Originally posted by Glenn
Maybe not, but surely on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Brisbane today they had better things to do?! Futile chants and rants in the streets… what a bunch of …. 😮

Glenn, shouldn’t you be fighting in stead of futile ranting on those protestors? They are doing what they can while opposing the war, perhaps you can also put your heart where your keyboard is.

Steve,

Originally posted by Jonesy

….
Sorry pal thats just not the case. Below is article 8 from UN Resolution 687:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Thats fairly specific and was the initator for the original UNSCOM teams to verify that compliance. Those teams, and UNMOVIC, demanded documentry evidence for compliance with the above article. Hussein refused to provide that evidence and thusly was specifically in material breach of 687.

You are correct (i guess i should have been more clear, sorry), but it doesn’t alter the point i was trying to make. The only time when a deadline was put on Iraqi WMD disarmament was in March 1991. Which IMHO means that an attack on Iraq to end Saddam’s regime would have been totally legitimate a bit later that spring – but no, at that time the Coalition forces preferred to watch as the Kurds and Shi’i were being killed after they were asked to rise up.

Ever since, no deadline on Iraqi disarmament has been made. As i have stated above, you can explain this both as a reason to invade or as a reason to let the inspectors do their work.

Steve, you will probably understand that i think you are one of the more convincing branches of the pro-war (well, in this particulair case at least 😉 ) tree. However, your IMHO most plausible reason for this war is indeed the oil (not the actual posession of it, but in providing a consistant and unthreatened supply), which is then again denied by others of the pro-war branch.

In that sence, you will agree with me that the reasons why people choose a position in this matter are not the same for everybody. The same goes for the other side of the coin – so i don’t think your anti-war = pro-chirac and pro-saddam remarks are fair, except maybe as a (rather simple, i might add) way for you to put an anti-war stance into perspective. I know you are smarter than that, and since i know you have balanced the pros and cons of this conflict against each other to come to your personal opinion, i think you should well be able to understand that someone comes to another conclusion.

To put it shortly: you do understand why some of the reasons why people are against this war are legitimate, right?

Originally posted by TTP
Arthur,

You are right about the Sukkoi! I’m tired of arguing with you guys. Obviously the United States is a force of evil in the world right now, especially troublesome is the constant rhetoric about Bush….Alot of the same arguments were made about Ronald Reagan, yet his policies went a long way towards helping alot of countries attain freedom from communist rule. Soon Iraq will be under the iron fist of American colonialism, just like Japan, South Korea, and Western Europe!!!! We have plundered their economies for 50 years!!!!
Steve is right, the US is scared that Europe will rise again, we will all be flying Airbus’s, eating quiche, and drinking lowenbraus!!! You all have found us out!!!!
Good-Bye to this forum, Unfortunately I will be on your continent next week, If I run into any of you, I’ll be proudly wearing my USAF uniform, please don’t throw any stones at me or my jet.
The world will be a much better place when countries like Russia, China, and France are in control!!!
Good-bye and Good riddance!

Spoken like a true debater and a fine protagonist of Freedom of Speech.

Are you flying in to Ramstein perhaps? In that case, we might indeed run in to each other. Don’t worry, the first Löwenbrau will be on me…

none + none = ntwo?

Originally posted by TTP
Arthur,

In your home, do you ask your wife, kids, in laws, Aunts and Uncles what they think about concerning any decisions you have to make, or do you do what you deem is most appropriate for your families welfare?

Yes, i do. Even though i’m not married and have no kids 😉 . I don’t want to make decisions which will affect others without at least consulting them, and listen to their opinions. What i might deem most appropriate might actually be only second best unless i have heard the other options from my siblings. And if i do persist, i do like to explain the need and reason behind my decision in a credible and hopefully convincing way.

I have to thank you because you couldn’t have come with a better analogy to explain my view, and (as i suspect) that of many others.

Its nice to have the whole world united on a issue and we could all sing “Kumbaya” but show me any other time in history when the world was United in a common cause? the closest was Gulf War 1, I think thats the problem, people think thats the way all things should be handled, The UN hasd there chance they failed, now its our turn, I heard we’re sending 250,000 inspectors over to Iraq as we speak.

Well, in WW2 the world was pretty much united, as was it during the Second Gulf War (during the First one -Iraq vs. Iran- not even the US knew which side to support 😀 ). And the world was definately united when the US went to war against terrorism in Afghanistan – i haven’t heard a lot of complaints on that one. But even more questionable campaigns like Kosovo 1999 had more moral backing than this Operation Iraqi Fiefdom. It can well be argued that Iraqi Fiefdom is a more justified war than Allied Farce, but somehow the Bush Jr. administration failed miserably in gaining the international support the Clinton administration did manage to gather.

Your opinion may well be that the UN had it’s chance and it’s over now, i beg to differ on that. As soon as chemical or biological agents start raining over Kuwait, Israel or US-Brit troops, i will humbly stand corrected but this has not happened so far.

MiG? Do you mean that Su-17UM-3?

Well said, Kev.

TTP,
I find your attitude towards Geforce a disgusting display of misplaced paternalism only to fit your view on this conflict. You don’t agree with him, but he is young so his opinion doesn’t really matter? Fair enough – so PhantomII’s opinion doesn’t matter either, as he is about the same age as Geforce.
Also, you are wrong about the 1991 ceasefire agreements. There was never a clausule for Saddam to fully disarm, there was a clause for Saddam to get rid of all his special weapons programs within 30 days.

It’s also quite interesting to see that especially the pro-war party now is boasting how fruitful and high-quality the debates on the war are, now the whole discussion has become moot thanks to the US’ administration’s dysdiplomacy and disregard for international regulations. I could have been in favour of this war, if at least the US had seriously tried to gather a decent international coalition, in stead of bullying each and every nation which had it’s reservations about the war plans.

Oh, and about the legality issue:
The only deadline ever put on Iraq to dismantle it’s WMD’s, was at the 1991 Ceasefire. Thirty days. No deadline was ever mentioned in any of the UN resolutions regarding the issue, not even 1441. This means that this resolution indeed was a valid reason for an attack, just as it was a valid ground to give the weapons inspectors more time. Now, considering the fact that the US and Britain didn’t even try to get an effective majority in the USNC shows the fact that they knew very well the world was against this war, hence the war is illegal. If a war-resolution had been offered to the UNSC and only France would have veto’ed it: hey, i would have considered it a moral victory for the pro-war-side. However, the fact that this resolution was not brought up to vote IMO shows the flimsy, if existant, moral and legal grounds for this war. No matter how much you hate Saddam Hussein, no matter how sorry you are you gave him the anthrax.

Plenty of things – writers, musicians, people, big portions, ketchup, jeans, an open and friendly society, lots of intelligent people to have interesting conversations with, even more dumb people to have fun with…

But coffee is not American. It’s Arab, the first recorded history of drinking coffee is in Yemen. You can easily tell the difference between an Arab and an American (well, both seem to enjoy dwelling in deserts carrying guns) by their coffee: an American cup is bucket-sized and so weak you can see through the coffee straight down to the bottom of the bucket. An Arab cup of coffee is very small, and so strong that you can’t see through it even if you have a drop on a teaspoon.

It’s an RC-12Q. One of those types where it’s easier to check the variant by the serial number, rather then count the antennae…