Scott Ritter: "This isn't simply a result of bad governance. This is criminal."

[Space Tycoon]

Impeachment is the only recourse that can bring a halt to the madness in Iraq, and the insanity being planned in Iran and elsewhere.

American soldiers and Marines are being thrown into a cauldron of our own making, scalded by a conflict with no purpose or direction, with the end result being that in order to survive these fighting men and women have dehumanized the totality of the Iraqi people....

...It has long sense been common knowledge on the part of those waging it. In Vietnam Americans were shocked by the revelations of Mai Lai and the murder of innocent Vietnamese civilians by American fighting men. But Mai Lai is repeated in bits and pieces every day in Iraq, with the American military occupation slaughtering family after family of Iraqis in the name of bringing peace and security...






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[Bill_the_Pony]

My Lai, for all its gut wrenching horror.....pales when compared to what is happening now.

[Corporal_Hicks]

Kerry/Edwards '04 baby!

[American]

Scott Ritter: "There's no WMD here!". Said after a meeting with an Iraqi "businessman".

Scott Ritter must be watching the same bias media that Americans here at home are watching. All with the gory details and none of the good news. No wonder the Pentagon has to pay Iraqi papers to print the good news. It's because our media SUCKS

[Space Tycoon]

My Lai, for all its gut wrenching horror.....pales when compared to what is happening now.

Can't argue with that Bill.

I only wish I'd had the balls (or the intel) to make a stronger case against this madness from the outset.

I guess that's why I'm so dead against the war plans being drawn up against the Persians, as we speak...




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[tstone]

Scott Ritter: "There's no WMD here!". Said after a meeting with an Iraqi "businessman".

Scott Ritter must be watching the same bias media that Americans here at home are watching. All with the gory details and none of the good news. No wonder the Pentagon has to pay Iraqi papers to print the good news. It's because our media SUCKS


Yay, we built some schools and what not. Is that worth the carnage being dished out? Is that what we are going to tell American families who lost a father, son, daughter, brother, sister, mother and friend?

They built some schools?

Is that really worth that sacrifice?

I don't see it.

[Space Tycoon]

Or, in the case of Afghanistan, they fought to give the people the right to vote for the re-installation of a theocratic regime, albeit a regime willing to do business with America. Taliban-lite.

Which was probably the idea all along... :(




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[Space Tycoon]

Yay, we built some schools and what not. Is that worth the carnage being dished out? Is that what we are going to tell American families who lost a father, son, daughter, brother, sister, mother and friend?

They built some schools?

Is that really worth that sacrifice?

I don't see it.

Never mind that under Saddam, at least Iraq could boast the most advanced education system in the Mideast.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3747614.html






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[Corporal_Hicks]

I don't see it.

Of course you don't.

[Corporal_Hicks]

Never mind that under Saddam, at least Iraq could boast the most advanced education system in the Mideast.

Nevermind that under Saddam, they could boast their stronghold on the "most effective use of a electoral system" with the 99% pro-Saddam vote every election year.

I mean, 99% of the people in the country APPROVED of Saddam.

We should be looking up to them (him)!

[tstone]

Of course you don't.

Don't you DARE condescend to me, pal.

Again, the world is full of tin pot pricks. But is it worth it, chasing down all these *******s, the cost in lives, resources and time?

Do we have the right to unilaterally change governments in a country because we want to?

Of course we don't. If we did, Gee Dub wouldn't have tried selling this adventure on the pack of lies that he did.

Again, I want you to go to these families, wave around a picture of Saddam Hussein. Tell some woman, "Hey, your hubby is dead, we are in what looks like a bottomless quagmire that is coming apart. Your government didn't give your husband the support he needed for this thing to have a real prayer.

But he helped build some schools.

Here's a flag."

You go do that, Hicks.

A$$.

[Intelligent_Design]

Again, the world is full of tin pot pricks. But is it worth it, chasing down all these *******s, the cost in lives, resources and time?

Do we have the right to unilaterally change governments in a country because we want to?



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Hey T there was a guy on the history channel that said the same thing.

[sickness]

Yeah. I saw that one, ID. His name is George H. W. Bush.

[Space Tycoon]

Nevermind that under Saddam, they could boast their stronghold on the "most effective use of a electoral system" with the 99% pro-Saddam vote every election year.

I mean, 99% of the people in the country APPROVED of Saddam.

We should be looking up to them (him)!

Of course that's not what I meant. Almost every dictator, of any ideological stripe, can point to at least some accomplishments. People wouldn't support authoritarians or totalitarians if they didn't.

Hitler rebuilt Germany's industry and military.

Stalin did the same for Russia, albeit more brutally.

Mao brought literacy to millions of rural peasants.

Even some of the brutes we've supported over the years have managed some impressive achievments. Pinochet, for example. Not a guy I'd recommend under most circumstances, for obvious reasons. But he kept the Communists from running his country into the ground, and brought forth the "Chilean Economic Miracle" of the 1970's and 80's, a true vindication of free market economics.

Obviously, the best kind of autocrat is no autocrat at all. But I look at Iraq, and I see one Saddam being kicked out and replaced with a bunch of little ones. Not exactly "progress."




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[tstone]

Hey T there was a guy on the history channel that said the same thing.

I know there are these a-holes out there advocating this. And if they were honest, they would admit that it's because they percieve us as the strongest military power and think we can get away with it.

If we weren't this military juggernaut, I wonder if they would still advocate said position? Or would they now advocate that right for everyone, or just us because we are somehow special?

Doesn't take much to punture the hot air in their swollen heads.

I have no problem with military strength. I advocate it. But, problem is, when a nation has it, you get pricks who think we should start just arbitrarily swinging it around like a great big ****. Forgetting anything resembling principles of right and wrong, and going right to the law of the jungle, trying something just because you think you are strong enough to be able to avoid consequences of your actions.

[Space Tycoon]

Speaking of military strength...

Let's hear what Eric Haney, the founder of the US military's elite counter-terrorist unit Delta Force, has to say about the war in Iraq... (http://www.dailynews.com/entertainment/ci_3641046)

Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?
A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.





And this is from a man who eats Chuck Norris for breakfast.... :smirks:





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[Space Tycoon]

They're calling it The Long War (http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/08/the_neocons_long_war.php) now. Which, I assume, means it will take a while. That's my hunch anyway...

...the Pentagon is proposing a vast, multi-year campaign of wars, commando raids, air strikes, military bases, naval expansion, covert actions and other military operations whose sum can only be seen as an imperial expansion of the U.S. presence around the globe.

....





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