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Eki, you didn't read all the fine print on the site for Reporters sans Frontiers...it says " The index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the press in the countries concerned." So just because Canada's reporters are 18th and Finland is 2nd, that does NOT mean you are getting a superior view of the world.
My point is that people in sovereign nations should decide if they want to die for their their freedom or not. No outside nation has the right to decide it for them. Bush's decision to invade Iraq has gotten tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, and there was no way they could have prevented it. You talk about democracy, do you really consider it a democracy when people don't even have the right if they want to live or die or if they want to live in a democracy or a dictatorship? At least in Saddam's time people had a good chance staying alive if they agreed with Saddam and didn't rise against him. After Bush's dogs of war arrived, it didn't matter if they agreed with Bush or not, they could still be killed. Now you probably say "yeah, yeah, they had it made if they were Sunnis". I remind you that Saddam's right hand man Tariq Aziz was a Christian. Religion wasn't that important, just that you agreed with Saddam and Saddam agreed with you:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Aziz
At least I get the view in two or three languages. I could compare the US media and Finnish media before the Iraq war. The US media was mainly crying how evil Saddam was and dwelled on the consequences of his rule, like 10 year old mass graves and gassing of Kurds 15 years ago. The Finnish media instead tried to tell people WHY Iraq was like it was and what would likely happen if it's invaded. I prefer the latter approach.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
You have a problem with reality contact. Saddam was a mass murderer practicing genocide. Today, Iraq is a democracy where the citizens vote and have a judicial system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
First off, I dont' need Wiki to tell me who Tariq Aziz is. I know who he is and nominially he is a Christian. I also know that your self appointed view that your media is giving you the "truth" over mine is a lot of crap. First off, let me explain something. Canadian media is NOT the American Media. Canadian media outlets, such as the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC and CTV are all populated by people who feel very similar to yourself at times. The Canadian media is as anti-American as any reputable media can dare go. I have a daily dose of this just by picking up the remote on the TV. Don't lecture me that your sources are any more balanced than mine. It is crap, and if you lived here, you would understand you don't need it in a different language to understand it. Between the left wing and right wing media in the US and Canada, plus the BBC world service on my satellite, I can hear differeing views on this mess in Iraq. I can also think for myself. I knew that Iraq was likely to be a mess if the Americans invaded and I, like many Canadians were not sold on how this war was going to be proseucted. Most Canadians feel much more like you do than I do. That said, I understood much of the feeling why the US wanted to invade. It was to enforce the resolutions of the UN that Hussein agreed to save his regime in 1991.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
Your view that no nation had a right to go into Iraq and that the people there have the right to live in a dictatorship is a specious one. They had no rights at all with Saddam running the show. Now we can go around and around all day on the stupidity of starting a war for WMD's. I thought it was a weak argument then, and it is a weaker argument now. That said, it is done, and over with and while you seem to think Dubya is a criminal who should be in the Hague being tried for war crimes, I see Dubya as a guy who leaped to conclusions based on bad intelligence and a desire to take a clown out. You cannot however deny that Saddam was given the way out and he refused to take it. IF he had no WMD's, why would he be so hostile to the UN? Saddam was not a democratically elected populist who had people in his country loving him, his 98% plurality in "elections" notwithstanding. If he had complied with the UN sanctions, the war would have lost its spark. Dubya would not have any justification if Saddam lived up to his agreement to throw the doors open wide towards UN inspections. Instead, he acted like a guilty party. Why? We have no knowledge of why, since it appears he had no wmd's. That said, he didn't want to lose face and he decided to call the bluff of George W Bush and he didn't realize George had the backing of his Congress and Britain (not to mention 52 other nations ) and he lost.
Now you can demean Bush, you can slag any other nation who went to war in Iraq. Just remember this one thing. Iraq just after Saddam was toppled was peaceful for the most part. Kurdistan in the north is still peaceful. The Shiite south is not quite the war zone that is the Sunni triangle. Iraq has had two elections with over 80% plurarity ( and you cant dispute this, the anti Bush media in the US will acknowledge THAT) and has started to piece together a constitution. I doubt it will work because of insurgents, Baath party loyalists and dissaffected Sunnis have no desire to make it work, and the terror attacks continue, but the fact remains the average Iraqi can at least think he has a shot at living in a free country. They didn't have a shot at all with the Baathist regime running the nation, and with the control of every last cent in the treasury, they would have held on in the hands of Uday or his brother I am sure.
For you to spout off your Anti-American propaganda and your fervent wish that the Iraqi people not be slaughtered is to assume you were just as vocal an opponent of Hussein's barbarity and inhumanity towards his own nation. You yet though have defended his actions not by word, but by omission, and for that reason alone, it is you and your ilk that allow small petty thugs to become world threats.
This idea that no one should invade a sovreign nation no matter what barbarity that is going on is a nice theory. The truth isn't that simple though. The second a nation starts flouting the resolutions of the UN, then either the UN finds a way to make them stick, or it has no value. Bush went to the UN over and over again stating Hussein's refusal to allow the implimentation of all the sanctions was a reason to go to war. Technically, the UN sanctioned and NATO backed war in 1991 was still on if the sanctions were broken. So where is the US? Did they invade a sovreign nation? Yes, but legally, Saddam was not complying with the UN dictates of the 14 resolutions. The UN was trying to inspect the country without Saddam's interference and wasn't allowed anything close to it. This wasn't George Bush's doing, it was Saddam's. Yet you do not acknowledge this. You would rather send Bush to the Hague for a "trial". Until you condemn Saddam Hussein for his role in this invasion, you lack the moral authority to lecture anyone.
I stand by what I said before. Iraq has a chance if the people there, the people who just want to live with some sort of autonomy without fear from government thugs can be part of the process. This wasn't going to happen for a long time in Baathist Iraq. The US may have broken a lot of infrastructure, but I suspect they have built a lot more in the 3 years after the war than Saddam did in the 10 years before it. If you were so convinced that this is terrible, where is your condemnation for how Saddam treated his own people? Instead you go on about how my facts are distorted, and attack my character and media influences. It is a weak argument, and your Neville Chamberlain award is cancelled. I think you get the ostrich award.....
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Originally Posted by Eki
One other point, in this post, I can see your disdain for the American Media. The US Media was Not CRYING over the consequences of his rule, they were presenting the truth. It was not just the American media who were saying how Hussein gassed the Kurds. The world's media showed many images of Kurd's living in tents as they were refugee's from Hussein's campaign against Kurdistan. Saddam also had a history of using gas. He also used it against Iran, in his attack and invasion on THAT sovereign nation (you don't feel as strong about that or his invasion of Kuwait, I guess those don't fit your anti-Bush template). Saddam left unchecked would invade and conquer his neighbours. He wanted the oil in his control. Period. Again, your lack of acknowledging this fact says to me you are more interested in perescuting George Bush than you are in the truth. The truth often isn't pretty, nor as noble as someone would like, but the fact of the matter is that if no nation ever invaded another, it would be a better world for those countries with freedom and democracy, but it is always the countries run by dictators and autocratic regimes that try to take what they cannot build through fear. When this happens, the rules that you want the world to live by have no more traction, and someone is forced to try to clean up the mess. The United States isn't very good at this, but at least they hold some principle of democracy and their soldiers on the ground for the most part are honest, honourable people with a desire to see some form of justice done in the name of the oppressed. You can slag Bush all you like, it is your right, but the men and women who are dying in the service of the military in countries where chaos is the goal don't deserve your disdain and indifference. You show no remorse at all for ignoring the war crimes and inhuman behaviour of thugs....
I think you're right in that the Iraqi leadership did behave very suspiciously before the invasion. However, that doesn't necessarily justify the invasion, since they didn't seem about to attack anyone, with nuclear weapons or without.
Also, I think Eki is right in that democracy can't be force-fed to a country - the impetus has to come from within. Also, perhaps it's worthwhile giving a thought to why, of all the former Soviet republics, only the three Baltic countries (and the Ukraine and Georgia, to a degree) have become stable well-functioning democracies? I would say that a major reason is that in terms of neighbouring countries, the Baltic States are in infinitely better company than the others. Figuratively speaking, you can't go into a pack of wolves and tell one of the wolves to become a fox, unless it has already mingled with the foxes a little bit.
I think that making Iraq a stable democracy in the Western sense is simply not yet possible. I do believe that the governments of the US and the UK went into this with good intentions, but I don't believe they can succeed, I'm sorry to say. The task is just too great. And consequently the Iraqis would have been much better off if they'd never tried.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," as the saying goes, and in the end, all that matters is the answer to this question:
- Did you make the world better, or worse?
The war in Iraq has made the world worse, I would say.
The death of the butcher of Bagdad is a consequence of the Iraqi War, and is an improvement in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by studiose
Your argument has merit. Iraq is not what it was supposed to be, and you are correct in that democracy isn't something that can be force fed, and I know that America didn't have all of this thought out. I stated that I was not sold on the merits of how America and its coalition would rebuild and run Iraq after Saddam.Quote:
Originally Posted by studiose
It is however fallacious to dismiss Hussein as no threat. Ask Saudi Arabia that question. Ask the Kuwaiti's. If the world just walked away from Hussein, ignored the sanctions, would you want to lay money that Hussein at some point wouldn't have either threatened an invasion of someone, sold arms to terrorists, or acquired WMD's? Dictators do things like this because to distract their own populace, they need things to draw hatred on. They need a war, a bogeyman, an enemy. If you read Orwell's 1984, he talks how the government always was at "war" with the enemy, and this is much of what Hussein was doing. He was a mego-manical leader with a lust for power. He invaded Iran in an ill-advised war that took close to a million lives. He invaded Kuwait and if left up to some, would have kept it. He was capable of great brutality. No one disputes this although some choose to look the other way when it is pointed out.
Saddam Hussein was a threat if left unchecked. If the US of A didn't invade Iraq, and he were alive and running Iraq today, would you want to say the people there would be better off? In some ways perhaps, but they sure wouldn't be living a good life, and not one with hope. They were just pawns and cannon fodder for a man who would toss their lives away for the greater acquistion of HIS power.
AS for your take on the former Soviet States who are democracies now, you are very correct in stating that democratic nations are hard to found and I take your comments with all seriousness. It is your reality, you live in a nation that has made that transition, and likely value your freedom of expression in ways I cannot understand. That said, even in places like Kazakastan, I would say the people there would argue they have more freedom now then when Brezhnev was running the USSR. They may not have true freedom and democracy in some of these former republics, but at least they have some economic freedom, which is something I can live with.
What makes me mad is this conceited attitude that countries don't deserve a chance at democracy, as if the people of Iraq are too stupid to respect the chance to be free. I think most of the people would grasp a free Iraq if the politicians, terrorists and religious insurgents would get the hell out of there. The US Army is now just trying to calm everyone down so they can make some sort of decision.
Well written, but I tend to disagree with one point. Those who voted in the 2004 Presidential election have much more of a right to debate the Bush Presidency than those who did not. I suspect Eki did not vote in the election -- I did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa