3/20 Why protest the Iraq war? Why not protest the insurgents who
are preventing Iraq from being independent and free?
\_ One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. By starting the
war in an illegitimate way, we make it even more obvious who
are the real terrorists and who are the real freedom fighters.
\_ People who target children are terrorists.
\_ There ya go. Bush is a terrorist then. Add bombing
news organization (a la "Control Room") and bombing
weddings, and trying to legitimize torture as crimes
against him. Countless others, no doubt. Bush is really
no different than Osama bin Ladin. In fact bin Ladin could
even be considered the "holier" of the two.
\_ it's not "insurgent." it's domestic violence caused by
foreign al Qaeda operatives. Iraqis greets us with all the
flowers they can find in the desert.
\_ Why don't you get off your ass and organize that protest yourself?
\_ presumably we have control over our government. we don't
have control over the insurgents.
\_ in a way we do. We can let the insurgents win. Or we
can prevent them from winning.
\_ Which is why we need to protest the Iraq war. The current
methodology there is turning normally law-abiding citizens
into insurgents.
\_ do you have evidence for it? I haven't heard of this
(law abiding citizens into insurgents).
If Iraq is peaceful, US goes away, and everyone should
be happy.
\_ !pp: If not doing the fighting, supporting it.
An insurgency cannot continue without community
support.
\_ You don't think kicking in their doors and killing
their relatives creates more insurgents? I guess you
must have your head buried in the sand or something.
\_ You are really fucking stupid and naive.
\_ please tell me that Iraqis don't kill innocent
Iraqis.
\_ That is really stupid and naive.
\_ make your case why it is stupid and naive.
\_ I know you're trolling, but maybe you just got the newest
RNC talking points email. It does upset me that the only
people who have it together enough to organize large
anti war demonstrations are the Marxist Israel hating
dumbasses ANSWER.
\_ Because they may not have started the war, but they seem intent on
finishing it.
\_ Iraq *was* independent. -tom
\_ so is Cuba.
\_ Was it also 'free'?
\_ Define the term. Iraq's government was very much able to
make its own decisions and policies; it was not beholden
to outside interests. People in Iraq probably had more
personal freedom than in most Middle Eastern countries;
certainly not as much as we enjoy in the U.S., but that's
probably not a reasonable metric. -tom
\_ In nuclear chemistry, a piece of a nucleus becomes "free"
after significant energy has been "liberated" from the
system. Once we've "liberated" all the energy from the
Middle East, it will be free.
\_ Personal freedom if the death squads weren't coming
after you. You have some weird ideas about freedom.
If you mean that they left you alone as long as you
were a good worker bee, then sure. I think everyone
else impressed by the the scope of their personal freedoms
had already been killed or left the country.
\_ Heat and noise, but no light.
I was comparing to other countries in the Middle
East. They're all bad by our standards. -tom
\_ So? You say yourself that 'our standards' are
not a reasonable metric. I'm not sure I'd agree
that life under Saddam was better than in most
other Middle Eastern countries. He led his
country into bloody wars, killed his own people,
and filled the government with his cronies. That's
not better than, say, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, or
most Gulf states. It may be better than Afghanistan
and Pakistan, sure.
\_ As opposed to the current death squads who will just
kill you for being on the other team.. As tom said
"not a reasonable metric"... Seriously, the "we got
rid of saddam" rhetoric doesn't fly when we can't do
any better.
\_ Saddam had decades to make things better. I
think 'we' will do a lot better.
\_ you ignore two major pieces of evidence:
one, we're oh-fer in improving countries
by installing U.S.-friendly governments, and
two, Iraq is a major clusterfuck. -tom
\_ Would also discount South Korea and
\_ Would you also discount South Korea and
Japan? In general, I'd agree with you, but
then, many of those governments we
installed were reflective of the general
dogma of 'containment' in the Cold War. -mice
\_ Japan's situation was not really
analagous. You might argue Korea. Yes,
many of the governments we installed were
due to the containment policy, but the fact
is, for the people actually living in those
countries, things tended to stay bad or
get worse once the Red Menace had been
eliminated. We now have a new containment
policy, explicitly expressed by PNAC,
and it's gonna pretty much suck for anyone
unfortunate enough to get in our way. -tom
\_ I thought for Korea, we just installed
our strong man and let him rule, kind
of like Saddam, and then the Koreans
slowly and peacefuly transformed their
country into the democracy of today.
Perhaps that's what we should have done
with Iraq too?
\_ Germany? Italy? I don't really know what
you would call analagous if not Japan.
We've removed 'bad people' from power
before and made things better.
\_ How are Japan and Korea analogous?
These are MOSTLY passive people in
resource barren lands. Plus there
was very little history of Western
"corruption" in those lands before
they installed governments. America
and Europe has colonized / "fucked\
over" the Middle East since the 1900s,
and we wonder why Muslims hate us.
Lastly, we didn't lie to start a war
against another country. Lying to
start ANY war is despicable in my
opinion, because it pretty much means
that you knew you would never had
gotten support by telling the truth.
People only lie if they have something
to hide, no? It's pretty obvious
Bush had a lot to hide. -- !tom
\_ Is Egypt? How about Pakistan?
\_ Compared to Iraq, yes. If you are advocating an
invasion, though, you might be able to persuade me. |
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