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CIA and Special Forces assassination squads are at work in Iraq, seeking to eliminate Iraqi leaders and other opponents of the US occupation of the country.
In the language of the White House and Pentagon, the thousands of Iraqi citizens in plainclothes�whether ordinary people, militia members or soldiers�who are resisting the invading forces in any way they can, are �war criminals.�
But the undercover US hit squads and other military-intelligence operatives roaming throughout Iraq in civilian clothes, terrorizing the population, are �heroes� in the cause of democracy and liberation.
Originally posted by heelstone
I still find it hilarious that the continued Iraqi opposition is considered terrorism when this didn't happen until after another country invaded their lands and took over. Its a resistance force and its simply a lie to call it terrorism.
You forget COOL HAND. Iraq was not a unified country. We left Saddam in charge after Desert Storm so that it would be easier to maintain Iraq and not have it erupt into civil war or turn into another Iran. The opposition does not like the United States invaders, but also does not care for parts of the population that live there as well.
Originally posted by COOL HAND
If they are a freedom force, then why do they keep killing civilians (ours and theirs)? Wouldn't a freedom force target only the oppressors?
Personally, I am all for it. Remember what Patton said about winning a war...
Originally posted by heelstone
I still find it hilarious that the continued Iraqi opposition is considered terrorism when this didn't happen until after another country invaded their lands and took over. Its a resistance force and its simply a lie to call it terrorism.
What are you talking about, Leveller? Don't start into this thread trying to throw it off topic simply because you are against my issue on calling Iraqi opposition terrorists. If you want to go the route of human rights, I suggest you read on what a human rights group has to say about it.
Originally posted by Leveller
Yeah, and before that Saddam was a practicing Buddhist monk who loved his people. Everyone wore flowers in their hair and Baghdad was known as the City of Love.
Ba'ath party officials had much the same job as holiday reps - making sure everyone had enough beer and enjoyed a great time in this perfect Utopia. The only thing you could be arrested for was not having a good time!!! But that didn't matter too much as all the state secret police did was send you on a seminar entitled "How to Party".
Goddamn!!! Iraq was perfect before it was invaded.
Do you want banned? You know that you can't make strong personal attacks on this board.
Originally posted by Leveller
How about you blow me?
I don't think I've ignored any facts yet. I understand this situation completely and have taken your post on in the manner I saw most appropriate for the time being.
People like you whine whatever the reason. You totally ignore facts and when somebody states something you don't agree with you accuse them of changing the subject.
Whats a wet wank?
Well, you wet wank. You hate the US so much and love the paw widdle Awab wegimes, why don't you go stick your berkha on and # off over there. It's so easy to criticise the injustices when you're sitting on your lard ass and eating burgers, ain't it?
Ignore them all you want, it still doesn't make them wrong about their assessment of the situation.
Quote, the libs at Amnesty all you like. They've got as much credibility as a fart in a wind tunnel. Tell you what. Why don't you go work for Amnesty? Then I can ignore you even more.
Oh, I'm sure many Iraqis are happy that Saddam is gone, but I'm also sure they don't like being stuck between a rock and a hard place when there are portions of their population that are completely against the U.S. invasion force. Being blown up for being at the wrong place at the wrong time was not how Iraq operated before last year. Before then you actually had to do something against Saddam's regime to get in trouble. Now if you just step out the door (or maybe if you stay inside) you are subject to being blown away.
While you're at it, entirely disregard the independant polls that were recently held in Iraq which shows that most Iraqis are happy that Saddam is gone and most think their quality of life is better. Oops. Too late. You already have. Ignoring facts and slopping out bull# leftwing propaganda means facts are always the first casualty.
I'm a wanker and a whiner? I hope you get banned. I will not stand for personal attacks over my opinions.
Hey. If your way of life ever needs defending just give me a call. Even though you're a wanker and a whiner, it's still my duty to defend your right to be one. Ain't life grand?
I haven't ignored anything yet. I even addressed your little poll opinion. Polls about how people feel about their lives is not indicative of the physical death toll the populace is suffering from. The dead can't talk if you didn't know.
Originally posted by Leveller
Heelstone. Whatever you think is irrelevant. Wether or not you want me banned is irrelevant. The fact remains that you ignore truth to get your point across. That's about the only relevance here.
Originally posted by heelstone
Polls about how people feel about their lives is not indicative of the physical death toll the populace is suffering from. The dead can't talk if you didn't know.
I don't know where you pulled that millions number out from, but thats not accurate at all. I've read that perhaps the maximum is 300,000, but even then I haven't read any solid numbers.
Originally posted by Leveller
Yet you still have the gall to ignore the million dead under Saddam and quote an Amnesty poll at me?
If the dead could talk, don't you think that they would have wanted Saddam out? Certainly, the polls now show that the living do. And I guess that million dead would have a pretty storng opinion too.
How about we don't sit on the fence and ignore it like we did in the past? The U.S. has now gotten itself into an entirely hypocritical situation that makes it THE police force of the world. Our military cannot be used in such a method unless we commit our entire country to the cause of war and start drafting people and working solely towards the goal of removing all allegedly evil government regimes off the face of the planet.
Wars are harsh things. We don't live in a Utopia. Either you sit by and let people like Saddam perpetuate evil (and no way can you deny that his regime wasn't evil) or you do something about it.
Which is worse? Sitting on the fence, watching a crowd get murdered or trying to stop the murder? Yes, people may get hurt, but as I stated, this is the real world. Until a weapon is invented that can only target the guilty, people are always going to get hurt. But believing the liberal media and those who are opposed to US efforts purely because they don't like the US is totally lame.
Yes, doing it for the wrong reasons makes it a wrong. That is one of the biggest wrongs you can do. Doing things for the right reasons is good, this was not.
Sure, the US and it's allies could have sat on the fence. They did for a decades, they should have gone into Iraq years ago. But being late doesn't make it wrong. Even doing it for the wrong reasons doesn't make it wrong.
Please. Now you're calling the ruling party of a country terrorists? Then that means that throughout history, ALL countries that killed their own people over political and theological dissent were terrorists. You're really grasping at straws with such an argument.
The fact is that Iraq has been under a state form of terrorism for years. It was much more organiosed and much more deadly than anything that you see today. Denying that truth and claiming that terrorism in Iraq is a new evil is to perpetuate a lie.
Originally posted by COOL HAND
No, we left him in charge because it was better than having some other nut running the place. At least he knew we could get him whenever we wanted.
In his 1998 memoir, "A World Transformed," co-authored with Brent Scowcroft, his former National Security Advisor, the senior Bush explained why he didn't send American troops to "march into Baghdad" to bring down Saddam at the end of the Gulf War:
"To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. It would have taken us way beyond the imprimatur of international law bestowed by the resolutions of the Security Council, assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability and destroy the credibility we were working so hard to reestablish."
On top of being "unwinnable," Bush warned that the costs of an occupation of Iraq would be "incalculable," with meager benefits:
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
I think I've argued my point on the opposition not being terrorists enough already. Bombs that kill indiscriminately have been used by the U.S. since the start of this war. Just about nothing can be done about it and its certainly not indicative that what is taking place is terrorism.
So, you are saying that they are acting indiscrimently? Sounds like a terrorist to me.
Originally posted by heelstone
Please. Now you're calling the ruling party of a country terrorists? Then that means that throughout history, ALL countries that killed their own people over political and theological dissent were terrorists. You're really grasping at straws with such an argument.