Yes and what about these kids in the link below. What do you say to them.

http://www.robert-fisk.com/bloodied_iraqichild.jpg


Oh I know, as you said "Every death is a tragedy, but from a professional standpoint, these casualty levels are tactically and operationally insignificant."

hmmm, Now I now what I should have told my co-worker about his dead son.

No two kids in a town of happy people that is the big picture.

Yeah, and I wonder how happy those kids are today. Let's be honest, that picture doesn't say anything. Even if a town was happy at some time, that doesn't give you a look at the big picture. The big picture has a whole lot more to it than 1 town, or 2 kids, or people that were happy on one day. There were a whole lot of happy people when Saddam was captured, but times change. Happiness is fleeting, and surely doesn't make up for all that we've given, and all that we've lost. I'm sure a lot of the people that were happy then, are not happy now, because of reasons other people have already mentioned. I'm sure I'd be real happy with people all around me trying to kill each other.

I'm sure I can find plenty of pre-2003 pictures of happy Iraqis

who made us world police anyway? people like you? and how are you better then me?

all nations are equal, we have no place to tell others what is right and wrong unless it endangers us, and even then, things are difficult.

-->3000 people died resulting for 9/11

--->>>how many innocent Iraqis died from our bombs?

-------------> who are the real "terrorists"?

I hope your not under the delusion that this didn't happen in Germany or Japan during WW2 and believe me we take pains to prevent collateral damage. Nevertheless, this happens and you see tears guys faces when it does happen.

With that said let me share with you one of my less pleasant pictures...this is a town that Saddam made disappear. These towns are all over Southern Iraq. Some of the bones are of infants.

http://home.socal.rr.com/lotharspub/...sgravesite.jpg

The pictures are obviously not pre 2003.

If a government does not gain its power from the will of the governed then where does it come from...divine right?

Fewer have died from bomb than did sanctions. Google some data.

Japan attacked us, our LAND

Iraq/Saddam did not

we are not world police

such data is not concrete, you chould know better

I imagine that they are doing fine since only the Sunni Triangle really has any problems right now. Look at the map, only about 90 square miles of the whole country has problems.

Look up estimated Iraqi collateral deaths and compare that to the number of deaths under sanctions...I am sure the UN site has some info. Or some NGO site

That’s right Japan attacked us and we attacked Germany.
I point this out only for perspective

I'm voting for Kerry because he's not bush. And the fact that he VOLUNTEERED. That takes some balls. Theres alot more reasons, but i wanna play games, heh.

So Iraq is 'safe' except for that Sunni triangle?
I think that is an over-simplification.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackage...9&section=news


Are these terrorists any different than the warlords and tribal leaders we armed in Afghanistan against the USSR in the 80's?

Problem with occupiers is that in the long run 'rebels' win. ie. Vietnam
The NVA had no problem killing foreigners or South Vietnamese including children.
We like the French lost, and lost a lot of American lives for what?

The area between the those three city centre points on the map. Uh huh.

What does the "Green Zone" signify then? Extra fine?

Listen: 2 months after the pulverising Baghdad got from Desert Storm (I remember the catch-phrase was "bombed back into the stone age"), the Ba'athists had electric power back at full service. 2 months after the US occupies Baghdad there are still coalition-set booby traps in substations and former workers are flatly forbidden from returning to work. Restoration of power had been contracted out. Today Baghdad still hasn't pre-invasion levels of electric service.

You can find pics of a sturdy new plywood schoolhouse built by twinkling-eyed Americans in Iraq, and you can find pics of the central elementary textbook warehouse a column of flame, or of a collage turned into an army base.

The occupation is screwing with people's lives.

But that's ok, because a few children are happy! </sarcasm>

fat burgers will do anything to keep their house, Vichy France comes to mind
all arguments from an economic basis are based on greed

I would propose a division of the 'liberal' camp: thoughtful liberals and stupid liberals
there seem to be a number of greedy little posters who are concerned only with their immediate self interest
this gives those with a larger concern for the well being of all a bad rap

Ben, look where 'peace in our time' leads - over and over
but its not your ox being gored, so its not your problem

anyone remember the Cash song sung by Joanie Phonie "there but for fortune go you or I"
you guys are pitiful, no vision at all - and why you need leaders (good or bad), you are sheep

Addendum:
I should add that the same type of division should be performed on the 'conservative' camp: fiscal conservatives and religious bigots
the born agains have co-opted the Republican party to its discredit, but hey - everyone gets a vote
(why I do not do so)

How many "conservatives" do you think would have thought the war was a good idea from the start if our president would have been honest with us? I bet a whole lot less. Maybe we should just be at war constantly? We could have a commitee to decide who we should remove from power next. They would base their decisions on: what does the country have that we want, how feasible is it to convince the people of the US that the current regime is a threat, and thirdly if we can't find our proof of threat how much will it help the people of that country once we kill all their combatants. It doesn't seem very realistic but we might as well, if this is a just war.

cs
see my addendum
Bush's earlier remarks reflect his view of a divine mandate, really scary stuff for intellectuals

Agreed billA any religious zealot scares the hell out of me be they Christian leader, Muslim terrorist, catholic inquisitor, Buddhist warlord whatever. Too much power for someone with such a narrow view of existence.

As a point of interest, did you know Saddam used weapons sold to him by the US to do that? US Shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988 but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

Make no mistake. For a decade we nurtured the monster that we later felt forced to slay, and his victims will still remember who fed him.

Let's see what else we sold him:

The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.

By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. Having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, the US began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of Al-Qaeda.)

But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. Some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan.

Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Classified US Defense Department documents show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

The Senate committee's reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.

Iraq has deployed Israeli-developed, sold-to-China, then sold-to-Iraq PL-8 missiles in the no-fly zones. A Chilean arms manufacturer sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, The US allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes, but the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Same with US-sold military trucks. Eighteen American corporations provided Saudi Arabia with military hardware which included TOW missiles. The Saudis then delivered MK-84 2,000 pound bombs to Iraq in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. And former US officials report that both Israel and the Dutch company Delft made unauthorized sales of US thermal-imaging tank sights to, among others, China. The sights were installed on China's 69 MOD-2 tanks, some of which were sold to Iraq. It's a small world after all...

Something my sister read to me:
"Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who
were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis,
would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question and then I'll give you the response for this one.



Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.

Here are the facts about the three candidates.


Candidate A.

Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with Astrologist. He's
had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.


Candidate B.

He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used Opium in college
and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.


Candidate C.

He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an
occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.


Which of these candidates would be your choice? Decide first... no peeking,
then scroll down for the response.


Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.
"


Also this is an interesting site
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
once you finish take a look at where the current canidates stand.
kerry doesn't look so left to me.



About the religious stuff, I am going to vote for the first time this year and I have to vote in a church. I was not sure about if it was right or not. There is the separation of church and state but then the church isn't forcing me to vote one way. But then, could I be influenced to vote a certain way if I felt I was in a dangerous situation (I have a iranian friend that would be pretty scared to go into a Southern Baptist Church after 9/11). I personally would vote the same way as I make my decision outside of the location.
But if someone was not sure of their standing could going to a church to vote influence their decision?

why ALL governments should be SMALL, and controlled
geo-politics, the conspiracy of tyrants
this is not a 'problem' of (commercial) business, this is the business of politics and power
for every buyer there will be a seller, you could post the same about the drug 'business'

Gulp35, nice

Gulp35 here are some inconsistancies:

As far as we can tell from researching the life of Beethoven, it's misleading to set up the question by saying he would have been his mother's ninth birth.
Only three of the children born to Maria Magdalena Beethoven survived infancy, with the composer Ludvig Von Beethoven being the oldest of the three.
Beethoven himself suffered from deafness in adulthood, but we found no evidence of deaf, blind, or mentally retarded siblings as children.
We found no substantiation of Beethoven's mother having had syphilis.
She is said to have died of what at that time was called consumption or tuberculosis.

Regarding candidate A, Franklin Roosevelt, there is talk among astrologers that he consulted with astrologer Evangeline Adams, but we have not been able to document that.
We don't know how many mistresses Franklin Roosevelt had but he had an affair with his wife's social secretary Lucy Page Mercer. She was with him when he died in 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.
He did like his martinis and is credited with having been the first to mix a martini in the White House and was a smoker.

Regarding candidate B, Winston Churchill, according to WinstonChurchill.org, he was known for his drinking.
We could not find whether he used opium in college.

Regarding candidate C, Adolph Hitler, it is true that there is no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife but that's primarily because he was married to her for a few hours before both of them committed suicide.
Hitler's and his longtime mistress Eva Braun got married early in the morning on April 29, 1945.
At about 3:30 the next afternoon, both took cyanide although Hitler also shot himself in the head.

Hitler preferred a vegetarian diet, but was not a pure vegetarian.
It started when his doctor once put him on a vegetarian menu but Hitler is described by his biographers as liking a variety of meats including sausages.
There is no record of Hitler having smoked or been a user of alcohol and, in fact, he campaigned against the use of tobacco among his troops.

The explosions in the green zone are a direct result of us getting close to capturing al-Zarqawi. The fact is that Iraqis don’t suicide bomb.

If you are implying that some moral equivalence between America and the Soviet Union, think again...ask any German over 60

Vietnam was lost at home not in the field. In professional terms, it was a tactical and operations success but a strategic loss because the political will was lost.

cs
as a friend once said:
another beautiful model destroyed by facts
(works in CFD)

No, try area in the cities,

Green Zone was address in previous post

From my experience most of the country looked like it was set back 1000 or so. However, that was due to sanctions not bombing.

I spent over a month in the town where thoughts pictures taken. Moreover, everyday the kids and the parents came out to greet us and offer us tea. So I'd pipe down because you really have no clue as to what the situation on the ground looks like.

Of course they would. Hospitality is a big thing in Arab culture, and frankly most of the population just wants to get along and get their lives back on track.

Nevertheless the occupations, and the sanctions before then, and our support of a certified grade A dictator before then is messing with people's lives.

Thanks for the history lesson, some of us remember that because we where alive when it happened.

I try to go easy on the Britt’s because I fought alongside the Desert Rats. Nevertheless, you are asking for this one.

If you want to go back to original sin, the lets talk about the European Colonial Period. You (UK), French, Belgians, Germans and Dutch are all to blame for the political shit holes called the Middle East and Africa. You divided the borders based on your own economic need. You used the people for there resources natural and human and you didn't bother to offer the locals you used citizenship or protection under your laws.

You created artificial boarder with ethnic groups who hated one another and then put strong men in charge so you could still exploit them after your colonial period ended. Almost all the problems now in that part of the world can be traced back to your colonial period.

With that said, at least the UK left behind good schools, a common language, rail systems, cannels and roads. Which is more than I can say for the rest colonial powers.

That is great! :)

Don't feel the need to hold back. First (for clarification), I'm Dutch. Second, I agree with everything you say (you may notice in my history lesson I refer to the UK and the Netherlands when it comes to passing out the blame. When it comes to colonial history, the Dutch can pride themselves on being particularly cruel and abusive --most "efficient" slave traders, last ones to give this up, pulling off some serious war crimes in Indonesia after we were liberated from German occupation --I guess the Nazis taught us well).

My point was that our nations are all to blame. We are not swooping in like heros to save the Iraqis from oppression and bring them the shining light of democracy; the best we can say is that we are trying to clean up our shitty mess that we created in the first place, and that we share a good bit of responsibility for those mediapathic pictures of mass graves. So let's stop pretending that we are such good guys, and that the Iraqis are so grateful to us, and have no reason whatsoever to hate our guts.