Well to not sugarcoat this answer, I will not talk about all the tens of thousands of people that their government has gassed and tortured, and get right to what it has to do with us and weapons of mass destruction,

Saddam, bin laden and the rest of the extremists over in those parts, simply want to kill us, you seen that on 9/11, they where in the mists of researching/building such weapons that could affect us, so instead of waiting for your so called proof, we went in and dismantled their leadership before such weapons could be made. (or have already been made and are hidden) in that process we are freeing the people of those countries from evil dictators.

We have already found gases stored over there, which they used to gas 1000’s of people.

Its like this, say you have a small weed growing in the garden, do you leave it alone because it poses no threat to the other plants at this moment in time, or let it over grow and multiply. Sucking all the nutrients out of the soil and killing the other plants and then decide to kill the weed because now you have proof that it would have killed your garden. But now its to late, your garden is dead, BUT you have your proof.


If they had weapons of mass destruction that would reach our soil they would use them without hesitation, its bad enough they have weapons of mass destruction that can kill thousands of people in there own area, they needed to be taken out of power, and that’s that, we found torture chambers over there already. Are you liberals for torture chambers?

Take North Korea, you got the nut kim jong il, who has nuclear capabilities, its going to be a lot harder to mess with him now, then a few years ago.


Lets just say we never went to war over there, look 20years down the line, do you think that Saddam would not have nukes by then? Then our children would have to fight an even worse battle with even more deaths and body bags for an even longer war period.

yeaup.

so your admitting that the administration may have falsified information in order to start the war?

Nope.

65gtoman

for oil

RICKAMAVEN, is that why gas prices are at an all time high? Pretty slick plan! Weeeeee!!! You're a genius!

Rick
You seem to want to over simplify things with your two and three word answers like "for oil" and "for big business" how about "to save lives". Like it or not by sending troops to the Middle East we have saves lives. There is a deterrent where there was not one before. Some might say what have we deterred? Sadamm has been deterred, Uday has been deterred, Qusay has been deterred. The troops in Afghanistan have deterred acts of terrorism by Osama and his group and brought down the reign of the Talaban. We are doing something which should have been done years ago and if that includes letting the world know we will not be a floor mat for people to step on, so be it. We are like the dog which has been poked and poked and poked we will bite and it will hurt. I for one am sick of the way other countries expect us to be diplomatic while they shove it up our rear. Well take this as a warning to the world, the days of the USA sending a Tomahawk over as pay back are done. There are times when we have to look at the big picture and forget about ourselves and think about the greater good. Rick now is one of those times. Lets hold our heads up high and be grateful and proud to be Americans because if you are not I know a country just a little north which has free health care and all the Cubas you can smoke.

I'm looking forward to Rick's response 🙂 I wonder if it is coming?

Chris, you are determined arent you?

If Bush had said we were going to war because of the murdering & torturing going on. And said we were going in because Saddam was sponsering terrorism, like we know he was, well, would that have been reason enough for you? Just curious.

Mag

If it was backed with actual(ie. non-falsified) proof, then yes. However, if we were lied to along with the UN then that's a problem. If you remember back a few months ago, I never once said I was against the war, I said that we should have UN support before we try to enforce the UN weapon charges.

I also seem to remember a lot of republicans who were totally pissed about Clinton lying under oath, well what happens if GWB lied in his national address?? And the consequences are a war and american soldier's deaths, not just a BJ. This is why I'm worried about the WMD issue, if we can't validate the information provided to the UN and verify that there are WMD, then there's going to be hell to pay in many ways.

The terrorism angle was not brought up until later and was used as a secondary reason, mainly because the CIA wouldn't play ball up until one of the final UN meetings where all of a sudden they changed their stance.

And anyone who tries to play the human rights angle is a moron, there is far worse going on all around the world, and yet we're not helping those nations. We finally did something in Liberia, but it wasn't necessary altruistic or timely.

OK Chris, sounds like an honest answer to me.

But my next question is...why isnt Bush given the benefit of the doubt, that he was given incorrect intelligence, until proven otherwise, if that is the case?

Also, there are a lot of other inhumane things going on around the world, as you said. But how can you say they are worse? Whats worse than being tortured and killed, by the thousands?

I believe the reason this region of the world is so important, and I dont expect an atheist to understand, is that for one, Israel is a close allie, second this is a very holy part of the world, for more than 1 major religion.

Saddam was sponsering terrorism towards Israel. Israel is surrounded by sharks in the middle east. Iraq was a major threat to Israel, well, they arent anymore are they?

Like I said earlier, Saddam was given many chances(resolutions), many years(12), killed a lot of people. But GWB has been our President, and I believe a good one, especially under the circumstances, and has been given no time in comparision to figure all this out.

It isnt fair, you cut more slack to a proven terrorist dictator, than you give our own leaders to try and deal with National security here, and to try and fix the problems in the middle east.

Well, I've rambled on enough. I'm going for a brewski, I look fwd to your response.

Mag

Intel and i guess robby, patiently waiting.

refresh my memory. who has saddam attacked or killed since he was contained after the gulf war, his own people. f**k them, let them rise up and overthrough his regime like we did during the revolution. i don't believe any country would have objected to us sending arms to rebels out to overthrow him, and if they did, so what.

what the hell does this have to do with free health care. try sticking to the subject.

if you can arrange a visa for me and will pay for my tickets, i can see me now in a sidewalk cafe, smoking some good cuban cigars and shooting the breeze with some of the locals

Magnafide

the only war israel started was the six day war, when their intelligence, the best in the world, let the military know an attack was imminent.

blowing up iran's nucular plant was disavowed publicly, but under everyone's breath a sigh of relief was heard around the world.

when israel was created rabbi kahane said

KACH was the Zionist political party and ideological movement founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. It called for the transfer of Israel's Arab population to Arab (or other) lands. This would have completed the population exchange begun in the late1940s when the Arab countries EXPELLED their 850,000+ Jewish residents to Israel. Incredibly the same "liberal" Knesset which still allows Israeli Arab nationalist parties (which openly call for a replacement of Israel with an Arab state) banned Kahane and his democratically elected KACH party! They called Kahane a "racist" because he truly believed Israel should be a JEWISH homeland... how dare he be so racist!

Meir Kahane warned us...
"If you don't choose Kahane,
you're going to get Arafat!"

Had more Jews listened to Rabbi Kahane 25 years ago, Israel would have avoided both Intifadas and saved countless Jews AND Arab lives. Now, as the war escalates every day, ALL of Israel is realizing that he was indeed right.

in 1990 Kahane was assassinated in New York City by an Egyptian militant, who was acquitted of the crime on a technicality, but later convicted in relation to the World Trade Center bombing.

Binyamin Zev Kahane, his son, was murdered by Arab extremists in 2001, as he traveled with his family in the west bank.

isreal put a bomb into the car that held one of the masterminds of the recent murders of 23 people in jeruselum.

every one of the perpetrators of the olympic abomination were hunted, found, and killed.

perhaps, one day israel will decide enough jewish blood has been spilled and terrorism will be stopped by a country the size of new jersey.

Rick,

Indirectly, Saddam has been killing Jews in Israel since we contained him after the gulf war. He paid the families of suicide bombers $25K when they exploded themselves on packed buses.

Iraq was a threat and a destabilizer to the entire region. The Clinton Administration recognized this and bombed Iraq almost daily for eight years. With the nature of terrorism in the world changing, Iraq was perceived as an immediate threat to the security of the United States. The threat has now been eliminated. There are still other threats, including what may rise in the aftermath of Iraq.

If the war in Iraq was fought for oil, we would have deployed the following Army units:

122nd Geology and Oil Exploration Brigade
581st Oil Derrick Operations Battalion
345th Transmission Pipeline Brigade
184th Oil Storage and Tanker Ops Battalion

To date, none of the military units deployed in Iraq are crosstrained in the skills of these specialized units. These are the secret Army units in charge of oil production in conquered lands. All their equipment is painted black, their tankers are black, and the gas stations where the processed crude oil is sold as gasoline are all black.

(By the way, do you have your criteria ready for what is or is not acceptable proof of WMD or will just evaluate it when the time comes. Is there anything acceptable, like information from the Israelis since they're really good at it.)

I don't think there really is any debate over whether Iraq was threat. I can't recall many nice words from them over the last few years towards the US. They haven't invited me over for dinner and a cigar in over a decade. The only real question is how "immediate" a threat must be before the superpower is allowed to act. Is it a requirement that there is a huge body count of dead Americans first, like every other conflict we have gotten involved/dragged in. Dating back to the Spanish-American War, history has dictated that our aggressors always get to throw the first punch against the US, there will be a watershed event of dead Americans, and then we'll get involved. We broke the tradition this time and it freaked out many people and entire nations.

Hey Rick,, tell us more about why we are fighting this war for their oil. I mean really if you don’t come up with a 2 word answer, you seem to copy and paste your answer from some 8grade social studies book and change a few words around, (like your NAM statement about the domino effect) please tell us about this (oil war) we are in.

I want you to explain to me why we are fighting this war for their oil, when it has already been declared that the Iraqi people will have their oil. And try to use your own words if that’s possible.

Really I still have my doubts about your age, your statement about RUSH (he’s a thin fat idiot) and your statement to me saying (what are you mid 40's? i have shoes i bought that are about your age. and they still can be resoled) hardly sounds like the words of a 60+ year old man. You my friend are a plagiarist and a liar. I personally think you are a snot nose 20-25 year old college student that has no real world experience.

So please explain to me why we are FIGHTING THIS WAR FOR OIL and try using more then ten of your own words to do so…

65gtoman - get a clue and check the old picture posts. Rick has herfed with several people from the board and there are pictures to prove it. He's old, 65 I think... One other thing, is it possible for you to argue the issues without making personal attacks? These don't aid you in proving your point in any way, if anything they detract from any persuasion being accomplished...

Rick can remember when dirt was new and oil was still shale! Just kidding Rick, I know that you're just a young pup like the rest of us. LOL

Barry

Mag -
1. I wasn't born atheist, I was raised catholic and through much soul searching and investigation I became an atheist. Therefore, I'm not an idiot when it comes to the significance of Israel or that region in general.

2. The human rights violations in Iraq within the last ten years are nothing compared to what's gone in Liberia, Iran, Syria and many other countries, yet we went into Iraq first. So this is not a valid reason for going to war, and there was no immenent danger regarding human rights in Iraq that forced us to act immediately, ie recent activity to justify action.

3. I don't know if you understand my point or not, so I will reiterate it one more time. If we had actual proof that there are WMD in Iraq then we should be able to find them relatively quickly based on this proof. And I don't hold only GWB to blame if there was falsified information. If it ends up that there were false pretenses for us going to war the whole administration will be in deep **** and our international standing will be jeopardized.

4. If we were going in to enforce the UN resolutions, doesn't it make sense that we would need UN support, and doesn't it also make sense that the information that we used to gain UN support had better be accurate?

5. Why do you see it as cutting slack for Saddam? In no way shape or form am I making excuses, supporting or cutting slack for that POS. These are two unrelated issues that you're linking erroneously. Not supporting or believing GWB has absolutely nothing to do with supporting or believing Saddam.

6. In some ways I agree with Rick that we should be a little more isolationist and let the other countries kill themselves off as they please. But in another way I see our role as a superpower to carry the burden of defending those who can't defend themselves, but it's ironic how we have a hard time performing this role within our own nation.

7. Also why is it so wrong to make demands of our government? We eleceted them(in most cases.. 🙂 ) and they are public servants, therefore they answer to us. This is an itegral part of being a democracy! Our leaders are not supposed to carry out their own agendas, they are in place ONLY to act upon the people's agenda.

time to workout, I'll check back later...
C

One thing I forgot to mention, if it surfaces that the information was falsified, do you think there will be a terrorist backlash? Remember that their are always consequences for our actions and inactions...

100 posts! This could catch up with Lowman's box pass...


By the way, the US Army units I mentioned in a previous post on this thread do not exist. I fabricated the information. However, to you this could be considered "unsubstantiated intelligence reports" that is "proof" that the US military operates clandestine oil drilling and production units solely for the purpose of fighting wars for oil.

I would agree that if the WMD information was falsified, there will be a terrorist backlash.

I also believe that if the WMD information was not falsified, there will be a terrorist backlash.

I also believe that if a secret cave full of Anthrax artillery shells are found, there will be accusations that it was planted evidence by the US military, and there will be a terrorist backlash.

I also believe that if the sun rises in the east, there will be a terrorist backlash.

I also believe there will eventually be a reference to that 20-25 year old college student, Rick, and his memories of the original horseless carriage, and there will be a terrorist backlash.

A also believe if I smoke a cigar today, there will be a terrorist backlash.

I also believe if we pulled all US military personnel back to US soil, there would be a terrorist backlash.

Since there's going to be a terrorist backlash no matter what and terrorism is here to stay, I'm going to go smoke that cigar and the terrorists can pi$$ off.