front of a train.

 

Re: What the....?

I thought I made a reasonable attempt at answering your question.

What more do you want? The points I raised in relation to Libya are correct - it has been trying for 10 years to get back into the international community, unlike Iraq. It's admitted acts of terrorism and compensated the families of victims. Moreover, unlike Saddam Hussein, Gaddaffi has kept an open dialog with the west over the last decade.

You sound pissed that your long-whinded fact-o-file post can so easily be countered with opposing facts and views.

 

You are a fucking moron. Bush won the Election fair and square. get over it. Micheal Moore is an idiotic socialist conspiracy theorist. Just becuase you and him are too stupid to understand the reasons the President, the entire Congress and Senate, and many other countries decided to declare war on Saddam and finaly get his ass out of power, doesn't mean it was done for oil or any of that nonsense.

Vote Bush 2004

 

I suppose you hate "filthy faggots", "negroes", and "non-christians" too? Hey, we can all stereotype the other side...

And considering most wacko conspiracy theorists are right-wingers who deeply, truly believe Clinton was actually Satan incarnate and the UN and Freemasons control us all, well, it's pretty dumb to call moore a theorist.

Many other countries, too, meaning countries too wussy to stand up for what their people believe in. Japan supported the war but the JP people sure as fuck didn't want it, I know, I lived there when that shit was goin' on down.

 

Re: What the....?

One Honest Adviser: An Imaginary Playlet:

Date: September 12, 2001
Scene: The Oval Office.
Characters: President George W. Bush and an Imaginary Honest Adviser.

George Bush: Boy, that was scary. Let’s invade someone.

Imaginary Honest Adviser: Yes, sir, but who?

GB: Well, who did it?

IHA: We’re not certain, sir, but we think it was Al Qaida.

GB: They couldn’t have done it alone. Who helped them?

IHA: Well sir, most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and the regime there has been a big help. They received extensive help from over the years from the Pakistan military and security services. Oh, and it turns out that the Iranians have been helping as well.

GB: Hmm, any of those regimes planning on going nuclear anytime soon? That would really be scary.

IHA: Sir, that would be Iran and Pakistan.

GB: Any of ‘em democracies?

IHA: Nope.

GB: OK, Let me get this straight. The Saudis are anti-democratic and help the terrorists who attacked us. The Iranians and the Pakistanis are anti-democratic, help the terrorists who attacked us, and have either acquired or are about to acquire nuclear weapons.

IHA: Yes sir.

GB: Great. Let’s invade Iraq.

The End.

By Eric Alterman


The latest on the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal: Sy Hersh of the New Yorker magazine recently told an audience that there are video tapes of American soldiers sodomizing Iraqi children in front of their mothers. The mothers then wrote letters to their husbands who were being held elsewhere, asking them to come and kill them after what they had seen.

These are horrible crimes and we have to hope that the people responsible will be brought to justice. When Bush and Rumsfeld signed documents allowing the military to ignore laws prohibiting torture, they set the stage for this. Bush and co. have done a great job dehumanizing “the enemy,†depicting them as the embodiment of all evil, haters of freedom,etc. We see the fruits of their propaganda, fear-mongering, and artful avoidance of anti-torture laws. This was tragically predictable and avoidable. Have the people in charge gone insane?

 

Re: What the....?

I’m sorry, but for someone who says so much and questions other people’s intelligence, you’re pretty dumb yourself.

All the countries you mention - Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have slowly been undergoing political reform for many years. Iran and Pakistan have elected civilian presidents. Iran also has relative freedom of press and Pakistan was only recently (1999) come under military rule after a breakdown in popularity for the elected government. In other words, comparing them to Iraq is pure ignorance.

Saudi Arabia, while led by a ruling class of princes and monarchs is also undergoing rapid change, and the general population want more democratic rights, which the government is slowly adapting to. Again, comparing it to Iraq is stupid.

Iraq used to be one of the most prosperous countries in the middle-east before Saddam's ruling Bath party took over and in the space a several years engaged to two wars against neighbours, resulting in political sanctions that reduced the life of its populace to misery.

Even after the first set of sanction were imposed Saddam continued to develop chemical weapons in the 90s (even though his people were starving) and threw inspectors out, which prompted strikes against targets in Baghdad.

Can't any of you anti-war people at least acknowledge that this action will benefit the people of Iraq? Opinion polls suggest the majority of Iraqi's lives have improved, wages have tripled and religious and political freedom have been restored.

So basically, while you waggle your political cocks in the air and search for contradictions and false hood please spare a thought for the Iraqi people.

I think some of you need to leave your arm-chairs and see HOW OTHER PEOPLE LIVE. I've biked through two communist countries in my time (Vietnam and Cuba) and travelled through India and seen poverty you couldn’t imagine. These countries are so rife with political corruption and back-stabbing they'd make you realise how relatively honest our own governments are, and how valuable our own liberties are.

 

Re: What the....?

Have you ever stopped to think that most of the misery of the Iraqis over the last few years was caused by inhumane, unfairly cruel (and decidedly un-Christian, having been primarily supported by a [har har] "Christian" country) economic sanctions? (The same things which are causing needless poverty and suffering in the otherwise lively and beautiful little island nation of Cuba, BTW.) You know, the ones practically everyone but the US and UK were against?

Apparently you're as ignorant about the state of the world as you are about the videogame industry - holding blindly to your beliefs that somebody fed you, even when all kinds of knowledgable folks tell you otherwise.

And I've done my fair share of travel, thank you.

 

Re: What the....?

Yes... however the US didn't have the backing of many of our allies, and went in without training the soldiers properly on how to work with the Iraqi people so that a positive image of the US could be maintained.

The US went in full force and killed many civilians. They did free the people from Saddam, who I don't think was a great guy. But there are plenty of nations throughout the world with horrible conditions like Iraq, and with dictators that starve their people. Look at North Korea, broadcasting their weapons programs while putting sawdust in their people's rations. There are lots of nations that are poor in this world. The US was not on a philanthropic mission. If that were the case, we’d be storming a lot more countries and knocking off many more horrible dictators. We’re there because we want to control the resources there. That’s the reason, as much as we go on and on with our rhetoric about ‘terrorist killers’, ‘Axis of Evil’, ‘liberating the Iraqi people’.

Yes, the conditions of the Iraqi people will most likely be better in the long run. However, our methodology leaves much to be desired. We've barged into the area like a raging bull, bombing everything in our path, killing many civilians (and torturing others), and consequently a lot of anti-US sentiment has proliferated throughout the region. We lacked finesse, timing, and proper planning. The government lied to the people (or just grossly misstated the amount of money it would take to 'take care' of Iraq), used 9/11 as a springboard for promoting the war against Iraq, and didn't wait for enough international support.

Saddam may have become a threat in the future, but he wasn't an imminent threat: he wasn't bombing the US, the connections between Iraq and the 9/11 tragedy are flimsy at best, and honestly, the guy was mainly a danger to his own people, not to us.

As an American, I'm afraid for my future and the future of my loved ones in the US. We are not invincible, attacks will happen and more people will die. I don't know how the US can repair the damage done by our actions in the Middle East; our reputation and ‘face’ has been really tarnished. However, Bush doesn’t really give a damn about our reputation outside of the US. That scares the hell out of me. That whole, lone, cowboy alone in the world crap will kill us in the end...

On Michael Moore: I think that he sensationalizes things a little too much, and he stretches things a little bit. I wish he wouldn’t do these things, as it does make Liberals look bad. I also didn’t like that he exploited that woman’s grief. However, if he gets people thinking, discussing, and talking about the war, the reasons for it, and the politics behind it, I think it’s a good thing. Not the best vehicle for democrats, but a good eye-opener.

I recommend that everyone who’s seen the movie should look at some of the conservative criticisms of the movie, if only to get a picture of both sides.

Maximum, I understand where you’re coming from, but do the ends justify the means? Ask yourself that question.

Oh, and please don’t say ‘war is human nature’ and all that bullshit. Aren’t we trying to advance as a civilization as time goes on? Why should war be the answer?

Sorry for the length.

 

Oil

[ QUOTE ]
MAXIMUM said:
I think some of you need to leave your arm-chairs and see HOW OTHER PEOPLE LIVE. I've biked through two communist countries in my time (Vietnam and Cuba) and travelled through India and seen poverty you couldn’t imagine. These countries are so rife with political corruption and back-stabbing they'd make you realise how relatively honest our own governments are, and how valuable our own liberties are.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm glad you traveled. I think first-hand experience outweighs lots of things. I don't like your last sentence. So what if other governments are worse than ours? That's no reason to excuse how our government behaves. I don't think anyone is questioning our liberties - except the people who enforced the Patriot Act.

I think it's great that we captured Saddam. Too bad we don't allow ourselves to just assassinate heads of state, though. No, we won't do that. We have to fucking bomb your whole country instead.

Oil.

 

Re: Oil

[ QUOTE ]
Plague said:

I think it's great that we captured Saddam. Too bad we don't allow ourselves to just assassinate heads of state, though. No, we won't do that. We have to fucking bomb your whole country instead.

Oil.

[/ QUOTE ]

The CIA and other special forces have been trying to covertly assassinate Saddam Hussein for years and years. In fact before the recent war broke out over 100 CIA operatives were undercover in Iraq trying to raise enough intelligence to attempt an assassination.

Unfortunately due to the grip of fear Saddam had over his cabinet virtually no intelligence was available. He routinely executed members of his cabinet and family who he suspected to be plotting against him.

 

Re: Oil

Ahh, so you mean that even though the US government is under an agreement to not commit assassinations and such, we were trying to anyways?

That's just as comforting as anything else I've heard yet.

 

Re: Oil

Why do you think we attacked without waiting for the weapons inspectors to finish their work? Why did Bush keep saying afterward that Saddam never let them (weapons inspectors) in the country, when it was his invasion that made them pull out before they could confirm absolutely that saddam had no WMD?

 

Re: Oil

I already answered this. The ONLY reason weapons inspectors were allowed back was when tens of thousands of US and British troops were mobilised and parked across the border in Kuwait. What does that say about his respect for the UN or weapons inspections?

Prior to this he’d already broken resolution 1441 multiple times and the argument was then over the wording of the resolution. Did “serious consequences†imply force or something else?

 

Re: Oil

I know you're busy, but do you have anything to say in reply to my post, Maximum?

You kind of have been ignoring posts like mine that were earlier in the thread. I think this is one of the reasons people are calling you out and insulting you (which I don't feel is necessary).

I was just curious if you could pick apart my arguement in any way. I always like to rethink my position and solidify it if I can, or change it if it doesn't lend itself well to factual information.

 

Re: Oil

Sorry I didn't reply specifically. I thought your post was pretty balanced overall. You said many things I agree with.

I never said America's excecution was perfect, or even good. I agree - it was a shame a UN resolution wasn't passed before we went to war, but that was never going to materialise because permanent member states France, Germany and Russia decided to veto every resolution proposed by US and UK in the run up to war.

I also think US troops were not properly trained for handling northern Iraq. They don't have the same experience as peace-keepers as European troops, particularly the British from their engagements in Northern Ireland. The worse thing the US ever did was disband the Iraqi army and police once they moved on Bahgdad, creating the security vacume we now have. That was stupid, but then mistakes will happen in an opperation that complex.

As for the question of other countries who pose a threat to security and who brutalise their people, I think a few of these countries were mentioned in my last post. None of the countries mentioned are comparable to Iraq however. North Koreais another communist state. Unfortunately it also has a number of nuclear weapons, so tackling it is slightly more dangerous than Iraq. However, Kim Il-sung has come to the debating table and engaged in talks. South Korea is also applying allot of pressure for change.

As for if the means justify the end, I think so. The Iraqi people are now free, Saddam can no longer develop WMD programmes, and deomcracy in Iraq could be a catalyst for accelerated change in countries like Iran or even Saudi Arabia. And by change, I don't mean the "evil" westernising of the middle-east, I mean basic human rights and political freedom.

The other thing that's emerged from the conflict in Iraq is how utterly extreme these fundamentalist groups are. They've travelled into Iraq via Iran and Jordan solely to disrupt the lives of Iraqi people. The recent behadings by Jamaat al-Tawhid have not only disgusted the west, but also neighboring arab states.

 

Re: Oil

[ QUOTE ]
MAXIMUM said:

[ QUOTE ]
Plague said:

I think it's great that we captured Saddam. Too bad we don't allow ourselves to just assassinate heads of state, though. No, we won't do that. We have to fucking bomb your whole country instead.

Oil.

[/ QUOTE ]

The CIA and other special forces have been trying to covertly assassinate Saddam Hussein for years and years. In fact before the recent war broke out over 100 CIA operatives were undercover in Iraq trying to raise enough intelligence to attempt an assassination.

Unfortunately due to the grip of fear Saddam had over his cabinet virtually no intelligence was available. He routinely executed members of his cabinet and family who he suspected to be plotting against him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Intresting, you have ANY credible source that can back you up on this?

 

Re: Oil

Hrm. Let's see. What's the total cost of our Iraq invasion? Which would have been more expensive - offering $20 billion for Saddam's head, or invading Iraq?

The life of the people in Iraq may be better. In twenty years. If the leader we put in power doesn't start a murderous crackdown in order to solidify his power and doesn't nationalize all the companies that we've helped to establish in the country, putting all of the profits into his pocket. Oh, that will never happen, you say. Ever hear of Panama? How about Iran? Haiti? Cuba? Liberia? The Phillipines? Does the term "President for Life" ring a bell to you? That title comes from a country that was once a democracy. What about Germany after World War I?

Good god. Don't you know ANY history, Maximum?

Hell, we'd be better off just annexing the country or declaring it a protected territory - at least then all the blood that has been shed would be for the good of both America and Iraq. The people would stand a chance of the new government working, because we wouldn't be abandoning it.

As it is, ten years or so after we withdraw from it, there will be a military coup over there. The people we put in power are only going to be grateful as long as we're sending money, and they're going to make lots of enemies in the country while catering to the US. Then one of two situations occurs .

(A) Someone comes along, and rallies the opposing factions and has significant control of the military. Poof, there goes the government we've been supporting. We now have a hostile government back in power - except the people over there hate us even more than they did before we invaded. This is basically how Hitler got into power.

(B) We stop sending money, and the person allies himself with the more powerful factions in his country. He eradicates and suppresses the other factions as quickly as feasible to maintain his power to prevent being ousted. If he's truly strong, he turns on his allied factions at that point and eliminates them as well. Viva la Cuba! President for Life Castro! Hrm... isn't this how Hussein got in power in the first place? Bah. Let's not worry about that.

If we had invaded to stay, it might work. We're not. We'll be out in ten years. As long as you support a government you have installed, it will last. When you withdraw support, it will collapse, because it's not strong enough to stand on its own. The people are not strong enough nor determined enough to stand up to those who want to take it away from them. You can make them strong enough, but who watches the watchers?

In Iraq, we're going up against people who have lived under the shadow of death their entire life, and we're threatening them with the Comfy Chair. They're laughing at our attempts. They are fighting no holds barred, and we're fighting by Olympic rules with boxing gloves on. This revolutionary war is easier for them than fighting Saddam was. We're just spotlighting targets for them when we put people in power, and we aren't cracking down on them as hard as the former government was. It's a holiday for them.

History has shown that you can do what we're trying to do in Iraq, but you have to be absolutely inhumane and merciless about it - worse than the government you replaced, worse than any terrorist group ever dreamed of being. You have to make everyone afraid of being associated with anyone who would do anything that could invite retribution.

While the people of Iraq may like the improvements that are coming, the 2% of the country that wants power is working to obtain it, and we cannot stop them with what we're doing. If a hundred men without guns want something but aren't willing to die for it, one man with a gun can prevent them from getting it. That's the part of human nature we're going up against in Iraq. People over there aren't willing to die for this freedom, but people over there are willing to die to take it away from them. Our soldiers are over there to prevent this. What's going to happen when we leave?

Oh, yeah, the government's army will stop this. The army that is going to have that same 2% of the people in it. Unless you think in a war shattered country we can keep track of a hundred thousand people when we can't keep track of immigrants in our own much more modernized country. Unless you think we can prevent people who hate the US, and hate the people that have worked with the US, spit on our shadow and salt the ground that we walk on, from getting into the army. People who have lost family to stray bullets or shells. People who have had their entire life destroyed by this war, or by some law we put into place. People who hate their neighbor because he has a different accent than they do, or has a different colored skin, but are forced to tolerate him because of laws we have put into place. People who hate the fact that their neighbor's daughter is learning to read, that she doesn't cover her face when she walks outside the door. You think we can keep all of these people out of positions of power without running the entire country ourselves? You think we can get these people to turn in neighbors who think this way and plot revenge against the US and the 'puppet government' when their entire neighborhood was bombed to the ground in the war?

There's no enemy to protect these people against - the US is now the enemy. Facts: We invaded. We're fighting and killing Iraqis. We put sanctions in place that did very little against their leader, but lowered the standard of living in the country for 15 years. We have provisional control over the country's economy and production. We're putting people in power that we want in power. Our invasion was based on at best hazy information and at worst outright lies. How easy would it be for a revolutionary faction to recruit with these facts?

Those people aren't going to look at the US and say, "Gee, you people are pretty nice for getting rid of Saddam." They'll look at their government and thank it for the reforms that it implements with US money. They'll look at their cousin who is missing a leg and spit when they think of the US.