The Official Religious/Political Debate Thread (alternative, country, fan, Europe)

[IamAlejo]

LOL...You say it like Bush decided it. Don't say "the Bush family was close to the Saudi Royal Family". US Presidents have gotten along with the Saudi Family for a while now. US Presidents have never gotten along with Hussein. Even Clinton bombed Iraq in night raids. I'm saying that Iraq was viewed as more of a threat than those countries you guys have listed, Saudi Arabia included. Also, the United States has been "allies" with Saudi Arabia for a while too. And let me ask you something...If we invaded Saudi Arabia, would you not have a thread complaining about us wasting money invading them and claiming it was all about oil? Because I'm about 99.999999% sure you would.

[jibber]

i specifically said in my post "I'm not syaing that the US should invade Saudi Arabia" I would never say something like that, I'm not stupid, so you misunderstood that part of my reply. My point wasn't that the US should go after all these countries instead of iraq, I'm trying to point out the double standard that the US holds for iraq and other countries. Lots of other countries stockpile weapons, even after the UN has requested a disarmament, but the US decides for some reason to go after Iraq. I'm simply trying to point out the fact that there is grounds to question the motives that Bush has put out. Yes, clinton did order strikes against iraq, however, he had the support of the UN, and his strikes were nowhere near the magnitude of the war at the present time. Just as a side note, before anyone accuses me of following blindly behind clinton's decision soley based on the fact that he was a liberal, that's not the case. I don't think clinton was a perfect president, not by any means, I do believe he was better than bush, but there are faults with every politician. Back to the point, every US president has had good connections and good relations with the saudi royal family, because of the oil business. And of course they've never viewed Saudi Arabia as a threat, because the US administrations (clinton's as well) have always turned a blind eye towards any reports warning of hostility coming towards america out of Saudi Arabia. However, bush's connections to the royal family go much deeper, to a more personal level, the same as Bin Laden's family. Are you forgetting how bush sned the entire Bin Laden family residing in america on private jets back to saudi arabia after saudi arabia? That the first flights out of america after the attacks were the bin laden family on those jets provided by bush? And when you say that no president has ever gotten along with Hussein, you're forgetting the Iran/Iraq war, where the US suppplied Iraq with a huge amount of weapons, and intelligence while turning a blind eye to the human rights violations that Hussein was commiting while in that war.

[IamAlejo]

What I am saying is that you would not be happy either way. If we sat at home and didn't do anything, just continued to let our country be bombarded by terrorists, you would not be happy. When terrorists started going after more Eastern Hemisphere countries (like Canada) you would blame the US for not doing anything. We are going out and looking at what is the best for the US. Clinton was a better President than Bush? That's debatable. When the President is supposed to be the idol for all American people and then lies under oath, he's probably not that great. If I had done the same thing he did, I would be in jail. I do not forget the Iran/Iraq war. Ever since the Iraq/Kuwait conflict we have had problems with Hussein. I don't have time to carefully read over, so I slipped up. My bad. Anybody that comes to the White House normally comes on Private Jets. He does that for all kinds of leaders around the world. It's not truly that special.

[strung out rulz]

hey jibber do u know it was actually richard clarke who let the bin laden family fly home, not bush. And do u know why he did it, bcos they were in danger of being assinated bcos they had family connections with bin laden. Not all of bin ladens family are criminals, do u know that ome of them were also interviewed by the FBI before they were allowed to leave. Do u also know that the full extent of husseins human rights violations were not known at the time of the iraq/iran war. The US supported Iraq at that current time bcos he was the lesser of evils. It was important to support him bcos there was a chance that a more evil regime could be demolished.

how can anyone like the first post of this thread complain about the cost of the war! should there be a cost of saving the thousands upon thousands of kids that starve to death each year bcos saddam likes to spend all his money on his military and lavish palaces. Is it too expensive to give the iraqi ppl the freedom of speech that we take for granted every day. Maybe if the rest of the world like France, Germany, Russia etc had any sympathy they would help out in iraq and help prevent all the kidnappings and bombings that are occuring at the moment. The UN have been weak here as they have done nothing since the 1st Gulf war to prevent these people living in a ****hole.

[strung out rulz]

thankyou yellowcard, someone who sees through the bias left media. i am sick of being misinformed about the world. I think France and Germany are stupid, their pride gets in the way of doing any good in this world. So what if they didnt support the war or not, now that it is a militia with car bombs and kidnappings, they should be in there helping out the IRAQI PEOPLE!!!!!!! This is not about if u agree with the war or not any more its about saving lives and making sure the arab world gets introduced to democracy!

[Yellow Card]

atta boy 'strung out rulz'

[Eltiraaz]

These terrorist threats and actions you speak of IamAlejo are not solely coming out of Iraq. That is a front put on by the United States to justify its reasons for attacking a country because of its oil reserves. That or the Government of the United States of America is stupider than we thought. Both are equally believable to me.

[Yellow Card]

Originally Posted by strung out rulz

thankyou yellowcard, someone who sees through the bias left media. i am sick of being misinformed about the world. I think France and Germany are stupid, their pride gets in the way of doing any good in this world. So what if they didnt support the war or not, now that it is a militia with car bombs and kidnappings, they should be in there helping out the IRAQI PEOPLE!!!!!!! This is not about if u agree with the war or not any more its about saving lives and making sure the arab world gets introduced to democracy!

exactly strung out rules, its time for france and Germany to get involved,

I think u and i are on the same side about a lot of these sorta issues

[strung out rulz]

how has America directly profited by the invasion of iraq??? I dont beleive for a second that it was about oil reserves. America has not taken any oil or profits from it, how can it be about oil when it is spent billions upon billions of dollars to invade iraq. I agree with the terroist threats, they are coming from all around the place, which is why the war on terrorism is a hard war to fight. I think if the war on terrorism is going to be sucessful, we need a more global involvment from europe, russia, china etc

[franscar]

Originally Posted by IamAlejo

Actually they wouldn't. US is not a big fan of the UN, and even less of a fan of NATO. I doubt they release all the info to UN.


"It's not what your government can do for you, but what you can do for your government." Ever heard of it? JFK, one of the best Presidents we've had. Who are you to say what the government is to do?


Isn't the US often criticized for being the "World Police." Yes we are, yet when we don't help out some third world country than we are the bad guys. It's always are fault. But the fact remains, there is no immediate investment in Zimbabwe. We have constantly been at war with them ever since Desert Storm. The fact is that we are not going to spread out the military too thin at one time. If things settle in Iraq, we might go to Zimbabwe. Who knows? Iraq was more of an immediate threat to the US than Zimbabwe will ever be.


Most of those lost jobs, dollar weakening, etc, happened during the first two years of his Presidency. Do you think that an economy has results in just two years. No, it takes 4 to 6 years for a Presidents laws, etc, to have an impact on the economy. Look at Clinton before we start looking too much at Bush.

The US gave the UN's team of weapons inspectors the location of twelve sites which they "guaranteed" held weapons of mass destruction. The UN team led by Doctor Blix had searched ten of these sites and found nothing before the Coalition Forces crossed the border and they were forced to leave. Then the US forces searched all twelve locations and found nothing, before changing their original stance of a guarantee of finding actual weapons to a guarantee of finding the programs to build weapons. Again, they found nothing, so they changed their stance again, to that of saying Iraq had the possibility of making weapons of mass destruction. Which everyone knew anyway because it was a British company that sold the blueprints to Saddam waaaaaaaaaay back. Old news. Pakistan, India and Israel all have nuclear weaponry along with anyone on the black market who wants to raid an abandoned Russian submarine in the Siberian wasteland.

JFK. There's an interesting one. He came out with statements like that. He got shot. Says it all really. Look at the current hubbub surrounding Reagan. In death it seems every man's failings are forgotten.

You're right, of course I have no right to say what the US government does, I'm not American, I don't elect them. However, I pay my taxes to the UK government, and for those payments I expect to have a chance to have my say. It seems to me that the American system is more about the population doing as they are told from on high, as opposed to those on high serving the needs of the public in exchange for financial input. It's a 50-50 thing is democracy. The British invented it.

In my opinion we are seeing the beginnings of the end of the American Empire. Back in 1944 Field Marshal Montgomery noted that a ground war in Asia simply could not be won. The terrain lends itself perfectly to the guerilla combat that Iraqi insurgents have been partaking in ever since the fall of Baghdad, and as the US found out in Vietnam, guerilla warfare is messy, ugly, and simply undefeatable.

The US economy really took its major downturn after 9/11, something Bush had little control over (unless you believe certain reports that he simply ignored the threat whilst concentrating on Iraq, which I must admit don't surprise me) and it has never really recovered. The majority of his policies don't help. Antiquated economic theories which simply can't cope with the sophistication of the modern global economy. The europeans have been having a field day, even the French and German ones, which have had poor times themselves in recent years.

In an interesting aside, which personally I don't believe but I know some of the more fierce activists do, states that an "unwritten law" in US doctrine states that congress will approve military action from any US president with the sole intent of securing oil for US consumption.