MonteZuma

I ain't smarter. Maybe just a little more passionate? Or maybe I just waste more time than most people learning about this stuff?

No.

Another quiz: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html In this I'm still left of centre (liberal) but I'm less libertarian (anarchaic). The diagram is upside down compared to the compass Your Personal issues Score is 60%. Your Economic issues Score is 20%. Left-Liberal Left-Liberals generally embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but support central decision-making in economics. They want the government to help the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Liberals tend to tolerate social diversity, but work for what they might describe as "economic equality."

1) Iraq wasn't the source of much fanatasicm. It is now. Global anti-US sentiment has increased. If you can't see it then your eyes must be closed. 2) Jesus. You think the only solution is to send in GI Joe? What about option d) Sanctions, no-fly zones, sustained military presence and strategic air strikes, nuclear and weapons inspections, sustained political pressure, surveillance and subtle encouragement of Saddam's opposition. Maybe even the odd strike aimed at hitting Saddam and his supporters. This is pretty much what the world community wanted. GWB wanted to play with his GI Joe dolls - and so do you. And what the -*BAD WORD*- is this about !@#$%^&*isting the Kurdish rebels? They were always inneffectual. The opposition in Iraq - and now the alternative government - needs to come from the major ethnic/religious groups in Iraq. That is not the Kurds. The Kurds are a minority with their own agenda. 3) You think that Hussein was beginning to cave? No. The only thing he caved in on was weapons inspectors. I think he caved on that for 3 reasons 1. He ordered the destruction of all of his WMDs and nuclear facilities in the early 1990s and had nothing to hide and 2. He had a degree of trust in Blix that he did not have in previous weapons inspectors and 3. He wanted to avoid an invasion. France, NATO and Turkey have little to do with anything, except maybe to encourage Saddam to think that an invasion mightn't happen, especially since he had given unprecedented access to the inspection teams. Clearly he didn't count on the fact that GWB could be as stubborn and ignorant as he was. You really think that France and the FFL could have stopped this? Heh. GWB had made up his mind months before the invasion. 4) Unbelievable. Thousands are dying because the US government was foolhardy. Blaming France is childish. Do you still call them Freedom Fries? Heh. 5) We already know it was wrong. The only people who don't agree are the Republicans. Its too late for the US to ask for help from France. Your government burnt that bridge. Now you have to beg.

There is no link between Iraq and terrorism against the US. This is a spurious argument. The world didn't turn its back on the US. The world gave the US heaps of support after 9/11. The US government turned its back on the world with the decision to ignore the UN and invade Iraq. The next step that the US should take to help reduce the threat of terrorism is to vote Bush out of office.

If you spent less time pretending to be 'logical' and more time understanding emotions then you would understand why Bush has stuffed up in the War on Terror. Emotion and terrorism and politics go hand in hand. And clearly you have no idea how the comp!@#$%^&* works. Rest !@#$%^&*ured that Stalin and Bacchus have nothing in common. Btw...what was your score? Marxists? Heh. Do you check for reds under your bed? All the way with Jimmy Carter!!!

(2) Or mabye it was closer to 90%, or %, mabye 40%, or 30% you're guess is as good as mine. The post above pertaining to a dialogue of Butler, he makes it sound pretty strong that he believed Saddam needed to be out of power. (3) BUSTED, (gets out the hypocrite stamp and stamps his forehead). Sorry, let opinion slip in there. Happens to the best of us =) (4) Sorry, this dude was s-*BAD WORD*- and needed to be removed from power. I still believe that Saddam possessed "WMDs", and just because there hasn't been any signifigant stockpiles found doesn't mean he didn't hide them, or try to acquire them on the black market. I just don't understand how removing a sadistic tyrant can destabalize a region. Then again I never understood any opposition to the war to begin with. Yeah you have all the oil hypothesis, etc, etc.. Which all very well may be true, all I'm seeing right now is a really son of a -*BAD WORD*- out of power. (5) Its late, I'm tired, and the above probably didn't make sense. (1) Clinton used the threat of military force as leverage. In December 1998 there were about 24,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf. That was not enough to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. That was not Clinton's intention. (2) We don't really need to guess anymore. There are no deployable WMDs in Iraq. Blix and the nuclear inspector dude were right. The fact that Saddam should have been removed from power is pretty much undisputed in the west. Whether or not it needed to be done by an invasion at the cost of tens of thousands of civilian deaths by US and other bombs and bullets is the debatable bit. The casualties and the resultant power vacuum and Islamic anger that has been generated makes me think that it wasn't worth it. We could have kept the lid on Saddam and his WMDs without stuffing up the middle east even more. (3) Heh. No. Not hypocricy. Sarcasm. I have my own ideas about what Chirac was thinking that are much different to yours. (4) I agree. He was a s-*BAD WORD*-bag. (5) Nah. It made sense. But I still disagree.

How do you know what Chirac was thinking? Regarding Clinton: Wrong. Clinton wanted regime change by encouraging opposition inside Iraq. Not through an invasion. Read Clinton's speech of December 1998. Clinton said: I can't believe that you quoted this in your earlier post and used this to claim that Clinton was pro-invasion. He was never in favour of a US led invasion. Never.

In 1998, Richard Butler said that he thought 95% of the WMDs were destroyed. Maybe he was wrong? Maybe it was closer to 100%? Where did they go? Dunno. Perhaps they were destroyed. But it seems that after a war costing hundreds of billions of dollars we are no closer to knowing the truth than we were when Blix asked for more time to carry out his inspections. The war has been a tragic and expensive waste. No. The Security Council never proposed at invasion. The wording that was used was that failure to co-operate would lead to 'severe consequences'. See -->HERE<--. Bush used this as justification for an invasion in 2003. Clinton used it as justification for a military strike in 1998. Russia and France were ridiculed by the US for this decision - but they were right. There was no proof. Subsequent enquiries organised by the governments of the USA, UK and Australia have confirmed that there was no proof and that the intelligence used to justify the war was flawed. Russia and France wanted to continue with inspections. Their position was quite clear. Please point out which resolution makes this statement calling for an invasion of Iraq. Even Clinton himself only went so far as to say "The UN Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance. " Well I agree that the author has no idea what Clinton's intentions were, but who has ever said that the attacks on Iraq were ever intended to be part of a "war"? Clinton himself said that the attacks were: designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of m!@#$%^&* destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors. He went on to say that we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. Clearly Clinton had no plans whatsoever to conduct a sustained campaign. He simply wanted to destroy some infrastructure and "send a powerful message". He also said that: The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of m!@#$%^&* destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War [and] so long as Iraq remains out of compliance, we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce economic sanctions. Sanctions have cost Saddam more than $120 billion -- resources that would have been used to rebuild his military. Anyway. Time has proven that Clinton's policy was workable and encouraged a degree of cooperation. As frustrating as the deliberation process was, it was a -*BAD WORD*- of a lot better than Bush's 'solution'. Bush has created a quagmire and a climate of fear and mistrust of the US in the international community. For God's sake vote Bush out of office. PS. You wanna know what Clinton was thinking? Read what he said herehttp://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/199...ts/clinton.html. His intentions are abundantly clear.

The experts at the time were not in agreement. January 2003: Hans Blix, UN weapons inspector before the invasion, thought that Iraq might be telling the truth. Read his report. March 2003: Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency doubted the existence of nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program. Read his report. The invasion of Iraq occured in March 2003. Its all there in black and white. These dudes thought that Iraq was not a threat, and that Iraq was co-operating well with the inspection teams. This was just before the invasion. Are you people really surprised that there was opposition to a war? Nobody was convinced that there were WMDs in Iraq. We all had suspicions, but these suspicions were being thoroughly investigated by competent investigators. The US propoganda machine has been working overtime on this one. The US government is working on the !@#$%^&*umption that if they say something often enough it will become fact. It won't. The war was started on a false premise.

The article is full of bias. Statements like these are ridiculous: WTF? You think a president would call off a war after he started because he was 'facing impeachment'? BS. The strikes in Iraq were aimed at destroying infrastructure that could be used to hold or build WMDs. It was called off because the targets had been hit and he didn't think a war was the right thing. Yes. That was the early 1990s. By the late 1990s things were very different. Wrong. Here is what Richard Butler, the chief weapons inspector at the time said: July 1998: “If Iraqi disarmament were a five-lap race, we would be three quarters of the way around the fifth and final lap.” Let me explain this tidbit for you: Richard Butlers team was considered by many to be full of CIA stooges. Butler always thought that Iraq had WMDs, even at the time of the invasion, but even back in 1998 he conceded that disarmament was 95% complete. Wow. Maybe the actions of Clinton, the weapons inspectors and the UN actually did contain the threat? Why would anyone think that the UN failed and that war was the only solution? Those years were hardly undisturbed. There were sanctions and a naval blockade. There was a no-fly zone over northern and southern Iraq. There were US missile strikes on Iraq in January, February, April 1999, February 2001 and August 2001. There was aerial and satellite surveillance the whole time...and weapons inspectors were allowed back in in 2002. Etc, etc, etc.

Indeed. @nintendo64: no probs.

Very good read, everyone take the time to read it. Though this all applies to past administrations. None of the information could imaginably be used in an arguement on why Bush was wrong to invade Iraq. Still none the less quite interesting information, Shows quite well that the US is not adverse to providing an enemy with anything they need to fight another enemy. You seem to be back-tracking? What it shows is that the US is not averse to !@#$%^&*isting rogue dictators to use chemical and biological weapons even when this contravenes international treaties. It also shows the hypocricy of Donald Rumsfeld. For some reason he forgot to mention that he was Reagan's envoy to Iraq during the Iran Iraq war in his bio. Why would that be? Heh. When it comes to the invasion of Iraq, it seems to show why Rumsfeld was so certain that there were WMDs in Iraq. He felt so certain because he helped supply them. If I wanted to argue against the invasion I would start my investigation from 1991 and work towards the persent. All the evidence there suggests that there were no "deployable" WMDs in Iraq. As it turns out, there seem to not only be no deployable WMDs left, but it is possible that there was not even any raw ingredients of the WMDs left in Iraq.

Pick a country and an issue and start a thread.

I'll use one of your own quotes, it fits well.Lots of evidence here - organised for your reading pleasure: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/globali...80scontent.html

The US sold biological and chemical materials and !@#$%^&*ociated weaponry and technology to Iraq for the specific purpose of use in chemical and biological weapons. This was in contravention of the Geneva Convention. The US did know that war crimes were going to be committed. They didn't care.

Iraq did not attack you. There is no link between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq. The fact that you don't buy it means nothing. Where is the evidence? Terrorists don't need an effective power source. If by $$ you mean money then you can manage that without a war. Al Qaida is still considered a threat even though all of their major funding sources have been cut off. It doesn't cost much to board a plane with a box cutter. If by $$ you mean something else, what do you mean? The Bali bombers were almost autonomous. If the UN and security council want to do something to force Israel to comply, they probably can. Of course the US would block any such resolution using its veto powers. The UN is not a law enforcement agency. It relies on member states to do the right thing. The US and Israel are recalcitrant.

19 Arabs armed with box cutters cost your country $23 Billion in rescue and recovery costs alone. Your CIA thought that they couldn't affect you 'that dramatically' either. Wrong. Your government cannot win this "war" without the support of a lot of other nations - just like Canada. Your government's resources are already stretched occupying Iraq. Nobody is going to organise a 9/11 style attack against Canada. You need them much more than they need you.

What were the UN's 'excuses'?

Unfortunatly, it seems we're the only nation willing to spend major $$ and send massive number of troops to the cause. The UN isn't serious about stopping terrorism. If they were the "war against terror" would have started a LONG time ago, see'ing that europe has been dealing with terrorism far longer than North America (on a grand scale.) No. The US is not the only nation willing to spend a lot of money to fight the war on terror. What about the UK? What about Canada and Germany in Afghanistan. Canada's contribution in Afghanistan is the same or more than the US on a per capita basis. Support for the invasion of Iraq is not the same thing as support for the war against terrorism. Most nations want to work with the UN. The fact that the US and Israel do not does not mean that the UN is failing. It could mean that the US and Israel are simply wrong. Anyway. massive numbers of troops are not an effective weapon to use against terrorists. If the US was interesting in stopping terrorism then they would reconsider their support for Israel and their defiance of UN resolutions that probably would help secure a peace in the region. The UN is the best tool that we have to fight terrorism. Israel and the US are amongst the biggest threats to world peace.

"Palestine", including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the occupied territories are not Israel's country. They were originally Arab territory (Egypt, Jordan, Syria). There were Arabs/Muslims living in "Israel" before it became a Jewish state. It is "their" country too. The wall is not a "solution". The benefit that I have is that I am not in Israel's position. I haven't been raised in a climate of fear and hatred as the Palestinians and Israelis have. I haven't taken sides based on emotion. I've taken sides based on facts and what I see as natural justice. The history behind this conflict is complicated but unambiguos. No-one is innocent in this. But I think that the nations that are contributing most to the perpetuation of the problem TODAY are the US and Israel.

So if Canada, without negotiating anything, built a wall across the 40th parallel and said "right...we've built a wall. We'll take what's on our side of the wall and you take whats on your side of the wall"....Then the US should be cool with that? Heh. It is ridiculous to think that building a wall and annexing territory will pacify anyone. For the Palestinians, the wall itself is becoming one of 'the' issues. The wall will not bring peace. The UN realises this. The US and 5 other governments don't. 144 nations however do realise how ridiculous it is. Logical debate doesn't happen principally because the US is involved. The US is not very good at logical debate when it comes to Israel. The UN as a whole is a lot wiser than the US. You think that because almost the whole world disagrees with the US that the whole world must be wrong? Sheesh. Be a little bit more introspective.

The wall is a simple and inneffective response to a complicated problem. Anyone who understands terrorism and the history of the region (especially the last 60 or 70 years) would understand that the wall is a bandaid solution that is destined to fail in the long term. Righteous indignation is the core emotion of terrorists. The wall simply increases the Palestinian's sense of righteous indignation. It will not pacify them. It will anger them even more. The last nations on Earth that I want to lead a war, or even a battle, against terrorism are Israel or the USA.

I remember taking this test and posting my results last time... This time: Economic Left/Right: -5.62 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92 Yep....I'm still in the same league as Mandela, Ghandi and the Dalai Lama

Monte, Maybe the problem with society is that they don't want to make the choices, maybe because there's the responsability factor or any other weight they have to take. People these days want to be told what they have to do, and they will follow it blindly, maybe that's why religion has endured all these years. Yes this topic went a little off, but it did prove that humans need to start being critical about their leaders choices and more importantly see how it will affect everyone not only them. Ah, and please acknowledge that religion has no place in politics. -nintendo64 Exactly. People don't want to confront issues that make them question their deep-seated sense of morality. People like to think they know right from wrong, and when a minority suggests that they might not, they often lash out to defend their views. Other people turn to religion and use a 2,000 year old set of writings or the authority of the Pope to justify their beliefs. Religion is a security blanket for the masses. Bush knows this and uses religion to support his simplistic and dangerous policies. Politics isn't simply about a fight between good and evil. But an ignorant electorate wants desperately to think that it is as easy as that. Then they don't have to question everything they've been told and believed since they first went to Sunday School or read a newspaper. Life really is complicated.