Progress in Iraq

[Redleg]

Negative Red , how about something positive .... the President has asked the Prime Minister to stand down , the Prime Minister has changed the rules on voting for the constitution , Coilition troops are on their fourth conscutive attempt to try and clear up a few villages and one of the Shia Militia(the ones who last week were apparently holding coilition troops prisoner) are doing the polices job by rescuing a captured cabinet minister .
Oops nothing positive there , maybe a change of policy would bring more postive events to write about .

Maybe you are just looking in all the wrong places.

Can you prove they were lies - because its an easy word to say - but one that has not been shown to be fact.
Where do you want to start ?...
"We know he has weapons of mass destruction , we know where these weapons are ....and thats a ...err....fact" good old Rummy eh
A slice of Yellowcake anyone ? 45 minutes is a very short time isn't it ? Nice pictures of mobile chemical weapons labs ?
All proven false , as are a multitude of others .

All proven false - is correct. Now prove that they were lies. You know what constitutes a lie now don't you? It has something to do with willfully knowing what you are saying is wrong.

Now can you prove what they stated is a lie, or is it only that what was stated has shown to be false.

[Tribesman]

Maybe you are just looking in all the wrong places.

Wrong places ? OK lets try the Iraqi interior ministry for some good news....Foriegn fighters are leaving Iraq .....great news....oops it carries on .....they are taking their expertise that they have developed in Iraq and are going to spread it elsewhere .

Now can you prove what they stated is a lie, or is it only that what was stated has shown to be false.
What????the Niger documemnts were known to be forgeries , but they were still included in the claims regardless . That is an example of an outright lie . As was the 45 minute claim , they took a true statement , removed all the specifics and changed the context . As for Rummys comment , he describes it at as viewing things through a prism , when something passes through a prism it is distorted , even if what enters the prism is true then only using one facet to get your results is a distorion of the truth , distortion of the truth is a lie . The photos Powell put forward at the UN were said to be sequencial , in reality they were individual photos taken months apart .

[Divinus Arma]

Here is my final and standing opinion on the matter:

If we start fighting a government that WE instituted, Iraq will compltely go to crap.

We will lose all legtimicay and have to leave immediatley.

Then Iraq will suffer a horrible civil war. The Government will totally collapse and their will be no law, just regional strongmen.

The Kurds will declare independence in the North, drawing Turkey in to brutally squash it before Turkish Kurds attempt to secede.

The Sunnis will attempt to reassert their former authority by waging a genocidal war against the Shiites. Iran, mostly shiite, will get involved because they no longer have a reason not to. They still have scars from the Iraq/Iran war and will happily destroy a weakened Sunni power base.

Then the terrorists will develop new tactics in this messy environment and export this to other middle east countries in order to destabilize the region further. The Saudi Kingdom will be threatened by internal jihadists supported by foriegn terrorists.

Meanwhile, oil prices will go through the roof. Western economies will take a huge hit and inflation will soar.

With the world in chaos, China will seize the opportunity to invade Taiwan. The United States will be forced by treaty to support Taiwan and threaten military action against China. China will give us the finger and we will simultaneously invade Taiwan to liberate it and boycott all Chinese products.

Western economies will spiral further down due to the lack of cheap goods as terrorists export violence to the rest of Europe. EDIT: Pakistan will seize Kashmir. Then China, Iran, and Pakistan will declare a nuclear alliance. India will seek help from the U.S.

The U.S. and Europe will be unable to fight the middle and far east at the same time and institue conscription. A global conflict will ensue as the U.S. and Europe invade China and Iran.

Russia will be forced to make a decision, join Chinese Alliance or join Europe.

Urban battlefield tactics will be completely unnegotiable without civilan Casulaites. The west will be forced into true attrition warfare and purposely kill civilians.

Palestinains will dance in the streets. Liberals will scream that the U.S. is Evil. Bush will go down in history as the man who started WW3 with a preemptive invasion into a country without WMD or foriegn terrorists.

And may monkeys dance on all our graves.

[Tribesman]

Here is my final and standing opinion on the matter:

Not bad divinus , but I doubt the India /China /Pakistan alliance , all three have long standing border disputes/occupation of territory and all three have been at war with each other .

[Divinus Arma]

Here is my final and standing opinion on the matter:

Not bad divinus , but I doubt the India /China /Pakistan alliance , all three have long standing border disputes/occupation of territory and all three have been at war with each other .

You read my thing wrong. I said Pakistan, IRAN, and China will Ally, while India will seek our help. This is a real possibility if you look up Paki-Chinese relations. The only real conflict in that region is Indo-Paki over Kashmir.

[Redleg]

Maybe you are just looking in all the wrong places.

Wrong places ? OK lets try the Iraqi interior ministry for some good news....Foriegn fighters are leaving Iraq .....great news....oops it carries on .....they are taking their expertise that they have developed in Iraq and are going to spread it elsewhere .

Ah look still only seeing the negative in everything you look for regarding the situation in Iraq. What a wonderful world you must live in.

Now can you prove what they stated is a lie, or is it only that what was stated has shown to be false.
What????the Niger documemnts were known to be forgeries , but they were still included in the claims regardless . That is an example of an outright lie . As was the 45 minute claim , they took a true statement , removed all the specifics and changed the context . As for Rummys comment , he describes it at as viewing things through a prism , when something passes through a prism it is distorted , even if what enters the prism is true then only using one facet to get your results is a distorion of the truth , distortion of the truth is a lie . The photos Powell put forward at the UN were said to be sequencial , in reality they were individual photos taken months apart .

Then maybe you should become a lawyer and try to get them all brought up on charges. Try Tony Blair first since he would be a closer and most likely easier choice to get convicted if a criminal act has been done.

It seems no-one is convince that the evidence you mentioned is a out right lie. Several investigations have been done - in two countries - and look both governments are still standing - and no one has been convicted of lieing. So try again with statements that have not been shown to be lies.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Then maybe you should become a lawyer and try to get them all brought up on charges. Try Tony Blair first since he would be a closer and most likely easier choice to get convicted if a criminal act has been done.

It seems no-one is convince that the evidence you mentioned is a out right lie. Several investigations have been done - in two countries - and look both governments are still standing - and no one has been convicted of lieing. So try again with statements that have not been shown to be lies.

Convicted of lying?

What kind of silly new crimes is this one? You can't be prosecuted for lying, can you?

If both UK and Us administration were not lying, they were still foolish and incompetent. I wonder if I would not prefer liars.

Otherwise.... it's not hindsight... Many people were opposing the war, and that was not out of love for Saddam, but mainly because the current situation was bound to happen. You seem to regret we got no access to backroom archive: I think it's mercifull, for that would not be a pretty sight for pro war advocate if those were raised by a necromantic bump.

If you focus on that the United States screwed up because of a lack of proper planning of Occupation and fixing Iraq after we broke it - then I might just jump on the bandwagon - but going into Iraq to remove Saddam was the correct thing to do in my opinion. So why would I change my opinion on that because the adminstration and the military has made a mess of the occupation.

Noone liked Saddam in power. There are many other regime I don't like. But I also know that, sometimes, the cost of removal is too high, or that the alternative is no better.
War got the inconvenience of increasing the removal cost, and degrading the qualities of alternative. It's not news, it's been like this for a very long time, and Irak is no exception.
It would have been better to remove Saddam in 1991; no question about that; the case was clearer, and support from country like Syria or Saudi Arabia easier to get, and there were a real insurgency that we let down.

It was probably the right thing to do back then... But that does not make it right 10 years later.
It's a mistake to correct mistakes 10 years later.

Louis,

[Redleg]

Convicted of lying?

What kind of silly new crimes is this one? You can't be prosecuted for lying, can you?

Sure you can - what do you think Clinton was accused of? You might want to check on the defination of perjury. Here I will help you out since you seem to be unaware of the possiblity

Perjury: the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath : false swearing

If both UK and Us administration were not lying, they were still foolish and incompetent. I wonder if I would not prefer liars.

Your getting warm - foolish incompetenet and wanting to believe the information on its face value without looking at other sources of information. Something many here are just of guilty of doing.

Otherwise.... it's not hindsight... Many people were opposing the war, and that was not out of love for Saddam, but mainly because the current situation was bound to happen. You seem to regret we got no access to backroom archive: I think it's mercifull, for that would not be a pretty sight for pro war advocate if those were raised by a necromantic bump.

I don't regret it at all - its called sacrasm. And many who opposed the war were not thinking about the current situation - they were only opposing it because they disagreed with the necessity of the conflict. Again hindsight is always 20/20.

Noone liked Saddam in power. There are many other regime I don't like. But I also know that, sometimes, the cost of removal is too high, or that the alternative is no better.
War got the inconvenience of increasing the removal cost, and degrading the qualities of alternative. It's not news, it's been like this for a very long time, and Irak is no exception.
It would have been better to remove Saddam in 1991; no question about that; the case was clearer, and support from country like Syria or Saudi Arabia easier to get, and there were a real insurgency that we let down.

It was probably the right thing to do back then... But that does not make it right 10 years later.
It's a mistake to correct mistakes 10 years later.

Louis,

So you would of supported allowing the sanctions to end, for Saddam to rebuild his WMD programs, and to continue to terrorize his own people?

You would of allowed his regime to remain unaccountable for the cease fire conditions that he violated - to include the returning and accounting of several thousand Kuwaiti citizens that were taken from their homes by Iraqi forces? And so many more little things that so many would just like to ignore.

How very noble of you.


(and yes I am being sacrastic once again)

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Sure you can - what do you think Clinton was accused of? You might want to check on the defination of perjury. Here I will help you out since you seem to be unaware of the possiblity

I am well aware of the possibility, and thought of the same example.
Perjury is under oath. Had Clinton lied in front of the American people on TV, he would not have been charged... It's the same lie under oath that creates the possibility for perjury.
And there is a reason why perjury and lies are 2 different words. As far as I know, press conferences are not under oath, technically not a perjury. I don't think UK admnistration or US admnistration officials made any declaration about the war they could be charged with perjury.

Your getting warm - foolish incompetenet and wanting to believe the information on its face value without looking at other sources of information. Something many here are just of guilty of doing.

Looking yourself in a mirror?

I don't regret it at all - its called sacrasm. And many who opposed the war were not thinking about the current situation - they were only opposing it because they disagreed with the necessity of the conflict. Again hindsight is always 20/20.

And many who were opposing the war were thinking of the same situation. I remember writing about Algeria. I remember many ridiculising the notion of "welcoming with flowers".

There are reasons to disagree with the necesity of the conflict that can be that the conflict itself creates the condition for failure.

Looks like a case of people who were wrong are pissed at people who were right and calling for hindsight judgement.

So you would of supported allowing the sanctions to end, for Saddam to rebuild his WMD programs, and to continue to terrorize his own people?

You would of allowed his regime to remain unaccountable for the cease fire conditions that he violated - to include the returning and accounting of several thousand Kuwaiti citizens that were taken from their homes by Iraqi forces? And so many more little things that so many would just like to ignore.

How very noble of you.


(and yes I am being sacrastic once again)

Yes I would. I live in a world where many other atrocities are tolerated, and noone cares. See Chechnya, Darfour, Cuba, China/ Tibet, Rwanda before, etc, etc... Saddam was not the only one to torture its own people.

There are many wrongdoings. And sometimes fixing them just makes things worse. Is war the solution to make all that stop? Or is war triggering its own set of atrocities?
There are cases where I got no doubt I prefer war. There are cases where I wish we had declared war.
In our world, Irak was not the most pressing one.
Don't you know of any other options?

It's "sarcastic". Something that bitter people enjoy when they got nothing to do other than belittle others.

What is sad is.... Your personal motivations are not that far from many French lefty loonies that were supporting Saddam removal... Saddam or many other tyran. Time for fear to change side.
But they had a lot of doubts about that war, and the way UK and US admnistrations were doing it.
The cause might be juste, but it may not be worth a fight. The fight itself will corrupt the cause... In that case, and as much as it sucked for Koweitiis and Iraqiis, it was not worth it.
In 1991, it was worth it. Because violations were more severe, and because internation law was trampled. I was quite angry when we stopped short of removing Saddam back then.

There is something called "overfixing one's mistake"; blundering even more by trying to fix the initial problem. That's right where you are.

Louis,

[Redleg]

I am well aware of the possibility, and thought of the same example.
Perjury is under oath. Had Clinton lied in front of the American people on TV, he would not have been charged... It's the same lie under oath that creates the possibility for perjury.
And there is a reason why perjury and lies are 2 different words. As far as I know, press conferences are not under oath, technically not a perjury. I don't think UK admnistration or US admnistration officials made any declaration about the war they could be charged with perjury.

LOL looks like you didn't like the answer now does it. You claim that lies was not a crime - perjury shows that you are incorrect.

Looking yourself in a mirror?

Or was it your comments?

And many who were opposing the war were thinking of the same situation. I remember writing about Algeria. I remember many ridiculising the notion of "welcoming with flowers".

Yes indeed hindsight - no matter how you try to gloss it over.

There are reasons to disagree with the necesity of the conflict that can be that the conflict itself creates the condition for failure.

Maybe so - but that was not the initial arguement spewed forth by the anti-war crowd.

Looks like a case of people who were wrong are pissed at people who were right and calling for hindsight judgement.

Not at all - who's pissed not I - hindsight is just what it is hindsight

Yes I would. I live in a world where many other atrocities are tolerated, and noone cares. See Chechnya, Darfour, Cuba, China/ Tibet, Rwanda before, etc, etc... Saddam was not the only one to torture its own people.

So you would excuse them all. Again how very noble of you.

There are many wrongdoings. And sometimes fixing them just makes things worse. Is war the solution to make all that stop? Or is war triggering its own set of atrocities?

War is sometimes necessary - are you attempting to say Saddam honored every ceasefire condition?

There are cases where I got no doubt I prefer war. There are cases where I wish we had declared war.
In our world, Irak was not the most pressing one.
Don't you know of any other options?

14 years of faild diplomacy accounts for nothing it seems.

It's "sarcastic". Something that bitter people enjoy when they got nothing to do other than belittle others.

Yep and why I am using it in this arguement - because of your comments and more to the point Tribesman's. Sarcasm is what many here like to use - as a legimate form of arguement. Now it seems you don't like it for the same reason I don't like it as a form of arguement. However as long as some wish to use it as a legimate form of discussion - I will always use it back to counter their sarcasm arguement.

What is sad is.... Your personal motivations are not that far from many French lefty loonies that were supporting Saddam removal... Saddam or many other tyran. Time for fear to change side.

LOL - now that is funny - do you know what my personal motivations are? I doubt it very seriousily that you do.

But they had a lot of doubts about that war, and the way UK and US admnistrations were doing it.
The cause might be juste, but it may not be worth a fight. The fight itself will corrupt the cause... In that case, and as much as it sucked for Koweitiis and Iraqiis, it was not worth it.
In 1991, it was worth it. Because violations were more severe, and because internation law was trampled. I was quite angry when we stopped short of removing Saddam back then.

There is something called "overfixing one's mistake"; blundering even more by trying to fix the initial problem. That's right where you are.

Louis,

Then I would say that you should of responded this way in your first post - verus the comments that you initially made - then maybe I would not have been sarcastic.

[Tribesman]

Ah look still only seeing the negative in everything you look for regarding the situation in Iraq.
OK Red , post some positive things about Iraq . There was a topic about it a while ago , it turned out to be a very short topic .
What a wonderful world you must live in.

Same world as you live in , but it isn't my countries military that are getting killed in a war that they cannot win yet cannot afford to lose , and it isn't my government pouring my tax money into the quicksand .(In fact the cute whores are making money out of it , an advantage I suppose of prostituting themselves into the fringes of the coilition of the willing)
That is why you are so desperate to see it as positive , because to admit the failings would be to admit that your soldiers lives and your money are being wasted .

[Redleg]

Ah look still only seeing the negative in everything you look for regarding the situation in Iraq.
OK Red , post some positive things about Iraq . There was a topic about it a while ago , it turned out to be a very short topic .

Probably because of all the doom saying by you.

What a wonderful world you must live in.

Same world as you live in , but it isn't my countries military that are getting killed in a war that they cannot win yet cannot afford to lose , and it isn't my government pouring my tax money into the quicksand.

Lets see you seem to be spouting the same old line here. Guess what my postion on the occupation is very simple. We broke it - we got to fix it. How hard is that for you to understand that very simple concept. From what you have written - its a very difficult concept for you to fanthom and understand. Maybe instead of being sarcastic in every response you should try honest discourse - and maybe I will do the same in response. However if you notice I went this track off of a comment made by you.

.(In fact the cute whores are making money out of it , an advantage I suppose of prostituting themselves into the fringes of the coilition of the willing)
That is why you are so desperate to see it as positive , because to admit the failings would be to admit that your soldiers lives and your money are being wasted .

You haven't a clue do you, why I take the postion I do.

Again see the first comment. We broke it - we have to fix it. Why are you so desperate to show only the negative aspects of what is going on?

You discount the links from the Defense Department out of hand it seems - but don't want your comments discounted in the same way. Besides I am not desperate to see only the postive - I read about it in the links I have provided several times. Does it outweigh the negative - nope - but it shows a bigger picture view of what is actually happening verus the stuff that is available in the mainstream media outlets and the anti-war outlets.

Maybe its because I am playing your own game against you. It seems you like to play the devils advocate on other subjects - but don't like it being used unless your the one doing it.