I had to take a few days off reading this thread due to the sluggish flood of bollocks that followed the points I made. But if any of you have made a point against me in the meantime (which im sure you have) I cant be arsed to read it, and so I think i have to refer you to my last comments in this thread as i think i put it fairly concisely there. Puh.

What I find annoying is people not listening to what I actually say.

Welcome to the Internet!

[quote=the ikara cult][quote=ni'k]
first of all the people were suffering because of the sanctions imposed by the US and others which were effectively starving them for a decade. the US could have stopped these sanctions but it did not. clinton could have but he did not.

your point about voting is moot because if the US does not approve of the candidate the iraqis vote for that candidate will not win. the elections are totally rigged and everyone knows it.
and that thing about the WMD's is bullshit, they never had them and it's just speculation to say they would have wanted to get them. and that is not a sound reason to go to war. what you are saying seems to ignore logic, you speculate that if saddam had not been removed hundreds of thousands of children would be dying of poverty (this was poverty was due to US sanctions not saddam) - but the war has killed over a million! you can't be saying that it's better that a million died instead of hundreds of thousands so you must be just ignoring the death toll of the invasion, not to mention the destruction, havoc and poisoning due to chemical weapons use.

and of course they should be let control their own resources but we both know they won't. and putting political pressure on the US government won't work since it is coorporations who are taking the oil, and they just won't listen.

i have no idea why you are touting the merits of chalabi, a neo con shill involved in falsifying the intelligence that led to war. and anyway, we both know the elections are rigged and the US backed candidate who will do what he is told will win.

i am obviously not defending dictatorship, you seem to be defending killing over a million innocents just to remove one dictator which is unacceptable. your argumentation is abhorrent.

Thanks. I'm likely to be out of town this weekend. You should come to some of the meeting at Conway Hall, if you get the time.

edit

It does worry me. If the people who are reasonably well educated and knowledgeable people can be this stupid what about the rest...

perhaps if your perspective was not so literally stupid.. I'm sorry but I can accept arguments against Saddam and his Iraq, but NOTHING could EVER support, justify or exhonorate this BULLSHIT WAR PERIOD. This is why no one is hearing you, cuz you keep spouting utter nonsense..
its nothing personal Ikara Cult, I am quite fond of you on this board, but in this regard, I got to speak the real.

amen.

[quote=ni'k][quote=the ikara cult]
Nice to see youve decided to make your point in front of other people now rather than resorting to the BigMans world of NEGREP! If you have confidence in your point, dont just say it to me after i challenge you on it in private, is that alright by you? Or are you the slab of nothing you appear to be 100% of the time?

Ok, the points you made there are best argued by what ive already written to be honest. You whined about the Iraqis only being able to elect US-bitches, and the second i point out someone who is an elected Iraqi who fought Saddam and made Iraq a nation that might just succeed. you have nothing to say about him besides what i referred you to. Youve stated your ignorance right there. Go back to bed.

Suchfriends- if that particular war should not be justified, in your opinion, which wars do you think have enough of a good reason to be justified?
I'm only asking because if you follow that line of thought all wars have the potential of being unjustified and randomly waged at the expenses of the attacking country's economy, since wars cost a heck of a lot of money, and can wipe off easily your administration's domain in a future election.

I know its not personal SFD, dont worry about upsetting me. Im fond of you above most of these other characters too because you take the time to explain your point, even though i disagree with you.

My point is that arguements against Saddam have to extend to arguements about regime change in that country. Ive outlined my reasons for this already in this thread, if you disagree then fine, but you do have to answer what would have happened if we had left him in power in 2003?

The mismanagement of the aftermath - 100% a disaster. But attacking Saddams regime was justified.

[quote=the ikara cult][quote=ni'k]
i thought you wanted to stop personal attacks, is that not what you said in your message? why do you have a problem with me posting what you said in public? is it because you know your arguments do not stand up and can't accept it? and i have already refuted those points. what do you mean that i have nothing to say about chalabi other than the page you referred? he was involved in faking the intelligence used to justify the war! chalabi DID NOT make iraq a nation that just might succeed. look at the page you linked to.

you said you had no interest in personal attacks, but since you have fallen back on them now in order to cover for yourself, yes i'm whining and nothing and a pussy and need to go to bed, these comments wouldn't get to me anyway, but coming from someone who is defending genocide they ring especially hollow.

you don't seem able to accept the reality that the US couldn't give a shit about saddam being a dictator or not, and that was just a neo con talking point. you're desperately clinging to this. as myself and others have already said, if saddam had stayed in power then THE MILLION DEAD WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. the country would have its infastructure intact, it would have stability instead of having descended into the warring factional chaos it is in now. of course the US sanctions would still be starving the people, but you seem to ignore this and try to blame it on saddam.

[quote=ni'k][quote=the ikara cult]
Its because you responded to me firstly in private - rather than responding to my point in front of everyone else you went the neg-rep route. I responded to you with a private message, then you brought that private message out into this thread. Therefore I dont respect anything you have to say on this matter because you are a pussy. Night Night

war is NEVER justified. until folk understand that in the core of the being, then we will have these arguments, and in truth, people getting into arguments like these are the very precursors to wars in the first place!

I-man live dedicated to peace. Even when outright defending yourself, war is messy, because what justifies killing innocent people in another country because the assholes who run it did something do another? Are Iraqis justified in suicide bombing my neighborhood because my country is at war with theirs, even though I am not in favor of the war? This is the kind of tricky situation war presents, when you wage war against somebody, you are inherently going to hurt innocents, it being unavoidable, then in fact war is unjustifiable.

As long as war is considered an option, then it will always become the only option, just like as long as you have a gun, in truth you are not likely to get into a fist fight, but in an altercation whether you planned it or not somebody is probably going to get shot.. war is the same. get rid of the option of war, and new solutions to our problems will naturally present themselves..


there are many many alternatives to military invasion and occupation to encourage a regime change, and as ni'k already said, the ends by no means justify the means. Killing a shit load of Iraqis and utterly DESTROYING the government, economy and normality of their nation is not a viable alternative to Saddam, as bad ass a mofo as he was :(

I would honestly love it if your conception of humanity were true, but we have a responsibility to thhe people who are opressed by totalitarian idiologies. War IS right if someone declares war on you or the people you support. That doesnt have to mean military action right away but it should at least mean support for our liberal friends abroad.

War is absolutely justified if the number of innocents killed during it is far less than would be likely had it not taken place. Or if it involves the French.

Then again, to think that waging a war purely to protect what are conflicting ideas of liberal thinking is as far removed from its real purpose as suchfriends' nice, but ultimately upractical feelings. The war in Iraq has also affected humanly and economically the lives of people whose social extraction is similar to many a western family of comfortable wealth and political leanings, who then found themselves abandoned, hunted down by local militias, and confused by the messages the invading western countries used to explain their bellicose entrance, so to reduce this particular war to a mere democratic crusade seems way to simplistic.

I dont like having to disagree with the sweet natured types like yourself and Suchfriends, its so much easier when Nik or TnB have a go at me. If you want to talk about the effects of the "intervention" - as a PR type would call it, you then cant ignore the iraqis who rejoiced at the removal of saddam. Its easy to sneer at them if you hate bush and blair behind the safe screen of not having to explain yourself, but they are real people.

absolutely. while i do genuinely think that Blair was motivated by that very thing, I don't think the war as a whole was.

fair enough, but whether you think the war was right or not, you should support the Kurds. They could have rejected an Iraqi state, seeing as it had been responsible for their genocide in the past. But they didnt. The largest group pf people in the world without a state of their own.

http://www.kukfa.org/index-e.html

Ikara- it's ok to disagree, I am actually enjoying the last few pages of this thread. I haven't read most of the rest.
Demonrail- You brought up an interesting point about Blair, since his political education would suggest that he'd have tried to avoid a war till the end, then again the whole affair in Iraq gave us the confirmation that the head of state is the face of a more complex political and economical stance that dictates his/her decisions when it comes to critical international matters, in this case the safeguarding of a present and future strategy of re-balancing imperialistic power.

Yes, I support their right to exist but I think the decision to establish the only Kurdish sovereign state in Iraq, rather than say Turkey, was motivated more by a desire to create more Western-friendly regions within a particularly sensitive area of the Middle East (and keep them out of a future EU country) than to save the Kurds themselves.


I actually think Blair's involvement in the war is one if the most interestingl aspects of the entire conflict. I've tried to look at it from different directions and none of it really makes sense. Not because it was necessarily wrong for him to have gone to war (although I personally think he was) but because it was so utterly out of step with his whole political self-image up to that point. I don't think he was just a mask for a 'more complex political and economical stance' (although to a degree he obviously was). I do really think that he privately believed in it. I don't think he believed in Bush's reason's but simply felt that they were mutually complimentary. I'll never fully understand it though.

listen.. we are dealing with ideals in the first place. Equality? Freeing oppressed peoples? Liberation? These are and have always been ideals, BUT without having lofty even unrealistic ideals to strive for, there is no progress. The Constitution was written on lies, hypocrisy, slavery and genocide, but its rhetoric alone was an ideal worth striving for, which after 200 odd years is closest to reality it could ever be. Yet it also remains an ideal, but none of you would say that we should not aim for Equality because it is unrealistically idealistic.

War is never an option.. sure, that is not a practical or realistic ideal, but none-the-less it should be the standard. That way we NEVER get complacent or accepting of war as some kind of norm..

You have a very absolute attitude about it, namely that war is never an option. It provides an absolute answer. My problem is that I do believe in such a thing as a just and necessary war (even if only hypothetically) but that the criteria determining such a war is never absolute. In the end you're right, we are only really dealing with ideals. The dilemma comes with trying to determine which ideals are worth waging war for.

Also, you showed some admiration earlier in the thread for the IRA. Would you not say they were waging a war? They certainly would.

FEAR rules all, as always.

Foreign Policy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOCcbKAhlY0

Elimate the incompetents!
Differences don't exist in harmony!
Survival is superiority.
We don't need no hands across the sea!

We've got...

Foreign policy [x3]

The lines are drawn!
Establish the new order!
Suspect everyone
Know your enemies! Know your enemies!


We've got...

Foreign Policy [x3]

Hatred is purity!
Weakness is disease!
Where we bury you
It's manifest destiny!

We've got...

Foreign Policy

Eh? You should come to Britain. It's easier than you think to get into a fist fight.

duh.. thats because you Brits are not so heavily armed per capita as the US..

Oh right, i misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying people don't get into fights even if they don't have as if normally people are scared to fight but guns make it easier for them to be violent.

Again. I am aware of the contradictions that I am presenting, hence why I called them IDEALS. You can not necessarily reach ideals, but that does not invalidate their worth simply because they are unobtainable. I hold to the standard the WAR is never an option, is NEVER justifiable, and thus I condemn all acts of war BUT...

since this is in truth idealistic, then I also inevitably fall short of the ideal, and offer support for many militant groups and guerrillas, however, I do not universally support acts of war in the name of revolution. With the EZLN or the IRA, I support the cause, not necessarily the military mechanisms to achieve this cause. The IRA is NOT exclusively militaristic, the EZLN builds as many schools as they do militia groups, hire as many teachers as cadres. I would hope that in time, even and especially the militant revolutionaries EQUALLY aim for the IDEAL of true peace.

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

This applies equally to both the governments and the revolutionaries.

I understand your point and I wonder if much the same underlying position exists even with those who, in certain instances, support the idea of war. The idea that war must never be an option ... unless. I suppose that's my position, anyway.

I'd certainly say that the massive majority of wars have been unnecessary. I just always have to imagine that a situation can exist where one might be necessary. A re-emergence of state fascism, for example.

The thing is that, just like you, I'm still trying to work through my thoughts on all this (which is partly the motivation for starting this thread). I'm certainly not convinced of every facet of my argument. It isn't even an argument at all in some ways, just a belief.

i don't know if any of you have heard this story, i came across it this week but it's been floating about for a while, it's about chirac's account of how george bush tried to get him to join the invasion of iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...on-george-bush

I've never quite been able to get my head around the Right's seemingly quite easy relationship with Christianity, especially in recent years. Even given communism's attempts to supress religion there's continued to be strong ties between the Left and Christianity in countries like Italy and France which make far more sense to me. Is the Right's appropriation of the bible just a recognition of its value as a tradition? Besides that it certainly seems an odd choice of belief for rampant free-marketeers.

Rail: In reply to your earlier post, I do think that Tony Blair knew very well what the intentions of invading Iraq were and still are, he just had to present it, like any other head of state with a ''leftist'' goverment, with the rethorical, liberal debris which imposed itself on mass protests regardless of their provenience. I'm not being cynical here, but c'mon, to invade (a verb that has cunningly replaced declaring, when it comes to odiern wars involving Western powers of democratic belief) a region of the world without any seriously threatening armoury to fight back the biggies with your own mind set to uncertain mode seems suspicious to anyone with a radically different political agenda than his.

yes. the borderline fascist movements of the extreme rightists/ultra-conservatives in America cling to Christianity not in any real religious or moral sense, because their political philosophies and ideologies almost always go directly against many core/fundamental tenets of Christianity. For example, social services and specifically welfare programs are almost universally condemned by the ideologies of the Rightists, but this is the very essense of Christianity! ("All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had" Acts 4; "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Matthew 25:40)

The original Christians were communal socialists, the original Church government was socialist, but the Protestant movement is not religious reformation, it is an economic revolution as the capitalists princes, governers and businessmen sought to free themselves from paying tithes and taxes to the support of the Parish and its less fortunate beneficiary parishioners..

American Rightists Christianity is the descendent of these capitalists, who feigned religion in the name of profit. The epitome of this is the money hungry televevangelists.

I suspect that Blair's decision to side with the US will be something that'll puzzle historians for decades to come. Here was a young 'progressive', 'reformist' PM with clear European sympathies suddenly standing alongside what he must've recognised as a backward US regime. The obvious answer is that Blair simply had to side with the US, regardless of who was in charge: that the much talked about 'special relationship' was one that no British PM could avoid. And yet we know that Bush actually put far less pressure on Blair to join him than was at first thought. I certainly think it would've been diplomatically difficult for Britain to join ranks with the UN but not I suspect terminal in terms of our ties with the US.

I agree with you that Blair was forced to sell the war to a sceptical people by using scare tactics about WMDs but what his real motivations were (both politically and personally) for actually supporting the war, I still can't quite fathom - at least in terms of his own political ambitions/vision

Removing a brutal dictator and a backward, repressive, ruling religious organisation is not 'progressive', 'reformist'?! Hmmmm

oh please

Demonrail didn't really mean that Blair seemed like a reformer. He meant he seemed nice, modest, bureaucratic, attractive, attractively weak etc.

I was always sceptical about Blair (although I was obviously pleased he beat out the Tories) but I think, prior to 9/11, quite a few New Labour voters did think he was a reformer, however naively. He was a reformer to some degree, anyway. He definitely reformed the Labour party - although what he reformed it into is another matter.

not if there is no progress and you replace it with an equally backwards and repressive regime using backwards, repressive tactics of military occupation and political corruption.