Edited by author 03-12-2003 02:53 PM
Horns, you just don't get it. I'm not from France. I'm not from Russia. I'm from the UK, where no one benefits from the status quo, in fact my government is also pushing for this war. Yet public opinion here is very anti-war. Staying on topic, it is fairly obvious that our media is covering this affair very differently.

No one wants to address the fact that Russia will keep the brutal Iraqi regime in power because of the money it is owed.

And no one wants to address the regimes that are just as bad as Iraq, but are supported and guarded by the US.

What exactly is your point here? You want to remove an evil dictator who doesn't do business with you. Meanwhile you actively support similar regimes who do do business with you. As an independent observer, I have to point out that it is a clear case of Doublethink.

The UN won't back the resolution it approved and threfore the UN really isn't worth a damn is it?

No, it is worth a damn, and it will be the end of civilisation should the UN fall apart as a result of this. You might think I'm over-reacting, but check back in 5-10 years and we'll see.

The UN doesn't want to do anything. You are making a bit mistake and a bit of a give away in your language here. The USA is a part of the UN. They aren't some foreign body to hate or fear. The are a grouping of the modern worlds leaders who discuss things in a democratic maner. If you are against the UN, then you are against democracy.

So, say the UN doesn't back this resolution. All that means is that the leaders of the world could not be bribed enough to vote the way your leaders want them to. It most certainally does not mean that it "isn't worth a damn".

By the way almost every member of the UN has engaged in a war without the UN's approval.

Since joining the UN? I doubt that. Even if they had, that schoolboy "but he's already done it" logic doesn't me a thing in world politics, where people are about to die thanks to a small group of people who are already spliting up the spoils of war amoungst themselves.

you SUPPORT Saddam Hussein because you don't hold him to the same standards that you are holding your President to

Will you please drop this "with us or against us" crap. I know you said "in a way", but you're taking this too far. There is not a person involved in this discussion that is pro-Saddam, not even in the tinyest way.

We don't like being lied to by our leaders, that's what it boils down to. Bush et all have consistently been proven as liars (<< READ THIS LINK PLEASE!) with all this "evidence" they claim to back a war with Iraq. Off the top of my head, the "Iraq is actively seeking nukes" statement has been proven to be a lie by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Statements about him getting parts for plutonium separation (the infamous pipes) have been shot down by atomic engineers, saying that the pipes in question were completely useless for centrifugal separation.

His constant implication of Iraq-terrorist links is just plain deceptive. I've said this several times already...but Saddam is not going to ally with Islamic terrorists because their beliefs are entirely incompatible. The only way this may happen is if you paint the two groups into a corner and they have no one else to turn to; much like Castro did with the Soviets in the 60s, he wasn't a communist, it was to save his own ass from an overly agressive neighbour, who coincidently was pissed off back then about overseas business being affected by local politics. Of course, the US media and education system has taken great pain to make sure that the average American has little understanding of the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Some of the nations named in the again completely misleading "Axis of Evil" have never had any relations whatsoever, yet "Axis of Evil" implies a grouping...Axis was actually the term used to describe German allies during WW2. Yet now that these nations have you breathing down their throat, they are turning to each other.

This war will not help anything and will only contribute to the problems. Why do you refuse to see that?

Again with the ridiculous oil argument. Why was 1441 (which states force will be used if Iraq does not comply) UNANIMOUSLY passed by the security council?

It must be because ALL the nations in the world want the US to steal Iraq's oil huh?

No one wants to address the sweet oil for food deal that France does not want to end. No one wants to address the fact that Russia will keep the brutal Iraqi regime in power because of the money it is owed.
The UN won't back the resolution it approved and threfore the UN really isn't worth a damn is it? By the way almost every member of the UN has engaged in a war without the UN's approval.

You supported action against Milosevic but you won't support this when Hussein is worse than Milosevic. You decry the thousands of people we will allegedly kill in a war when Afghanistan was the most surgically precise, collateral damage free campaign in the history of the world.

In a way - you SUPPORT Saddam Hussein because you don't hold him to the same standards that you are holding your President to. Sheesh.

The punchline to all this is - i don't even like Bush! I can't wait to vote him out of office(him and that bastard Ashcroft!), but he has got the cajones to get done in Iraq what is right. Removing Hussein is right.

I love the wording - "a solid green banner hanging limply from a pole". I wonder if anyone has ever described a flag in a more derogatory way before? They are evil!! Down with Emanuel Goldstein!! Hate Hate Hate!!

Horns, I really have to disagree with you. You talk about nation states selling weapons to terrorists, then you suggest that it's justification for this war. Well, Iraq has no terrorist links, wrt Islamic terrorisms, it would be like satan asking the pope for help. Their beliefs are incompatible. Al Qaida are more at home in Iran, Saddams mortal enemy.

On the other hand, lot's of other countries have supported terrorism. Libia, Saudi Arabia and many other states in the region have strong ties to terrorism. However, you don't see a call for war there. It may well be a coincidence that they sell oil to the USA while Iraq doesn't ;-), but it stinks.

Additionally, you're not going to like this: The USA is one of the strongest supporters of terrorism in the world. Fact. You've funded the IRA, the Talliban, Al Qaeda, dozens of groups in South America, the middle east and southern USSR. You used terrorist groups to attack Cuba twice, agression which nearly led to the destruction of the planet during the aptly named (pass the buck) "Cuban Missle Crisis". Yet you want to attack Iraq because they might support terrorism at some point in the future? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds to third-party observers?

my apologies that there was an error in what building i was walking by.
That being said, the TOPIC we were discussing was the issue of the flags, not what exact building they hung from. You are concise in your wording now, but i would have to put forth that you suggested i was lying about the flags my friend.
I was not.

So Mo, what are you going to prove now?

I'm going to prove you wrong.

You said, "i walked by the UN on the days after September 11th and i saw with my own eyes how every flag was at half mast EXCEPT Iraq's."

That's not true: the flags reported at half-mast in the Post were the flags in front of the missions of Iraq and Libya to the UN, not in front of the UN itself. The mission to the UN of Iraq is on 79th Street, nowhere near the UN. The mission of Libya is a block away from the UN west of First Avenue. The UN runs from 42nd to 48th Streets east of First Avenue.

http://www.un.org/Overview/missions.htm#iraq
http://www.un.org/Overview/missions.htm#liby

Here's the actual text of the Post article, taken from the Dow Jones full text service Factiva:

"COUNTRIES THAT INSULT OUR DEAD - NYERS UNFURL IRE AT 'FULL-STAFFED' IRAQ AND LIBYA
LAURA ITALIANO
704 words
20 September 2001
New York Post
5
English
(c) 2001 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

The United Nations missions of Iraq and Libya here are flying their national flags at full-staff - to the outrage of bruised New Yorkers still grieving over the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

The flags are a flap-in-the-face, residents said - especially since embassy and U.N. mission flags from nations around the globe, including Cuba and Yemen, have been at half-staff since last week in an international show of sorrow.

"Wow!" neighbor Tom Vida said when Libya's full-staff standard was pointed out to him - a solid green banner hanging limply from a pole outside its U.N. mission at 309 E. 48th St.

At the top of the 22-story mission, a second Libyan flag also flies at full-staff, visible on 48th Street from First, Second and Third avenues.

"I think it's pretty insulting, to say the least - a lack of respect for mankind," said Vida, who is an assistant super at nearby 100 United Nations Plaza.

"Lovely neighbors we have," he added sarcastically.

"We really can't believe it," said one of a contingent of four police officers sent yesterday to patrol the Iraqi mission at 14 E. 79th St.

The patrols were ordered after The Post revealed yesterday that the mission was still flying the Iraqi flag at full-staff.

[cut for length]

A story from the Observer about how British intelligence is not seeing eye-to-eye with Tony's head of communications over Iraq (http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,910756,00.html)

Edited by author 03-11-2003 04:26 PM
well, i definitely don't want to fall into a "bipolar trap".
will the removal of Saddam Hussein benefit big oil? yes probably, but that is hardly an admission that this is solely about oil. The removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan will probably usher in the construction of an oil pipeline, but i think kids going to school, refugees returning to their homes and the removal of a terorist threat was the good enough reason for that military action. A military action by the way that had less civillian casualties than any before in its history. NEVER has a military operation had such a successful directive of protecting innocent civilians. A fact that lays waste to Noam Chomsky's preposterous allegations of the "silent genocide" he talked about and rallied peace activists into believing.
Iraq and Saddam Hussein is more about VX nerve gas.
The removal of Saddam Hussein by force was agreed upon if he did NOT comply with 1441. Its in there - i think its paragraph #9. So why can we not use force now that he has failed to comply. No scientists are allowed to talk to UN inspectors on their terms? Thats not complying.Ive also grown weary of the argument that a lack of concrete connection between terrorisam and Iraq ids needed. Chemical weapons are not made in a cellar in Pakistan. They are made by states. So here we have a roque regime who has shown open animosity towards its people and neighbors and we are waiting for what in as far as "concrete evidence"?
Are we waiting for an actual act of terrorism?
You may be waiting for that. I live in NYC and might as well have a target on my chest - i support military action.
ther is one man who can end all this and his name is Saddam Hussein.

as far as the flag issue - i was just a little miffed that i was called a liar.

Edited by author 03-11-2003 02:55 PM
hornsofthedevil, you're falling into the bipolar trap again ... if I'm not with you, I'm against you : if I'm not your friend, I'm your enemy. If you just calm down a minute and read the Global Policy Forum articles on the Iraq crisis (/m46), you'll see that Russia and France, as I pointed out earlier and you pointed out in /m63, also have a vested interest in Iraq, for oil. This way, you completely scupper your own argument that this isn't about oil (from the perspective of the US) by bringing this up, but it's true. Now look for the US oil connections in Iraq and you'll that this is very little to do with Saddam and a lot to do with the oil he sits on.

Powell has already been found to be relying on material which is either suspect or of dubious intelligence quality. I don't know what goes on inside the CIA (who does, apart from the Kremlin ...) but MI5 in the UK are as close to open revolt against the British government over the misuse of their intelligence to support Tony's part in George's war as they'll ever be - there are not-widely reported stories of MI5 whistleblowers even as I write this. I'll find you a link.

As to this business of not setting flags at half mast, is that evidence or reason to bomb Iraq? Hardly. It's not very respectful, but it doesn't follow that Iraq is a hotbed of terrorism just because it wants to make a not-too-subtle point about where its loyalties lie in order to gain some credibility, and hopefully support, from hardline Islamic countries.

I concur with this. I hardly even bother with American "news" sources anymore. Typically even more reliable than the still slanted British news is the ever-solid Canadian news outlets.

absolutely right Keefy. (call me a "liar" though and i have to say something!)

Maybe they didn't think about lowering the flag in respect to a country that had likely dropped bombs on them that same week. How many American flags were put at half mast when the Chinese Embassy was accidently bombed? It's very easy to distort these sort of things.

Also, I wouldn't read to much in to half-flags. When Princess Diana died, they didn't lower the flags at Buckingham Palace, because the protocol there didn't say to do that (she was no longer in the family). I doubt Iraq has a protocol on a tradition that they probably aren't even aware of.

Edited by author 03-11-2003 11:45 AM
they archive their article so you have to pay for them. BUT there is a summation.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/8153876...D%27+IRAQ+AND+LIBYA

It was actually a cabal of terror sponsoring nations - Iraq, Libya and Algeria who showed their support for the terrorists by not lowering their flags when every other nation had done so. I walked by at the end of one day and the next day i told people in my office and they showed me that it was even in the paper.

So Mo, what are you going to prove now?

Well, i walked by the UN on the days after September 11th and i saw with my own eyes how every flag was at half mast EXCEPT Iraq's. It is of my opinion that this was their way of saying "we support terrorism, we are proud of what has been done"

Liar. Admit it. You're lying. That never happened, and you know it. I know it. I'm calling you out to prove it. You are lying. I can prove it *didn't* happen, but I'll wait to hear you lie some more before I do.

Condor75, you can still receive the BBC in New York City from midnight to 1 a.m. on WNYC AM 820, Monday through Friday; from midnight to 6 a.m. on Sunday and Monday (effectively the Saturday and Sunday overnights); and on WNYE 91.5 from 1 a.m to 6 a.m. every day of the week.

I'd also recommend Radio France International, in French, on WNYE 91.5 from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday, and from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The fact i cannot escape is that 1441 was unanimously agreed upon. It didn't squeak by folks. 1441 states that the use of force is required if Iraq does not comply. That, in itself, throws these "blood for oil" arguments out the window. What are we to assume, that the entire security council voted unanimously to give the US Iraq's oil? Please.

Peace at whose cost? Iraq murders and tortures thousands of people every month(human rights watch will back that statement up) AND they are trying to become a nuclear power AND they are stockpiling chemical weapons.

Another FACT of the matter is that Iraq owes Russia and France billions of dollars in oil contracts. France has been getting Iraqi oil cheap through the food for oil program that the sanctions instituted. Any regime change in Iraq would mean a loss of money for Russia and a loss of oil deals for France. So the Iraqi people's blood is on who's hands here? Who is lusting after oil?

As for "not taking Colin Powell's word at face value" - well that would be a reflection of what you WANT to believe. If you believe Colin Powell has a cast of arabic speaking actors who have put together the audio tapes that are talking about nerve agents.....well, then you'll never be convinced.