h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

main rembursment came from the country who was pulled from the fire {kuwait} and the butt who was next up on the serving plate the {smile in your faces} saudi's

Part of the suurender agreement with iraq {besides allowing in weapon inspectors which they stopped honoring was to pay repatriations to these Kuwait}

Spec ops can do wonderfl things whatever the task - often more than an invasion can do.
And the US won't invade IRaq - it could cause too much PR in loss of american soldier's lives.

Read the weekends backlog, so here it comes.


A lot of rethoric going on here. And no evidence that SH is a threat to america.It´s hearsay from birth , and assumptions in many posts; a conviction that he is going to attack, even though former weapon inspectors say that there are no evidence that SH are developing WMD´s. And If he was involved in the 911 incident, and had WMD´s, wouldn´t he have used them.

(Let´s not forget that this investigator, believes that 911 was planned and operated by evil forces within the USA administration, CIA, the oil industry backing Dubya.....type of thing )

I agree, killing your own people (though I don´t think SH sees them that way) with poison gasses is not good. But I have a hard time understanding how killing millions of civilians from other nationalities as USA has a record of, is any more good .Please explaain.

And if 2000-3000, civilian deaths evoke such strong feelings of unfairness, offence and revenge, perhaps america should take a "time-out" to ponder if perhaps other people around the world, would think that aamerica has inserted unfairness and offense on them, and want their fair share of revenge, and then rethink the situation.. This is just meant as a good advice.


The reason USA is going into Iraq is clearly the oil, it´s also the thing talked the least about in the media here. And probably in USA also?
There is a debate in europe about "The War With Iraq", and WMD´s as is expected; mostly assuming, as elsewhere, that SH is a real threat, much more than the economic crimes is, as it dosen´t seem to influence us a lot.


Perhaps we (the western world. sic!)should take another approach and start dealing with SH, as we do/has done/will do with other dictators and tyrants around the world, and see what happens. Being nice to him would take him off guard and we would have the upperhand...I tell you! it will work .....


And again; has anyone seen any actual evidence that SH has WMD´s?


T´mershi Duween.

>Perhaps we (the western world. sic!)should take another approach and start dealing with SH, as we do/has done/will do with other dictators and tyrants around the world, and see what happens. Being nice to him would take him off guard and we would have the upperhand...I tell you! it will work ....<


T"Mershi you have hit the nail on the head. All we need to do is line up all the facist,totalitarian,murdering leaders in the world amdgive them hugs. I smell a noble prize T"Mershi

Maybe I'm just tired, what the hell. Pay the russians to do it and paint CCCP on all their gear. If that doesn't scare the s**t out of him what will

I just want to know why we should want to get rid of SH. I mean, he&#8217;s not very pleasant, and he does have a massive moustache, but what has it got to do with us? He is the countries leader. Why can America call for a regime change in a country it can&#8217;t do business with? What if we suddenly said &#8216;hang on Dubya, you&#8217;re out of order and we&#8217;re not gonna help&#8217;, is he going to inject a few billion into the Tory party to get them back in?

Iraq hasn&#8217;t done anything that America hasn&#8217;t done worst. Weapons of mass destruction? America has the most in the world. Defying international law?&#8230;what was that stuff in Guantanamo Bay with the POW&#8217;s? Killing their own people&#8230;anyone remember the (internal) anthrax attacks during 9/11 in the US?

And America has done more to boot: ripping up the ABM treaty to pave the way for missile defence. Re-starting nuclear testing. Continuing to research chemical and biological weapons. Walking out of Kyoto. Refusing to attend the earth summit.

Lets all grow moustaches (women included) to show our defiance.

chemical and biological weapons are just plain nasty and I don't know of anyone who would or should trust the US with them or anyone else for that matter.

If Iraqs leadership is to be toppled it should not be done by the US. At best it would be inflamatory.

Before talking about US dubious actions I'd advise reading some old conversations to see what you're geting yourself into. This place looks more open than it is.

"I just want to know why we should want to get rid of SH. I mean, he's not very pleasant, and he does have a massive moustache, but what has it got to do with us?"

Uber Red, I'm guessing from your name you're something of a leftist . In that case, why have you just used a very right-wing argument?

"Iraq hasn't done anything that America hasn't done worst."

That's debatably true. But then Iraq is a poorly-armed third-world country. If Saddam had access to the United State's wealth and military capabilities then he'd make the worst American excesses look like a picnic.

"Weapons of mass destruction? America has the most in the world."

True, but I'd rather even Dubya had control over them than Saddam.

"Defying international law? What was that stuff in Guantanamo Bay with the POW's?"

True, but chaining up a bunch of Taliban goons is not really in the same league as invading and annexing Kuwait.

"Killing their own people; anyone remember the (internal) anthrax attacks during 9/11 in the US?"

There's some speculation that the anthrax came from an internal US source, but no evidence the US Government was involved.

I can&#8217;t see how you can justifiably say that you would rather have Dubya in charge than Saddam, when the US has killed far more people either openly or discreetly than all the Arab nations put together. Admittedly, I wouldn&#8217;t want to be ruled by SH either, but that doesn&#8217;t instantly put me on the side of the Americans. My argument isn&#8217;t that Iraq is right, it&#8217;s about America being just as wrong. Why doesn&#8217;t Saddam have the right to protect his country in the same way that we in the west protect ours? I&#8217;m not saying he should be allowed to build weapons, but if we are saying that, we must also say no-one can have them (including us).

Lets be honest, America doesn&#8217;t generally have problems with right-wing dictators (it&#8217;s supported enough of them), the issue here is oil, and the fact that Iraq and Saudi are not complying with the New Imperialists. That&#8217;s what the issue is, America doesn&#8217;t care what happens to a bunch of Arabs, you only have to look at their peace keeping commitments (or lack of) and the sanctions that are killing the civilians and children in Iraq and making Saddam richer&#8230;

ok why doesn't that last comment suprise me a bit...what would be your solution to the problem? you say no to sanctions..no to the US being part of any type of military action you say no to a lot of things....what do you say yes to?


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>(Let´s not forget that this investigator, believes that 911 was planned and operated by evil forces within the USA administration, CIA, the oil industry backing Dubya.....type of thing )

The idea is absurd and without proof.

>And again; has anyone seen any actual evidence that SH has WMD´s?

Yes, he's used them before.

>And If he was involved in the 911 incident, and had WMD´s, wouldn´t he have used them.

No, the 9/11 attack was ingenious. All they had to do was get people into the United States with some box cutters and train them to fly but not land. There were no fancy or difficult smuggling; no delivery systems to employ; no explosives.

Chemical weapons are nasty, but it would take a huge effort to kill that many people with them. They're not efficent. Of course, the body count wasn't what was really important. What was important was the symbolic damage to the nation.

What I do say 'yes' to is the US not picking a fight with a country under the guise of world peace, rather than the truth, which is oil. I say 'yes' to removing sanctions that starve babies to death and are ineffectual at their designated goal. I say 'yes' to not bombing countires pre-emptively, where the only caualties are civilians. I say 'yes' to a country having the right to rule itself, and the right of the Iraqi people to take up arms against the status quo if THEY want to, not because the New Imperialists want a puppet government so they can continue to drive huge cars and poison the planet with another countries pillaged oil.

so basicly you are saying we should take off any sanctions off of IRAQ...disable the no Fly zone so SH can finish killing off the kurds in his contry...take no action against him even if he is harming his people and basicly let him do what ever he wants until the time that he bombs somthing near and dear to you...then we would have just cause to do something (and no I am not saying he bombed something near and dear to me)...interesting...lets see if we did that with every contry...had no international pressure for gov'ts to do the right thing hmmm interesting idea...I guess it would be a lot easier to let bad things happen around the world cus heck it doesn't afect us why should we care...you deny there is a problem...that way you are justified with haveing no idea of an action to take which is kinda strange...but that's just what I get from your non-anything policy towards the world


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Nothing new there then.

The last time Saddam was gassing the Kurds (for allegedly collaborating with the Iranians during their last invasuion), Britain quite happily continued selling weapons to him, as revealed by the Scott report.

So let's not pretend that 'we' (ie Western Governments) give a s**t about the Kurds, because we never have before.

but shouldn't we?


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Whether or not we should isn't the issue. The issue here is whether it's a believable or credible reason for going to war with Saddam, as claimed by the governments of the UK and the US.

Our previous behaviour indicates that it is not.

actualy the issue is this....there is a lot of talk about without SH attacking another country then international law forbids anyone touching him...that is an argument that people have been using...no I don't think that the reason that it is being concidered but that doesn't void out the question...do the worlds countries have a right to step in if something wrong is happening inside the borders of a fellow country?


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If they are sincere about about solving that problem, have a clear mandate and policy on how the problems are to be solved, and a clear policy on what will happen afterwards, then the answer might be a very cautious ''Maybe.'

If, on the other hand, they are planning the invasion for reasons that appear to be less than noble, have no clear mandate for action and *absolutely* no idea what will happen after the invasion, the answer has to be a resounding 'NO'.

so you might except a situation where the international community could take action a contry for missdoings inside it's own borders if it's been mandated, been plannded out from begining to end (even though lets face it no plan that big ever survives completely intact no matter how well thought out it is)

As far as asking sincerity from a gov't...that's a joke right


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That's about the size of it, yes.

Of course no plan that big ever survives intact, but it does stand a better chance if you start out wioth one rather than just hoping for the best, surely?

Sincerity and governements don't sit well, I agree, but one lives in hope. Or maybe in anger.