Official 'War on Iraq' - thread

[Flying Dutchman]

Originally posted by lucky9
if living in europe, i'd understand the attractiveness of not having to speak german or russian. mind you, both countries have good and bad points...the best point is that they lost their wars, the ones that that happened '39-'45. and till the late 20th century.

Check your history book. Only germany lost.

This thread makes me sick. I was going to write a long post about the errors that gawron keeps making but then I realized that this is just too stupid. I am not going to change his mind, he is not going to change my mind. Its quite pointless.

I am going to somewhat quote the computer from the movie wargames:

"What a futile game, the only winning move is not to play"

I dont think anyone here should talk about the troops in Iraq and their decisions and hardships. Until you have strapped on a leather pair of army boots and shared the same hardships of battle, then your words only mock and disrespect their brave deeds.

I dont think anyone here should talk about the troops in Iraq and their decisions and hardships. Until you have strapped on a leather pair of army boots and shared the same hardships of battle, then your words only mock and disrespect their brave deeds.

Well said.
It's so pathetic to see ignorant people trying to use such tragic circumstances to further their own pointless political agenda.
There are many very good and dedicated people giving up their lives for their country, their comrads and their beliefs. I dare say that few, if any, of the participants here have even a fraction of the conviction needed to do that. On the US/British side, all are volunteers, on the Iraqi side most are forced into service. Neither situation is good or desirable. Dead is dead, either way.
But at a time when so many are dying, this sort of display is worse than sad, it's sick. Show some respect for the lives being sacrificed and save the "discussion" for another time.
Some participants here think it's amusing to try to stir things up, to see how upset they can get others. I think the term is "troll".
Pretty sad.

[gawron]

This thread makes me sick. I was going to write a long post about the errors that gawron keeps making but then I realized that this is just too stupid. I am not going to change his mind, he is not going to change my mind. Its quite pointless.

The problem is that we use a different amount of sources. You rely on proud (which is hardly a source of information) and on CNN, while I rely on more than one and try to combine it to one. You are not willing to follow any news which contradicts your opinion, and you probably are not even able to (lingually i mean).

I am going to somewhat quote the computer from the movie wargames:
"What a futile game, the only winning move is not to play"

In this particular case, maybe no one would win by not playing.

I dont think anyone here should talk about the troops in Iraq and their decisions and hardships.

Why not? Because you cannot deny that it's harder for them than you like?

Until you have strapped on a leather pair of army boots and shared the same hardships of battle, then your words only mock and disrespect their brave deeds.

lol. I have described under which circumstances and against which enemy they achieve something. And you call that "disrespect" and "mock"? Well, maybe you didn't see that because you forgot to read before replying...

I must admit: If I only got CNN propaganda, I would certainly think the very same way as you...so it works well. And since anyone who reports a different opinion looses his job, they will continue to be so effective...

Either you want to learn both sides, and get more information. Then you must get them from N24 and TV5, and try to find which pieces of "information" on either program have been "selected".
Or you just want to believe CNN as if they were The Final Truth, because it is your opinion.

No, I don't try to change your opinion about the war or the soldiers. But I try to make you rethink about the reliability of sources of information.

But I try to make you rethink about the reliability of sources of information

Typical European arrogance to assume that you're the only one who see's all sides, and anyone who doesn't agree, must not be seeing all sides.
You are the one who is being disrespectful to those who are dying, on ALL sides. Give it a rest.

[gawron]

Typical European arrogance to assume that you're the only one who see's all sides, and anyone who doesn't agree, must not be seeing all sides.

Don't know if we see all sides, but we see more sides. Not because we are "Europeans", but merely because we usually know more than only our native language and because some receive TV programs in english/french additionally to the ones in the local native language.
As long as you only watch english programs, you see only one side, this is a fact. The side which your government presents to you.

A german who knows neither english nor french would also only see one side, and a french who does speak neither german nor english would see only one side as well.

Unfortunately, I can't read spanish, so I can't follow their version.

You are the one who is being disrespectful to those who are dying, on ALL sides

In which post?

[Flying Dutchman]

Its funny. It doesnt matter how many languages you speak, if all your sources are anti american then it doesnt matter if you use one source or a 100. Still the same thing.

[gawron]

@flying dutchman:

Right! That's why german+english, french+english or german+spanish would be useful, while english+spanish or german+french without english would not be of much use.

[Flying Dutchman]

I keep up with the Russian news and frankly my opinion doesnt change. Ofcourse it is not as biased as german and french mandatory anti american news are.

[gawron]

So you still have an advantage, compared to many other readers and writers in this thread...

[TeeCee]

Originally posted by gawron
So you still have an advantage, compared to many other readers and writers in this thread...

LOL ... step out of yourself and read what you have written. Your take on all this is the only view ...

I don’t care how many languages you speak, how many different news coverage’s you watch it’s still YOUR opinion and views. Most generally one’s opinion will be based on ones upbringing. It’s not like you or anyone else will change ones view by a message on a forum. And for one to indicate that all other views or opinions on this forum are wrong or misguided and say that with the conviction as it appears by your writing only proves to me that you might be the one closed minded.

[Daehria]

Originally posted by Flying Dutchman
Until you have strapped on a leather pair of army boots and shared the same hardships of battle, then your words only mock and disrespect their brave deeds.

So now only (very) biased soldiers have the right to make their voice heard?
I agree, killing children with laserguided missiles are truly brave deeds... It's pitful you can't see what this is leading to, more hatred and more planes flying into tall buildings.
USA may have won the war on Iraq, but you will loose in the long run. But why should I care, I don't live in america.

[Bulk]

Originally posted by Daehria

I agree, killing children with laserguided missiles are truly brave deeds...

Who is doing that?

[Flying Dutchman]

Originally posted by Daehria

So now only (very) biased soldiers have the right to make their voice heard?
I agree, killing children with laserguided missiles are truly brave deeds... It's pitful you can't see what this is leading to, more hatred and more planes flying into tall buildings.
USA may have won the war on Iraq, but you will loose in the long run. But why should I care, I don't live in america.

I was merely trying to point out how you and and everyone on this forum is acting as an armchair general. Sure, you are commenting on how bad America is for killing some civilians from the comfort of your living room, but I wish for once you and all your kind were shipped to the desert as soldiers to fight a war. No matter which one. Then we would quickly see the hypocracy of this forum.

Oh and as for your " I dont live there, so I dont care" type of sentence.... Well, I dont live in Europe, so why am I still sending some portion of my money to you people? Why is the US sending aid to all these countries to feed their poor and hungry? Who cares, we dont live there, we got problems at home? Why? Because the US, unlike you people, cares. But no one in your damn biased news media cares. No one cares when the US sends billions in aid to far off countries which most americans sadly cannot find on a map. They only notice the small deeds that result in the death of a few civilians. Unfortunately for us, The US government has taken a policy of interventionism after WW2 because we realized that we cannot sit idly by like the Europeans as conflicts arise. We give aid to them, we even give money to Turkey which greatly endangered the lives of American GI's by denying the passage of US troops.

Oh how you people love our money but hate us. Sad, sad, sad. You bunch of money-grubbing *******

I have got to stop responding in this bullshit thread. Hmm, better yet, stop coming here altogether. Let hypocracy reign!

[gawron]

@TeeCee: You again didn't read my posts before answering, you how can you know what I wrote
Ask FlyingDutchman, I think he got my point about having the possibility to retrieve reports from both sides (US + one country that doesn't like the war that much) and then draw one's own conclusions

Who is doing that?

E.g. misguided missiles could, whoever fired them

but I wish for once you and all your kind were shipped to the desert as soldiers to fight a war.

Bad comparison: Every single US soldier has chosen to become a soldier (with all possible consequences). No one of them has been forced to.

They only notice the small deeds that result in the death of a few civilians.

Right, but these few dead civilians exist and are to be mentioned the same way as any dead US or british soldier is mentioned.

[Flying Dutchman]

Originally posted by gawron

Bad comparison: Every single US soldier has chosen to become a soldier (with all possible consequences). No one of them has been forced to.

....

Right, but these few dead civilians exist and are to be mentioned the same way as any dead US or british soldier is mentioned.

I wasnt comapring anything. I was saying that no one here knows what is running throught the minds of the soldiers or the conditions they face in the desert with their live on the line. If perhaps some of you joined the military, and then seen the conditions first hand, then you would have a right to speak about whether or not the soldiers are right or wrong.

Right, I am not saying we shoudnt focus on the tragedies that occur in war, but you have to focus and give SOME credit to the US. It is all one sided, especially in the yellow journalism known as the "Arab media". Bunch of sensationalist assholes who will cause more conflicts in the future than Saddam would have if he wasnt about to get his ass evicted from Iraq.

/me spits on arab media

[TeeCee]

Originally posted by gawron
@TeeCee: You again didn't read my posts before answering, you how can you know what I wrote
Ask FlyingDutchman, I think he got my point about having the possibility to retrieve reports from both sides (US + one country that doesn't like the war that much) and then draw one's own conclusions

No .. I know exactly what you wote. I got your point and I don't agree ...

[gawron]

So you prefer to rely only on the one source which tells your opinion (or is it the only one which uses the only language that you can understand)?

[nmpaulcp]

I believe the main reason the French, German and Russian governments have been against the US ousting Sadam is because there largest companies have been supplying the regime with military aid , even though there has been a UN enbargo on that type of trading, all the while criticising the US for not following the UN vote not to attack the Iraqi regime. It will all come out , it already is, that these countries have there had in supplying military aid to Sadam. So the UN is a sham. If it wasn't for the US and Brits the French would be speaking German right now. For the French Government to allow the graves of British soldiers to be desecrated, soldiers who liberated France when the French (except for the French underground) let Hitler walk into thier country without a fight, is a discrace. Im pissed and im not even British.
As Patton once said:
"I would rather have a Division of Germans in front of me, than a Division of French behind me".

[Supi Suomalaine]

"I must admit: If I only got CNN propaganda, I would certainly think the very same way as you...so it works well."

And it seems that you have got peacenick+arab propaganda, lots of it... seems to work VERY well.

I consider most peace activists as idiots. This is because many of them just wants to bash USA. For example, no one cares about chechenyans who are being slaughtered. I don't say that I care about them but I also don't say that I care about couple dead iraqi civilians. If USA would be doing something like Russia in Chechenya, everybody would go rioting to streets.

By the way, if I remember correctly the peace movement started as a leftist movement which was sponsored by Soviet Union. As most of you probably know, Soviet Union was USA's enemy. So it REALLY is a good basis for "an objective and unbiased movement", right?

[panos]

I am back, posting for the US invasion (this is not a war). I realize that I can ‘t change anybody mind for the war but I must point some things about democracy and democratization to that the busy Americans (and not only) that keep posting in favor of the Bush foreign policy talking about democracy and liberation.
The Bush Administration is walking in a very danger root. It hasn’t yet started to justify the wars that are scheduled, as Perl, Voulfovits and their friends proposed, as wars to force the “Democracy” to the world. But unfortunately is near doing that, using the national security together with the “liberation” or Iraq.

It is nice, in general, to like every country to has a democracy but from that point to the point of using force to make people to accept the American type of liberal and free market democracy, is something really different and dangerous. You in the US do not have a perfect democracy (not we the Greeks nor anybody else has) and if you remove from this anyway problematic system (with many political and economical factors out of control) the freedom of speech either directly or indirectly, as the press tends to censorship itself in a crisis so it doesn’t lose its place in the system, what you have it false democracy.

And that democracy you can’t use it as an excuse to make war. After all, many in the US mix the meaning of democracy with that of the free market. This has made many problems in the eastern post communist countries which tried to force the free market (without been economically ready for it) as an excuse of democratization while trying to maintain power non-democratically.

The true behind all that is that US are trying to force its will to anybody else. What you do is not new. The ancient Athenians did it too at the times of Athens ‘s domination in Ancient Greece. Romans did it too and British and every empire. But you don’t get that when they started doing that, they had seen the danger of losing their dominance and tried to hold their dominance by any means. None empire succeeded. By the way the Athenians slaughtered the people of Milos island when they expressed their will of leaving the Athenian alliance (something like NATO to protect them from the Spartans and the Macedonians) saying that it had become an Hegemony (the Athenians had been using the alliance money for themselves). Athens lost the war with Spartans after some years. The US other right wing politicians have been getting lessons from history trying to hold its dominance where all the empires failed.

What US is trying to do is to maintain its economical and political domination over the world which may be questioned by EU or China in the near future. This is what the precaution war is all about, to destroy somebody before he can be stronger than us. The September 11th was an excuse and the Iraq an experiment.

Lets get to the “liberation” part. I will just say that no matter how bad a dictator is, patriotism is stronger. And the Iraqis have patriotism too. Another Greek example. At the second world war Greece was under a military dictatorship. When the war started against Italy nobody thought of Italians as liberators or to remove the dictator. Only after the war and the end of the German occupation there was an civil war…

The UN 4114. US thinks it is enough for war, EU and UN doesn’t.

I don ‘t think the American people thinks the way I described, just the gomerment.

Last but not least I have question. I really don’t know if this is true or not, just something I have heard and want and hope the Americans give me some feedback: Is it true that the Bush administration members pray at the beginning of the minister council?

[gawron]

@Supi: You didn't read anything either. This is 100% sure because in your dreams I have said that I'm against that war...but well, you're not the only one who can't read...

I have nowhere in the entire thread said anything about whether I'm against that war or not.
I have, the entire time, only spoken about how to obtain as many information as possible, and how to circumvent the filtering which each goverment / TV station performs.

[Gheddafi]

-what about the means?
Means and goals are closely connected, means are a very important part of the solution. Pay always attention to means (Martin Luther King)

- what about international rights and laws?
preventive war ? there's a doctrine about this in modern codecs?
And if India will attack Pakistan for preventive war, or the opposite?
Will they be wrong? Or will the ONU be able to stop the domino effects? And what about the Future of Israel/Palestine?

- There would be a Onu After?

- Let's think Bush is right, well ,does anyone think what the arabians think about this attack? No matter.

The truth is now there's no solutions for Iraqi, they have to escape from Saddam and from the Bombs

PACE

[TeeCee]

Originally posted by gawron
So you prefer to rely only on the one source which tells your opinion (or is it the only one which uses the only language that you can understand)?

Most of the TV I watch is MSNBC .. I hate CNN and Fox is a joke too as I see it .. I do check in with them from time to time. I also scan the Internet about an hour a night (more on weekends) and read all I can find, and most of those sites I read are anti American. What rubbed me the wrong way with your remarks, you implied only Europeans that are multi lingual can come up with an accurate opinion. And that is total BS.

Governments don’t always tell all, I’m not stupid. But I don’t think some of you across the pond understand the mess our Government would cause them selves if they lie to us. The media will burn them to the cross, not necessarily for the good of the nation but to sell .. SELL .. SELL …

We hear about civilian casualty’s everyday and on some of them there is no concrete proof how it happen and who is responsible. Once US get to those sites it will be investigated and reported, you can bank on that happening. Of all the thousands of missiles shot it’s amazing it isn’t more.
Reason I like MSNBC is they run a segment and report the headline stories from opposing broadcast and it leads me to a path on the Internet.

[Supi Suomalaine]

"What US is trying to do is to maintain its economical and political domination over the world which may be questioned by EU or China in the near future."

By the way, I don't think that USA alone has such a domination over the world. Instead, it is and has been the western nations generally who have had that domination for 500 years. Including France and Germany. USA just has been the most powerful western nation in 1900's.

[TeeCee]

[quote]Originally posted by Supi Suomalaine
"What US is trying to do is to maintain its economical and political domination over the world which may be questioned by EU or China in the near future."

By the way, I don't think that USA alone has such a domination over the world. Instead, it is and has been the western nations generally who have had that domination for 500 years. Including France and Germany. USA just has been the most powerful western nation in 1900's. [/QUOTE

I don’t believe it will be too difficult for the USA to maintain it’s dominance in the world, least not for the next 100 years or so. I’m sure there is some truth to what you say about USA holding on to world dominance over the world. Tell me what type of government would you believe that would be better to do so?

Here is a question for some of you.

Do you honestly believe that USA would have done something if 911 did not occur?