I think the anti-war lobby have been proved right in one major way already. No Al-Quada links appearing, no WMD's, no credible threat. But I'm sure all you pro-war people will just forget about that, because it's now become "irrelevant", even though the immediate and present threat was the whole justification for sidelining the UN...

The next issue is whether or not removing Saddam increases stability in the region or leads to even more deaths in the future. The jury will be out on that one for quite a few years yet.

And what is this "for all of you that support and believe Ritter" thing about? Ritter has been proved right hasn't he? Haven't you been watching what the news isn't showing you? No WMD's?

I guess, just because Saddam is bad, that means the US can do whatever it likes. Sure, imprison children, they deserve it!!! Honestly guys, being the enforcer of honest Western values and virtues means sticking to them aswell.

ELSFAW - I'd suggest you analyse what it is to be "good". Who's definition are you using? Good for corporate America? Good for the American people? Good for the world?

Ritter hasn't been proven right. Just because the WMDs haven't yet been found doesn't mean that they aren't there.
You accuse the pro-wars of "forgetting about WMDs". As if that was the only justification for the war. But what happens if (or more accurately when) they are found?
The anti-war lobby will either complain that not enough quantities were found or that they were planted. Anti-war factions are never going to be satisfied. They wanted to avoid war at any cost. Call it the Burying Your Head In The Sand Syndrome if you like.
It doesn't necessarily follow that because we have honest Western values we always fight a war in a moral fashion - sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Nobody can expect us to fight a war and stick within the rules. Technology, times, people, training, all have changed and we have to adapt our tactics accordingly.

Like Dom said "History will be the judge". I honestly believe that history will show that the coalition acted in our best interests. Until anyone can prove otherwise, I take all antiwar comments with a grain of salt. The anti-war factions have no ammunition to fire other than wild speculation.

It's not wild speculation to say that the US started the war without a UN resolution, that they attempted to gain backing for the resolution but failed, that they effectively wanted the UN to rubber-stamp a decision that they'd already made.

It's also not speculation to say that before the war we were all told about how chemical warheads would be targetting Israel and Kuwait, how there was a red line around Baghdad, past which we'd be under chemical/bio attack, etc. It didn't happen. And there don't appear to be any ready-to-use chem/bio weapons at all. And now that we're checking all of the sites that the intelligence services highlighted as potential WMD sites, we're also finding nothing.

Call that all wild speculation if you like. But that's the position of things right now. You might be convinced that we're about to find 10K litres of anthrax, 10 tonnes of VX, 3500 chemical artillery shells, 16 SCUD missiles, etc., but Jack Straw isn't anymore, and most of the coalition leadership have been toning down the WMD rhetoric.

So up to now, Ritter has been proved correct. No ready to use weaponised chemicals, no weaponised biological agents, no nuclear weapons, no clear and present danger. Moving forwards, who knows? Maybe you're right, maybe we'll find everything listed above. Or maybe we'll just find 12 artillery shells and a model aircraft and claim success. We'll see...

Originally posted by dom
It's not wild speculation to say that the US started the war without a UN resolution, that they attempted to gain backing for the resolution but failed, that they effectively wanted the UN to rubber-stamp a decision that they'd already made.

It's also not speculation to say that before the war we were all told about how chemical warheads would be targetting Israel and Kuwait, how there was a red line around Baghdad, past which we'd be under chemical/bio attack, etc. It didn't happen. And there don't appear to be any ready-to-use chem/bio weapons at all. And now that we're checking all of the sites that the intelligence services highlighted as potential WMD sites, we're also finding nothing.

Call that all wild speculation if you like. But that's the position of things right now. You might be convinced that we're about to find 10K litres of anthrax, 10 tonnes of VX, 3500 chemical artillery shells, 16 SCUD missiles, etc., but Jack Straw isn't anymore, and most of the coalition leadership have been toning down the WMD rhetoric.

So up to now, Ritter has been proved correct. No ready to use weaponised chemicals, no weaponised biological agents, no nuclear weapons, no clear and present danger. Moving forwards, who knows? Maybe you're right, maybe we'll find everything listed above. Or maybe we'll just find 12 artillery shells and a model aircraft and claim success. We'll see...

Firstly, the Resolution is a matter of opinion. 1441 left the door open for military force. How you handle that is down to your political perspective.

Scondly,we were told of "possible" chemical attacks. With Saddam's past record of using chemical weapons I don't think this was too far stretched.

Thirdly, who says we're finding nothing? The fact that we haven't found major caches of VX doesn't mean it isn't there.

Fourthly, I never said we would find large amounts of bio weapons. One gallon of anthrax is enough to convince me that the WMD excuse was justified.

Finally, I couldn't care less whether or not they find WMD. Saddam needed to be overthrown and I don't give a crap whether the justification had to be invented or not. If Bush had said that Saddam had little green men in underground bunkers giving him technology, I wouldn't have cared if it was true or not. The fact is that the regime needed removing for all sorts of reasons - not just WMD.

As for Ritter? The dude is a dork. He bit the hand that fed him to further his own career. I certainly wouldn't trust anything that came out of his mouth.

Originally posted by dom

1) Really, Stalin and Hitler were extremely powerful leaders of extremely powerful countries. Hussein is not in the same league.

2) Pre-emptive war is a dangerous doctrine. You really do run the risk that other people start copying that idea. What happens if India or Pakistan decide that they've now got the green light for pre-emptive wars against each other?

3) Sorry if I said you were pro-war when you weren't. I was just fairly certain that you were right behind this attack on Iraq, which is all I meant by pro-war.

1) Yes and no. Cuz with his oil, Hussein had a great power over the world. Hilter had a military power, Hussein an oil power. But both of them were powerfull and dangerous for the whole world.

2) Yes, I know. I'm not blind. But no nation on earth ( except may the USA ), has the power, the willing, the money and the military power to do that.

3) I wasn't upset against you dom. Just a little bit nervous. I'm allways nervous when I heard ( or I think that I heard ) that we don't have to stop tyrants. Also, I know with tyrants we can't deal peacefully.

Originally posted by CoLD aNGeR


u still without answering my question.

Ok. Here my answer.

Leftists are fighting ONLY against peoples who are NOT leftists or far-leftists. I didn't heard ( NEVER ) a leftists who was speaking , in a bad way, about peoples like Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot; Ho Chi Minh, Kim Jong Ill and so on....

When you're a good leftist, you don't see leftists and far-leftists tyrants. U can see only the so evil right-wingers.

I hope you enjoyed the answer.

Right...Left. Doesn't matter to the guy holding the gun.

Those in authority are lying to you. Any "authority", they are lying to you...

The politicians are lying to you. The television is lying to you.

UP am laughing so out loud it makes better sense to write about rather than use smiles.

Cold Anger those Guys UP mentions are all the very, very Bad guys. If you were living in there countries its best to think twice about eating the hamburger you may be eating your cousins.

UP - Thank god for that then. Looks like I'm not a leftist at all, because I think Stalin was a total lunatic murdering b*st*rd. Woohoo! I think it would be easy to say the opposite for right-wingers too, certainly, the Conservative governments in the Western world seemed to love Pinochet (Thatcher, Reagan).

Anyway, as for your points. Saddam may have had some oil, but he didn't have any power. Stalin and Hitler are in a totally different league. 40M, 12M people to each name (in terms of extermination casualties). Saddam - 200K? That's about 2% of Stalin's figure, 6% of Hitlers. If you look at military might you'll see a similar mismatch.

And the US aren't the only country capable of pre-emptive attacks.

As for the original idea that this war was somehow a great success. Well militarily it was always going to be. I said to a friend before the war that the worst outcome for the pro-war side would be a long war with no WMD's. My prefered outcome was a short war with no WMD's (because I'm not so pissed off to want to see our own troops dying in great numbers). That's what happened. I think it fits in with what the anti-war lobby were expecting.

As for the future of the region, stability certainly hasn't been improved in the short-term. In the long-term we'll have to wait and see...