Bin Laden calls for truce.

[MonteZuma]

So its your opinion that Iran won't have anything to do with us because the current president said they were in the "axis of evil". Heh...

That is the most obvious example of GWBs jingoistic gung ho crap. This may come as a surprise, but a majority of people outside of the US think GWB is a warmonger, not a negotiater.

 

All I am saying is that the matter is complicated. Iran are permitted to develop nuclear technology under the NPT. Iran is friendly with Russia and China - which makes it hard for them to support the US in the Security Council. If this is managed badly, Iran could be seen as a third world freedom-rider. Not to mention the possibility of increasing the perception that the west is anti-Islam.

 

The involvement of the Security Council might be necessary. Military intervention might be necessary. But rushing head-long towards yet another destabilising war or military strike is not the best way to manage this situation.

[Dr.Worthless]

The involvement of the Security Council might be necessary. Military intervention might be necessary. But rushing head-long towards yet another destabilising war or military strike is not the best way to manage this situation.

 

Absolutly! Me, and apparently President Bush agrees with you because the president is FOR negotations with Iraq and if they will not negotiate for it to go to the UN, then on to the security councle.

 

What you, and most people simply choose to ignore is that the world community, the UN and the security councle, had been dealing with Saddam and Iraq for OVER a decade, and Saddam continually showed he had no interest in working with the UN, or the world community. I understand you think the US rushed head first into a conflict, what you choose to ignore is the decade of negotiation the US unilaterally, and multilaterally through the UN, had with Saddam and Iraq.

[MonteZuma]

Calling the guy at the other side of the table 'evil' is not a good start to the negotiation process. Telling everyone else at the table that they either support me or they are also evil is also a bad way to bring about mutually satisfactory outcomes.

 

So what if it was a decade of negotiation with Iraq? So what if it was 50 years of negotiation? The objective should be safety and security - time is irrelevant. What Bush and his supporters strive for are quick and dirty 'solutions' that always seem to leave a vacuum that can only be filled with human lives, cash and hatred.

 

So Bush has avoided another decade of negotiation, but at what cost? Thousands of dead civilians, a decade of instability in Iraq, and another generation of anti-US terrorists that think they are fighting a war against christian crusaders. GG Bush.

 

The tortoise and the hare springs to mind.

 

Fwiw. I actually believe that the UN would have failed to get Iraq to destroy its WMD capability if it were not for the threat of US military intervention. The US has a vital role in bringing rogue states to heel. The only problem is that with the present US government, the power isn't backed up by tact and timing and empathy. A US that is respected worldwide would be 10 times more powerful than a US that thinks and acts unilaterally.

[Aileron]

The problem with waiting 50 years is that every year we waited would mean more casualties as Hussein kept killing off "dissidents". It also would mean 50 more years of Baathist propaganda that we would be in the minds of the people that we would need to counteract. 50 years would mean that democracy would be impossible, because no-one would be alive to remember anything other than a Hussein ruling Iraq.

 

The Baathist party weren't the communists. Communism could be fought under the policy of containment because it was inherently unstable. The Baathist party was not unstable. They had a system of systematically giving all of the power and all of the wealth in the same place. While there were people discontent with Hussein's rule, they had no power. While there was a ruling class capable of ousting Hussein, they each had the wealth of five people and had no interest in revolt. The Baathist rule had a terrible eligance in its simplicity and stability.

 

Containment may have worked on Communism but it wouldn't have worked here. Hussein was going to rule Iraq for his whole life, and when he died, his son easily would have taken over, and his grandson after him. You say only 50 years. The Baathist system had everything it needed to set up what was effectively a monarchy and last 500.

 

 

Also, you say negotiation. How could we have negotiated? What we needed was that Hussein be taken down so that democracy could rule. For someone who has killed millions like Hussein has, being seperated from power is a death sentence. We were effectively asking what terms it would take for Hussein to take his sidearm and shoot himself in the head. For him to weaken his rule would have been equally suicidal.

 

Or maybe we could have waited until he got old and negotiated for him to not let his son take over? That's not possible either. Blood is thicker than bread and water. Suffice to say that he would not have betrayed his son for anything we could have offered.

[MonteZuma]

The problem with waiting 50 years is that every year we waited would mean more casualties as Hussein kept killing off "dissidents".

I'm not sure that there would have been more innocent Iraqis killed if Saddam was left in place than there have been as a reult of the invasion and the aftermath. But the most important issue to me is the safety and security of the world as a whole. I believe that removing Saddam from power using US forces has made the world a more dangerous place.

 

It also would mean 50 more years of Baathist propaganda that we would be in the minds of the people that we would need to counteract. 50 years would mean that democracy would be impossible, because no-one would be alive to remember anything other than a Hussein ruling Iraq.

Russia became a capitalist democracy after 75 years of communist propaganda.

 

The Baathist party weren't the communists. Communism could be fought under the policy of containment because it was inherently unstable. The Baathist party was not unstable. They had a system of systematically giving all of the power and all of the wealth in the same place. While there were people discontent with Hussein's rule, they had no power. While there was a ruling class capable of ousting Hussein, they each had the wealth of five people and had no interest in revolt. The Baathist rule had a terrible eligance in its simplicity and stability.

This sounds to me as though you knew your argument was flawed so you tried your darndest to find some difference between the viability of the Iraqi system and the communist system. I'm not convinced. Communism was not inherently more unstable than Iraq's system of government. Communists had more control over the distribution of wealth than the Iraqis. Most of the people in the Iraqi army were not comparatively wealthy. The Baathist system of rule was no more or less elegant than the ideology of communism. Really. Your argument here is weak.

 

Containment may have worked on Communism but it wouldn't have worked here. Hussein was going to rule Iraq for his whole life, and when he died, his son easily would have taken over, and his grandson after him. You say only 50 years. The Baathist system had everything it needed to set up what was effectively a monarchy and last 500.

 

Also, you say negotiation. How could we have negotiated?...

Hans Blix seemed to have found a way. I use 'negotiation' in the loosest sense. The important thing is to avoid a counter-productive war and still achieve your political goals - which at the time was preventing Saddam from having the power to attack the west using terrorism or WMDs. It was working.

[Dr.Worthless]

You may call being kicked out, then go back, then get kicked out, then go back, working, I don't.

 

Calling the guy at the other side of the table 'evil' is not a good start to the negotiation process. Telling everyone else at the table that they either support me or they are also evil is also a bad way to bring about mutually satisfactory outcomes.

A man that proclaims he wants israel wiped off the map, that the west is out to get everyone muslim, that everything is the fault of zionism, and that the holocaust didn't happen isn't out for a mutually satisfactory outcome, no matter how much benefit of the doubt you want to give him. President Bush is doing the right thing and negotiating. If the !@#$%^&*ing president of Iran completely did a 180 and went from wanting to cooperate to saying !@#$%^&* the west because the United States called him Evil, do you question his ability to compromise? You should.

 

 

So what if it was a decade of negotiation with Iraq? So what if it was 50 years of negotiation? The objective should be safety and security - time is irrelevant. What Bush and his supporters strive for are quick and dirty 'solutions' that always seem to leave a vacuum that can only be filled with human lives, cash and hatred.

 

You may call what was going on "negotiations". I call what was going on buying himself time. I'm interested in negotiating with people who are interested in negotiation, not those that just seek to buy themselves time.

 

he tortoise and the hare springs to mind.

Right, except in this instance the tortoise and the hare are 4000 miles apart, speak with eachother about once a month, and the hare might win the race at the end because he's got a big !@#$%^&*ing bomb waiting for the tortoise at the finish line. The hare hasn't won the race yet because he wants the tortoise to think he's actually got the chance to win the race, but what he's really doing is buying himself time to finish the trap at the finish line...

 

So Bush has avoided another decade of negotiation, but at what cost? Thousands of dead civilians, a decade of instability in Iraq, and another generation of anti-US terrorists that think they are fighting a war against christian crusaders. GG Bush.

 

Or he's avoided another decade of dancing around the system at the cost of Saddam actually getting all the weapons he wanted, and giving them to folks who will use them. Thousands of AMERICANS dead, a decade of land in the middle of New York that cant be lived on, and an end that would = what we're in right now, War. Like I said before, If Saddam was actually interested in mutual negotation he would have done what was required when it was required, not spent a decade throwing the world community a finger.

 

I can understand you wanting to give Saddam however long he wants to negotiate with the UN, because it wouldn't be London, or Paris, or Quebec, or Madrid, or Berlin that would have got hit.

[MonteZuma]

You may call being kicked out, then go back, then get kicked out, then go back, working, I don't.

Saddam didn't have WMDs and Iraq wasn't a breeding ground for terrorists. Therefore it worked.

 

A man that proclaims he wants israel wiped off the map, that the west is out to get everyone muslim, that everything is the fault of zionism, and that the holocaust didn't happen isn't out for a mutually satisfactory outcome, no matter how much benefit of the doubt you want to give him. President Bush is doing the right thing and negotiating. If the !@#$%^&*ing president of Iran completely did a 180 and went from wanting to cooperate to saying !@#$%^&* the west because the United States called him Evil, do you question his ability to compromise? You should.

We both agree that the leadership in Iran is nutty and untrustworthy. That doesn't mean that the best strategy for manageing the problem is to rattle your sabre and shout insults.

 

You may call what was going on "negotiations". I call what was going on buying himself time. I'm interested in negotiating with people who are interested in negotiation, not those that just seek to buy themselves time.

So what if he was buying himself time? If Bush took advantage of that time he might have come up with a better strategy than the 'lets kick his !@#$%^&* on our own now and worry about the fallout later' strategy.

 

Right, except in this instance the tortoise and the hare are 4000 miles apart, speak with eachother about once a month, and the hare might win the race at the end because he's got a big !@#$%^&*ing bomb waiting for the tortoise at the finish line. The hare hasn't won the race yet because he wants the tortoise to think he's actually got the chance to win the race, but what he's really doing is buying himself time to finish the trap at the finish line...

The facts fly in the face of this. Saddam had less WMD capacity in 2002/3 than he did shortly after the first gulf war. Saddam might have been waiting for the pressure to ease up, but most thinking people, even those that were against war, were in favour of maintaining the pressure. I was always in favour of sanctions, no fly zones, strategic attacks, inspections, etc, etc, etc. Nobody trusted Saddam. Not even Hans Blix.

 

Or he's avoided another decade of dancing around the system at the cost of Saddam actually getting all the weapons he wanted, and giving them to folks who will use them.

He was not acquiring weapons at the time of the invasion. He was destroying them. As evil as he was, that is what he was doing. This is now proven fact.

 

Thousands of AMERICANS dead

Thousands of Americans have died in Iraq. Countless thousands of innocent Iraqis are also dead. And Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Another proven fact.

 

If Saddam was actually interested in mutual negotation he would have done what was required when it was required, not spent a decade throwing the world community a finger.

We can both agree that he wasn't seriously interested in negotiation and that he was giving the world the bird, but so what? He was a lame duck? Treat him like Castro and Cuba. There was no need to invade.

 

I can understand you wanting to give Saddam however long he wants to negotiate with the UN, because it wouldn't be London, or Paris, or Quebec, or Madrid, or Berlin that would have got hit.

Saddam never planned, organised, supported or perpetrated an attack on US soil. Al Qaida is not Saddam Hussein.

[Dr.Worthless]

Saddam didn't have WMDs and Iraq wasn't a breeding ground for terrorists. Therefore it worked.

So you honestly think the UN and its 3 seperate orders of inspections actually made Saddam destroy his weapons?

 

So what if he was buying himself time? If Bush took advantage of that time he might have come up with a better strategy than the 'lets kick his !@#$%^&* on our own now and worry about the fallout later' strategy.

 

Like what, let the UN keep running inspections only to get kicked out? ROFL

 

The facts fly in the face of this. Saddam had less WMD capacity in 2002/3 than he did shortly after the first gulf war. Saddam might have been waiting for the pressure to ease up, but most thinking people, even those that were against war, were in favour of maintaining the pressure. I was always in favour of sanctions, no fly zones, strategic attacks, inspections, etc, etc, etc. Nobody trusted Saddam. Not even Hans Blix.

Your first fact was only known after the fact, though I know you're one of the people who believed we shouldn't have taken the word of the US government, English government, Russian government, Israeli government, etc etc, and likely believe that Bush just made up the WMD threat.

 

Comeon Monte, you're telling me that UN "inspections", the same ones that Saddam kicked out of his country twice, kept tabs on every second they were in his country, didn't allow them into areas unless he wanted them there, actually would have prevented Saddam from getting weapons if he wanted them?

 

He was not acquiring weapons at the time of the invasion. He was destroying them. As evil as he was, that is what he was doing. This is now proven fact.

 

I'm seriously not convinced that he destroyed all his weapons, and was without desire to acquire them. Some people believe that. To me, If I'm genuinely interested in cooperating with the world community and doing what they want me to, I not only destroy weapons, I all in the UN to watch while I do it, do!@#$%^&*ent everything I destroy and hand deliver it to the Security Councle, and make every effort I can to show the world I'm not an insane !@#$%^&*. That's just me though.

 

Thousands of Americans have died in Iraq. Countless thousands of innocent Iraqis are also dead. And Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Another proven fact.

At the time of the war we thought there was a connection. Now that there isn't we move to option B.) Hopefully having a government that is friendly to the United States in the middle east. With the most recent hoopla over the "outrage" behind the danish cartoons, it just shows how critical it would be to have a situation like that come true. Interestingly enough, what is the 1 country in the middle east that you do not hear about any crazy violence over the cartoons? I'd give you a hint but you don't need one.

 

We can both agree that he wasn't seriously interested in negotiation and that he was giving the world the bird, but so what? He was a lame duck? Treat him like Castro and Cuba. There was no need to invade.

 

The difference is we know Castro's full of !@#$%^&*. Multiple intelligence agencies were telling us different about Saddam. What baffles me is that if Saddam truely was destroying weapons, why didn't he just say "come watch me". Why have the monkey on his back for 10 years?

 

Saddam never planned, organised, supported or perpetrated an attack on US soil. Al Qaida is not Saddam Hussein.

 

You honestly want me to believe that if Saddam had the capability and the equiptment to attack the U.S, and do it through a third party who, even if they did say "Saddam told us to!!, we wouldn't believe, that he wouldn't do it?

 

Seriously though, this is an old, tired arguement, instead of being stuck on "OMG THAT WAS !@#$%^&*ING STUPID TO GO INTO IRAQ OMG OMG" deal with the here and now? ffs, even Iraq in its current state is better than every other country in the middle east. It's one of the worlds fastest growing economies, extremely high voter turnout, forming its own government, over 20 free press agencies, etc, etc, etc, etc. Its got alot going wrong, but it also has alot going right.

[MonteZuma]

So you honestly think the UN and its 3 seperate orders of inspections actually made Saddam destroy his weapons?

Combined with the threat of annihilation by the US military - yes.

 

Like what, let the UN keep running inspections only to get kicked out? ROFL

Hans Blix led the inspection team and he has always said he thought he was making good progress. He also said that he thought that they had found or destroyed virtually all of the remaining WMDs. He was right.

 

Your first fact was only known after the fact, though I know you're one of the people who believed we shouldn't have taken the word of the US government, English government, Russian government, Israeli government, etc etc, and likely believe that Bush just made up the WMD threat.

I believed Hans Blix and Hans Blix was right. Much (most?) of the free world did not think the threat was as great as the US and British governments imagined or pretended it to be - that is why GWB had trouble rounding up his coalition of the willing.

 

I'm seriously not convinced that he destroyed all his weapons

You can think that, but you have no evidence. If time is our judge, then it certainly does look like there are no WMDs.

 

At the time of the war we thought there was a connection.

If by 'we' you mean the US then maybe. I NEVER thought there was a connection and neither did a majority of people I know. In fact I'm not convinced that anybody really thought there was a connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein. The connection was implied by GWB and others to confuse the two issues and bring the public on board.

 

Hopefully having a government that is friendly to the United States in the middle east.

Yes. If this works out then there will be a tactical win. But to me, this looks like a pipe dream. In any case, a government friendly to the west does not become a safe haven from terrorism. Plenty of terrorists come from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This is a war on terror. Not a war on the middle east.

 

With the most recent hoopla over the "outrage" behind the danish cartoons, it just shows how critical it would be to have a situation like that come true. Interestingly enough, what is the 1 country in the middle east that you do not hear about any crazy violence over the cartoons? I'd give you a hint but you don't need one.

I can't think of any, unless you mean Israel, but that includes the Palestinian territories. A puupet government in Iraq will not counter those kinds of feelings or that kind of violence.

 

The difference is we know Castro's full of !@#$%^&*. Multiple intelligence agencies were telling us different about Saddam. What baffles me is that if Saddam truely was destroying weapons, why didn't he just say "come watch me". Why have the monkey on his back for 10 years?

Because he was nutty too? he was a megalomaniac.

 

You honestly want me to believe that if Saddam had the capability and the equiptment to attack the U.S, and do it through a third party who, even if they did say "Saddam told us to!!, we wouldn't believe, that he wouldn't do it?

He never had an opportunity because he was under the thumb of the US and to a lesser extent the UN ever since the first gulf war. He really stuffed up when he invaded Kuwait. Megalomania.

 

Its got alot going wrong, but it also has alot going right.

Perhaps. I hope that in the washup we both agree that Iraq and Iraqis are better off and that the western world is a better place. Its got some way to go before I say that.

[Aileron]

Yeah, the difference between Castro and Hussein is that Castro's only communistic and Hussein is Baathist.

 

Castro only had interest in attacking the US when the Soviet Union was sponsering him. Now he has no reason. He doesn't hate the western world. He just has a different political philosophy. He's not going to do anything dangerous. Most importantly, he hasn't set up a son to take over when he dies.

 

Hussein did hate the west, and did set his son up. Because of that, we can wait Castro out, but we couldn't wait in Iraq, because we'd be waiting from the beginning to the end of an entire dynasty, which would take centuries.

 

Imagine a world 500 years from now, where society and technology have advanced appropriately. Now imagine a Baathist monarchy in that world. It doesn't fit. Monarchies don't belong in our time and place, let alone the future. To have waited Hussein out would have meant putting human development on hold for however long that dynasty would have lasted. The cost of doing that in human lives would be huge due to things like disease and crime.

[MonteZuma]

Castro only had interest in attacking the US when the Soviet Union was sponsering him. Now he has no reason. He doesn't hate the western world. He just has a different political philosophy. He's not going to do anything dangerous.

Castro was never interested in attacking the US, and neither was Hussein.

 

Most importantly, he hasn't set up a son to take over when he dies.

No. He has planned for his younger brother to take over. But I don't see why this is 'most important'?

 

Hussein did hate the west, and did set his son up. Because of that, we can wait Castro out, but we couldn't wait in Iraq, because we'd be waiting from the beginning to the end of an entire dynasty, which would take centuries.

We could wait forever, but we wouldn't need to with sanctions crushing the Iraqi economy.

 

Imagine a world 500 years from now, where society and technology have advanced appropriately. Now imagine a Baathist monarchy in that world. It doesn't fit.

No. It doesn't fit. But I don't think for a minute that Iraq would be a Baathist 'monarchy' for 500 years.

 

Monarchies don't belong in our time and place, let alone the future.

You may not like them, but they certainly do belong in this time and place. Europe has a number of popular monarchies. Australia voted to keep its monarchy in a recent referendum.

 

To have waited Hussein out would have meant putting human development on hold for however long that dynasty would have lasted. The cost of doing that in human lives would be huge due to things like disease and crime.

Disease and crime? Huh? The main economic barrier for Iraq was the sanctions - not the Baath party. If you want to tackle problems related to poverty and arrested development, you should concentrate on Africa. The trillions of dollars that have been wasted on military action in Iraq could have done a lot to improve life for millions of people in Africa.

[Dr.Worthless]

Combined with the threat of annihilation by the US military - yes.

So, if you're the leader of a country who for the last decade has heard "you better or the US will come !@#$%^&* you up", but the US never comes, you gonna keep listening to the cries of wolf or are you gonna start to think the US/UN really doesn't have the resolve?

 

Hans Blix led the inspection team and he has always said he thought he was making good progress. He also said that he thought that they had found or destroyed virtually all of the remaining WMDs. He was right.

 

Hindsight proved him right. If you're guessing how many pieces of bubble gum are in a candy store "I think" will suffice. If you're dealing with how many WMD's a country has "I think" doesn't cut it. This goes back to Saddam proving he did destroy them, which under the 1991 agreement he HAD to do along with a laundry list of other things. However, he didn't. This left us in a situation of, Hans Blix says Saddam might have destroyed them, multiple intelligence agencies said they haven't.

 

If by 'we' you mean the US then maybe. I NEVER thought there was a connection and neither did a majority of people I know. In fact I'm not convinced that anybody really thought there was a connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein. The connection was implied by GWB and others to confuse the two issues and bring the public on board.

 

I thought it made tons of sense. If i've got a paramilitary group saying we'll attack the U.S, and take the blame for it, as long as you help us out with $$ or equiptment, and I'm Saddam, I'd do it in a heartbeat. A.)It hurts the US B.) It takes attention off of me.

[MonteZuma]

So, if you're the leader of a country who for the last decade has heard "you better or the US will come !@#$%^&* you up", but the US never comes, you gonna keep listening to the cries of wolf or are you gonna start to think the US/UN really doesn't have the resolve?

If they !@#$%^&* up (and become a credible threat rather than a pretend threat), annihilate them. It isn't a matter of crying wolf. It is a matter of maintaining the pressure. Obviously maintaining the necessary pressure in the face of someone that waivered like Saddam did is problematic, but as we've seen, it can be more expensive and problematic to maintain an occupation force.

 

Hans Blix says Saddam might have destroyed them, multiple intelligence agencies said they haven't.

The evidence that Bush and Blair used was weak and over-hyped. The evidence that Hans Blix used was understated and grounded in reality. The fact that Europe backed Blix isn't the result of dumb luck. Its the result of objective decision-making.

[Dr.Worthless]

If by "Europe" you mean France and Germany. I'm sure the crates stamped with their nations names full of weapons in the middle of Saddam International didn't play a role in their interpretation either...

[Aileron]

Actually, yes, I think the "monarchy" (it would have still called itself democratic for PR) would indeed have lasted about 500 years without foreign intervention. The Baathists had a very stable system going for them.

 

There's really no way to tell if Saddam wanted his brother or his son to take over, but both were given important jobs. I's say his son because most fathers love their sons more than their brothers. In the end its irrelevent really. What's important is that the man who was set up to take over was another Hussein. Now ofcourse technically Iraq was a democracy and technically no one was going to take over, but in reality there would be one name on the ballot and death threats to any who dared run against him.

 

As I said, the Baathist system was very stable. They robbed the Kurds and the Shiites, about % of the population, and gave it to the Sunnis, which were the people with all of the real power. They had the money, the press, the military, the land and everything else a modern society needs, and were carefull to make sure that the other % of the country had none of those things. The only threat to the Husseins would be high-ranking elites who wanted to be number one, but they weren't ever going to get the support necessary because the Sunnis had such a good deal under Hussein that they wouldn't risk changing leadership.

 

The only thing that was going to bring the Baathist party down was weak leadership, and judging by all other dynasties in history that would take about 500 years to develop. Maybe higher technological levels would make it so it didn't last quite that long, but that is a very real rough estimate. Still yet, even then it would be very unlikely that a democracy would replace it. Most likely another family would have come to power and started the same thing over again.

 

Don't forget that though democracies need public approval to survive, dictatorships do not. Dictatorships survive on force. Its clear from the celebrations that people hated Saddam. There will probably be dancing in the streets when Hussein is finally executed. However, as much as they hated him, they were unable to oppose him.

 

The whole political system was designed to prevent capacity for revolution. It wasn't so much that if you didn't support him troops would come to your house and kill you. It was more like all the businesses are owned by Baathists and if you didn't support Hussein you couldn't have a job and your family would starve. Its very hard to raise an army of people willing to sacrifice their livelihoods. If you wanted to fight the Baathist Army and win, you would need weapons, and Hussein controlled all the weapons, all the money you could use to buy weapons, the communications system you would need to contact someone you wished to buy the weapons from, and the roads, rails, seaports, and airports he would need to use to ship those weapons to you. Additionally, the army would need to be trained, and getting some elite forces to train the revolutionaries is equally difficult. Not only that, but you would need ammunition, gas, water, food, and other continuous supplies, requiring you not to get past the system once, but to set up a continuously flowing supply line. And, since this is modern or post-modern warfare, you would need air superiority, which requires you gain and control an airport, aircraft, and pilots. If somehow you did get an army rolling under these conditions, you'd have a hard time getting additional recruits because Hussein controlled the press, and in every story you'd be portrayed as vicious terrorists fighting a losing cause. For those reasons, dictatorships last way longer than democracy, for it takes multiple acts of stupidity and weakness even to give the public the opportunity to change governments.

 

As much as time changes everything, some things just won't change if you just sit on your hands. Sometimes an outside force is necessary to change things. Historically, 3/4ths of all successfull revolutions required foreign aid. The handfull of occurances of revolutions making it on their own are not frequent enough to bet lives on. Remember that just leaving Hussein alone also costed lives in what he did to his own people, and we have found the m!@#$%^&* graves to prove it. Would you be willing to bet lives on Hussein making a mistake when he has proven for 50 years that he knew how to set up and maintain a dictatorship? Hussein was no fool. His grip wasn't going to slip during his lifetime, and probably wan't going to slip in his successor's lifetime either.

[MonteZuma]

Now ofcourse technically Iraq was a democracy and technically no one was going to take over, but in reality there would be one name on the ballot and death threats to any who dared run against him.

Well. Yeah. But Iraq was a dictatorship, not a monarchy or a democracy.

 

Most likely another family would have come to power and started the same thing over again.

Maybe. But so what? That is Iraq's affair and this has been going on in Iraq since 1958. All we need to concern ourselves with is wheher or not the leadership is a security risk.

 

Don't forget that though democracies need public approval to survive, dictatorships do not. Dictatorships survive on force. Its clear from the celebrations that people hated Saddam. There will probably be dancing in the streets when Hussein is finally executed. However, as much as they hated him, they were unable to oppose him.

Dictators need either public approval or ambivalence to survive too. Saddam is one man.

 

Let me replace 'Baathist' with 'communist' and see what happens to your next paragraph....

 

The whole political system was designed to prevent capacity for revolution. It wasn't so much that if you didn't support THE COMMUNIST PARTY, troops would come to your house and kill you. It was more like all the businesses are owned by THE COMMUNIST PARTY and if you didn't support THE COMMUNIST PARTY you couldn't have a job and your family would starve. Its very hard to raise an army of people willing to sacrifice their livelihoods. If you wanted to fight the RED Army and win, you would need weapons, and THE COMMUNIST PARTY controlled all the weapons, all the money you could use to buy weapons, the communications system you would need to contact someone you wished to buy the weapons from, and the roads, rails, seaports, and airports he would need to use to ship those weapons to you. Additionally, the army would need to be trained, and getting some elite forces to train the revolutionaries is equally difficult. Not only that, but you would need ammunition, gas, water, food, and other continuous supplies, requiring you not to get past the system once, but to set up a continuously flowing supply line. And, since this is modern or post-modern warfare, you would need air superiority, which requires you gain and control an airport, aircraft, and pilots. If somehow you did get an army rolling under these conditions, you'd have a hard time getting additional recruits because THE COMMUNIST PARTY controlled the press, and in every story you'd be portrayed as vicious terrorists fighting a losing cause. For those reasons, COMMUNISM last way longer than democracy, for it takes multiple acts of stupidity and weakness even to give the public the opportunity to change governments.

 

Well. Isn't that intersting. And yet the communist party only lasted 70 years.

[Dr.Worthless]

Well. Isn't that intersting. And yet the communist party only lasted 70 years.

 

So you're saying communism brought itself down?

[MonteZuma]

So you're saying communism brought itself down?

What makes you think that?

[Dr.Worthless]

After his big long post about what makes communism self sustaining you commented that communism russia only lasted 70 years, as to discredit his !@#$%^&*ertion that communism is setup to prevent revolution.

[MonteZuma]

Communism was set up to prevent revolution at least as well as the Iraqi regime - and it didn't work. There is no evidence to suggest that the Hussein 'dynasty' would have lasted 500 or so years if it were not for an invasion and occupation.

[Dr.Worthless]

You're using the fact that the USSR's system fell flat on its face to support your !@#$%^&*ertion that the Iraqi system would have done the same.

 

The USSR wouldn't have fell if it wasn't for the United States.

[MonteZuma]

So?

[PK2]

!@#$%^&* montazuma your like really into this political shyt!!!

[MonteZuma]

It passes the time

[Dr.Worthless]

Monte stop being purposefully ignorant.

 

You are trying to dispute Ailerons claim that Saddam's leadership would have kept control of Iraq for prolongued periods of time by making a comparison of the Baathist government and the communist russia.

 

You claim that since communist russia, which shares alot of traits with the Baathist organization fell in 70 years, that obviously the baathist regime would have lasted around the same number of years. However you know that the logic is flawed because an outside variable (the united states) was introduced into the equation that eventually brought the USSR down. You have no way of knowing how long the USSR would have lasted if the United States hadn't intervened the way they did. The same arguement applies to Iraq and Saddam.

 

You know all this though, you're a sharp guy, you're just being difficult.