Eh, no. I didn't make anything up. None of the information presented was mine. And it was all cited. If you disagree with the numbers you can check the sources, I provided them.
(and this is all very sad that we are measuring war based on how many people were killed, but i think itsrelevant. to show how fucked up war is)
You are dismissing figures published in the Lancet, and replacing them with numbers taken from some random website that no one else cares about. The Lancet wouldn't publish something if it were "made up". And they wouldn't be using numbers from iraqbodycount.org.(I don't know anybody that does)
And the reason for that has nothing to with what they found. It has everything to do with how they found it.
iraqbodycount.org, only counts those that died "violent deaths" that were reported in the media.
The 2 obvious flaws in that method, and maybe the reason no respectable journalists report on it, is that it excludes the incredibly large portion of people that die non-violent deaths. Which is a considerable number.
And obviously the media can't possibly report on every single death.
A very large section of the deaths are left out, in the thousands range for sure, probably in the hundreds of thousands.
Probably huh? you dont even see it, but you say something like this in every post regarding deaths. you make shit up.
why is this so hard for you to understand? the UN sanctioned Iraq based on direct actions by Saddam. this might be news to you but Saddam could have avoided sanctions if he abided by international law such as not invading other countries. you keep making this sound like the United States (and the US alone) put sanctions on Iraq because it had nothing better to do that day.
you know hundreds of thousands of little kids were killed in those sanctions? (i'm not gonna post any links, you'll pretend i invented them or whatever) -United States former Secretary of State Madeline Albright accepted tha500,000 children died as a result of the sanctions, on national tv, but i'm making that up too right?
I'm sure thats true and guess what...its Saddams fault for this happening. its mind boggling how you can not grasp this concept.
what in the fuck did they ever do to anyone? for that to happen?
and this country put those sanctions on that country that killed those children. Saddam Hussein was a piece of shit but he didn't sanction Iraq. The US/UN did.
they were sanctioned for a reason numb nuts!
its pointless quoting the rest of your post. if you can grasp the facts above, this debate is pointless.
Probably huh? you dont even see it, but you say something like this in every post regarding deaths. you make shit up.
it was 170,000.
cited a few posts ago.
you're missing the point entirely though, as usual...
your trying to get me to use iraqbody count over methods accepted by places like Cambridge and published in the Lancet.
no thanks.
why is this so hard for you to understand? the UN sanctioned Iraq based on direct actions by Saddam. this might be news to you but Saddam could have avoided sanctions if he abided by international law such as not invading other countries. you keep making this sound like the United States (and the US alone) put sanctions on Iraq because it had nothing better to do that day.
Gets millions in military aid, handshakes from US officials
Uses that to kill a bunch of his own people
Everything is just fantastic
He kill's the wrong guys -rich Kuwaitis...can't have that.
Saddam disobeys orders from the master (that's us)
UN (that's us) imposes sanctions
hundreds of thousands of people are killed.
Saddam's grip on power is strengthened (people gotta eat)
????
oh yeah, blame Saddam.
Invade.
it all good though because the US is rebuilding Iraq.
happy ending.
o and lets never bring up the bad parts again, and forget the horrors of war (no more pictures please) and do it all over again next year. maybe africa next time.
I'm sure thats true and guess what...its Saddams fault for this happening. its mind boggling how you can not grasp this concept.
So, when leaders don't do what we say, we get to kill a bunch of their people and blame it on them?
why is that? can only the US do that? what about China?
what a wonderful precedent the Bush's have set in international politics and warfare.
"Do what we say or we we kill all of your people and blame it on you."
I hope when its China's turn they don't pick us.
its pointless quoting the rest of your post. if you can grasp the facts above, this debate is pointless.
Gets millions in military aid, handshakes from US officials
Uses that to kill a bunch of his own people
Everything is just fantastic
He kill's the wrong guys -rich Kuwaitis...can't have that.
Saddam disobeys orders from the master (that's us)
UN (that's us) imposes sanctions
hundreds of thousands of people are killed.
Saddam's grip on power is strengthened (people gotta eat)
????
oh yeah, blame Saddam.
Invade.
LOL starting to make sense now...you really dont get it. its scary. please research the history of Iraq and Saddam over the weekend. google shit, it works.
Kassim was overthrown and killed in a coup staged on March 8, 1963, by the military and the Baath Socialist Party. The Baath Party advocated secularism, pan-Arabism, and socialism. The following year, the new leader, Abdel Salam Arif, consolidated his power by driving out the Baath Party. He adopted a new constitution in 1964. In 1966, he died in a helicopter crash. His brother, Gen. Abdel Rahman Arif, assumed the presidency, crushed the opposition, and won an indefinite extension of his term in 1967.
Arif's regime was ousted in July 1968 by a junta led by Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party. Bakr and his second-in-command, Saddam Hussein, imposed authoritarian rule in an effort to end the decades of political instability that followed World War II. A leading producer of oil in the world, Iraq used its oil revenues to develop one of the strongest military forces in the region.
Saddam Hussein's Ascendancy Brings Series of Wars
On July 16, 1979, President Bakr was succeeded by Saddam Hussein, whose regime steadily developed an international reputation for repression, human rights abuses, and terrorism.
A long-standing territorial dispute over control of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran broke into full-scale war on Sept. 20, 1980, when Iraq invaded western Iran. The eight-year war cost the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people and finally ended in a UN-brokered cease-fire in 1988. Poison gas was used by both Iran and Iraq.
In July 1990, President Hussein asserted spurious territorial claims on Kuwaiti land. A mediation attempt by Arab leaders failed, and on Aug. 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and set up a puppet government. The UN unsuccessfully imposed trade sanctions against Iraq to pressure it to withdraw. On Jan. 18, 1991, UN forces, under the leadership of U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf, launched the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), liberating Kuwait in less than a week.
The war did little to dwarf Iraq's resilient dictator. Rebellions by both Shiites and Kurds, encouraged by the U.S., were brutally crushed. In 1991, the UN set up a northern no-fly zone to protect Iraq's Kurdish population; in 1992 a southern no-fly zone was established as a buffer between Iraq and Kuwait and to protect Shiites.
The UN Steps In With Sanctions and Weapons Inspections
The UN Security Council imposed sanctions beginning in 1990 that barred Iraq from selling oil except in exchange for food and medicine. The sanctions against Iraq failed to crush its leader but caused catastrophic suffering among its people—the country's infrastructure was in ruins, and disease, malnutrition, and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed.
The UN weapons inspections team mandated to ascertain that Iraq had destroyed all its nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic arms after the war was continually thwarted by Saddam Hussein. In Nov. 1997, he expelled the American members of the UN inspections team, a standoff that stretched on until Feb. 1998. But in Aug. 1998, Hussein again put a halt to the inspections. On Dec. 16, the United States and Britain began Operation Desert Fox, four days of intensive air strikes. From then on, the U.S. and Britain conducted hundreds of air strikes on Iraqi targets within the no-fly zones. The sustained low-level warfare continued unabated into 2003.
YES!!!! NEWSFLASH....killing "a bunch of his own people" is HIS FAULT!!!! not ours.
Did Saddam sanction Iraq?
No.
The US/UN did, therefore, all of those people that died as a direct result of those sanctions, were killed by the US/UN.
along with invading Iran....invading Kuwait.
HIS FAULT!!! Saddam is to blame. get that through your thick fucking skull.
Saddam was OUR guy for a time. You realize that don't you?
Say you hire a cop. That you know to be a killer. You give him a gun, a car.. He goes out and kills a bunch of innocent people. You put his picture in the paper and you call him a hero and you shake his hand etc. You give him a new gun. He then goes out and kills one of your buddies.
Its you own damn fault. You just gave a gun to a murderer. It doesn't give you the right to go and kill his family and all his friends and everyone he knew and then blame him for everything.
Kassim was overthrown and killed in a coup staged on March 8, 1963, by the military and the Baath Socialist Party. The Baath Party advocated secularism, pan-Arabism, and socialism. The following year, the new leader, Abdel Salam Arif, consolidated his power by driving out the Baath Party. He adopted a new constitution in 1964. In 1966, he died in a helicopter crash. His brother, Gen. Abdel Rahman Arif, assumed the presidency, crushed the opposition, and won an indefinite extension of his term in 1967.
Arif's regime was ousted in July 1968 by a junta led by Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party. Bakr and his second-in-command, Saddam Hussein, imposed authoritarian rule in an effort to end the decades of political instability that followed World War II. A leading producer of oil in the world, Iraq used its oil revenues to develop one of the strongest military forces in the region.
Saddam Hussein's Ascendancy Brings Series of Wars
On July 16, 1979, President Bakr was succeeded by Saddam Hussein, whose regime steadily developed an international reputation for repression, human rights abuses, and terrorism.
A long-standing territorial dispute over control of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran broke into full-scale war on Sept. 20, 1980, when Iraq invaded western Iran. The eight-year war cost the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people and finally ended in a UN-brokered cease-fire in 1988. Poison gas was used by both Iran and Iraq.
In July 1990, President Hussein asserted spurious territorial claims on Kuwaiti land. A mediation attempt by Arab leaders failed, and on Aug. 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and set up a puppet government. The UN unsuccessfully imposed trade sanctions against Iraq to pressure it to withdraw. On Jan. 18, 1991, UN forces, under the leadership of U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf, launched the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), liberating Kuwait in less than a week.
The war did little to dwarf Iraq's resilient dictator. Rebellions by both Shiites and Kurds, encouraged by the U.S., were brutally crushed. In 1991, the UN set up a northern no-fly zone to protect Iraq's Kurdish population; in 1992 a southern no-fly zone was established as a buffer between Iraq and Kuwait and to protect Shiites.
The UN Steps In With Sanctions and Weapons Inspections
The UN Security Council imposed sanctions beginning in 1990 that barred Iraq from selling oil except in exchange for food and medicine. The sanctions against Iraq failed to crush its leader but caused catastrophic suffering among its people—the country's infrastructure was in ruins, and disease, malnutrition, and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed.
The UN weapons inspections team mandated to ascertain that Iraq had destroyed all its nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic arms after the war was continually thwarted by Saddam Hussein. In Nov. 1997, he expelled the American members of the UN inspections team, a standoff that stretched on until Feb. 1998. But in Aug. 1998, Hussein again put a halt to the inspections. On Dec. 16, the United States and Britain began Operation Desert Fox, four days of intensive air strikes. From then on, the U.S. and Britain conducted hundreds of air strikes on Iraqi targets within the no-fly zones. The sustained low-level warfare continued unabated into 2003.
Yeah, I'm still not seeing the part that explains if Iraq's militant hardline dictator disobeys a direct order from Washington, they get to kill a bunch of Iraqi civilians.
Maybe I skimmed over it or something.
Or the part that explains how withholding food and medicine from a poor war torn country was even considered in the first place.
This part was interesting.
Saddam's ascension was in 1978.
CIA involvement began in 1972.
Which suggests he was our guy from the beginning.
Which may or may not be true. (there are also reports that Saddam was directly trained by the CIA-to kill the leader at the time, in the 70's, which would explain why the CIA wasn't able to assassinate him years later-he knew their methods.)
But all of that can't be verified, so lets pretend it never happened.
What is true is that he was our guy for a time. And that can be verified. The picture I provided suggests that. And there is massive documentation out there as well. He was armed in the Iran/Iraq war, he had political support...those kinds of things.
So the guy you're trying so hard to blame everything on was our guy. Probably from the beginning, though that's not really relevant. Through the gassing of the Kurds for sure, and the Iran war, which was done with US made chemical weapons.
But Saddam went his own way. He stepped out of line. He started killing the wrong people.
OUR guy stepped out of line.. OUR guy that we armed and gave political support to.
He stepped out of line, the United States killed him and millions of his people.
This was also interesting. (from your post)
"The sanctions against Iraq failed to crush its leader but caused catastrophic suffering among its people—the country's infrastructure was in ruins, and disease, malnutrition, and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed."
referring to the bold.
the sentence implies "crush[ing] its leader" was the goal. (where is the article from btw?) Which goes against conventional wisdom in this case. Its generally accepted that the sanctions imposed on Iraq strengthened his hold on power. Iraqis could no longer provide for themselves, not like they could before the sanctions...instead they had to rely on Saddam in order to survive, making his hold on power even stronger.
And this isn't a new revelation. They knew that going in.
Which means getting rid of Saddam was never their intention.
I believe they liked having a firm dictator to control the various factions in Iraq. And that fits with current US policy. See any number of a dozen examples of the US installing and arming a militant dictator. Saddam may have been the only one who could keep order...and CIA involvement goes back to 1972, suggesting he was our guy from the beginning.
The guy your trying to blame all of this on was OUR GUY.
The point i was making about Saddam given a greenlight to invade Kuwait by Washington is much more thurough here.
A quote from the last US/Iraq meeting that took place before the war, diplomacy at the highest level, between the US ambassador and Saddam Hussein, is as follows.
"The US has no position on your Arab-Arab conflict." US ambassador April Glaspie, referring directly to the Iraqi troop buildup on the Kuwait border, after Saddam had called Kuwait's action "Parallel to war".
AND
Washington Post:
Since the invasion, highly classified U.S. intelligence
assessments have determined that Saddam took U.S. statements
of neutrality ... as a green light from the Bush administration
for an invasion. One senior Iraqi military official ... has
told the agency [CIA] that Saddam seemed to be sincerely
surprised by the subsequent bellicose reaction.
AND
Rep. Lee Hamilton asked if it would be correct to say that
if Iraq "charged across the border into Kuwait" the United States
did "not have a treaty commitment which would obligate us to
engage U.S. forces" there.
"That is correct," John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern and South Asian Affairs, responded.
and there is more, but you get the idea.
All of this could have been avoided IF the US wasn't playing politics with people's lives.
If the sanctions were put on Iraq because Saddam invaded Kuwait (what you're suggesting), and the invasion could have been avoided if Washington hadn't given the greenlight, the US is responsible for the sanctions and subsequent invasions (obviously).
Add the CIA involvement in 72, the US arms political support, Rumsfeld..
It all comes right back home.
Saddam was a pawn, a good little pawn when he was killing the right people, but nothing more.. Not the Hitler of the 90's or whatever he's been called. Just a pawn in a sick game that US policy planners play all over the world.
Saddam was OUR guy for a time. You realize that don't you?
what the fuck does that even mean? Saddam was not "our" guy. again, research the history of how Saddam came to power. its shocking how ignorant you are to this subject.
what the fuck does that even mean? Saddam was not "our" guy. again, research the history of how Saddam came to power. its shocking how ignorant you are to this subject.
recall the deeds as if they're all
someone else's atrocious strories.
according to you...
The US destroyed Iraq to save it.
The US killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people to free them.
Iraqi's are all very happy that we have invaded and occupied their country.
We are training more guys to run around with guns so its getting better.
The US can do no wrong, and has no influence over the UN.
Seldom right and wrong again. the United Nations security counsil passed sancations on Iraq in response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. if saddam doesnt invade, the United Nations would not have voted to pass sancations on the country.
you don't make any sense obviously. I have no idea what your position is.
I believe, the United States is waning superpower running out of economic and political pull in the world arena, is quick to move any confrontation to force, where it reigns supreme.
Every country claims to be all for diplomacy and peace-even hitler, but the veil is easily seen through, if you care to research it past the cursory mainstream accounts.
you don't make any sense obviously. I have no idea what your position is.
my position is easy. Saddam is responsible for international sanctions being placed on Iraq. Saddam choose to invade Kuwait..and before that Iran. there are consequences for those actions. had he choose not to invade other countries, many millions might still be alive today and he would probably still be in power. I have to keep saying this, but you need to research Saddam. its painfully obvious you do not know much about him.
The US was wrong to invade Iraq based on the reasoning given to us. The US is doing the right thing, however, by staying to help rebuild the country.
History will decide if freeing Iraq from totalitarism is the right thing.
I know enough about Saddam-he was a hardline militant dictator given military and political support from the United States, at one time. Which enabled him to do all sorts of terrible things in the region, including starting wars with 2 countries. He was scumbag, evil, etc.
But his crimes are nothing compared to the United States, or Britain, another country in the slaughter of Iraq that deserves to be named. It serves no purpose to find out anything more about him, unless you are trying to shift the blame around from the real perpetrators.
2 countries with far, far far worse human rights records and dozens of wars between them, the United States and Britain, have no business leading a charge to 'end totalitarianism' or save the region or remove saddam or look for wmd's or bring democracy or any of those things. They don't have the moral ground to stand on.
The current situation is proof of that. countless Iraqi's murdered, en entire country destroyed, occupied the US.
But Saddam is the issue. he invaded his neighbors and commited genocide on his own people.
you seem to think Saddam was a good leader and Iraq was better off with him as president. only people who nothing little to nothing about him would think that.
But Saddam is the issue. he invaded his neighbors and commited genocide on his own people.
you seem to think Saddam was a good leader and Iraq was better off with him as president. only people who nothing little to nothing about him would think that.
Saddam was a piece of shit, scumbag mass mnurderer.
So commy dont you think we should have just let him and his son's uday and qusay keep wreaking havoc,raping women while their husbands watched TORTURING AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE ? Sounds like they were real nice people. :roll: How about the guy they threw off a building with his hands tied behind his back ? It was only a few stories,just 2 broken legs that's all.
So commy dont you think we should have just let him and his son's uday and qusay keep wreaking havoc,raping women while their husbands watched TORTURING AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE ? Sounds like they were real nice people. :roll:
Do you think Saddam's sons would have been the right people to deal with a murder in Canada or Mexico?
probably not. the guys entire family would have probably been raped and tortured.
Much like the US and Britain were the wrong guys to deal with the crimes of Saddam.
All of Iraq was raped and tortured
But none of this is about saving Iraq or removing a dictator.
Today, the US is supporting a FAR worse regime in Turkey. And Colombia is no picnic either. TODAY.
Why haven't they been invaded to "save" the people from being tortured and killed?
So commy dont you think we should have just let him and his son's uday and qusay keep wreaking havoc,raping women while their husbands watched TORTURING AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE ? Sounds like they were real nice people. :roll:
Do you think Saddam's sons would have been the right people to deal with a murder in Canada or Mexico?
probably not. the guys entire family would have probably been raped and tortured.
Much like the US and Britain were the wrong guys to deal with the crimes of Saddam.
All of Iraq was raped and tortured
But none of this is about saving Iraq or removing a dictator.
Today, the US is supporting a FAR worse regime in Turkey. And Colombia is no picnic either. TODAY.
Why haven't they been invaded to "save" the people from being tortured and killed?
Iraq was about oil. not about people.
so who should have dealt with saddam? surely not the Iraqis.. they were and still are terrified of him even to this day even though he's dead. Did you not see what he did to the Kurds when they tried to make difference?
what Regime in turkey are we supporting ?
Iraq was not about oil we haven't gotten a damn drop any cheaper then it was before the damn war.
If it were up to me I would take out Kim Jung. He's running concentration camps full of people even children. Nat Geo was able to sneak in cameras during a time when a doctor from Eng. I think went over there to perform 100 surgeries on people with cataracts. the people that had these was a result from their drinking water if Im not mistaken. Anyway Lisa Ling interviewed a border guard from N.K. and his whole family was thrown into one of these camps cos he escaped from N.K.
He told a story about a few kids that was in one of these camps he said" they were so hungry that they were fighting over a piece of corn that one of them had dug out of cow manure :shock: :x I wish we could take this shit bag out.
So commy dont you think we should have just let him and his son's uday and qusay keep wreaking havoc,raping women while their husbands watched TORTURING AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE ? Sounds like they were real nice people. :roll:
Do you think Saddam's sons would have been the right people to deal with a murder in Canada or Mexico?
probably not. the guys entire family would have probably been raped and tortured.
Much like the US and Britain were the wrong guys to deal with the crimes of Saddam.
All of Iraq was raped and tortured
But none of this is about saving Iraq or removing a dictator.
Today, the US is supporting a FAR worse regime in Turkey. And Colombia is no picnic either. TODAY.
Why haven't they been invaded to "save" the people from being tortured and killed?
Iraq was about oil. not about people.
so who should have dealt with saddam? surely not the Iraqis.. they were and still are terrified of him even to this day even though he's dead.
what Regime in turkey are we supporting ?
Iraq was not about oil we haven't gotten a damn drop any cheaper then it was before the damn war.
All countries have to deal with their leadership themselves-- even if that requires revolution.
Also, a war can be fought (in part) about oil without the price going down. Just because new pipelines and oil fields are available to multi-national corporations doesn't mean they have to gouge you any less once they acquire them.
The one that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds.
Its still going on today.
I wish I had a copy of the letter i got from a political prisoner in Turkey. It was part of an Amnesty International campiagn, part of it involved writing letters to this guy, a political prisoner.
And what he said about all the letters he received in his cell (I don't know if he read mine) was the most powerful thing I have ever read in my life. I have it somewhere.
the best way to deal with guys like Saddam and his sons is to not support them in the first place.
Dictators tend not to last long without outside help/.
I agree. we should have never got involved during the 80s. that was a huge mistake.
I think that's the core of the argument here about looking at "our" faults as opposed to blaming Saddam. Saddam was a bastard, no doubt. But the point is that since the 80s and even before, we have done nothing but fuck up in the Middle East. It's been one blunder after another... revolution in Iran, backing Saddam, training Bin Laden... the list goes on. Our track record on "helping" the people of the Islamic world is pretty shit. I think the basic argument here is that we clearly simply don't get the Muslim world, and perhaps it's time we stopped getting involved in shit over there and let them deal with their own affairs. Everything we try to do there becomes a huge clusterfuck and only breeds further resentment of the US and more terrorist sympathizers.
the best way to deal with guys like Saddam and his sons is to not support them in the first place.
Dictators tend not to last long without outside help/.
I agree. we should have never got involved during the 80s. that was a huge mistake.
I think that's the core of the argument here about looking at "our" faults as opposed to blaming Saddam. Saddam was a bastard, no doubt. But the point is that since the 80s and even before, we have done nothing but fuck up in the Middle East. It's been one blunder after another... revolution in Iran, backing Saddam, training Bin Laden... the list goes on. Our track record on "helping" the people of the Islamic world is pretty shit. I think the basic argument here is that we clearly simply don't get the Muslim world, and perhaps it's time we stopped getting involved in shit over there and let them deal with their own affairs. Everything we try to do there becomes a huge clusterfuck and only breeds further resentment of the US and more terrorist sympathizers.
still need to be put in context on a case by case basis. take Afghanistan for example. sure we "created" bin laden so to speak, but we were doing the right thing when we were helping the afgans get the Soviets out of the country. Charlie Wilsons War was a very informative movie. the soviets were slaughtering those people and the world didnt give a fuck. one US congressman took it upon himself to help them. and it actually worked...but as seen in the movie, mistakes were made once the war was over, but thats we had already spent billions.
and the whole Iran/Iraq thing. Iran was very much a sworn enemy of ours in 1980 with the hostages and Islamic Revolution. Saddam had already started a war (without our involvement), and we simply took sides. Saddam invaded in 80, we didnt get involved until 82. In this fucked up world we live in, sometimes we are forced to do things that are in our best interest. and like it or not, OIL is vital to our survival. we've been forced to take sides and be involved in the middle east since oil was discovered.
and its my personal opinion that our involvement in the region is an overall good thing when we push for "American Democracy"...which is essentially freedom. I've studied and read alot about hardcore Islam. its very fucked up and practiced in many countries over there...I think history will prove the Iraq war to be a good thing ( I HOPE, I HOPE, I HOPE). Iraq has a chance at being the first and only country in the region to experience Freedom.
have you seen the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan? They are torturing young children and women...enforcing the strictest of Islamic Law on them. Personally, I dont think we should just wash our hands of it and say "well if thats how they want to live, its none of my business"..we need to support those who support Freedom.
its wise to kill a million to arrest a man that had not killed even 25,000 in the last 10 years?
I love how this 1 million gets thrown around like poker chips. but you're right, since he didnt reach the 25,000 plateau in awhile, he was probably a good guy and should have been left alone.
still need to be put in context on a case by case basis. take Afghanistan for example. sure we "created" bin laden so to speak, but we were doing the right thing when we were helping the afgans get the Soviets out of the country. Charlie Wilsons War was a very informative movie. the soviets were slaughtering those people and the world didnt give a fuck. one US congressman took it upon himself to help them. and it actually worked...but as seen in the movie, mistakes were made once the war was over, but thats we had already spent billions.
and the whole Iran/Iraq thing. Iran was very much a sworn enemy of ours in 1980 with the hostages and Islamic Revolution. Saddam had already started a war (without our involvement), and we simply took sides. Saddam invaded in 80, we didnt get involved until 82. In this fucked up world we live in, sometimes we are forced to do things that are in our best interest. and like it or not, OIL is vital to our survival. we've been forced to take sides and be involved in the middle east since oil was discovered.
and its my personal opinion that our involvement in the region is an overall good thing when we push for "American Democracy"...which is essentially freedom. I've studied and read alot about hardcore Islam. its very fucked up and practiced in many countries over there...I think history will prove the Iraq war to be a good thing ( I HOPE, I HOPE, I HOPE). Iraq has a chance at being the first and only country in the region to experience Freedom.
have you seen the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan? They are torturing young children and women...enforcing the strictest of Islamic Law on them. Personally, I dont think we should just wash our hands of it and say "well if thats how they want to live, its none of my business"..we need to support those who support Freedom.
You like to throw around the word context, but the context you don't get is that are pushing for "American democracy" is not seen by the Muslim world as spreading freedom... it's seen as imperialism and unwanted meddling. There is a world of difference between stopping genocide and other humanitarian causes and in exploiting foreign countries for our own economic gain. Don't sit there and tell me this is about freedom and protecting women and children. Women and children are being tortured and abused to a much greater extent in Africa, but we don't lift a finger to help them. Our involvement in the middle east is not about protecting women or children or promoting freedom, it's about oil and money. Period.
Even Afghanistan... you mention Charlie Wilson's War. Yes, there was humanitarian abuse. But if we were all about protecting innocents and promoting freedom, why did we bail on them as soon as the Russians took a military hit? Because we didn't give a flying fuck about the people of Afghanistan or their freedom, we cared about taking out an economic competitor. That's plainly acknowledged in that movie.
So don't tell me our involvement in the Middle East is some big love fest where we're looking out for the little guys. It's exploitative. And it's the very attitude you espouse here (that these poor backwards savages just need our guidance to become civilized and "fix" their fucked up religion) that causes things like 9/11, the USS Cole, and a general disdain for the US in the Muslim world. And I know this not from watching American movies giving the American slant on how wonderful we are to go into Afghanistan and push our American democracy on them, I know this from visiting Islamic countries and talking to Islamic people. Even the Islamic feminists fighting hard to change the misogynistic tendencies (which are plenty present in Christianity by the way) dislike the US's meddling in Islamic affairs. They don't WANT our "help." They want to change things for themselves.
still need to be put in context on a case by case basis. take Afghanistan for example. sure we "created" bin laden so to speak, but we were doing the right thing when we were helping the afgans get the Soviets out of the country. Charlie Wilsons War was a very informative movie. the soviets were slaughtering those people and the world didnt give a fuck. one US congressman took it upon himself to help them. and it actually worked...but as seen in the movie, mistakes were made once the war was over, but thats we had already spent billions.
and the whole Iran/Iraq thing. Iran was very much a sworn enemy of ours in 1980 with the hostages and Islamic Revolution. Saddam had already started a war (without our involvement), and we simply took sides. Saddam invaded in 80, we didnt get involved until 82. In this fucked up world we live in, sometimes we are forced to do things that are in our best interest. and like it or not, OIL is vital to our survival. we've been forced to take sides and be involved in the middle east since oil was discovered.
and its my personal opinion that our involvement in the region is an overall good thing when we push for "American Democracy"...which is essentially freedom. I've studied and read alot about hardcore Islam. its very fucked up and practiced in many countries over there...I think history will prove the Iraq war to be a good thing ( I HOPE, I HOPE, I HOPE). Iraq has a chance at being the first and only country in the region to experience Freedom.
have you seen the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan? They are torturing young children and women...enforcing the strictest of Islamic Law on them. Personally, I dont think we should just wash our hands of it and say "well if thats how they want to live, its none of my business"..we need to support those who support Freedom.
You like to throw around the word context, but the context you don't get is that are pushing for "American democracy" is not seen by the Muslim world as spreading freedom... it's seen as imperialism and unwanted meddling. There is a world of difference between stopping genocide and other humanitarian causes and in exploiting foreign countries for our own economic gain. Don't sit there and tell me this is about freedom and protecting women and children. Women and children are being tortured and abused to a much greater extent in Africa, but we don't lift a finger to help them. Our involvement in the middle east is not about protecting women or children or promoting freedom, it's about oil and money. Period.
Even Afghanistan... you mention Charlie Wilson's War. Yes, there was humanitarian abuse. But if we were all about protecting innocents and promoting freedom, why did we bail on them as soon as the Russians took a military hit? Because we didn't give a flying fuck about the people of Afghanistan or their freedom, we cared about taking out an economic competitor. That's plainly acknowledged in that movie.
So don't tell me our involvement in the Middle East is some big love fest where we're looking out for the little guys. It's exploitative. And it's the very attitude you espouse here (that these poor backwards savages just need our guidance to become civilized and "fix" their fucked up religion) that causes things like 9/11, the USS Cole, and a general disdain for the US in the Muslim world. And I know this not from watching American movies giving the American slant on how wonderful we are to go into Afghanistan and push our American democracy on them, I know this from visiting Islamic countries and talking to Islamic people. Even the Islamic feminists fighting hard to change the misogynistic tendencies (which are plenty present in Christianity by the way) dislike the US's meddling in Islamic affairs. They don't WANT our "help." They want to change things for themselves.
I largely agree but I feel there is also truth in what I said. we can only do so much and go so far, sometimes we fall short.. We went to Afganistan to defeat an enemy and free the Afgans. We went to Iraq to protect our Oil interests and free Iraq from Saddam. and I'll call bullshit on your so called Islamic travels. where have you been? Detroit? that doesnt count. I highly doubt you are some expert on what they want. There are many people in the muslim world who consider us friends. secondly, women or anyone who speaks out against people like Saddam or the Taliban are tortured and killed. they cant help themselves.
I have a friend who's father did alot of business overseas. He was sitting in a restaurant in London when a Kuwaiti came up to him and thanked him simply because he was American. the Kuwaitis love us....as do many Iraqis who were tortured in Iraq and many Afgans who suffered under the Taliban.
you and Commy seem to think America is the root of all evil and we help no one. that simply not true.
and dont bring up Africa. America is the biggest supporter of Africa. you just like to think we arent doing anything because we dont have troops on the ground fighting wars there.
Comments
Probably huh? you dont even see it, but you say something like this in every post regarding deaths. you make shit up.
why is this so hard for you to understand? the UN sanctioned Iraq based on direct actions by Saddam. this might be news to you but Saddam could have avoided sanctions if he abided by international law such as not invading other countries. you keep making this sound like the United States (and the US alone) put sanctions on Iraq because it had nothing better to do that day.
read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
I'm sure thats true and guess what...its Saddams fault for this happening. its mind boggling how you can not grasp this concept.
they were sanctioned for a reason numb nuts!
its pointless quoting the rest of your post. if you can grasp the facts above, this debate is pointless.
it was 170,000.
cited a few posts ago.
you're missing the point entirely though, as usual...
your trying to get me to use iraqbody count over methods accepted by places like Cambridge and published in the Lancet.
no thanks.
chronological order
Saddam follows orders
Gets millions in military aid, handshakes from US officials
Uses that to kill a bunch of his own people
Everything is just fantastic
He kill's the wrong guys -rich Kuwaitis...can't have that.
Saddam disobeys orders from the master (that's us)
UN (that's us) imposes sanctions
hundreds of thousands of people are killed.
Saddam's grip on power is strengthened (people gotta eat)
????
oh yeah, blame Saddam.
Invade.
it all good though because the US is rebuilding Iraq.
happy ending.
o and lets never bring up the bad parts again, and forget the horrors of war (no more pictures please) and do it all over again next year. maybe africa next time.
So, when leaders don't do what we say, we get to kill a bunch of their people and blame it on them?
why is that? can only the US do that? what about China?
what a wonderful precedent the Bush's have set in international politics and warfare.
"Do what we say or we we kill all of your people and blame it on you."
I hope when its China's turn they don't pick us.
[/quote]
for the first time in 2 days i agree with you.
YES!!!! NEWSFLASH....killing "a bunch of his own people" is HIS FAULT!!!! not ours.
along with invading Iran....invading Kuwait.
HIS FAULT!!! Saddam is to blame. get that through your thick fucking skull.
I'll get to the rest of your post later its friday.
LOL starting to make sense now...you really dont get it. its scary. please research the history of Iraq and Saddam over the weekend. google shit, it works.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107644.html
Rise of the Baath Party
Kassim was overthrown and killed in a coup staged on March 8, 1963, by the military and the Baath Socialist Party. The Baath Party advocated secularism, pan-Arabism, and socialism. The following year, the new leader, Abdel Salam Arif, consolidated his power by driving out the Baath Party. He adopted a new constitution in 1964. In 1966, he died in a helicopter crash. His brother, Gen. Abdel Rahman Arif, assumed the presidency, crushed the opposition, and won an indefinite extension of his term in 1967.
Arif's regime was ousted in July 1968 by a junta led by Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party. Bakr and his second-in-command, Saddam Hussein, imposed authoritarian rule in an effort to end the decades of political instability that followed World War II. A leading producer of oil in the world, Iraq used its oil revenues to develop one of the strongest military forces in the region.
Saddam Hussein's Ascendancy Brings Series of Wars
On July 16, 1979, President Bakr was succeeded by Saddam Hussein, whose regime steadily developed an international reputation for repression, human rights abuses, and terrorism.
A long-standing territorial dispute over control of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran broke into full-scale war on Sept. 20, 1980, when Iraq invaded western Iran. The eight-year war cost the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people and finally ended in a UN-brokered cease-fire in 1988. Poison gas was used by both Iran and Iraq.
In July 1990, President Hussein asserted spurious territorial claims on Kuwaiti land. A mediation attempt by Arab leaders failed, and on Aug. 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and set up a puppet government. The UN unsuccessfully imposed trade sanctions against Iraq to pressure it to withdraw. On Jan. 18, 1991, UN forces, under the leadership of U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf, launched the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), liberating Kuwait in less than a week.
The war did little to dwarf Iraq's resilient dictator. Rebellions by both Shiites and Kurds, encouraged by the U.S., were brutally crushed. In 1991, the UN set up a northern no-fly zone to protect Iraq's Kurdish population; in 1992 a southern no-fly zone was established as a buffer between Iraq and Kuwait and to protect Shiites.
The UN Steps In With Sanctions and Weapons Inspections
The UN Security Council imposed sanctions beginning in 1990 that barred Iraq from selling oil except in exchange for food and medicine. The sanctions against Iraq failed to crush its leader but caused catastrophic suffering among its people—the country's infrastructure was in ruins, and disease, malnutrition, and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed.
The UN weapons inspections team mandated to ascertain that Iraq had destroyed all its nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic arms after the war was continually thwarted by Saddam Hussein. In Nov. 1997, he expelled the American members of the UN inspections team, a standoff that stretched on until Feb. 1998. But in Aug. 1998, Hussein again put a halt to the inspections. On Dec. 16, the United States and Britain began Operation Desert Fox, four days of intensive air strikes. From then on, the U.S. and Britain conducted hundreds of air strikes on Iraqi targets within the no-fly zones. The sustained low-level warfare continued unabated into 2003.
Did Saddam sanction Iraq?
No.
The US/UN did, therefore, all of those people that died as a direct result of those sanctions, were killed by the US/UN.
Saddam was OUR guy for a time. You realize that don't you?
Say you hire a cop. That you know to be a killer. You give him a gun, a car.. He goes out and kills a bunch of innocent people. You put his picture in the paper and you call him a hero and you shake his hand etc. You give him a new gun. He then goes out and kills one of your buddies.
Its you own damn fault. You just gave a gun to a murderer. It doesn't give you the right to go and kill his family and all his friends and everyone he knew and then blame him for everything.
Pure madness.
Yeah, I'm still not seeing the part that explains if Iraq's militant hardline dictator disobeys a direct order from Washington, they get to kill a bunch of Iraqi civilians.
Maybe I skimmed over it or something.
Or the part that explains how withholding food and medicine from a poor war torn country was even considered in the first place.
This part was interesting.
Saddam's ascension was in 1978.
CIA involvement began in 1972.
Which suggests he was our guy from the beginning.
Which may or may not be true. (there are also reports that Saddam was directly trained by the CIA-to kill the leader at the time, in the 70's, which would explain why the CIA wasn't able to assassinate him years later-he knew their methods.)
But all of that can't be verified, so lets pretend it never happened.
What is true is that he was our guy for a time. And that can be verified. The picture I provided suggests that. And there is massive documentation out there as well. He was armed in the Iran/Iraq war, he had political support...those kinds of things.
So the guy you're trying so hard to blame everything on was our guy. Probably from the beginning, though that's not really relevant. Through the gassing of the Kurds for sure, and the Iran war, which was done with US made chemical weapons.
But Saddam went his own way. He stepped out of line. He started killing the wrong people.
OUR guy stepped out of line.. OUR guy that we armed and gave political support to.
He stepped out of line, the United States killed him and millions of his people.
This was also interesting. (from your post)
"The sanctions against Iraq failed to crush its leader but caused catastrophic suffering among its people—the country's infrastructure was in ruins, and disease, malnutrition, and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed."
referring to the bold.
the sentence implies "crush[ing] its leader" was the goal. (where is the article from btw?) Which goes against conventional wisdom in this case. Its generally accepted that the sanctions imposed on Iraq strengthened his hold on power. Iraqis could no longer provide for themselves, not like they could before the sanctions...instead they had to rely on Saddam in order to survive, making his hold on power even stronger.
And this isn't a new revelation. They knew that going in.
Which means getting rid of Saddam was never their intention.
I believe they liked having a firm dictator to control the various factions in Iraq. And that fits with current US policy. See any number of a dozen examples of the US installing and arming a militant dictator. Saddam may have been the only one who could keep order...and CIA involvement goes back to 1972, suggesting he was our guy from the beginning.
The guy your trying to blame all of this on was OUR GUY.
The point i was making about Saddam given a greenlight to invade Kuwait by Washington is much more thurough here.
A quote from the last US/Iraq meeting that took place before the war, diplomacy at the highest level, between the US ambassador and Saddam Hussein, is as follows.
"The US has no position on your Arab-Arab conflict." US ambassador April Glaspie, referring directly to the Iraqi troop buildup on the Kuwait border, after Saddam had called Kuwait's action "Parallel to war".
AND
Washington Post:
Since the invasion, highly classified U.S. intelligence
assessments have determined that Saddam took U.S. statements
of neutrality ... as a green light from the Bush administration
for an invasion. One senior Iraqi military official ... has
told the agency [CIA] that Saddam seemed to be sincerely
surprised by the subsequent bellicose reaction.
AND
Rep. Lee Hamilton asked if it would be correct to say that
if Iraq "charged across the border into Kuwait" the United States
did "not have a treaty commitment which would obligate us to
engage U.S. forces" there.
"That is correct," John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern and South Asian Affairs, responded.
and there is more, but you get the idea.
All of this could have been avoided IF the US wasn't playing politics with people's lives.
If the sanctions were put on Iraq because Saddam invaded Kuwait (what you're suggesting), and the invasion could have been avoided if Washington hadn't given the greenlight, the US is responsible for the sanctions and subsequent invasions (obviously).
Add the CIA involvement in 72, the US arms political support, Rumsfeld..
It all comes right back home.
Saddam was a pawn, a good little pawn when he was killing the right people, but nothing more.. Not the Hitler of the 90's or whatever he's been called. Just a pawn in a sick game that US policy planners play all over the world.
why did the United Nations sanction Iraq?
what the fuck does that even mean? Saddam was not "our" guy. again, research the history of how Saddam came to power. its shocking how ignorant you are to this subject.
responses like this are becoming par for the course with you.
yea no shit. but you certainly seem to think it is.
It
because the US told them to.
recall the deeds as if they're all
someone else's atrocious strories.
according to you...
The US destroyed Iraq to save it.
The US killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people to free them.
Iraqi's are all very happy that we have invaded and occupied their country.
We are training more guys to run around with guns so its getting better.
The US can do no wrong, and has no influence over the UN.
that about right?
Seldom right and wrong again. the United Nations security counsil passed sancations on Iraq in response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. if saddam doesnt invade, the United Nations would not have voted to pass sancations on the country.
I didnt say that
I didnt say this either all? I didnt say that either. you are on a roll. there are SOME however who are very happy we freed them from Saddam
yea. those "guys with guns" are called police officers. every country has them
I didnt say this either. the US was wrong to invade Iraq and has plenty of influence in the UN.
I believe, the United States is waning superpower running out of economic and political pull in the world arena, is quick to move any confrontation to force, where it reigns supreme.
Every country claims to be all for diplomacy and peace-even hitler, but the veil is easily seen through, if you care to research it past the cursory mainstream accounts.
The US prefers war .
And I can prove that, especially regarding Iraq.
my position is easy. Saddam is responsible for international sanctions being placed on Iraq. Saddam choose to invade Kuwait..and before that Iran. there are consequences for those actions. had he choose not to invade other countries, many millions might still be alive today and he would probably still be in power. I have to keep saying this, but you need to research Saddam. its painfully obvious you do not know much about him.
The US was wrong to invade Iraq based on the reasoning given to us. The US is doing the right thing, however, by staying to help rebuild the country.
History will decide if freeing Iraq from totalitarism is the right thing.
I know enough about Saddam-he was a hardline militant dictator given military and political support from the United States, at one time. Which enabled him to do all sorts of terrible things in the region, including starting wars with 2 countries. He was scumbag, evil, etc.
But his crimes are nothing compared to the United States, or Britain, another country in the slaughter of Iraq that deserves to be named. It serves no purpose to find out anything more about him, unless you are trying to shift the blame around from the real perpetrators.
2 countries with far, far far worse human rights records and dozens of wars between them, the United States and Britain, have no business leading a charge to 'end totalitarianism' or save the region or remove saddam or look for wmd's or bring democracy or any of those things. They don't have the moral ground to stand on.
The current situation is proof of that. countless Iraqi's murdered, en entire country destroyed, occupied the US.
you seem to think Saddam was a good leader and Iraq was better off with him as president. only people who nothing little to nothing about him would think that.
happy?
'
Do you think Saddam's sons would have been the right people to deal with a murder in Canada or Mexico?
probably not. the guys entire family would have probably been raped and tortured.
Much like the US and Britain were the wrong guys to deal with the crimes of Saddam.
All of Iraq was raped and tortured
But none of this is about saving Iraq or removing a dictator.
Today, the US is supporting a FAR worse regime in Turkey. And Colombia is no picnic either. TODAY.
Why haven't they been invaded to "save" the people from being tortured and killed?
Iraq was about oil. not about people.
so who should have dealt with saddam? surely not the Iraqis.. they were and still are terrified of him even to this day even though he's dead. Did you not see what he did to the Kurds when they tried to make difference?
what Regime in turkey are we supporting ?
Iraq was not about oil we haven't gotten a damn drop any cheaper then it was before the damn war.
If it were up to me I would take out Kim Jung. He's running concentration camps full of people even children. Nat Geo was able to sneak in cameras during a time when a doctor from Eng. I think went over there to perform 100 surgeries on people with cataracts. the people that had these was a result from their drinking water if Im not mistaken. Anyway Lisa Ling interviewed a border guard from N.K. and his whole family was thrown into one of these camps cos he escaped from N.K.
He told a story about a few kids that was in one of these camps he said" they were so hungry that they were fighting over a piece of corn that one of them had dug out of cow manure :shock: :x
All countries have to deal with their leadership themselves-- even if that requires revolution.
Also, a war can be fought (in part) about oil without the price going down. Just because new pipelines and oil fields are available to multi-national corporations doesn't mean they have to gouge you any less once they acquire them.
The one that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds.
Its still going on today.
I wish I had a copy of the letter i got from a political prisoner in Turkey. It was part of an Amnesty International campiagn, part of it involved writing letters to this guy, a political prisoner.
And what he said about all the letters he received in his cell (I don't know if he read mine) was the most powerful thing I have ever read in my life. I have it somewhere.
He was freed, mainly because of Amnesty.
But he's one.
There's are thousands more.
I agree.
the best way to deal with guys like Saddam and his sons is to not support them in the first place.
Dictators tend not to last long without outside help/.
Let the people decide their own fate.
I agree. we should have never got involved during the 80s. that was a huge mistake
they tried and were slaughted.
I think that's the core of the argument here about looking at "our" faults as opposed to blaming Saddam. Saddam was a bastard, no doubt. But the point is that since the 80s and even before, we have done nothing but fuck up in the Middle East. It's been one blunder after another... revolution in Iran, backing Saddam, training Bin Laden... the list goes on. Our track record on "helping" the people of the Islamic world is pretty shit. I think the basic argument here is that we clearly simply don't get the Muslim world, and perhaps it's time we stopped getting involved in shit over there and let them deal with their own affairs. Everything we try to do there becomes a huge clusterfuck and only breeds further resentment of the US and more terrorist sympathizers.
still need to be put in context on a case by case basis. take Afghanistan for example. sure we "created" bin laden so to speak, but we were doing the right thing when we were helping the afgans get the Soviets out of the country. Charlie Wilsons War was a very informative movie. the soviets were slaughtering those people and the world didnt give a fuck. one US congressman took it upon himself to help them. and it actually worked...but as seen in the movie, mistakes were made once the war was over, but thats we had already spent billions.
and the whole Iran/Iraq thing. Iran was very much a sworn enemy of ours in 1980 with the hostages and Islamic Revolution. Saddam had already started a war (without our involvement), and we simply took sides. Saddam invaded in 80, we didnt get involved until 82. In this fucked up world we live in, sometimes we are forced to do things that are in our best interest. and like it or not, OIL is vital to our survival. we've been forced to take sides and be involved in the middle east since oil was discovered.
and its my personal opinion that our involvement in the region is an overall good thing when we push for "American Democracy"...which is essentially freedom. I've studied and read alot about hardcore Islam. its very fucked up and practiced in many countries over there...I think history will prove the Iraq war to be a good thing ( I HOPE, I HOPE, I HOPE). Iraq has a chance at being the first and only country in the region to experience Freedom.
have you seen the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan? They are torturing young children and women...enforcing the strictest of Islamic Law on them. Personally, I dont think we should just wash our hands of it and say "well if thats how they want to live, its none of my business"..we need to support those who support Freedom.
I love how this 1 million gets thrown around like poker chips. but you're right, since he didnt reach the 25,000 plateau in awhile, he was probably a good guy and should have been left alone.
You like to throw around the word context, but the context you don't get is that are pushing for "American democracy" is not seen by the Muslim world as spreading freedom... it's seen as imperialism and unwanted meddling. There is a world of difference between stopping genocide and other humanitarian causes and in exploiting foreign countries for our own economic gain. Don't sit there and tell me this is about freedom and protecting women and children. Women and children are being tortured and abused to a much greater extent in Africa, but we don't lift a finger to help them. Our involvement in the middle east is not about protecting women or children or promoting freedom, it's about oil and money. Period.
Even Afghanistan... you mention Charlie Wilson's War. Yes, there was humanitarian abuse. But if we were all about protecting innocents and promoting freedom, why did we bail on them as soon as the Russians took a military hit? Because we didn't give a flying fuck about the people of Afghanistan or their freedom, we cared about taking out an economic competitor. That's plainly acknowledged in that movie.
So don't tell me our involvement in the Middle East is some big love fest where we're looking out for the little guys. It's exploitative. And it's the very attitude you espouse here (that these poor backwards savages just need our guidance to become civilized and "fix" their fucked up religion) that causes things like 9/11, the USS Cole, and a general disdain for the US in the Muslim world. And I know this not from watching American movies giving the American slant on how wonderful we are to go into Afghanistan and push our American democracy on them, I know this from visiting Islamic countries and talking to Islamic people. Even the Islamic feminists fighting hard to change the misogynistic tendencies (which are plenty present in Christianity by the way) dislike the US's meddling in Islamic affairs. They don't WANT our "help." They want to change things for themselves.
I largely agree but I feel there is also truth in what I said. we can only do so much and go so far, sometimes we fall short.. We went to Afganistan to defeat an enemy and free the Afgans. We went to Iraq to protect our Oil interests and free Iraq from Saddam. and I'll call bullshit on your so called Islamic travels. where have you been? Detroit? that doesnt count. I highly doubt you are some expert on what they want. There are many people in the muslim world who consider us friends. secondly, women or anyone who speaks out against people like Saddam or the Taliban are tortured and killed. they cant help themselves.
I have a friend who's father did alot of business overseas. He was sitting in a restaurant in London when a Kuwaiti came up to him and thanked him simply because he was American. the Kuwaitis love us....as do many Iraqis who were tortured in Iraq and many Afgans who suffered under the Taliban.
you and Commy seem to think America is the root of all evil and we help no one. that simply not true.
and dont bring up Africa. America is the biggest supporter of Africa. you just like to think we arent doing anything because we dont have troops on the ground fighting wars there.