If I actually thought this war would solve any of the problems in the middle east, I would be behind it. However, history has dictated war usually just ends up causing more problems down the road. We have taken this policy with Latin American countries in the 80's and it doesn't always work in our favor. Sometimes, things become even worse than if we took a different position.

All it would really take is one well placed bullet to take out Saddam. The surrounding countries all seem to have an equal dislike for his secular regime. Hopefully, they will declare war and send some special ops in to take the guy out. This seems like a better idea than using all military options that could cause civilian casualities and further anti-American views in that region.

As far as our allies go, they really are just being selfish and are not trying to come with better solutions to help us out. France in particular has not one leg to stand on. They have been on their own military conquests for resources and Imperalism. Most of the nations against the war are so because of public opposition in their own nation and/or economic reasons that would impact them in a negative fashion. I would imagine we are trying to make deals with them in some fashion. If we can convince them it is in their interest economically or otherwise to go along with this, we might gain more support world wide.

Here is a list of some our past military actions that have come back to bite us:

1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator.

1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.


1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

1963-1975: American military kills 4 million civilians in Southeast Asia.


September 11, 1973: U.S. stages coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered.

1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed.


1980's: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.

1981: Reagan administration trains and funds "contras". 30,000 Nicaraguans die.

1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.

1983: White House secretly gives Iran weapons to help them kill Iraqis.

1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties


1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.

1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait.

1998: Clinton bombs "weapons factory" in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.

1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.


2000-01: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in "aid".

September 11, 2001: Osama Bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.

I think facsism is the wrong word.
Try IMPERIALISM. We are becoming much like the country that we declared independance from 300 years ago. Technically, it's called a CORPORATE REPUBLIC, but that just means modern imperialism.
Just thought I'd throw my two cents in. I'm working crazy OT so I can honor my endentured slavery, so I may not have a prompt rebutal, but surely someone will agree.

Jeez, all of you people talking about fascism and imperialism are talking out of your arses. True fascism is chronicled in the book 1984. Autocratic rule is what exists in Iraq right now. Neither exist here, only democracy. Sure, the government may have quite a bit of control, but it's to protect the idiots from themselves, and from foreign threats as well.

Benjaminz, some of your logic is especially faulty. War solves nothing? Yeah, World War II was a waste of time, after all, who needs the NE hemisphere. Gulf War I, yeah, we don't really need to save Kuwait from a human-rights nightmare, we only get oil (read: US economic life-blood) from them. Besides, the raping of their women and slaughtering of their children is ok, so long as they're not American, right?

I agree that assassinating Saddam would be easier, but how do you propose we kill someone with numerous, cosmetically-altered look-alikes; someone who has 15,000 well-trained bodyguards; someone who never sleeps two nights in the same place; someone who maintains a vast network of bunkers, some more than 300 feet deep. You tell me that, then tell the President, because he'd love to know.

Since you throw around Orwell, I'd suggest you reread it. And then I'd suggest you take a high school civics course so that you can learn the truth about the American polity and its torrid affair with "democracy."

If you wanna talk about democracy in the traditional sense, then even Iraq has a democracy. Saddam *was* elected, you know that, right? That's more than I can say for Bush the Selected. "True fascism" should perhaps be chronicled in a history book, when examining Germany at the end of the the Weimar Republic and the rise of the National Socialist party. They were unabashed fascists, 1984 operated on a more or less totalitarian scale, but it was more communist than fascist, though it did contain many fascist aspects.

And if you can't see the similarities between Oceania and the US, then you are intentionally looking over things you'd rather not see. The truth is, America is not, nor ever has been, a true democracy. At best, it's a representative democracy, but it was a true republic at its inception. Also, in the literature of the Founders, you'll find almost all of them were against paternalistic laws (protecting the idiots from themselves). That's a strangely Puritan idea that crept into our local culture more than our national polity through religion. The only power of protection given the government by the Constitution is to provide for the common defense, against as you label them -- foreign threats. But I'm yet to see justification on how the government's control over my thoughts, my actions and my beliefs protects this country from a foreigner with anti-American thoughts, beliefs and actions.

The whole liberty-safety tradeoff argument is an excuse to seize power so that willfully ignorant, naive, trusting fools such as yourself won't yowl until it's too late.

Last time I checked, I was still thinking, feeling, and believing on my own. No government can ever take away your beliefs if you do not let them, even choosing death if you must.

True democracy is very hard to achieve in a population of 300 million.

WW II had several factors that caused it. As far as Kuwait, we reinstalled their dictator if I remember right. The whole world could use a better human rights policy. I remember asking for this personally long ago(Peace). We have to gain on what we have learned through history, otherwise we are doomed to walk down those same roads without ever learning or making progress. imo.

It's impossible to compare this situation to one such as WWII.

If i'm not mistaken, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria and Hitler started gaining power in Germany, WWII broke out and the United States was extremely isolationist. After the costs of WWI and still fighting through the Depression, it took German advances into France, the Soviet Union, and Britain, as well as getting bit in the ass with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to convince Roosevelt that it was time for America to claim it's stake in the war.

Even in the case of WWI, the United States maintained it's isolationist philosophies for the good start of the war. After 3 years of war in Europe, it then until it became apparent that, without aid, the British might stand to take a fall. In fear of this effecting our own economy, we justified sending our own troops into action. Not much more than a year later, the conflict had been 'resolved'.

In both situations, the US sat around until the pot was just about to boil over before coming in to 'save the day.' Afterwards, however, it would emerge as a world power and change it's philosophy completely.

Snap back to today....The current situation in Iraq involves a dictator who is easily as ruthless as Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini ever tried to be, only we have yet to discover the true magnitude of his dictatorship because he hasn't had time to expand with it. But it's become blatantly obvious, especially as of late, that he garners no good intentions with his autocracy.

10 years ago (Desert Storm) he signed a cease fire stating he would not harbor weapons of mass destruction as well as many other clauses and restrictions that he has made no attempt to abide by.

So we tried tried dimplomacy for a decade, and it bit us in the ass again on September 11th. Then we tried aggressive diplomacy for two more years, and all that earned us were more lies from a hiding Hussein and a dissapearing act from Osama Bin Laden and the Al Queda network. So, we finally bit the bullet and now, here we are in the middle of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', with a bunch of dumbfounded Americans wondering why.

Why? Because no one else will, and we can't simply sit around and see what this lunatic has planned next. As vain as it may sound, we are the Big Brother of the world, and it isn't because we haven't earned the title over the past 100 years. There is definitely a certain responsibility that comes with being, almost definitely, the most powerful nation in the world at this point.

We've abandoned our isolationist standpoint. We would rather fix things before they's really broke now. It worked in the Cold War. It worked in Vietnam. It worked in Korea and Kuwait and Desert Storm. And I don't see any reason why it isn't going to work now. If you ask me, the actions of the United States only further prove that it has learned from the lessons of history: Get 'em before they get us.

I agree, I do not see the WW II comparison that la cucaracha brought up. As far as the current situation, more power to killing Saddam. In fact, I am surprised he hasn't been killed yet.

we're turning into a goddamn police-state

erg. Police state America... nah I don't see it happening.

word.

I don't know if that counts as debate....

but word.

a) anti-terrorist bill (do you know what that entails??)
b) patriot act (congress will get it passed eventually)
c) (what's next?)

If I don't like what comes out of your examples, then I'll change it.

edit as you wish; doesn't change what's really going on.