Your proposed solution worked great for Israel, didn't it? They have total peace now. Yup. Uh-huh.

Well, just think about the interesting political can of worms we'd open talking Israel. Interesting yes but probably worthy of its own thread hmm?

Honestly, I am sorry you feel that way. How evil can it be, no one is going to arrest you for saying that. No fear of having your wife or children raped and murdered over it.

That type of thing really happened in Iraq under Saddam. Nevertheless, just the idea of something like that happing is so alien, that when I say it you don’t believe in your heart of hearts it actually happens in some corners of the world. To you and those like you it’s too abstract. You live too well and too sheltered.

I think Israel found a solution to their problems ;)

Link

In perspective, Joe has never been to N. Korea, Sudan, any of the Balkan republics, Qatar, Pakistan, Libya, Cambodia, Syria, Palestine, or Iran. I doubt he'd have the same view if he got to know the people in power over there.

Not to excuse the mistakes that the US govt makes, but it gets a whole lot worse in some other countries.

For my perspective, I've been to garden spots like Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Australia, and New Zealand. But, I have friends and family members who have been to middle east, africa and such. My sister in law has been to middle east while doing Navy duty, and I've talked to several people who lived in (not just visited!) areas that are bordering the dangerous like S. Korea, Israel, and various parts of the middle east. I work with a couple of ex-Marines that did duty in Desert Storm.

So, if I have any trust in the people that I've talked to...

Bad here? Not in comparison.

Compared to Jamaica, we are definitely evil.

Let's turn that around. OPEC prices oil in US dollars. Not yen not euro, just US dollars exclusively by special arrangement with the Saudi royals. Everyone who wants to buy oil accepts the unlimited printing of US dollars (debt) because the whole world uses that currency for the big commodity, oil. So long as foreigners trade in US dollars to buy oil, Americans may live in debt at least equal to that external oil trading plus dollar reserves amassed by every responsible government (uh, or something like that).

Now consider what should happen to a major oil producing regime that suddenly declares the US dollar "enemy currency" and accepts euros as payment , even exchanges the dollars in its oil-for-food account for euros, making an easy profit instantly? What if a chorus of murmurs rose up from other OPEC countries, and this causes the dollar to fuctuate wildly? What happened was sudden and swift. Iraq's oil ministry was the real target of regime change. The strategic enemy was the euro as contender to hegimon currency.

Euro will take dollar's place, I think. It's just a question of doing this nice and slow or in a panic.

North Korea can't touch the US economy. Venezuela can. Iran can. OPEC itself can. This has nothing to do with the supply of oil to America for consumption, or the price at the pump, but it really is all about oil.

I don't know... is it just me or are people taking joe's comments a little too seriously?... here I thought he was just trying to vent some frustration regarding the situation.... <shrug>

The corruption at the highest levels rivals that or Russia or other countries we will be declaring war on in the next 4 years.

Damn Joe... Let's see some evidence of such? How about Russia, France, and other countries supplying weapons to Iraq illegally and ripping off the oil for food program?

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...3838-3146r.htm


Would anything like these mass graves happen here? http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...326869,00.html

I would like to see specific evidence of what this corruption is in detail and why we are evil, or more so than any other country in the world....

Or, maybe your just stirring the pot? :shrug:

[quote=jaydee116]Damn Joe... Let's see some evidence of such? How about Russia, France, and other countries supplying weapons to Iraq illegally and ripping off the oil for food program?

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...3838-3146r.htm

isn't the CIA who claimed saddam had weapon of mass destruction???

I think everyone can be wrong now and again. The CIA has been pretty accurate overall.

My East Asian teacher was a colonel in the army. He said ANY intelligence you recieve from any government agency you take with a grain of salt, they arent perfect. Its just the nature of what they do.

[quote=miladiou]Saddam did have WMD. The UN inspectors found and recorded them. Saddam was then instructed to destroy them and prove they were destroyed. Saddam failed to do so. Saddam will not say what happened to the unaccounted for WMD. They were there and there is proof of it. What happened to them is another story. Were they shipped out? Burried? Sold? Also ilegal wepons have been discovered in Iraq that france and Russia sold them! Anyway i digress. I don't come to ProCooling for political BS. I will leave this thread with this link: http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html

That stuff about the oil-for-food corruption comes from of the Iraq Survey Group, not the CIA at large. The Iraq Survey Group's mandate, since it finally had to conclude Iraq secreted no weapons prohibited it at the time of invasion, has expanded to validate the necessity of invasion by any means. Americans really need reassurance, the ISG's job has always been to provide it.

Recent events show the ISG has absolutely no interest in surveying or overseeing weapons stored post-invasion at former military bases. I wonder if anybody there does, besides a few Iraqis of course.

The CIA, without naming organs, is a fine organisation in my opinion.

Here's the summary of ISG's work, before mission creep took over: Duelfer Disproves U.S. WMD Claims

@jaydee116. Weird link. If I were a ballistic missile, this is how I'd see the world. :cool: Why don't you just read your own government's latest (Oct. 6th 2004) report on the status of WMD during Iraq's Ba'ath regime, and end this fantasy. You were fooled. Now they don't need to fool you anymore about that, because you're determined to stay the course, and so on.

I'll leave this thread too, it devolves, but I'll drop the key to understanding the WMD puzzle: Google "Hussein Kamel"

ok now i understand why bush is your president.
If you send dumd and dumber to vote, who are they going to elect ??? :shrug:

If the European are complaining that is usually a good sign. Every time we make real progress toward freedom in the world, the Europeans call us dumb, hate our president and call us warmongers. I sight the last decade of the cold war. Nevertheless, we still drag you kicking and screaming into a better world.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/all....wall.head.jpg

http://www.shearman.com/enterprise/wallfall_full.jpg

exactly what i was saying...

wow come one now reagan an the cold wari is very different from bush and iraq.

Yeah, if you look closely at the pics the Germans are clearly being coerced by American agents to derail the cold war. The Germans didn't really want to wipe those foreign armies off the landscape.

No, no- If you look at the criticism of Reagan and his policies during the 80's it mirrors what you see of Bush. He is a cowboy, he is dumb, he's reckless etc...

Kobuchi-nice way to dodge the realities of history. You would think in a forum such as this people would me more interested in ground truth, rather than attempting to twist facts to match their view of reality.

Lothar, what are you talking abut? Europeans didn't hate Raegan. They liked him. Well, at least in Russia they did.

If only he had an idea... :rolleyes:

It was only the UK that stood by us in the 80's (Prime Minster Thatcher)...I am beginning to see more similarities.

I dont know about the Russian government, but the people inside the soviet block thought highly of ragen, and still do.

I meant Western Europe...during the Cold War we had no way of knowing the opinions of Eastern Europeans.