RE: War or no war?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 29-01-03 AT 09:56 PM (GMT)]>you seems to believe everything the Chinese state press (why
>is there such a thing as a state press) says, but that’s ok,
>you can believe what ever you want just like i can believe
>what i want.

hmm, please go back and read my previous posts again, when did i ever quoted or used chinese state media as a source or basis for my arguments or statements? the only time when i mentioned the word ‘meida’, it was accomponied by ‘ur’ and ‘western’.

just because ppl say nice things abt china does not automatically mean that they just believe chinese media. for ur infomation, i do not read any of the main chinese state media publictions or get any info from them, zaobao.com, with is a singapore based newspaper, BBCI, CNN, the times, the guardian, the telegraph are my main sources of infomation. and the last time i checked, none of them was chinese state owned or run.

as for ur question on why there is a state media in china. well, if u know it or not, all media organisations are mouthpieces for their respective governments. i read an interesting article in the guardian a while back abt how Mrs blair blocked the publication of an article in the british newspaper that contained info she did not want released. if a mear CIVILIAN, who is just married to a politition had so much influence over the so called ‘free’ media of the west, one can only wonder how much control ur governments have abt what is published and what is not.

the biggest difference between the chinese state media and ur ‘free’ media is that ur governments are much more skilled at infomation manipulation, and controling the views and moods of their ppl. good for u.

>Given that, please don’t call people demented
>just because they don’t agree with you. If you insists,
>then that says pretty much about you doens’t it?

i do accept i may have gone a little too far there, and i do appologies for it. but by frist compairing a person to a nation and then getting east and west mixed up, as well as keep making unsupported and seemingly baseless, flamitory remarks abt someone else’s country, u were asking for it a bit.

>i didn’t read that guy’s claims about China, but under your
>assumption i shouldn’t take stock in almost every recently
>democratic leaders all over the world because ironically (to
>you) most if not all of them were political prisioners or
>physical vicitims of politics in the past, from Nobel winner
>Kim of the South Korea, Nelson Mendela, Burma’s Suki (or
>something like that, heck she’s still under house arrest,
>must be a bad criminal, bad mama according to you), and many
>many other places. I shouldn’t take stock in them too…no?
> If there’s a revolution in China (that’s a big “if” so
>don’t need to explode) in the next decade Mr. Wu might just
>be the first democratically elected leader of PRC. What
>irony…again to you.

apart from those 4 ppl, how many other democratically elected leaders have spend time in prison cells? those 4 ppl do not even make up a ‘minority’ of ‘recently democratic leaders’ never mind ‘almost every’. u have got to stop tempting me with such easy mocking opportunities mate!

but we have strayed far enough from the original topic. sorry to have bord everyone who was not interested in our little discussion.

jonesy

very well thought and presented arguements for war on iraq. i must say u have given me much more things to think abt when trying to decide whether or not a war on iraq under the current circumstances is justified or even nessecary.

but, even though the decision against war is nowhere near as clear cut and easy as before our discussions, i must say that i still do not support a war.

but since it seems now that war is almost inevitable, i wish u the very best of luck if u do get called up, and hope to speak (or argue ;-)) with u again when this is all over.

c u around then.

RE: War or no war?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 28-01-03 AT 08:08 PM (GMT)]>how many tonight are starving in China?

very very few in fact, and definately a hell of alot less then there were, say 5 years ago. if u havent noticed, ppl in china didnt need to worried abt food a long time ago. now our biggest problem is obesity and high colestral, guess that’s juat another ‘little thing’ that sliped ur mind.

another ‘little point’ that may have slipped ur mind is that the main reason so so many ppl starved to death in china in the 50s and 60s is because the US imposed sanctions and actively tried to isolate china cos we kicked out ur little corrupt pupet govenment and decided to go our own path. the US also stopped china from getting any sort of meaningful compensation from japan for decades of occupation, murder, rape, piliage and terror, just a few hundred thousand $ and one heavy lift crane, individual jews probably got more then that! and now u have to neave to come and lecture us on not salving the problems and difficulties U left or imposed on us?!

>worse of all, due to political corruption and personal greed. Don’t turn a blind eye on eastern parts of >China just because you want to
feel great nationalistically, what a patriot, no?

i’ll give u that, the chinese government does have quite a few bad eggs in it. but at least our top leaders are as clean as they come and are actually trying and doing things that helps to improve the current situation, as opposed to some leaders that just decide to invade a country when they made a mass of things at home.

but what the hell r u on abt with the ‘eastern parts of china’ thing? did it also slip ur mind that the eastern parts of china are the most developed in china, and that the cities there are a match for any in the world?

if u mean the western parts of china, well, yes, those parts are much less developed then the east. but there are projects well under way to improve things with better infastructure being put in place to help it attract investment and skilled workers. billions US$ have already went into the west, with billions US$ more on its way. now all we need is time.

>China collectively as a corrupted regime is at fault…much the
>same you can say to the US in the civil rights years but in
>a totally greater magnitude,

hmm…wrong! again! the chinese government does have a fairly seriouse problem with corruption in its lower ranks, but even ur meida, which just loves to put down and dig up dirt on foriegn leaders, have not been able to find anything to critisize abt Zhu rong ji, Hu jin tao or Jiang ze min. the few ‘comments’ the aurther tried to add to ‘discredit’ Hu in an article in the Guardian was easily disproved and only danmostrated the auther’s total lack of knowlegde abt chinese culture and polities. which, just further consolidated my view that our top leaders are as good as it comes. with ppl like that in power, low level corruption can only do very limited damage, and will be rooted out eventually.

>where it’s not just about racism or lynchings, but it’s about genocide. Much the same as Mexico (and >plenty of others) with it’s great land and population is still quite poor because exactly of massive >political corruption.

‘racism’?! where in the world did u get that from? and ‘genocide’? r u totally demented or just dont know anything abt china? for ur infomation, there must be pursecution of a DIFFERENT racial group to ur own to qualify as racism. that may be the case in the US, with the way u treat all non-whites, but it is certainly not the case in china. in fact, in china, ethinic minorities enjoy much more benefits and better treatment then the Han(which is the main ‘racial’ group in china, as u would probably not know).

a real life example that i experience first hand is that ethnic chinese students get a 5~10 point ‘mark-up’, in their grades when applying for places in high school and university. in the highly competitive system in china, where 0.5 point could be the difference between thousands of candidates, that is a massive advantage. i personally had to work much much harder then students from ethnic monorities to get past that. so now that i think of it, we Han are kind of ‘racist’, but definately not in the way u suggest.

as for ‘genocide’etc, well, all i can say is stop reading the fictional crap of harry wu and co, did the fact that he spend the better part of his life in prison hit home with u? i dont know abt u, but i would definately NOT trust the claims of a convited criminal.

>You may not agree, but many indigenous in eastern China will agree…so, should i take your words for it >or theirs?

agree on what? yes, they’ll probably agree with me that ethnic chinese get better tratement in china, but so what? we are still all chinese after all.

hmm, there it is again, ‘eastern’. so i guess u didnt miss-type the first time. are u saying that the ppl in the eastern part of china are not happy now? and what is this abt ‘indigenous’? the Han are the ‘indigenous’ population of eastern parts of china, are u now campaining for equal rights for the Han? 😀 or did u just get the map backwards?

we chinese have an old saying:’ dont speak blindly abt things you dont know much abt in an attampt to make urself look smarter, as u would just prove that u r dumb.’

RE: War or no war?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 27-01-03 AT 09:21 PM (GMT)]>I’ll describe the real problem for you then. Hussein is not
>stupid, I agree absolutely with your assessment there, once
>he’s faced down the United Nations and shown the world, and
>the Arab world in particular, that he doesnt need fear the
>censure of the world community he then has little reason NOT
>to rebuild his forces. Given time to assemble these forces,
>which is precisely what certain members of the world
>community are proposing we do, he will have the ability to
>take precipitate action. Action which will mean the most
>severe of economic consequences for us all. Why would he not
>- who would stop him? The US or UK – nope, they’ve proven to
>be too easily checked by the rest of the world. Who else
>would dare threaten him if he held a threat over the
>oilfields? This is simply an unacceptable position for us to
>be in now……let alone by the end of the decade!.

its not as simple as u make it out to be. even if u leave saddam along, it would be very hard for him to rebuild his forces back to the level they were in 91, never mind become stronge enough to seriously challenge any of the major powers, so there is no real threat coming from him there, especially with the sanctions still in place.

the UN like all estabishments have guidelines and rules, since the US and Uk were amoung its original founding members, then i cant see one reason y u are unable to follow the very rules u urselves set up or agreed to before. the US and Uk is ‘checkered’ by the rest of the world because the US and Uk are not following the rules, not the other way around.

the UN needs solid proof that saddam is developing WMD to sanction war. US and UK have not found it. surely u dont just expect the world to take ur word for it and go in on a whimb?

u may find a compramise unreasonable because u r a soilder, and dont like compramises or having enemies that are just as capable as u. thats fair enough, im not sure i would be willing to go to war against a country with kh31s and s300 when i can fight them when they only have exocits and sa2s.

with no disrespect meant, but that’s just the main reason that so many ppl in the US agrees to go to war with iraq, and thats also the same reason y so many ppl around the world dont like the US to go to war with iraq.

u cannot start a war based solely on the basis that that country may be harder to defeat sometime in the far distant future. thats called fighting a war just for the sake of fighting. and anyway, if u start using that as ur ‘banchmark’ for war, then u will just find that more and more countries fit ur list with each war u fight.

lets face it, after 9/11, the american leaders got a dose of reality and found out that the USA pi$$ed off(for the right or wrong reasons) far too many ppl and countries in the past, and now they are nerviouse of what might happen if those ppl and countries start striking back. so now, theyre using the ‘war on terror’ as a pretext to ‘clean up the house’ as it were, to topple leaders that hate the US and put proxy governments in to control ‘hostile’ populations, or even to set up reginal enemies to next to any country that may threaten them in the future.

needless to say, few ppl outside the USA like that notion, as a result, all the protets and ‘feet dragging’ u see around today.

>Or if he wants to achieve some political goal, the permanent
>removal of the no-fly zones or a guarantee of global
>non-interference while he finishes off the Kurds in the
>North of his country perhaps. Why would he not expect
>to get away with it? He’s gotten away with flouting
>international resolutions half a dozen times already so what
>would make him think twice about chancing his arm again….a
>strongly worded letter from Kofi Annan? He’d not even use
>that to wipe his backside with!.

again, the same arguement above applies, this is only a possiblity and not a fact. he is in no position to be making any deands on anyone, whether he likes or not and its not like he’ll be foolish enough to try using force or even the threat of force again.

>The dozen SAS troopers that havent been able to find him yet
>you mean, why do you think they’d have any more luck once
>Husseins military capacity has been allowed time to build up
>again?.

i was refering to a possible situation IF u were to invade iraq. and the SAS were more of a medaphorical purpose then just suggesting he’ll be caugh by the SAS, if u like, u can use SEALS, delta force or cruse missile if u like, it changes little. as soon as saddam knows hes in mortal danger, there will be none of the normal restraints that wpould stop him from using his WMD stocks if he has any. i guess he may even decide to use them as soon as he knows he’ll loose, if not as an act of revenge, then as a desperate attempt to escape during the confution.

>I agree it does makes him predictable, this is why I find it
>so easy to accept that he still has bio-chem weapons in his
>inventory and so hard to believe that so many people think
>Hussein is actually telling the truth!. The leopard has not
>changed his spots and the games he’s playing with the UNSCOM
>inspectors right now show it clearly. How clear some people
>need things to be spelled out for them amazes me more and
>more every day!.

better to be sure then start a war without proper reason at the cost of thousands upon thousands of lives, on both sides if u really want saddam out.

>History has demonstrated that Saddam Hussein will take
>advantage of any situations he considers himself to have an
>edge in. In the Iran-Iraq war he took the opportunity of the
>Iranian Revolution, and the weakened state Iran found itself
>in afterwards, to commence a war of aggression. In 1990 he
>believed he had tacit approval from the US to annexe Kuwait
>and used that to launch into a war of aggression. Both times
>he’s had a clear advantage and both times he’s exploited
>them for conquest. I see no reason to believe that that will
>change once he regains the capability to exploit situations
>again.

with all due respect, but every government exploits advantagouse situation, most choose not to invade another country, but the basic principle is the same. so no one really has any sort of a case going after saddam purely on the grounds that he may try to turn future events to his advantage.

>This is exactly the thing that infuriates me about this
>whole debate though, no offense levelled directly at you,
>but what has the US’s, or anyone else’s for that matter,
>behaviour in the past got to do with stopping Hussein
>achieving a threatening position to the global economy? I
>dont care about the French, Chinese and the rest being able
>to score a few cheap points off the US – I DO care
>about the lives of the kids who’re just going into secondary
>school now who will be the ones in uniform to face Saddams
>forces in 10 years when he’s got the developed world by the
>balls.

i think i covered most of the points u raised here before. if the US wants to act all ‘nobal’ and ‘selfless’ abt going to war in iraq then u need a nobal and fair reason, and curently all they can throw out is that saddam may be a threat in the far distant future, which is just not good enough. also, notice that most of the world is not against a war to topple saddam, they just refuse to give the US and UK the moral stamp of approval they want. in a scence, they are saying, if u want to go and fight saddam, by all means do so, but we’re not going to give u an excuse for it and make it look like some great nobal deed to save the world when u have not shown us any real proof that it is.

>No problem – these are the records, easily available on FAS
>at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/northern_watch.htm,
>listing his violations against UN-tasked aircraft in the
>no-fly zones:

>See a pattern developing here? This is only a small sample
>of the details listed there and is only from the Northern
>No-Fly zone!

sorry, but that is not exactly a water tight excuse is it? we are only hearing one side of the story, and especially now, we cant tell for sure if the bombing on targets well OUTSIDE the no fly zones are ‘retalitory strikes’ or just a campaine to weaken iraq before an invation. under those circumstances, i cant really see any fault on the part of the iraqis for shooting back.

i know that sounds cold(no disrespet meant to the men and women being shot at out there), but that is a valid point.

>You’re looking from a blinkered perspective then PLA. France
>has been villified for continuing its nuke programme
>especially with the Polynesian underwater test series in the
>mid 90’s. The Russians have been trying to field the Topol-M
>ICBM for years and the Chinese have resorted to outright
>theft of US MIRV designs in its race to develop its nuclear
>potential. Clearly these are all ok though as its just a
>counter to US hegemony….right?.

well, u can argue that france and russia and china are just developing their nuclear weapons to counter the US weapons. with the US’ track record on the usage of WMD, one cant really feel safe without the proper deterence capacity.

as for china stealing US nuclear weapons secret, well that is still a very contraversal and firecely disputed claim, so its hardly approperate to lay that out as if it was a fact. if the US has such a good case, then y was the chinese scientest who allegidly stolen the secrets released without convition?

>I’m afraid youve got that backwards PLA. The problem with
>asymmetric threat countries is that MAD doesnt work in that
>scenario – this has been the main driver behind the
>Ballistic Missile Defence programme the US has been trying
>to get various nations behind and has been taking so much
>flak over. Simply put if the N.Koreans did flip its total
>inventory of 4 ICBMs at the CONUS the US President could
>hardly issue the order for a total retaliatory strike and
>turn the northern half of the Korean Peninsula into a big
>glass-covered carpark. The North Koreans, and everyone else,
>are acutely aware of that sooooo there’s no MAD at work
>anymore. No MAD means that you need something else to
>balance the small-scale threat…..enter Missile Defence.
>This is getting quite a way off the issue under debate
>though.

on the contraery, the US has no real threat from any nation lunching a first strike on it exactly because everyone knows any US retalitory stike to such an attack would be far from proportional. if Nk lunches a nuke at alaska next week, i hardly think the US will just fire one nuke back and call it even.

with that in mind, u can see that the new generation of low yeild nuclear weapons will defenetly not be used as a retalatory weapon. its real operational value is the ability to elliminate enenmy troop concentration close to ur own forces without risking losses or seriouse radiation pollution and contamination. this and the NMD will tempt generals and presidents to USE NUKES as a first option rather then a last resort. need i go on abt the risks of this?

>Wow, bit of a generalisation there PLA. In my experience
>100% of the Americans I’ve spoken to (and my wifes’ family
>lives over there – so this is not just a couple of people
>I’m talking about) are under no illusions about the lack of
>connection between the WoT and the Iraq situation.

well i heard that on a program on C4 and on BBC news, so if u have a problem with the statistices, go and talk to them. but since u r british, maybe ur american friends have a better view of the world then many others cos they interate and listen to ppl from other countries, and maybe cos they have such an outspoken friend as u. :7

Vortex
how on earth does china have a worse record then saddam?! notice how one is a person and the other is a nation. r y trying to say that chinese collectively are all as worse as saddam?!! i sure hope u werent, cos if u were, ur going to get one hell of an earful from urs truely.

even if y do compair the two countries, i dont see how china is anywhere close to being as bad as iraq. would u care to explain ur remarks or are u just one of those ppl that say things without any grounds to back it up or just someone unwilling to see the trueth?

RE: War or no war?

>Why?. How many of these other nations are holding an
>implicit threat over essential oil reserves and have the
>track record of someone like Hussein in charge?

well, i can think of a few with track records even worse then saddam, but i wouldnt call saddam as someone who’s ‘holding an implicit threat’ over anything but his own army.

lets be honest here, there is no chance in hell that saddam can come anywhere near the UK or US in terms of conventional or nuclear capacity. all saddam cares abt is his own servival. so unless his crippled son suddenly wacks him silly with a great big stick, saddam is not going to do anything that can threaten thw oil feilds of SA or kuwait. the only real impact i can see him cause is lower oil prices through smuggling.

>That is simply not the case with Hussein – no one here could
>put their hand on their heart and state that Hussein
>would not disrupt oil supplies from the Gulf in the
>next ten years. This is the risk that the leading economies
>on the planet have had hanging over their heads for the last
>thirteen years or so and, with his measured rearmament, that
>risk is increasing.

i doubt those economese that predicted that are even second rate never mind world leading. the biggest, and very likely only threat of saddam using WMD on the SA and kuwait oil feilds is if he come under attack and knows he’s going down.

just think abt it, with someone like saddam, do u think he would just put his head between his leg and kiss his butt goodbye when there’s a dozen SAS banging down his door? no, his going to try to make u(ie everyone) suffer or go down with him. and the fact that western retalitry stricks would kill half his ppl wont mean crap to him.

the western media seems to get a kick out of portraying leaders of countries we dont like as evil, crazy and stupid. but the fact is, saddam my be evil and crazy, but he is by no means stupid. and also the fact that he’ll do anything to stay in power makes him very predictable in some feilds. that is the soild case against war i was talking abt in my last post, and that’s y i am 99.99% sure saddam will not threaten the SA and kuwait oil feilds if we done go in guns blazing first.

>Simple. Now he’s starting to get stronger and has shown
>himself to still be the wriggly, untrustworthy, b@stard he
>was 13 years ago. Furthermore he seems to be quite adept in
>making the UN dance to his tune and fairly soon is going to
>render that organisation a laughing stock on League of
>Nations level just as Elp said above. Enough is enough.

well, i think the Un had been made a laughing stock by the US mostly years ago. hell, all u need to do to get off scot-free when u break a UN resolution is become the US’ best friend. then they’ll use their veto power to save ur butt from sanctions and anything else. (im not saying that the US is the only one to do it, but lets just say no one else was as blunt or profitiont with their use of the veto). as i cn see it, the UN is now finally willing to show so balls in saying ‘no’ to the US, and telling them to play by the book.

u say that saddam has broken his cease fire accord, maybe so, and probably so. but until u can show evidence that he has, then he mush be presumed innocent. isnt that what our legal system is based on? ‘innocent until proven gulty’? or do u want to change that to ‘innocent until proven gulty (UK,US only)’.

>Again there was that little Cold War thing knocking around
>until, what, a decade ago and since then we’ve been drawing
>down WMD stocks to minimum requirements for projected
>worst-case scenarios. I dont think we need to try and
>confuse the responsible, and long term, ownership of
>strategic nuclear weapons with the possesion of bio-chem
>weapons by an unstable despot sitting on top of the better
>part of the developed worlds’ energy reserves!. I dont
>really see the connection to be honest!

well, WMD isnt just bio-chem u know, and since the end of the cold war, the US has countined to pour $$ into development of ‘stratigic’ nuclear weapons. i dont see the russian or anyone else doing the same, so i can only assume the US wants to use nukes as an offensive weapon. chances are they would only considered using ‘stratigic’ nukes on nations without nukes for fear of counter reprisals. and that is the greatest hypocracy in my view. u condame others for developing WMD, while planning to use them on others! isnt that forcing countries like north korea and iran to become nuclear?!

lets not forget that the only reason many of us are still alive and dont have a 3rd arm or leg is because the USA and USSR knew that they would have both been destroyed in a nuclear war, and so did all they can to avoild it. the years may have moved on, but it seems we have not. and even today, countries choose not to go to war not because of any moral or ethical objection, but mostly based on whether or not we can get out of it without much harm.

>So democratic governments, irrespective of their knowledge
>of facts not in the public domain for opsec reasons, should
>follow the will of the people even if the people are
>ignorant of certain facts?.

well, thats exactlythe case with the US. abt 50% of americans actually think that saddam did 9/11, and alot also think he is bin ladden’s long lost cusin or sth.

>I didnt suggest they were, I just think that there is a
>level of desperation amongst certain countries to chip bits
>off US hegemony at whatever cost. Russia, France and China
>were the traditional ones that went in for this and now it
>looks like France has pulled Germany in with it probably in
>an attempt to show the UK as being isolated in Europe.
>Crying shame if you ask me!? }>

hmm, did u even stop to think that since most of the world is against us, could it possibley be us that is in the wrong?

>Democracy doesnt necessarily have to equal stupidity though
>PLA. Like I said the politicians of those nations have
>agenda’s which they consider more important than the
>potential loss of life, of predominantly US and UK forces,
>that would be caused by giving SH another 10 years of game
>time. In that context theyre hardly going to have a debate,
>like this one, with their populaces and are going to rely on
>the respective media’s in each nation to argue wildly with
>each other (increasing their circulations) to obfuscate the
>real issues.

did it eve occur to u that tony and bush may have their own little agandas for fighhting this war other then just to get rid of saddam? could it be that the others are objecting because they see GWB’s real intensions and dont like it?

elp

im not saying that getting rid of saddam is not a good cause, but i doubt GWB only has getting rid of saddam in mind. and i just dispise him using good causes to justify his own secret little agendas.

as for france, china and russia objecting. well y the hell not? who do u think will have the ultimate say in who gets iraq’s oil and at what price? if the US and Uk and friends gets their oil at $5 PB and the rest of the world at $10, how can anyone compete with them?

RE: War or no war?

>I’m very sorry PLA but there IS a clear right to remove
>Hussein (not bomb the crap out of Iraq – this needn’t be
>Desert Storm II). 13 years ago Saddam Hussein signed
>articles of surrender stating that he would act in a certain
>fashion in return for a cessation of hostilities by the
>coalition forces. Now, and for the past few years, he has
>been in breach of those agreements. The last time we got to
>this position was Dec 1998 when the US kicked off Operation
>Desert Fox against his military capability. It seems that
>that was absolutely ineffective as a long term resolution
>so, now, we are faced with a need to create a permanent
>solution and the best one come up with is to decapitate the
>regime itself.

that is fair enough, but i can think of a great big list of countries that have broken UN resolutions and mandates, some are even permenent members of the council, others are their good friends. u can only use the excuse of iraq breaking a UN mandate as a justification for war if the same treatment is extended to all other offenders. (i know that most of the other breaches are nowhere near as seriouse as those commited by iraq, but that’s still no excuse for them to get off scot-free). otherwise u are asking ppl to call u hipicritical.

>Surely PLA you see the distinction in intent between using a
>chemical weapon in a military context against an enemy in a
>war (as bad as that is) and spraying civillians in a village
>with a non-persistent nerve agent. I cant name many nations
>who’ve used nerve gas against their own populace…well one
>does spring to mind but those parallels have already been
>drawn by others!.

does it make the deed less evil if u only used WMD on enemy civilians?

also, the US never had a problem with iraq’s use of WMD on the kurds. in face, at the time washington tried to place the blame on iran, and shortly afterwards sent delegations to iraq to expand their ‘cooperation’. if u had no problem with saddam back then, what case do u have now? i mean u dont see african nations demand sanction be put on the UK and US cos they used millions of africans as slaves a few hundred years ago do u?

>No and neither could I blame him for wanting nuclear
>tipped ICBM’s, 200 Su-30’s, 2000 T-80 and an Imperial Star
>Destroyer. I dont think that someone with his record, in the
>geographical poisition he’s in, should be allowed to posses
>or retain any of those things though.

well, with all due respect, but that is just plain self ‘supremicism’ speaking mate. what right do we have to decide what other nations can be trusted with? its not like the US and Uk never invaded another country for our own gain, or used WMD before(refers to the US). if u say that iraq cant be trusted with advanced weapons and WMD because they invaded other countries and used WMD before, then we should not be allowed WDM for the same reasons.

>I dont see the connection there PLA. Saddam Hussein signed
>documents stating that he would behave a certain way as a
>penalisation for waging aggressive war. Despite having 13
>years to do this he hasnt and, instead, has used every trick
>in the book to squirm out of honouring his obligations. In
>the process he’s managed to play on the naivete and private
>agenda’s of various first-world powers to set them and the
>US against each other – look what he’s achieved now with the
>Germans and the US. The man must be laughing his arse off!.

germany and many other countries are against war because there is a solid case against the CURRENT plans for war, and because that is what their ppl want. saddam may be an old fox, but the leaders of the rest of the world arent mentally challenged either. are u saying the leaders of germany and france and others should just ignore the openions of their ppl and just follow ur lead? how denmocratic of u.

>If he’d openly gone out and divested his country of the
>chemical weapons he had he’s diminished his nations
>defensive capability to a small degree. In the process
>though he has politically armoured himself against all
>comers .

well, didnt powell just go on TV and say that the US and allies are propaired to go to war even without UN approval? and lets not forget that the kosoval conflict was not sanctioned by the UN either(even though it was for a genuenlly good cause). we can all see how much good saddam’s ‘political armour’ would do him.

also, lets not kid ourselves. iraq’s military capacity may be growing, but compaired to the US and Uk, the distance between that of the US and that of iraq has only grown bigger and not shrunk since 91. saddam’s conventional forces have abt as much chance to fight off an US led attact as i have of becoming the next US president. all iraq has that can pose any real deterrence against an US attack is WMD. so asking iraq to give them up would be like asking a crab to declore itself.

>I’m sorry PLA but if you think that a second military
>intervention in Iraq isnt unavoidable you’re very much
>mistaken. What do you think is going to happen in another 10
>years in Iraq if Husseins’ still there? Do you honestly
>believe, at some point, he’ll see the error of his ways and
>seek to rejoin the world community on honest terms and get
>his country straightened out? The man has proved year
>after year that he’s not interested in that and that,
>rather, he’s interested only in keeping his own position
>intact and as strong as possible.

i do conceed that i was probably being a little nieve thinking that saddam could change by himself. but once u start down that slippery slope, it would be much much harder to stop. today iraq, tommorow iran, later north korea, then cuba…

the point is that no nation on earth is whiter then white. everyone has secrets and done things they rather havent. so in theory, u can find an excuse to start a war with anyone and everyone. also notice how strong countries like the US have been constainly lowering the ‘standard’ of the need to go to war. from WWII, when the US only got invalved when itself was attacked, to vietnam and korea when one of its allies was attacked, to iraq, where iraq is close to having the capacity to attack one of the US’ allies. where will the line be drawn?

the honest truth is that saddam is lucky. he is lucky in that the US chose to fight him now. all the opposition and ruluctance shown by the international cumunity as a whole to war with iraq has little to do with doubt on whether or not saddam should go, but more on where the line should be drawn. u would see even stronger opposition to war if america had chosen NK to pressure for the same reasons.

from what we can tell, iraq has nothing to do with al-Q, or terrism. so calling a war on iraq part of the war on terrisum can only fool a 3 years old. the fact the iraq was chosen has more to do with what it has, and the fact the few in the world feel warmly abt saddam. so from that, all i can tell is that the true motives behind GWB’s ‘crusade’ on iraq is far from noble, and either has sth to do with the black liquid that made GWB rich enough to run for president, or is another step to push the ‘boundry for war’ lower, for whatever plans GWB has in the future. that is y i and a great lot of other ppl across the world firmly oppose war under the current conditions, and motives. but i will drink to the downfall of saddam under any other circustance.

RE: here we go again

india supplies iraq with chemicals to help their WMD program, big deal, put it on the back page in small print. china suppies chemicals to ‘iran/iraq’, goodness gracious me! thats headline news!

notice how it says ,’nine chinese companies are sanctioned for supplying iran and iraq’, chances are most if not all of the nine chinese companies sanctioned only supplied iran and not iraq. but we dont want to bother ourselves with such ‘trivial’ details. yet more ‘proof’ of how the chinese cant be trusted and are ‘evil’ in nature.

RE: How serious is the crisis?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 25-01-03 AT 01:15 PM (GMT)]what r u on abt scooter? does winning a war automatically make u right?

and rabie,

war is only enevatable cos tony and bush made it so. and if the bbc is to be beleived, abt 80% of ppl in britain would not support war on iraq without UN mandate to back it, around 50% wont support war even if there is a UN mandate. but we’re still going to war either way. says alot abt ‘democracy’ doesnt it.

RE: War or no war?

with all due respect jonesy, but i personall dont see how any of ur arguements for war on iraq can stand.

sure, saddam is probably the biggest a$$hole out there today, and the world would be better off without his ugle mug dominating the TV screen. but currently no one, especially not the US has any right to go to war with iraq(ie bomb the crap out of them).

so waht if iraq had WMD? almost everyone eles does; sure he’s used them, but that was ok with he was on our side and used them on someone we dont like; i can also think of a few others that use WMD on CIVILIAN targets because conventional warfare wasnt going too well for them.

taking that into consideration, can u really blame him for wanting to keep his WMD, if for no other purpose then to make sure he does wake up one day in a cage in cuba?

“Now due to this were in the situation where he’s yanking the chains of the UN inspectors again and what penalisation is 80% of the world levying against him?”

well still no excuse for war, saddam may have ‘yanked’ the UN’s chains, but GWB said openly that if the UN if not with ‘us’, then its against ‘us’ and irrelevent. based on ur logic, should we start bombing washington after we finished with bagdad?

“If he’d done this we wouldnt be mobilising today and he’d probably have his foreign minister standing in front of the UN requesting a lifting of economic sanctions. He’d lose what WMD capacity he had stashed, and perhaps a little face, but he’d gain the financial capability, once the “heat” was off to put himself right back in the game by the turn of the decade.”

please dont tell me u truely believe that. would u entrust ur life to someone who says he hate u and who has a seriouse grug on u cos u ‘tried to kill his daddy’?

not even saddam himself daires to dream of such a deal, cos he’s just evil and not stupid.

but of all ur remarks, what i find most disturbing is ur constaint ‘reminders’ that it would cost more lives to fight iraq tomorrow then today. did it ever occur to u that we may not HAVE to fight a war?

wars used to be a seriouse matter, a decision not taken lightly. but now, its treated like a holiday or buying a new TV.

-‘hey, ******* is not doing what i wanted his to, lets go bomb him.’

-‘no, sorry, busy with student marches and firemen strikes, maybe tommorrow.’

being a soilder, i can understand that u dont want to risk ur life to fight a stronger opponent tommorrow, when u could easily take him out today. but as a human being, u must also realise that going to war is not like play counter strick. the ppl u kill wont be going home to their families, and they wont be ‘the bad guys’ either. most of them are just ordernary soilders like u. and like it or not, most of the ones who fight to the death wont be fighting to save saddam’s a$$, but to defend their homeland against a foriegn invadeer, as you would do if the UK came under attack by another nation.

in short, saddam probably should go, but its not up to the US or Uk to decidde that. the UN and only the UN should have that right. also, what the UN says should be the final verdict, and not just used as a rubber stamp to ‘justify’ ur own agendas, and branded as irrelevent and brushed aside if the decision doesnt go ur way.