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

"They attempted the oil for food deal and Saddam refused. Do you think I'm making it up?"

You're not making it up, just failing to find out what has happened since 1996. We went over this about 1000 posts back on this thread. Saddam refused initially, but eventually they reached an agreement was reached. There is a special UN "Office of the Iraq Programme" devoted to executing the Oil for Food agreement. http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/background/inbrief.html

So it's technically true to say that Saddam refused (from about 1991-1996), but misleading when you fail to mention that an agreement was eventually reached, and that the Oil for Food programme has been operating since 1996.

erm that laugh was for the post before, subcoms first of two. I missed a post.

From elsewhere - "Lets just say that not everyone in the World supports the pre-emptive strike by a rogue state to prevent a pre-emptive strike by a rogue state."

"On the other hand, if you'ld like to use the quote and go do battle, then be my guest ": BureauGris (Retourné par une demande populaire)

What is wrong with everybody?

Surely the world would be a better place if we could all move freely from country to country, live where ever we want, believe in whatever religion you want? But we cant because of countries like Iraq, N.Korea ....etc.

We 'westerners' fought for many years for the freedom we have in our own countries, so what is wrong with fighting for the freedom of others?

Why do you continue to argue about oil & if saddam has weapons of mass destruction, the -FACT- is that Iraq, and many other countries ran by dictatorships, religious nutters, communists etc do not give the people the freedom they deserve.

I am not pro-war, a war-mongerer or what ever - I simply believe that every one should be able to have the freedom we have, and I believe in fighting for it.

I’m pretty sure that the people in these countries don’t want to live the way they do, and if they had the chance to fight for there freedom they would. When we fought for our freedom weapons were (relatively) primitive, so allowing for our people to revolt/fight back or whatever. Unfortunately nowadays the leaders running these countries have very powerful weapons so the people would stand very little chance in fighting back so NEED our help, we’ve liberated Afghanistan and the people seem very happy about it, so maybe we should help the people of Iraq, N.Korea …etc out. Many people did die in Afghanistan, and they will in Iraq -but many thousands DO die and suffer anyway (and for no reason).



Fair enough, if this war is simply about invading Iraq and taking there oil – that is wrong. - But it isn’t! Iraq IS a ‘rogue state’ saddam continually threatens his people, his neighbours and openly displays and encourages hatred of the western world.

So why cant all you ‘do-gooders’ and ‘protesters’ stop all your whinging and protest to liberate these countries?

"Surely the world would be a better place if we could all move freely from country to country, live where ever we want, believe in whatever religion you want? But we cant because of countries like Iraq, N.Korea ....etc."

And in 11 years who has Iraq invaded/attacked?

It's like beating up on the little weird looking kid because he 'creeps you out.

Mathers,
I respect your opinion. I feel is if this 'american' believed in what he was fighting all the power to him. However when that fight became a war between his country and another he had a choice to make. He chose to fight for a foriegn goverment against his ouown country. He decided he was willing to kill his fellow country men to uphold a foriegn goverment. He in effect gave up his citizenship in the US and joined that foriegn goverment. Lets face it there are consiqences to our actions.

Let me put forward a little scenerio. If this 'american' fighting for the taliban had defeated the US would he then turn to his brothers in arms and say 'I am an american, treat me the same as the american prisoners of war.' You know as well as I he would not as he had defeated his enemys and was now a member of the 'winning side'.
Well boo hoo his side did not win. But all of a sudden he is an 'American' again?

As far as him not being shot in the field when it was found out he was a american and had possibly killed his own countrymen I think that says volumes for the american troops. I can assure you if he was say russian,chineese or for that matter french and had been caught firing on his country men he would have never made the news.

Yes and well all know how truthful your statements of different nationalities are...

*And in 11 years who has Iraq invaded/attacked?

It's like beating up on the little weird looking kid because he 'creeps you out.*

12 years ago he invaded his nieghbor killing thousands. Told the world to go to hell. When defeated practiced a scorched earth policy.
Accepted surrender and told to disarm. Used wmd on his own people who opposed him. Payed money to the familys of suicide bombers. Shot at coalition forces inforcing un charters. Killed his own relatives. Thumbed his nose again at the world.

I would say it is more like beating up the phsyco hanging out in the school playground with the gun and taking it away from him.

The mid east is full of phsyco's. ony, they have oil contracts and bigger guns.

"But it isn’t! Iraq IS a ‘rogue state’ saddam continually threatens his people, his neighbours and openly displays and encourages hatred of the western world."


It's already been mentioned on this thread that the reason Bush Snr didn't attempt ot depose Saddam in the 1st place was because of his neighbours insistance. i.e. Saudi Arabia allowed US troops on their soil on the condition Saddam stayed. Perhaps they like their neighbour? Iraq is more democratic then Saudi Arabia or Kuwait after all.

"I am not pro-war, a war-mongerer or what ever - I simply believe that every one should be able to have the freedom we have, and I believe in fighting for it."

If you are a US citizen of appropriate age, then I believe basic military training is about 11 weeks. Using the strength of your convictions, I'm sure you'd enlist and make it to see the action you describe.

I think that the problem here is that although all of what you say about freedom is correct, it's the idea of making people free by bombing them and taking the war option which will create more death and more and future hostility to the West, that rankles.
Your stance also assumes that capitalism is the 'right ' way to these freedoms, and it isn't unless it includes democracy running along side it.
it appears to me that we, in the West, are slowly sliding into capitalism without democracy. (See last U.S. presidentual election)
Many of the people you refer to as 'do gooders' (as if this were somehow a negative stance) realise that there is a problem in Iraq, but would rather figure out a different way of dealing with it.
Not many have written; ' let's just ignore this problem.'
We're all looking for a way to deal with this that results in the minimum of casualties and suffering on either side ,if that's a definition of do gooder, count me as one of them.

()

The term 'do-good-ers' is often meant as an unflattering label. Strange really, as the label is meant to distinguish from 'do-harm-ers'.

The 'do-good-ers' unflattering connotation stems from the implication that the intention to do good lacks the knowledge to be successful. That's not surprising given that it is far easier to do harm then to do good.

*It's possible, Maduin, that "the Arab world is so against war;" because they have no rooted objections to Saddam Hussein, because we in the 'Western' world (Zagreb notably) believe everything we hear about Saddam's evil dictatorship, and the groaning oppression of his people!*

Unbelievable della that you would preach pacifism and use Saddam Hussien as your poster boy.

*I've been reading Noam Chomsky *

Now theirs a surprise.


*Saddam far from being Hitler in the desert, is actually a pretty run of the mill bloke, no worse than Dubya himself?*

You got it 'run of the mill bloke' who has murdered and tortured his own family members,tried to commit mass genicide
on his kurdish subjects, Invaded a nation,ransacked it,killed thousands,surrenderd with terms. Disregarded those terms. shot at planes carrying out a UN mandate of a no fly zone. Fired 39 scud missles at a country that did nothing to him. yep one hell of a bloke!

*Yanquis* is a derogatory term. Suprised you would use it. What do you call black people and jews? really surprised

*puts his hand up as a "do-gooder" by hasselfree's defintion*

kc:
the big problem is that "the freedom we have" is a highly subjective thing: we believe that the system we run our countries under is inherently better than any other. But if you look at the amount of dissatisfaction with govts, low turn-out at elections, the implicit two-party race which all UK and US elections have become, it's not so clear that we've found the right answer ourselves. Which isn't to say that Saddam et al aren't worse, but it does bring home the essential fact that we're trying to force our world view onto others - and believe it or not, I'm not convinced everyone in the world *does* strive for a country governed like ours.

"we’ve liberated Afghanistan and the people seem very happy about it"
Define liberated, and name the Afghanis you've interviewed. An over-the-top answer, I know, but the point is that there is no absolute definition by which the new "regime" is guaranteed to be "better"; many times countries (including Afghanistan) have been "liberated" from one corrupt set of leaders only to get another.

Essentially, my point is this: yes, it would be nice if we could get rid of all the people in this world who abuse power to cause suffering; but we can't - and history strongly suggests that the more you shoot people, the more they get pissed off and want to abuse power to get revenge. And before you even get there, you have to decide who it is that's causing the suffering - I don't believe in "evil", and so I don't believe you can perform some kind of neat operation to neatly cut it out from a given situation.

And please don't use terms like "rogue state" without irony, they are a meaningless waste of space.

starbirth
I agree: he should not be treated differently because he is 'American' - in my opinion the very concept is meaningless. What country you were born in is irrelevant if you choose to fight for what you believe in - you belong to that group of people fighting for the same beliefs as you; you have neither left nor joined a particular *government*, only a particular army.

Therefore, he should be treated exactly the same as all the other prisoners, which should be in accordance with international agreements on human rights - which I think was deidzoeb's original point. It simply brings home a fact that is true of *all* those prisoners: the country which "won" a war against them on the grounds of upholding the right to freedom and democracy is holding them on foreign soil so as to brush over the lack of universal rights it is willing to show them.

Perhaps he made the news because unlike the others, it is hard to dismiss him as "foreign" and look the other way. As for "that says volumes for the american troops", I agree: in their favour, they managed to realise that this was a human being, as were all those they took prisoner.