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Originally posted by ctembreull
Sure. right here, in Sixate's own words. Unfounded? Hardly.
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One opinion doth not make a statistic, sir.
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And yet according to all accounts, Baghdad and surrounds was mostly whole in 1991 before the missiles started falling. See, the fighting against Iran was held mostly on Iraq's eastern border. Which means the vast majority of the existing destruction happened as a direct result of the actions of the United States.
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By all accounts, Baghdad is still pretty whole today. It's not as bad as you seem to think - the US did not carpet-bomb the city into oblivion, you know. And still... Saddam did not invest in the infrastructure. Most of the current infrastructure dates back 30+ years, and is in dire need of replacement. How exactly can the US be held responsible for this?
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You're entirely missing the point. If Iraq is as "free" as you claim it to be, then why have we suppressed a particular political party? Let me be clear: if the Iraqis don't like Baathists, they can bloody well vote them out. Instead, we're ruling by fiat and suppressing who we wish because we wish. That is not freedom.
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No, YOU are missing the point. The Ba'ath party was in charge of a dictatorship, and were controlling the country by force. You cannot expect the Iraqi people to be free if their former oppressors are still in control, and refusing to give up that control. To end a regime, you need to remove the puppets of that regime. Failure to do so will undermine the future democratic evolution of that country. The fact that "they can be voted out of office" is rather bullshit, particularly if the security apperatus would still be around, the police would still beat the living crap out of everyone opposed to the "former" regime, and the laws would still be made by those former regime members.
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Wrong. Very wrong. As you can see here. That's twice now, by the way, that you with all pomp and bombast have claimed things aren't so when they so clearly and obviously are just so. I encourage you to check your facts more closely.
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Oh, right... hearsay and "we think it might be wrong". Where's the proof, son? And where's your answer to my claim that Halliburton is very good at what they do, which is fixing destroyed infrastructure?
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Listen much to The Who? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... after all, we kill Iraqis as well or better than he did. We ban political thought that we don't like, just as he did. We make free with Iraq's mineral wealth, just like he did. Wow, what saviors we are!
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How's about responding to my post, instead of sporting bullshit like this? WMDs or not, the Iraqis are free. Just because you think the US is evil does not mean it's true. If you think the US is even remotely comparable to Saddam, you're either blinded by hatred, or just plain insane.
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Sure, let's push the smoke back into the bottle with a baseball bat. My point is that we never should have been there in the first place. We can't unkill 10,000 Iraqis. We can't un-destroy infrastructure. We can't undo the crimes against international law that we have committed.
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No, but we can sure as hell give the Iraqis a better future than they would have had with Saddam still around.
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And yet they still can't affiliate with certain political parties if they wish. Freedom indeed.
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Ah yes... the former dictators are not allowed to have a say, and therefore the Iraqis aren't free. Grow up. Wake up and smell the coffee. In loads of countries which changed from a dictatoship to a democracy, the former regime was removed from the political spectrum. It's common sense, and not at all repression. These parties would quickly be able to re-assert their position, thanks to the fear the normal people have of them, and their links to the former security apperatus. They would then be able to grab power again, even if the rest of the people disagree.
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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. You don't care enough to try to do something about it, obviously. I do; I plan on executing regime change the legal way: by voting.
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My take on it is that you didn't give a rat's arse about the Iraqi people, and would rather have Saddam keep on killing them. I supported the invasion, which was a solution to the problem. You supported standing on the side-line and blaming the US for those deaths, while not doing ONE BIT to stop them. How noble of you.
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As far as evil dictators, did you ever figure out when we're gonna go "liberate" those other countries? Guess not. Looks like liberation only comes for those who have oil, eh?
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Oh, you mean like the many other countries the US liberated? Sure, all of them had oil. Yeah, that's it... I encourage you to check your facts more closely.
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And that's why the inspectors were there - to verify that there were no more WMDs. The inspectors found none, but we kicked them out before the job was done. Hans Blix himself said that his inspectors had enjoyed "unprecedented" access. But they found no WMDs. And neither have we. That looks suspiciously like evidence; evidence that has not been superseded.
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No WMDs found means that they weren't there, eh? What about those tons of nerve gas and biological agents Saddam claims to have destroyed, but then failed to document? Or would you suggest that Hans Blix himself was lying when he said Saddam had failed to prove the destruction of all that stuff? As has been said time and time again: Saddam had to prove he had destroyed his WMDs. Saddam failed to do that. Therefore, the US/UN had no reason whatsoever to believe his word, especially after he had lied to them time and time again.
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That's it. I have arrived at the unfortunate yet inescapable and plainly obvious conclusion that you possess no understanding of the meaning of the word "sovereignty", nor of international law, nor of the rights of nations to self-determination. You quite clearly do not get it. So, I'm going to flush the rest of your post, and leave you with this:
sovereign, adj. 1. Self-governing; independent: a sovereign state.
That's *self-governing*, not subject to the whims of other nations without due process under international law. No nation has any right whatsoever in any circumstances to force the leader of another nation to step down, lacking casus belli. We found no WMDs, we had no casus belli, and if you don't think that's the way it should be, then tough. That's the law. The United States is not above the law. And nor are you.
I'm done wasting my time with you.
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You obviously have no idea what international POWER means. Independent sovereign countries are only able to do what they want as long as they don't piss off the rest of the world. When they do, "sovereign" means exactly jack shit.
The "casus belli" in this case was Saddam's refusal to cooperate FULLY with resolution 1441. He did not prove he had WMDs, as was demanded. He did not provide full information, as was demanded. In fact, it turned out he had been building illegal missiles he wasn't allowed to, clearly breaching previous UN resolutions. Casus belli enough.
In the real world, outside of dusty law books, not everything is always black and white. The US is *able* to do what it does, and it will do it, no matter if you agree or not. It does things because it can. The rest of the world will have to deal with that, international law or not. If some bastard like Saddam thinks he can fuck with the US while hiding behind international law... well, it turns out he was wrong. And international law or not, he was STILL a murderous bastard, and he STILL deserved to have his arse kicked. Stating that we have no right to intervene is, in my opinion, a rather pathetic excuse: it's another way of saying "fuck you" to the people of Iraq.
And I'm done with you too. You obviously don't agree with this war, while I do. Let's just agree to disagree, shall we, before we end up in a nasty flame war...