As for being lied to hmm....if I remember correctly didn't bush say on an interview with Katie Couric "the hardest part of my job is connecting the war in iraq with the war on terrorism" and donald rumsfeld also denied that they ever said there were wmd's in iraq ex post facto? I love how our "intelligence" ascertained that Iraq had wmd's and then N. Korea tests a nucular weapon and it takes our "intelligence" a week later to attest to a successful nucular test in N. Korea.

As much as Saddam was a terrible person, look what has happened to Iraq after he was removed from power. 100's die daily for the past few months. Far more than under the tyranny of Sadam.

Do with Saddam as Iraq wants to do with him. It's their country and they should be able to do whatever their culture deems a proper punishment. Will Iraq benefit from Saddam being taken out of power and hung? Yeah...in our life time? Who knows....It's nice to see that justice is being served for such a terrible person. Hope this will be a lesson to future dictators.....

 

that's because no one wants to accept the fact that we need to be in IRAQ to establish a presence in the middle east. How we are dealing with things in Iraq leaves a lot to be desired IMHO. Now is not the time to rebuild. Now is the time to FORCEFULLY GO AFTER AND ELIMIATE THE INSURGENT THREAT. Once the country is secure (no more terrorists crossing into IRAQ to fight us) then we can work on establishing the government and rebuilding the place. YOu can only win by dominating your enemy...something we have yet to do in Iraq.......

Funny how people danced in the streets when the death sentance was given in Bagdad....but the Europeans think it is wrong?


Europeans as a whole do not have the stomach to stand up to the terrorists.....it's that simple

Take a look at Spain and France........

 

hundreds of thousands died under the tyranny of sadam... Far more than we are killing.... However, don't take that statement as meaning that I agree or disagree with what's happening, I'm just mearly stating that I believe Sadam slaughtered far more people than we will... I'm basing that estimate on news reports and the stories that kids told me during my tour over there, I'd almost be willing to bet that he litteraly pulled the trigger and murdered more people himself than we have as a military force during this entire war....

I suppose I'm just optimistic in my belief that we may be killing a fairly large number of people but at the same time we're saving an exponential number of other citizens.... Anyway I guess just like everyone else I'm hoping and believe that we are doing more good than harm. Please don't take my statements as insulting since they are just my opinion and I see where you are coming from... here's an interesting article about his death toll (note the date at the top of it)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...le.asp?ID=5773

 

In 2005, 94 per cent of all known executions took place in China (8,000?), Iran (94), Saudi Arabia (86) and the USA (60). Perhaps those Europeans believe we're not in the best of company?

 

This is Really a great debate we have going in here and I'd like to say thay everyone is conducting themselves very well and we really think that this is great...This is the way to discuss this and not like in other forums where they cuss and talk down every thing another person says in their posts..

Thanks to all for being gentleman with distinction...

WheelBrokerAng

 

Think the Irish may have a slight disagreement with you there[sm=chairshot.gif]

 

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan surrendered - that's an all-important difference from WWII outcomes – especially when one considers the already-existing internal factions in the former.

In both Germany and Japan, after those surrenders, the armies dropped their weapons and civilians aided their occupiers in re-establishing governments, infrastructure and normal life in general. The populations knew and accepted that they had been defeated.

Not so in the present cases.

Quite surprisingly, although many members of the Japanese military went on trial for war crimes, the Emperor was allowed to remain in power, even though he had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. Truman understood that the political reality of the situation in Japan supported that decision at that time, and history certainly has supported it in hindsight.

After the US invasion of Iraq there was a period of relative calm and relief on all sides until it became apparent to Iraqi's that the US intended to do precisely what it did. Even as it became obvious that there were no WMD's, there was still no indication that the US would be leaving of its own volition. From that point onward to today, contrary to W's rosy portrayal, the situation in Iraq has been steadily deteriorating.

Once the US had determined that there were no WMD's, even if forces had been withdrawn at that point, and even if Hussein had crawled out of his hole and once again assumed command, I believe that it’s quite possible that not only would this NOT have been worse than the situation that exists at the present time, it may have been one of the best (certainly the least costly for the US) outcomes.

In the unlikely event that he would have survived the ensuing internal political turmoil in his weakened position, Hussein would certainly, at least to the US, have been completely emasculated. If it so desired, the US could even have resumed the casual bombing of the country at will, although with Hussein no longer having planes to intrude into so-called “no fly zones”, even this probably would have been unnecessary.

Hussein was, if nothing else, a secular leader who for many years "reined in" any radical Islamists. In this weakened state, however, this may not have continued to be possible internally, and Iran may have taken advantage of that situation, but I believe this would have been unlikely considering that this may have precipitated a US invasion – this time, as in the first Gulf War, with the full support of the UN.

In this one respect Clinton was right – prior to the invasion Hussein was “in a box” and there was no need for an invasion to keep him there. Certainly once the issue of potential WMD’s had been definitively resolved after the invasion, with his remaining military forces completely destroyed, he could have been even more easily kept there. In that state, he may have even been open to US overtures of cooperation.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from the Japanese example. Considering the positive outcome of not prosecuting the Japanese Emperor, maybe some mutually-acceptable arrangement could even now, as a gesture of good will, be made with Hussein – in secret, of course – in which Hussein would perhaps assume some minor role in the new government.

But a little voice tells me that W, unlike his father, wants to see Hussein executed so badly that this would be impossible, even if it were in the best interest of both nations.

The same voice tells me that WMD’s may not have been the real reason for the invasion and that this “Freedom and Democracy” ploy is just that.

All of the above assumes the honest intentions of W from the beginning. But the evidence now being exposed which details the deliberate manipulation of data by the administration to support its contention of the existence of WMD’s in Iraq, along with the now-historic counter-productive behavior of the occupiers, as well as the plan to build 4 or 5 new billion-dollar bases - all point to one purpose for the invasion – a permanent US military presence in Iraq to support a puppet government which was legitimized by a UN acting under the false pretenses presented to it by the US.

The question I have for the future is: will the US accept the request by a freely-elected, democratic, but anti-US government to leave Iraq immediately? I believe that the US puppet-masters will never allow that situation to arise.

In an Iraq occupied and dominated by the US military, and subjugated by its puppet – a place where likely political outcomes are not allowed - Freedom and Democracy can not exist.

Just as if it was a play with a script, by virtue of the fact that Iraq has a US-installed and controlled puppet government, Iraq is another Vietnam – but having as the reason for the war the threat of world-wide terrorism instead of world-wide communism. All of the players – politicians and citizens representing all sides - are dutifully “saying their lines”.

It’ll be interesting to see how this re-make ends.

One thing is for certain - the "war" continues to be very very expensive and, even so, the military situation is continuing to deteriorate. Combine these facts with the constant stream of anti-Iran/Syria propaganda, and it makes the US political mind-set much more amenable to a "final solution".

 

that was a mouthfull *L* well put though... One of the things that was origonally stated towards the begininng of all of this is that the only way saddam was even able to "keep everything in check" was through tyrannical rule to avoid a civil uprising of the two sides and it has been said that because of that it is either going to take a massive amount of time or a full on civil war to "iron out" the differences.... A good way for most people to understand this is imagine if you were a christian and you were forced to follow a leader who was a devil worshiper, now once that devil worshiper was removed and a christian was put into place you'd be happy, however, the devil worshipers would now be super angry at you and turn on you.... so how do you get the two extremes to come together in such a deeply religous nation?

 

Tony1M --- very well put!!! Kudos for you = )

 

Very interesting Tony1m.