I know you weren't asking me, but I fear that people feel threatened by his stance on the environment, and choose instead to stick their heads in the sand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannex
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I know you weren't asking me, but I fear that people feel threatened by his stance on the environment, and choose instead to stick their heads in the sand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannex
This has been my point exactly. All of you trendy "leftwing" posters have to understand something. Whatever George Bush did, he was citing the resolutions of the UN that Saddam was not following as justification. The search for WMD's excuse ( a lame one if none were found and therefore not one I would have used) comes from the failure of the UN to be able to get Saddam to comply with his role in letting the inspectors do their job without his henchmen stopping them from seeing what they had to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by airshifter
So when Saddam didn't want to obey the 14 Resolutions coming out of his illegal and immoral invasion of Kuwait, Bush decided to take it into his own hands. So he is a BAD man for actually making the UN stand for something. You guys say he weakened it. It was discredited in my mind years ago....
Eki stated how Cyprus has had peace because of the UN. Wrong, they have peace because one nation, Canada for the first 25 years sat between two warring parties and kept the peace. The UN didn't do anything except get the two parties to the table, but that only has value if both sides are willing to abide. You have not in 30 pages of posting here proven to me or anyone else with an open mind stated what happens when one party DOES NOT want to take diplomacy as a solution and when they WILL NOT abide by the terms laid out to them by the UN. You are so horrified by war, but what you have to understand, war's are the result of failed diplomacy. To blame the US for Saddam's refusal to go along with your precious UN is blaming the girl in the short skirt and halter top for being raped. It is a weak argument and it shows your anti-US bias.
For 32 pages Eki and his friends have constantly stated the US is the problem. Some of you have used rational arguments and have admitted the weak points in your arguments. I have stated over and over again I don't think Bush is a fantatsic president on any level, but I sure as heck also understand that failed diplomacy brings wars, and failed diplomacy can be laid on the doorstep of one man in this case, Saddam Hussein. Most of you will not accept this, and it seems you apportion Hussein no blame. I just know that when you do this, your arguments are NOT based on logic, they are based on a flawed premise that the US is at all fault for everything that happens, whether they intervene on behalf of the UN or if they ignore situations such as Darfur, Rwanda, or Zimbabwe.
For the UN to have ANY meaning at all, despite being a room full of hot air, someone has to say if the UN takes a resolution, then if it is not followed, then the member nations will have to enforce those resolutions. In the world of a few of you, there is no enforcement. You just have a bunch of useless bureaucrats talking, but that is ok with some of you. It isn't for me. Of course, the same people who refuse to allow force to be used in any manner to enforce the UN dictates would also handcuff the US from defending itself, and it would give the rights of nations run by the most dictatorial thugs the same rights as democracies. So you really are NOT intrested in anything but every nation leaving the others alone. Fine theory really, sucks in practice. Saddam loved that he was allowed by the UN to invade Iran, and when the UN stood up to him in Kuwait, he used the UN to stop the war. Of course, when it came to living up to his obligations, he wouldn't, and hence the Casus Belli with the US.
No, if you are going to want us to buy the fact the US has no reason to be involved in the Middle East, then one of you neutral Finn's better have an answer to deal with the world's nation states that wont follow the rules of civilized man. Your answer is to leave them be. That is an answer to nothing and as I have stated before, only leads to larger conflicts. If the US didn't invade Iraq in 2003, and if the sanctions were lifted, you all know that Saddam would have provoked another conflict. If you refuse to believe that, then there is no point to your arguing any further. You have made up your mind, you are blind to the reality of how the world has worked since man started keeping track of world history. Strongmen dictators will often provoke or create situations that sooner or later draw them into wars with other nations. In the case of Iraq, it was a dead certain reality. Nations run by thugs that have not been invaded have kept their cruelty within their own borders. To my Finnish Friend Eki there this is ok with him. He doesn't like it but he is fine with no war. Greater lives are saved this way....except he isn't the one he is condemning to live like this.
Thanks Eki, if the building is burning, I wont wait for you to save me....I am on my own.....
Don't you "rightwingers" always think everybody should always make it on their own? Then why don't you think that if a country has internal problems, its citizens should fix them on their own and not rely on outside help?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
First off, I am a libertarian at heart. That isn't right wing, that is pro-human rights and pro-freedom of the individual. However, unlike you Eki, I understand that nation states who threaten others and enslave their own often come into conflict with other nations. AT some point, they are often dealt with. History has shown that standing by while a regime bent on conquest and oppression continually threatens other nations, they wont stop until conflict is no longer avoidable. My premise has been all along that sooner or later, Saddam was going to get the war he sought, because past history had shown that he was determined to push the boundries. He could avoided this conflict, and he didn't. You can white wash that, but that fact has always been there.
Eki, you are typical of those on the left. You are all for talking and finding a solution through talking, but there is no end game to all this rhetoric when you have no other recourse. You are naive to think that the people of oppressed nations deserve their fates because the war to liberate them might kill them. I agree, war should be avoided at all costs, but at some point, wars are the only way out. Saddam was a threat to the whole of the Middle East, and he didn't have anyone's best interests at heart except for his narrow desires. Could the world have sat on him for the next 15 years without a war? Maybe, but that situation was untenable for him, and he would have done something to bring about the conflict he ended up losing his nation in. He was starving his people under the sanctions, and while the people of Iraq suffered, you seem to think they were better off. I think a lot of us disagree, and while Bush's premise for war (WMD's) was weak, in the end, the resolutions of the UN dictated it and the failure of Saddam to live to them. You wont stand by the UN's resolutions when Saddam ignores them yet you condemn the US for not listening to Kofi Annan. The thing is, the UN had failed to enforce its own dictates, and Blair and Bush decided they were going to do it for them. Criticize away....you will anyway, but the point remains, there was no easy solution to this, for no matter what was done, people were going to suffer. At least with this, the people of Iraq have a choice now, and they voted 80% plurality in their first election. They didn't have that choice before. For someone who respects the rights of the individual, I am all for that.
You cannot deny someone else the freedoms you enjoy Eki. That just makes you very inconsistent......
I realize the Finns were there, my father in law served as a liason with them when he was in Cyprus with the Canadian Army. The point remains though that for 25 plus years the two sides are ready to kill each other but are also both willing to let the UN handle being between them. Canada gave up on it a few years ago because of the cost involved and our troops were needed elsewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
They were there under the UN, I never said they were not. Canada has not put troops in the field without UN sanctions since the creation of that body. You better realize however though that the UN only works when both sides are committed for it to work. Iraq is living proof that one side bent on picking a fight will eventually get it. Saddam didn't want to live up to his obligations under the UN and he received the fight that was the result.
You would hold no one accountable for their actions it seems...
They didn't see anything Saddam didn't want them to see. Do you not remember the constant controversay about the "palaces" being off limits? You mean to say in a nation that is as large as France that something couldn't have been hid? If Saddam had no WMD's, and we know he had them once upon a time, (it wasn't fiction that he gassed the Kurd's with years ago)then why was he constantly putting restrictions on the inspectors and monitoring their movements? They rarely were able to get free of Baghdad. Iraq is a huge nation, and Saddam's efforts to interfere with their movements only heightened the suspicions that the West had about his motives. If you want to be open and honest with the UN, as Libya was in giving up their WMD's, you have no issue. Saddam didn't get this UN treatment because he is a swell guy you know, he invaded a nation for plunder and to steal its resources. The sanctions came out of that invasion. He was not to be trusted with good reason. By acting the way he did, he made things worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
:up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
although we probably don't agree on who was bent on picking a fight :p :
Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Al Gore was found wanting by a public who endorsed his boss Bill Clinton for two terms. Al Gore's dogged attititude that Global Warming will be our undoing ignores the number of respected theorists that have been pointing out the flaws in the theory. Global warming is a threat to be sure, no one disputes the magnitude of what could happen if our climate changes too much. Understand two things though. Kyoto is the favourite solution by those who agree with Al. Al is a huge fan of the Kyoto protocols yet he and Bill Clinton didn't put it before Congress. They didn't have the courage of their convictions. What is more, Kyoto's flaws are obvious to anyone with the time to read how the measurements and carbon trading credits were to be given out. Not to mention a quarter of the world's ecomomic polluters would be given a free ride (India and China were not part of the Kyoto restrictions) while the more sophisticated nations would restrict their green house gases further or buy "credit" from other nations who had just gone though economic slow downs to buy their "green house credits". Al Gore not only agreed with all of this, he helped write it.
No, we wont go into all of the machinations of Kyoto, but based on this flawed document alone, Al Gore is not to be trusted. We wont even get into his flawed economic theories.....I may not be an American with a vote, but as a citizen of a nation next door, I sometimes deplore the stiffs that manage to get nominated for the election of president.
That includes Bush by the way......but he still is not a war criminal and he certainly isn't evil. Incompetant I will accept....but at least Bush admits his faults and sticks to his principles....
Who exactly did Iraq threaten in the state they were in? Their military was wrecked in the first Gulf War and they hadn't received hardly any new weapons in over 10 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
you are right, we likely wont. Understand this. I have said this 100 times now. If Saddam Hussein plays welcoming host to the UN for as long as the UN wanted, then there is no war. How many times did Hans Blix say how frustrated he was with the process of inspecting Iraq because Saddam was restricting the access??Quote:
Originally Posted by donKey jote
Listen, Bush just was able to exploit Saddam's intrasigence to allow the UN full access to get 53 other nations to follow him to Iraq. If he was a goof with no ability to think as you and others might portray him, 53 leaders wouldn't have committed themselves to dumping Saddam. You cannot just say Bush was the problem. It sounds old and simplistic, and you cannot also ignore it wasn't just the CIA who thought Saddam was hiding WMD's, British and French Intelligence were also open about it. Then Saddam does nothing but add to the suspicions of the world by restricting the UN. THe man was an idiot to think in a post 911 world that the US would not want to put a stop to that. They were hurt badly by the attack on the World Trade Center and to act as he did only made people in the US and outside of it see him as a possible future threat. God knows he would be if he was left to his own devices, he was before.