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GlennB,
what reading material would you suggest, to open my mind, make me think?
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on February 28, 2005 at 9:57 AM
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DylanValente,
The only solution to your problem is to restrict you from reading misinformation. Believe me information that causes you to think will not make your head explode. You will not be permanetly harmed with an open mind!
posted by
Glennb
on February 23, 2005 at 2:03 PM
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GlennB, my information comes from this week's New York Times magazine, which cites Human Rights Watch's statistics at about 100,000 deaths in Kurdistan in 1987. The coalition uncovered mass graves in Iraq after the regime fell. Perhaps you'd like to go see the bones and skulls yourself, or would you claim that the U.S. government and Iraqi exiles with a vendetta against Saddam planted them there? Some of the exiles cooked up weapons claims, yes, but there was no need for them to fabricate the human rights abuses; they happened!
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on February 23, 2005 at 5:51 AM
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DylanValente,
It escapes me that the alleged crimes of the Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq is connected with the criminal invasion of a sovereign nation! Simply being top dog does not validate criminal conduct! I will leave that as another argument! I do not know of any information to corroborate your and American media's claims that the UN or Human Rights Watch have validated these claims against Saddam Hussein's government. The Iraqi exiles have already admitted they juiced up their stories for the cash! Public record! George Bush escapes responsibility for the atrocities of his administration! Why is Saddam Hussein held to a different standard? Stop it!
posted by
Glennb
on February 23, 2005 at 12:17 AM
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Yes, points of view is correct! Like attorneys general, secretaries of state, sisters-in-law, etc. These kind of things drive me nuts when people mistake them. As for the inaccuracies in my thesis, try addressing one at a time, or only one at all. We don't have to cover everything. But it doesn't convince me when you just deny, deny, deny all my points and their factual bases; tell me what sources demonstrate that they are false. Do you really believe the media and Human Rights Watch and the U.N. and Iraqi exiles are lying when they accuse Saddam Hussein of murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent people, in 1987 (against the Kurds) and 1991 (against the Kurds and Shia)? That he did not in fact provoke a war with Iran (with American support) that killed a million people? That he did not attack Israel and Saudi Arabia with missiles? That he did not invade and occupy Kuwait?
It was not Europe's or neo-hippies' "peace" that put a stop to this man's rule; it was the "war criminal" George Bush. Sometimes what is illegal is justified. I did not vote for George Bush, by the way; I proudly voted for Kerry and for every other Democrat on the ticket. I am not, then, just parroting the right-wing propaganda; I call it as I see it. When I see things that America has done wrong, I say so; when I agree with what America does, I say so. Anyway, I am open to debate on one or more points.
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on February 22, 2005 at 7:02 PM
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DylanValente,
Thank you for your comments. The role of debate is to exchange points of views (the use of the plural and " are just writing tools that "I" use)! There are too many inaccuracies in your thesis for me to address! And, I will not try here in this format! Think of it this way! You hear a strange noise coming from your neighbors house! And you rush and kick his door down! Who do you think is the criminal? I do not know how many Iraqis you know or how much you "know" about their government under Saddam Hussein. But trust me the man who kicked his door down is the "war criminal"!
posted by
Glennb
on February 22, 2005 at 2:08 PM
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"Every one of your points are 'bogus'".
First, it's "is bogus," not "are bogus," since your subject is "one." Second, why the quotations around bogus?
"And this same garbage is being repeated too often in corporate media to brainwash the electorate! I do not know a single soldier that is trained and goes into a war zone to build anything! Get your facts straight!"
Garbage -- corporate media -- brainwash -- none of this is an argument; it's namecalling. You need to explain why it's garbage; why the fact that much of the media is corporate automatically discredits its coverage of events; what you mean by brainwashing and what makes it different from what you're trying to do by expressing your own views.
As for the soldiers, you might not know any, but there are over a hundred thousand of them in Iraq, and thousands more in other countries, building infrastructure and helping people help themselves in many ways. These facts are straight as can be. I acknowledged that some soldiers are not helpful; some can be abusive; and the U.S. government makes mistakes. This doesn't discredit the contribution of the vast majority of soldiers, American and Iraqi, who are trying to make the place peaceful enough to create a decent government and end the occupation. The insurgents are the ones prolonging the occupation by making it necessary for the occupiers to stay and fight them. If the insurgents put down their weapons and then the U.S. still didn't leave, then it would be legitimate to denounce the occupation. But the insurgents haven't even given the coalition a chance, neither its American leaders nor its Iraqi supporters.
The Iraqi People are not a basket case that needs Americans on their soil to tell them how to act. The thing Americans should focus on is the Criminal conduct of this war in Iraq! Bring their troops home and try to find peace with th erest of the Planet!
Long-oppressed people need help just as any extremely disadvantaged person does. The borders that separate one nation from another are not magical, absolute lines of distinction that make it OK for one side of the border to be free and democratic and the other side oppressed and starved. We are all basically the same creatures, human beings with many common needs and interests. It is legitimate for one nation to play a constructive role in rebuilding another after it has been long-oppressed and war-torn, and lest we forget, it was war-torn under Saddam Hussein long before the U.S. went in, so there was no "peace" for the Iraqi people under the old system.
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on February 22, 2005 at 1:29 PM
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DylanValente,
You are unfortunately preaching propaganda to the wrong guy! Every one of your points are "bogus". And this same garbage is being repeated too often in corporate media to brainwash the electorate! I do not know a single soldier that is trained and goes into a war zone to build anything! Get your facts straight! The Iraqi People are not a basket case that needs Americans on their soil to tell them how to act. The thing Americans should focus on is the Criminal conduct of this war in Iraq! Bring their troops home and try to find peace with th erest of the Planet!
posted by
Glennb
on February 22, 2005 at 9:00 AM
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GlennB, get a grip, for goodness' sake. You have some strong premises but passion carries you way beyond reason in some of your points. The war might have been illegal, although the standards are ambiguous at best, but so was the behavior of Saddam's regime; he had repeatedly violated several U.N. resolutions, fired on the planes in the no-fly zones, killed huge numbers of Iraqi civilians -- a lot more than the U.S. has -- which violated the Genocide Convention and thus triggered a humanitarian intervention (that's why we refused to call, for example, the Rwandan mass murder genocide, because calling it genocide would have triggered an intervention we didn't want to do). He did virtually everything a sovereign state is not supposed to do, and he did it in the extreme. So at the very least, we must agree that Saddam's behavior was a much greater violation of international law than America's wars against him.
Then you say the coalition is not really trying to help the Iraqi people? Coalition troops are building bridges and schools, distributing food (not enough, but they are doing it) and training Iraqis to police their own country. Coalition troops fomented and monitored an election in whic 60 percent of Iraqis freely chose the ticket of their choice. Yes, this has been far from optimal and we have made many mistakes; but the coalition troops are really doing a good thing and if not for the insurgency, the "resistance" which kills unarmed civilian aid workers and other innocent people, the situation would be a lot better, meaning that the coalition is not solely at fault for the bad security situation.
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on February 22, 2005 at 8:42 AM
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