STOP THE WAR!

Funny how this is an all-around different forum
"Different" as in "more intelligent".
Just a minute ago I read a thread in the CDFreaks forum where they were actually cheering the beggining of the war and dissing the French.
It makes me happy that the first post on the subject in HA is a pro-peace one.

No a la guerra, no en nuestro nombre!/ No war, not in our name!

Yes, you are right.

War is not a solution!
I'am against war!

And I think most of the americans and british people are against the war.

I'm against that unjustified and stupid war too.

War War War war damage everything!

Poor innocent Iraq's citizens

Besides, Polution!

War is stupid

yes
stop the war and stop the usa.
i have nothing against american people but against its administration.

I'm not sure if it's unjustified; I'm having difficulties to form an opinion on that. Ofcourse, war is not a nice thing and there will be thousands of personal tragedies. But if the Iraqi people are really suppressed the way the western media want us to believe, then this is a quick way out of that. As I said, I just don't know what to think.

What is definitely bad though, is that the international community was just ignored in this matter. Whereas wars between other countries would be settled by the UN, apparently the British and Americans can just dismay international opinion....

edit: oh and I also want to mention that I can't understand why our (Dutch) administration supports these acts. Usually they're so saint-like, abiding by every rule in the book. Now, they're just kissing Bush's ***.

They should better be really quick now, indeed. But those BlitzKrieg's usually have the tendency to become lingering somehow.

They'll receive some dividends out of it, I suppose.

War is a last resort. Sadam has had 12+ years and killed thousands. Should we give him more time? Is he just missunderstood? Will that solve things? Or will it result in more death and tragedy to all those subjugated to him against their will? The Iraqi people have more to fear from their own government in a war than they do the US. So I ask you if not war then what?

I am not pro-war. But I know that there is a time for war. A time when the cost of in-action is much worse than those of action. Now is the time. Though I do not favor war if I were called to serve I would without hesitation.

What good is freedom if it can not be shared? If it could not be shared would it be freedom? What good is it to be free sitting at home behind castle walls trusting in your timid leadership to protect you from the world and reality. Be proactive. Be decicive. But most of all don't be condecending unless you know of a better way.

That is the real goal of all wars. Everything else is just a side effect. But in this case the side effects stand to be substantial and good.

Well, if invading countries is the way to remove evil (no sarchasm here) dictators, we're fixed!! There are several more dictators of this kind around, is USA going to invade and start a war against every country governed from a evil dictator? What about China? Are they evil enough for Bush standards? Don't they have real massive destruction weapons?

And, what to say to the fact that Saddam Hussein didn't become an evil dictator in 1992 when he invaded Kuwait? He's been the same bastard ever, even when he was supported from the USA back in the 80's. In fact , IIRC USA was the one that provided the bacteriological weapons and technology to Irak then. Even more, Saddam used those weapons against kurde (is that in english?) people when they were still supported from USA. Hey, Roosevelt was the one who said then something like "Saddam is a son of a b*tch, but he's our son of a b*tch". Not to say that USA in the past helped to instaurate really evil dictatorial regimes such as Pinochet's one in Chile, just because it was good for their interests.

Now, seriously, please someone correct me if some of these facts are wrong, I recall they are not but I could have made a mistake somewhere.

Edit: Patsoe, don't take this as some anger to you. In fact, if Saddam is removed, that will be a good thing indeed, and that is something to consider. Still, I think it is not the way of doing things, and that can't justify a war or an invassion.

I think you're right in a lot of the things you say.

But bringing freedom and democracy to people can not be done by treading democracy with heels. The international community had democratically come to the conclusion that the time is not now. Some superpower ignoring that is not a good thing imho.

Besides, the argument put forward in the last days wasn't so much to free the Iraqi's, but rather to defend the world against possible terrorism. Again, the UN doubted the reality of such threats.



i don't think that is the point. Rather, it has to do with the fact that your opinion being ignored is quite a slap in the face. For the French, it is now. A nation as great as that clearly has nothing in its power to stop this war. The Dutch administration is saving themselves for such a display of impotence, by supporting the war politically. At least, that's how I see it.

So america wants iraq to get rid all the weapons! why did america supply them the weapons and technology in the first place. Out of 40 or so wars today, 39 of these wars have american weapons. My questions is, then is america going to stop supplying weapons, and when are they going to get rid of there own weapons?

Because of a foolish and stupid decision of a former administration to play the local countries against themselves rather than get directly involved to bring the Iran hostage incident to an end. I agree Sadam has not changed his ways from then to now. But our government does not have the market cornered for stupid decisions.




Your definition is faulty. There is a major difference between weapons that were designed or possibly assembled in America and weapons given or sold to other countries by the government. Just because someone has american made weapons does not mean that America gave them to them. Companies in a free democracy are free to sell their wares to most anyone they like. And when that is not enough they sell behind the governments back. What of all the countries with Russian arms and atack vehicles? Did Russia give them to everyone? No. A few yes. But not everyone.

If going after one evil dictator would require that you went after all, there would be no beginning in it, would there? Don't get me wrong, I see there's a point in what you're saying.



This is very true. But although the Americans probably have other than ideological reasons to take out Saddam, if the result is the same (freedom for the people) the war would in some sense be justified. Again, I totally agree with you that the American motifs for doing all this are pretty evil at that.

Meaning of editing:

restriction
suppression
control
cutting
bowdlerization
expurgation

america says they want freedom! There idea of freedom is them in control of the world!

Democracy has not been ignored. America is not acting unilatteraly. America has the support of many countries and is not doing this on their own. Democracy does not mean that we only do something if 100% of the participants agree. All you need is a simple majority. And while there are no end of tiny countries who oppose the war. They have nothing to contribute and nothing to gain from it in any way. Those that are important(sorry little guys) have agreed enough that a majority in favor was reached.



The UN has a hard time trusting anyone.(accept perhaps for Sadam to mend his ways.) That is not saying much.



And quite a wake up call.



No one said they must contribute man power to the war. Political support would have ben sufficient from the French. And while having their oppinion now ignored may be a slap in the face to them. They delivered the first slap in the face in this situation.

The "outside world" might like to know that not everyone in the UK is "Pro War" - the most "Pro War" opinion poll put the number at 50% - others have it at 30-40%. Many people find it ironic that we're going to war to bring "democracy" to Iraq, while the majority of people here don't want war, and the majority of people in the USA didn't vote for George Bush. It's good that both countries have such a good grasp of the democracy that they are so keen to export.


But Sadam is an evil dictator, and now that we are at war, I hope and pray that it will be as short and "painless" as possible. I hope that we (USA+UK) invest at least a fraction of the cost of the war into the following peace.


btw, do people in the USA buy what George Bush says? I was listening to his speech - something about "We must fight them with planes, bombs and marines now, otherwise we will have to fight them with police and firefighters later" - do people believe that? Do they really think that Iraq poses a threat? Do they know that both USA and UK intelligence services have said that Iraq has no links with Al-Qieda (sp?), and faces no threat to either nation? If we had had this second war back in 1998 and ousted Sadam then, to people in the USA somehow think that 9/11 would not have happened? Do they think this war will make another 9/11 less likely?


Finally, I have an unpopular opinion: I think France did the worst thing possible. By saying that they would not sign up for a UN ultimatum, "whatever the conditions", they made this war inevitable. A cast iron ultimatum that said "full compliance within 30 days or you will be removed - we have the troops ready" may have been the best thing to prevent war. Whilst the USA may have had too little patience with Iraq to bring international opinion along with them, France showed signs of having infinite patience. You can't have infinite patience with a dictator.


I'm Anti war and don't agree with what the politicians have got us into. But now it's started I'm behind our troops 200% - the fiance of one of my friends is in Kuwait - their wedding is in August...



Cheers,
David.

What was france supposed to do. They dont want war! america said "you are either with us, or with the terrorists". france is not with the terrorists and does not want war!

Our idea of freedom has nothing to do with controlling the world. An unwarrented statement. You just lumped an entire nation into the 'dictators of peace' catagory saying this. Not fair, and not true.

No matter what the adminstration does, we, the American people, have little say at this point. But that doesn't mean we need to all be bashed because of what the policy makers in Washington do. Give it a rest. We're just along for the ride now. Like the rest of the world.

I agree 100%

I doubt that Iraq is (or will be in the near future) a serious military threat to USA as they have been pictured by the Bush administration. There must be other reasons for the war and it annoys me that the real reasons are hidden from the public and we have to guess. Is it because they want a new "pax americana" in the world or is it to secure oil resources or do they know that Saddam has some nukes which nobody else knows about?

Well, I still don't know what to believe...

No it means that I was taking the time to respond to individual ideas in turn while you were over reacting. I hope this does not become typical of you.

I think it's the opposite, very likely the war will give more motivation to anti-USA extremists.



Maybe you have a point here, but who knows. Still, I think that USA administration would have started the war no matter what had happened.

Looks like you are 1 of the billions of people blinded by the media!!!

About as many as do in the UK.

If they do, it'll be most likely 'cold war' instead. You see in case of Iraq they first made sure in opposite.

But generally, looks like this is the plan.
I do believe though that you can't force your vision of state in all the countries.
Vast majority of current conflicts were 'inspired' by external interference.
Both US and SU had major failure in Afganistan, they shouldn't meddle in the first place.

Now again. You're not happy with regime in the country: support separatists, opposition, organize coup d'etat at last (haven't been done, since iraqi people are so suppressed). Still not happy: bomb it, invade it. Elect the right people. Got another regime? wonder why

Talk about blinded. I am through wasting reason and understanding on you. Short simple and sweet. You are a troll. A troll with no pertinant input and only pigheaded lies and insults to peddle. I make no excuses for the shortcomings of our countries past administrations. I don't jump to carry out dubyas every word. I have my own thoughts and oppinions on the subject. I am not the one that is blinded by nationalist meda. Take a look in the mirror to see that man my frined. It is no wonder that europen govenments do nothing but bicker if their ranks are drawn from people like yourself.

Just have to say 1 more thing before I stop posting in this thread!. I am on neither side! (I am against both sides!). History has shown that war solves nothing. If war did solve problems, why are wars still going on! History has also shown that it is always the inoccent civilians (women and children) who get killed. and the evil leaders, some how come out alive!

It just goes to show, if you are not with the americans, you are hated !

I think it's very hard to form an obejctive picture about the crisis. There's lots of both anti-war and war supporting -propaganda in action, so I think there's no way that one couldn't be blinded by the media, whether anti-war or war supporter.

The most easiest thing to say is (at least in Europe) "No war, lets not do anything. USA only wants the oil."
I think Bush and Blair made a very hard decicion knowing that it may very likely be the end of their careers, at least Blair's career.

I don't know if the war now was the right decicion or not. I'm just happy that I'm in no position to have any real influence on this in any way. All I know is that I'm not in the demonstrations screaming "Stop the war!" nor "Someone's gotta do it! Go USA!". I have opinions which both support the war and are against the war, and I think both Bush and Blair had also both kind of opinions, but as strong leaders, they made a very hard decicion. Maybe it's the right decicion, maybe wrong. Many people's opinion may be different after the war.

I always find the claim "History shows that war solves nothing" very weird. Wars are going on mostly because of the human nature, but that doesn't mean that wars couldn't solve anything.
History has shown very clearly that wars really solve things. Maybe it's just hard for the young people to understand what WW2 solved, and that we live now in totally different world than if Nazi Germany had won.

You'd have a hard time to convince most finnish people that "a war doesn't solve anything", because we defended our independence against full scale Russian attack during WW2 succesfully. That war also certainly solved our freedom..

Like Hitler???

My idea of a fair democratic vote is that it works by settled rules, made in the past. One such settled rule is that the French as well as the Russians and Chinese can impose veto's on decisions. If you disagree with the fairness of veto-rights, that's fine, you can go and propose to change that in a democratic procedure.

What has happened here is that the pro-war alliance has ignored UN opinions. Or, in your words: "those that are important" have agreed that "little guys" (like Russia, China, France ) can be ignored. Just deciding here who is important and who isn't, would be a unilateral imposal of some weird new rule.

If the proposal to start war today would have been taken to vote in the UN assembly, it wouldn't have made it. To me, that means, it simply did not have enough support. Your way out of that argument is to re-weight the significance of every UN-member...



Clearly, we differ so substantially in opinion, we'll never be able to end this discussion. I know the UN is not an institute without fallacies, but the principle of it is holy to me. It doesn't work flawlessly, but as an attempt to a worldwide forum of democracy, it must be taken seriously. I really can't believe you just wrote that.



They never ignored the American opinion. They just said they disagreed. That's not slapping anyone. Not bringing a motion for war to vote, is.

Calm down Neo. If people can't discuss here without starting to call each others with names, then this thread will be closed.

I think we all can agree that we hate war and it should only be used in the gravest of circumstances.

That being said, I have agreed for some time that Saddam and Co. must be taken out. We waited way too long to do this. America made too many mistakes in the past and it brought suffering to a people that did not deserve it.

Don't label me as a Bush supporter, I didn't vote for him and I think he absolutely butchered the diplomatic end. However, I do think that war is the right thing to bring a lasting peace in that area. Look at WWII...after Germany surrendered we and the Soviet Union occupied it for 50 years or so. Yes, there was a COLD War, that is 100x's better then a real war. In the end, peace won and Europe is probably up there with North America as the most stable continent in the world. Think about it, ever since WWII the only war has been in the Balkins during the past decade. The whole place was rebuilt, democracy given a chance, and now countries are capable of making their own decisions.

I am hoping that Bush is able to start the process that will allow the Middle East to become a beacon of stability in the world. Like I said, his diplomactic efforts need a lot of work, but regardless in the end we would of ended up at war 1 way or another.

I think (or hope) what JEN means is that there is no such thing as a "good" war, anyone that looks at history knows that wars sometimes need to be waged.



I can understand the stop the war part, but what do you mean by the other part? If you say stop the USA as a nation you ARE talking about Americans, there's no way around that.



I hear this argument all the time and I still don't understand the point of it. Is it just to show hypocrisy? If that's the point then the person using that argument implies that he himself lacks any sort of benevolence in that he is completely apothetic towards the "evil dictators".



He was indeed "supported" by the US in the 80s, particularly during the Iran-Iraq war. Apparently at the time Iran was seen as the greater of two evils. I don't know whether the US provided biological weapons, but it's well-known that France provided nuclear technology. They enabled Saddam the technology to process weapons grade uranium, fortunately the Israelis bombed the plant very soon after it went online. This was in the early 1980s. I'm not singling out the French connection, just that there are others with dirty hands. Basically this argument is a non-argument against what's going on in the year 2003. Things change.



I suppose that's debateable, but that same international "democracy" was completely impotent on so many important occasions where they absolutely needed to react.



Let me guess, it doesn't bother you in the least that Belgium, France, and especially Russia and China also sell huge numbers of weapons systems to foreign regimes? Try to find a war in the last 30 years that didn't include AK-47s or Mosin Nagants. lastly be specific what weapons and technology you're talking about. Mirage fighter planes? No, those are French. Prohibited Scud missles (UN should have had them destroyed, oh yeah Saddam neglected to report them to the Inspectors)? Probably from
China or North Korea. AK-47s...



Actually I don't believe that's true. I think they're limited to whom the US government allows the sale of weapons to. That may not be for rifles, but for heavier weaponry I doubt they're allowed to sell to whichever government they choose. I think the Iran Contra deals kind of highlights that.



Where does this come from? You just go ahead and assume Americans lack any type of virtue and only operate under evil motives. That sounds a bit prejudiced.




Any proof or are you just making that up?



You may take the princible as holy to you, but we actually have to deal with reality. The UN security council is very hit or miss. You never know when it'll completely fail or not and it has failed bigtime on too many occasions to just dismiss them as a simple fallicy or whatever. Millions have died as a result of the UN talking but not doing. Think Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone... Despite that you would still live and die by the UN?



No France did not just disagree. Germany just disagreed. France went absolutely out of their way to hurt the US by threatening smaller eastern Eurpean nations that wouldn't go along with the French party line with blocking EU admission, going to Africa to get them in line and bribing the temporary SC members to go against the US. That's not just disagreeing and that's not something you'd expect from a supposed friendly nation to the US.

My opinion of this war is I'm not sure the actual motives, it's probably not as simple as it's made out to be. As far as I'm concerned any time is the right time to get rid of thugs like Saddam Hussein. If you're more interested in bashing Bush or America than concerned about how Saddam Hussein and henchmen behave, then I think you really need to re-evaluate your priorities. If you think Saddam Hussein's regime isn't a threat, history disproves that very clearly.

Currently, Saddam regime was not a threat for anybody. Not for surrounding nations, nor for their supposed support to terrorists.

With 1992 war and later UN inspector's work, Irak war resources were minimal. There has not been any proof of connection of Irak with Al-Qaeda terrorism. Also, note that with the exception ot Kuwait, none of the surrounding nations support the invasion. They don't feel threatened. Irak being presented as a threat is just a poor excuse for the invasion.

The not surprising thing is that most people who are against the war never experienced so called war.
The funniest thing though, is that even people who are near terrorism acts, don't get the hint.
The hint is that sometimes, there can not be negotiation. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, how much you try, and how much the terrorists tell you on TV they want peace and they want the "other side" to stop -their- evil actions, the acts of terrorism will continue. It is simple known terrorist strategies of decieving, puting blame, lying, hiding, beautifying all they do. And it is sad that people all over the world just don't get it.
If you were ever in a real army, not a bullshit army with fake soldiers who do nothing, but soldiers who are in real risk, who have to protect their country, you know better how things work. You may get to see things yourself, not on TV. You may get to experience the real fear. And you will get to know how insane terrorism is, and how brainwashed people are. Kids as well as adults who endlessly throw stones and molotov coctails on soldiers. For what? Endless shootings by terrorist organizations. Again and again stoping weapon smugglers with huge amounts of weapons in their trucks from getting into your country's territories. And you, the civilians, watch on TV the terrorists and terrorism supporters asking for mercy, their are so poor and weak, innocent and helpless, they want peace but the other side is so insane and just not willing to listen to anything, those poor people are being arrested, killed, "hunted". Some of us know shit, and see the transparent terrorist strategies, whether we learned about them in the army, or whether we're just intelligent enough to learn by ourselves. Some people don't care so much about it all, so don't learn about the facts, and choose to stick to brainwashing phrases like "stop the war! war is bad! we want peace!" while missing the whole point, while knowing nothing at all. As if we're happy about the war. As if it's not necessary at all for anyone, just insane USA going in to war like zombies ignoring you. And it's all because lack of knowledge and experience. Lack of knowing truths and wrongs about what the purely left-winged media decides to twist for you.

To all those who are so bitterly against the war, all i feel like saying is, respect yourselves and get some knowledge before you make world influencing claims. As an israeli citizen, who's been familiar with the army, who has many friends who are currently soldiers at various units in the army, from regular to elite, who tell me about their sufferings and frustrations, and who has suffered from acts of terrorism in his country directly and indirectly, i can assure you i know all i need to know in order to decide "the war" is indeed necessary. I sincerely wish to all of you to never experience war first hand and not know the suffering senseless terrorism can cause. Get yourself some real knowledge, because knowledge is your power.

We have several hundreds or thousands people killed by ETA assasins here in Spain. That doesn't change what I think about this stupid war. Please use some real arguments. If you feel threatened from Irak, take into accound that many arab nations feel same threaten from Israel. Please don't personalize this that much.

You were actually defending your independency, while SU was trying to 'fix' your state order to what it believed is right.
Now Bush & Blair are so sure they are doing the right thing.

Back to WWII, in long perspective US won (gained the most from) this war because it had more pragmatism in its actions. It surely lacks it now, IMO.


Yep, if we skip Afganistan, Korea, Vietnam, which were earlier.
Long term crisis as a result, instability here, civil wars there. Hope they'll be luckier this time.
But I think we'll gain just another time bomb, something to Bush' grandson to fix.


That's a nice interpretation. Now think if someone would try to rebuild US by separating it into parts, and then bomb it, just to secure achievements. There is such interpretation as well of what was done. Thought you might find it interesting.
BTW I'm in doubt that bombing in heart of Europe could promote sense of comfort and safety to europeans.

Anyway it's nice to know, that if your country happen to have a dictator or regime, there is someone to fix it.

Iraq is a threat, if you fail to realize this i don't know what to say to you. Anyway it's not just about threats for only your personal safety. If you feel that the killings there should be ignored forever and that there should be no war to stop this insanity, and the war is stupid, that's your choise.
I'm not afraid to give "real arguments", anything you will throw at me against the war i can contradict with reasonable arguments.
YOU should take into acount that you have no idea what you're talking about. No arab nation feels threatened by israel. Israel is no threat to any arab nation. If there is any nation threatened in the middle east by israel, it's israel, israel is definately threatened by the arab nations.
If you tell me how you got to the conclusion the huge arab nations are threatened by Israel, that would be great.

Do you remember the Six-Days War? Or is Egypt a small arab nation?

@SK1:

That's your point of view, because you know Israel is not going to attack any near country. However, I know that Irak was not going to attack any near country either, that would have been stupid given how military weak were they now, and that USA was expecting any minimum provocation to invade them.

Historically, arab nations have seen Israel like a threat for their access to nuclear weapons and strong army, and their permanent tense relations with arab nations. If I'm not wrong, Israel as also been in war with surrounding nations along his short history.

Anyway, I'm not intested in talking about Israel anymore, that's another large issue.

Yes, and allied forces in WW2 "fixed" the Nazi Germany, and everybody agrees it was a good thing although with horrible price.
Everybody knows that Saddam is ruthless dictator who has used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people, rules with fear and by killing his competitors, and attacked just over 10 years ago to Kuwait, breaks the UN resolutions as much as he can without being severely punished. USA thought it's enough, because they can't put the full military force there in the Gulf every 2 years just to pressure Saddam who lingers in every way possible against the UN resolutions to the last second.

I don't think your comparison of Russia's attack to Finland against Bush/Blair attack to Iraq is very valid.

I think it's clear that arab nations feel threatened by Israel. Israel has nukes, and USA is its closest ally.
Israel also breaks ruthlessly against UN resolution by inhabiting areas it's not suppose to.

Do you even know a single thing about this terrible war?
Syria, Levanon, Egypt, Jordan, ALL of these arab nations together invaded Israel from all direction in an attempt to completely destroy us! Do you know nothing about this war? Do you have any idea how ridiculous your argument sounds here?
Israel, having one of the strongest armies in the world, in 6 days have managed to defeat ALL OF THEIR ARMIES! Israel conquered territories beyond the green line. And some more. Since you probably have no understanding of Israel's geography, this means nothing to you.
So basically, ALL OF THOSE ARAB NATIONS started war upon Israel and ALL WERE DEFEATED and small territories of them conquered. Gaza, formerly belonging to Egypt now belongs to Israel, as if Egypt ever wanted them, they didn't.

This war is one of the greatest examples of self defense the world has ever known.
So again, get ALL YOUR FACTS straight.

Not supposed to hmm?
Tell that to the nations who decided to destroy Israel. The territories now belong to Israel.

And palestinians say the territories belong to them and Israel should stop creating the colonies. UN and USA also says this.
Saddam also said that Kuwait belongs to the Iraq, but nobody else agreed..

I don't think yours are valid either, JohnV. Hitler had already invaded many countries, and killed millions of people, when allied forces "fixed" him. Irak hasn't attacked anyone in 10 years, and it's not likely he was going do now.

Other countries have ignored UN resolutions ,with the help (veto) of USA, and nothing happened to them, nor is going to happen.

There have been and still are many dictators comparable to Saddam in Africa and Asia, but USA government did not try or is not trying to remove them, because they don't find any advantage in it. In fact in the past they helped raising some of them (Pinochet, talibans).

I'm not going to join the general debate here, save to say that the title of this thread is wrong. The Gulf War was never ended. There was a Cease Fire which would lead to peace if Iraq obeyed the conditions attached to the Cease Fire. This has never happened, so the war is not a new one, it is simply unfinished business.

Anyone who thinks this action is wrong obviously condones genocide and the use of biological weapons against ones own peoples. Get real!!

This is quite a poor excuse, war started again just tonight.



I don't condone them, what makes you think so? This is not you are with me or with the dictator.

Are we allowed to start a war against any nation that makes suffer its own population, even when that war will make them suffer more, and when most of that population doesn't want the war?

Gee, what a nice comparison.
Well, palestinians are not wanted by their original country, they are simply not wanted. They can say what ever they want, the fact is no harm is being done to them. UN, well sure they'll say this, they're always against Israel and anything that goes against terrorism. USA, believe me, USA has no decision here and they know it. The public objection by USA for this is mild as well and basically so that they'll get support by arab peoples and UN, it's business. It won't change. What do you think palestinians would do without israel? They can't live without Israel's help.