"George Bush our hero!"

[Ugg]

Scott, you must be saying that Ghandi and King were wrong. Millions of African-Americans and Indians who are alive and well today and leading lives free from oppression would disagree with your opintion.

[Ugg]

Originally posted by ScottW
The problem of being a pacifists is the millions of people who have died at Saddams hand.

Rummy has just elevated Saddam to the status of a God. He didn't state a religion but....

"Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said Saddam Hussein had yesterday joined Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Lenin and Nicolae Ceausescu in "the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators", but warned that "difficult and dangerous" combat still lay ahead in cities where regime hardliners retained control. ""

Financial Times article via Google News

Pantheon as per Merriam Webster's online dictionary.

Main Entry: pan·the·on
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English Panteon, a temple at Rome, from Latin Pantheon, from Greek pantheion temple of all the gods, from neuter of pantheios of all gods, from pan- + theos god
Date: 14th century
1:a temple dedicated to all the gods
2:a building serving as the burial place of or containing memorials to the famous dead of a nation
3:the gods of a people; especially :the officially recognized gods
4:a group of illustrious persons

Admittedly # 4 is a bit hazy so here is how M-W defines illustrious:

Main Entry: il·lus·tri·ous
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin illustris, probably from illustrare
1:notably or brilliantly outstanding because of dignity or achievements or actions :EMINENT
2archaic a:shining brightly with light b:clearly evident
synonym see FAMOUS
-il·lus·tri·ous·ly adverb
-il·lus·tri·ous·ness noun

Hmmm, and we've entrusted our military to a man who considers Saddam a famous demi-god? Has the guy gone soft in the head? Even I, pacificus americanus would not grant Saddam such status.

[wiz]

i give no credit to those trigger happy b*st*rds, yes those USA fools. they behave and act liek cheap cowboys!

The British were a lot more cautious. They truly fought for freedom. And nothing else but freedom!

(i'm not giong to argue against the USA, since majority of kind mac folks here are americans! And most certainly they will defend their country _even_by_words_ )


and u know what i mean by trigger happy

[Darkshadow]

Freakin....

UN isn't, or ever will be, irrelevant. Man, without it, there'd be a lot more countries at each others' throats. It is the best thing that happened to international politics and relations.

Also....how long do you think a democracy would last in Iraq surrounded by nations that think the word is synonymous with the devil? Unless America actually stays there in perpetuity (and that's a drain we definitely don't need right now). And why should America force a nation that has nothing to do with it into a democracy? They should decide what government, not us.

As to France...how do you pay back something that never had a price? Agreed that they had their own agenda (who doesn't?), but they could have just as easily not helped us out. Us helping them out doesn't pay anything back at all. Different circumstances, different times. And I do believe that the US tried very hard not to enter that war...how is that very different? We only entered because we were provoked. Was France provoked at all in this in any way?

And do you really believe that France changed all that radically just because the government changed?

[Cat]

George Bush, your hero. This borders on the type of cultus Saddam himself enforced ... Americans `enforce' it more subtly with propaganda. When will you be organizing the 5 minutes of hate? You already have flags everywhere I suppose...

Not in my name ... not indeed. Not in my name have the US invasion troops killed civilians and reporters, destroyed public and private infrastructure.

Not in my name has the US government violated international law, by attacking unprovoked. Not in my name has Gearge Bush, your hero, jeopardized international democratic institutions.

You may well stay top nation for a while, by brutish enforcement of your ideology, by creating satellite states with puppet governments, by neocolonialism, but in the end you will fail, like every other empire has. You're in the last stages right now, you have lost your moral authority through your primitive methods. Repent, and you will be remembered honorably, persist and history will damn you.

Have a nice day.

[binaryDigit]

Originally posted by Cat
George Bush, your hero. This borders on the type of cultus Saddam himself enforced ... Americans `enforce' it more subtly with propaganda. When will you be organizing the 5 minutes of hate? You already have flags everywhere I suppose...

...

I think you misread the original post. "George Bush our hero" was shouted by the Iraqi people (well some of them anyway). The original poster wasn't making a comment about GB being his/her hero (he may well be, but the post was about the Iraqi's). To say that this is the same or similar as the forced piety of Saddam is a stretch of the highest order.

[kendall]

Originally posted by Cat
George Bush, your hero. This borders on the type of cultus Saddam himself enforced ... Americans `enforce' it more subtly with propaganda. When will you be organizing the 5 minutes of hate? You already have flags everywhere I suppose...

Not in my name ... not indeed. Not in my name have the US invasion troops killed civilians and reporters, destroyed public and private infrastructure.

Not in my name has the US government violated international law, by attacking unprovoked. Not in my name has Gearge Bush, your hero, jeopardized international democratic institutions.

You may well stay top nation for a while, by brutish enforcement of your ideology, by creating satellite states with puppet governments, by neocolonialism, but in the end you will fail, like every other empire has. You're in the last stages right now, you have lost your moral authority through your primitive methods. Repent, and you will be remembered honorably, persist and history will damn you.

Have a nice day.

bwahahahaha!

its pathetic that even though a country that has been oppressed for almost 3 decades is on the brink of freedom, you still chant your BS angry anti war sentiments.

why can't you just be happy for these people? no longer will they have to live in fear of death squads nor live in sub-humane conditions.

pull your head out of your ass. where the hell are your priorities?

as for an "unprovoked attack", saddam has killed 100,000s of his own people! he released chemical weapons on 1000s of kurds! do you know what its like to be eaten alive by chemicals?! i dont and dont want to find out!

we should have smeared that son of a bitch all over the interior of a under ground bunker with a tomahawk missile 10 years ago and would have if it wasn't for the UN.

[kermit64]

Originally posted by kendall
bwahahahaha!

its pathetic that even though a country that has been oppressed for almost 3 decades is on the brink of freedom, you still chant your BS angry anti war sentiments.

why can't you just be happy for these people? no longer will they have to live in fear of death squads nor live in sub-humane conditions.

pull your head out of your ass. where the hell are your priorities?

as for an "unprovoked attack", saddam has killed 100,000s of his own people! he released chemical weapons on 1000s of kurds! do you know what its like to be eaten alive by chemicals?! i dont and dont want to find out!

we should have smeared that son of a bitch all over the interior of a under ground bunker with a tomahawk missile 10 years ago and would have if it wasn't for the UN.

the iraqi people will be better off without the government that they had. i'm so glad that the iraqi people seem to be happy.

that being said, a little history is in order. saddam hussein rose to power through his ba'ath party which was a radical political organization in iraq in the 60's and 70's. the cia wanted a change in iraqi leadership at that time as well as now. the ba'ath party was their choice for funding and support. saddam hussein took power in a quasi-coup and eliminated many of his political enemies by execution. so at this point in the late 70's saddam was basically the dictator of iraq. during the 80's ronald reagan, in a throwback to containment, extended american support to iraq to try to build a relationship with them. the reagan administration wanted to sever ties between russia and iraq, and it also wanted iraq to be victorious over iran. the my enemy's enemy is my friend philosophy. in order to help iraq win that war, we gave them military aid and intelligience, specifically the helicopters that were used to gas the kurds in the north were american. the war came to a stailmate and ended, but support for the iraqi regime kept coming through reagan's vice turned president george bush sr. america along with other countries furiousely protested the chemical attacks against the kurds, but little action resulted. i forget who, but one of the cabinet members went to visit iraq and during late 1990 i think. there was a meeting with a top iraqi official, and iraq was expressing their desire to invade kuwait for various reasons. price of oil and territorial claims were some of them. the u.s. official had an apathetic response and basically told them to do it nicely or something. the whole world responded to the invasion. american people were overwhelmingly opposed to any military action. most people kept saying it would be another vietnam, and that scared a lot of people. colin powell was an advocate of no military action but prolonged sanctions. president bush wanted to get the job done quickly and wasn't prepared to wait 2 years or more. through the un they assembled a coalition, and most of the countries in the un supported the action. the forces quickly "liberated" kuwait and reinstated the non-democratic government that existed prior to iraqi invasion. there was an oppurtunity to pursue iraqi forces into iraq and destroy them, the coalition made some progress in iraq, perhaps a little too much progress. after it was clear that it was becoming a turkey shoot, specifically the highway of death incident, international and domestic opinion concluded that the mission was over because the objectives had been met. there un didn't prevent the removal of saddam, it was decision made by the leaders of the coalition. the post desert storm inspections were hindered by saddam's willingness to prevent access to random places. the inspectors worked however for several years untill iraq officially expelled them in 1998. during that seven years the inspectors made huge strides in dismantling iraqs wmd production capability. after the expulsion of inspectors, then during the clinton administration, there were randam clashes above the no fly zones in iraq, there were airstrikes ordered against targets in iraq. in 2001 bush jr. became president, in september of that year, the world trade center was destroyed by terrorists that hijacked airplanes and flew them into the buildings. this terrorist attack prompted a wordwide war on terror, and immediately brought military action to afghanistan where the alleged master mind osama bin laden was living. in january 2002, president bush delivered the state of the union adress that grouped iran, iraq, and north korea into "an axis of evil". during the second half of 2002 those words seemed to manifest themselves. north korea, in a series of off the wall foreign policy moves, further isolated itself from the rest of the world. iran is believed to have started building a nuclear reactor which the u.s. claims is for nuclear weapons production, and then iranians claim is benign. then the rhetoric about iraq began to heat up. the u.s. started making claims about iraq having weapons of mass destruction and how that was illegal under the u.n. resolutions following desert storm. the bigger claim was that iraq was a threat to national security and so that justified regime change in iraq. after much talk the u.s. decided to submit a resolution to the u.n. demanding that iraq disarm or "face the concequences" which meant the u.s. would invade. the inspections regime resumed in order to verify iraqi compliance with the u.n. resolution after iraq submitted a report declaring that they had no weapons of mass destruction. a six month political battle ensued over how to deal with iraq. the u.s. was consistantly pushing for war, arguing that iraq had not met the terms. other countries like france, germany, and russia, saw no evidence of wmd being reported by the weapons inspectors so saw no need for military action. the u.s. tried to argue the link between iraq and terrorism, and then tried to argue that a regime change was necessary because of humanitarian reasons. the countries opposed to war stood more or less steadfast in their oppinions. since france and russia are permanent veto wielding members, their support of u.n. action was fairly crucial. late in january the u.s. set itself on a course to go to war. continually proclaiming that it was up to saddam hussein to prove that iraq has disarmed, or the u.s. will invade. the final diplomatic thrust would have been a second resolution calling for invasion. the u.s. and britain failed however to convince any of the previousely opposed countries on the security council that it was necessary to go to war with iraq. those countries cited recent cooperation with inspectors as evidence that inspections were working. the u.s. was set to propse the resolution but failed to secure the nine votes it would need for passage. france and russia had threatened to veto the resolution had it been introduced, but many argue that the u.s. would have introduced it regardless if it knew it had the nine votes. the diplomatic failure led to action by the u.s. and britain invading iraq.

feel free to add or change any of these facts if i got them wrong.

hopefully people realize that governmental actions are very complex and are rooted in history. to slap a label on a war like "operation iraqi freedom" is to ignore the entire string of events that led up to the invasion. freedom of the iraqi people was never the reason we wanted a regime change untill the administration realized it was a good argument. imagine if from the get go bush had said, "look, saddam has got to go because he murders innocent people and has used chemical weapons on innocent people in the past." imagine if bush had said that, and then asked the u.n. to help remove a dictator that commits human rights violations, which countries would be arguing against that? no one, because it's a good argument.

i hope we don't always have to rely on military action. but if bush is going to be using the military anyway, i think he should go ahead and rid the world of any government where the people aren't free. i'm being completely serious by the way. i don't want my government to claim that we're invading iraq to free the iraqi's, but just ignore the fate of other countries with similar situations. why not have "operation free the planet."