With Libya secured an American invasion of Africa is under way

Of course he could. All he had to do was prove a negative. So, have you stopped beating your wife yet?

 

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Really, it's the US's fault that Saddam spent his money on crap instead of feeding his people? You do realize that Iraq's inability to feed itself is a direct result of the damage that Saddam did to his country right?

Keep blaming the US for everyones problems, because that will make them all go away right?

 

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And out come the insults when you realize that nobody buys into your bullshit.

 

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Yeah its the US' fault, because before the sanctions, the single biggest health issue in children under 5 in Iraq was obesity. When the same children die at the rate of 200 a day under US sanctions, I think we can declare the winner in who cares less about the Iraqi people.

And the winner is:

http://www.johnpilger.com/archive-december/page8505.html?partid=115

 

Obviously he used the sanctions to generate animosity against the US. Even if you are against the invasion as well as the sanctions, you must acknowledge that Saddam was capable of the most extreme cruelty in pursuit of his political goals.

 

Like killing 500,000 children over non-existent WMDs?

Like killing a million people to establish a 100 acre weapons shop in Baghdad?

Really, who is the winner in this competition?

 

You take a situation that was caused by one mans greed and try to blame it on an entire other country. Our world is only as fucked up as it is today because people like you go searching for a boogy man when the real answer is right in front of your eyes. (i.e. put the blame where it fucking belongs) The real reason this crap doesn't make on TV is not because of some far reaching international cover up, its because everyone else gets the picture but you.

 

The sanctions happened at a time in which we now know Saddam was making or importing weapons forbidden to him. What other punishment was left open to the international community at that point? As the ethical expert you are, please answer this question.

 

Assuming you are correct, yes. He could be as cruel as you imagine the US to be and worse. In the end, no one wins, that's why bad people are bad for the world. It can take war and death on a massive scale to even begin to undo the damage that one bad person can cause.

 

??? What insult? Haven't you ever heard of a loaded question?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

I swear, the quality of education these days just dang near gets me down <---also NOT an insult

Let me put this as succintly as possible. There were no WMDs in Iraq. They were cooked up to set up a weapons shop in Iraq. For this weapons shop, which will lead to millions more being killed across the ME and Africa, 500,000 children died at the approximate rate of 200 a day, over a million people were massacred and more than 27 million people were subjected to weapons of mass destruction for over 8 years, tortured in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, infants were handcuffed and shot in the head and the entire country was subjected to bombs, its infrastructure disrupted and its people's lives treated like toilet paper.

And all this, for what? To keep gas prices low. Saddam was no competition at all.

 

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?​

 

Hmm, this during the Clinton administration:

http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=943

And...oh, yes, there's a bit of a competition going on...

http://www.standardbank.com/Article.aspx?id=-59&src= (from March of this year)

This from the Heritage Foundation ( a most influential right-wing think-tank), circa 2003:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/10/us-military-assistance-for-africa-a-better-solution
The above paper calls for an African military command, which we now have, of course: http://www.africom.mil/

So...Africa, both a market and a source of raw materials. Familiar story. The part where both the American working class get poorer and the poor people of the countries traded with end up poorer...it's hard to see how most Africans could end up poorer, really.

But NAFTA seems to have helped the polarization of wealth in the US, Canada, and Mexico, so free trade only benefits a select few, doesn't it?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_21_23/ai_n25013810/

 

Yes its amazing how one thinks, they can't possibly be worse off than they are and then the Africans look at Somalia :

And there is an overwhelming chorus: Oh Yes We Can!

 

So you would have no problem, then, with a serial killer living in your house. Hey, he doesn't have any guns or knives on him so it must be safe, right?

And please explain why Saddam's torture, genocide, and invasion of innocent nations mean nothing to you.

 

This and That

I admit I'm more interested in why Saddam's behavior meant nothing to Americans until the Bush administration lied to them in order to stir them to bloodlust.

Additionally, your proposition is likely fallacious insofar as it presumes S.A.M.'s perspective. Has she explicitly stated that these things mean nothing to her, or did she simply fail to write a long enough post to answer every possible question one might invent in order to criticize her?

• • •​

And?

I think you know American adventures abroad have a different context in the post-9/11 era. As Poppy Bush himself once explained, he didn't go to Baghdad in 1991 because that wasn't the U.S.'s job. It wasn't really until Junior that it became our job.

When we finally entered the European Theatre under Clinton, remember that many threw a fit about how we weren't supposed to be "the world's policeman".

Well, we seem to have accepted that role with the Iraqi Bush Adventure.

All I'm asking is that, whatever else our foreign policy has screwed up, give this particular mission a chance. After all, if we're ever going to start using our power responsibly, we must at some point behave differently than we have in the past.

Is it absolutely impossible to you that, amid all our other corruption—which, comparatively, is only significant in a worldwide context because of our prestige, since there are plenty of tyrants worse than us—we can occasionally do the right thing?

And yes, that question—Can we, at least occasionally, do the right thing?—is separate from the question of whether we can do it well.

But if someday we get real and genuine good guys in charge of the American Dream, will you even notice? Seriously, one thing you ought to have learned about Americans is that if everyone expects us to just wallow in filth, we're happy to do it that way, since it's easier.

No, really. If we can do no good in the world's eyes, we'll simply do what we do and call it good, because it costs less. Well, unless a Bush is in charge, I guess. Then again, Iraq and Afghanistan were intended to start a perpetual war of attrition that didn't end until the only Muslims left were the ones who never disagreed with us. Unfortunately for the architects, they needed to sell a pretense of justification, and enough people believed in it that we just couldn't pull off the New American Century the neocon war dogs hoped for.

 

It didn't mean nothing. We were involved in a war with his regime and afterward with no fly zones and occasional bombings. He was a continual problem. I think she is blinded by hate, not because she is anti-war per se, but because she is anti-USA. How many Iraqis does she think would have died if Saddam was left in power? How many if the Iraqis themselves revolted? In fact, many thousands did die in revolt against him. But many thousands died doing nothing against him, just victims in a reign of terror. I agree that the war as Bush waged it was problematic in many ways, but I would like to hear an ethical solution. I think she has a naive view of international relations that has it's origins in religion. She must think God is really in control, and letting things sort out on their own is a reasonable course of action. But I think the world is basically chaotic, and the only way to achieve a desired outcome is to step in and do something. Better to be killed fighting evil than live under a despot. What's so wrong with being killed anyway if you go to heaven?

She constantly implies that the US is evil for invading Iraq, but seems to be strangely silent on the subject of Saddam's evil. I want to know why.

 

In theory, not at all. In practice, could we see an example over the last 150 years - that should be a sufficient time span - when American "aid" did not exacerbate the conditions or cause even greater misery?

In theory, it would be great if the US could help the Ugandans and save them from the LRA. In practice, they will go there, set up torture prisons looking for "terrorists" and kill civilians with more drone attacks, all the while withholding aid, food and medical aid from those who need them while flooding the country with weapons which will somehow end up in the hands of the LRA and enable them to kill and mutilate even more people. This is the track record. This is what has happened in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Ethiopia, Eriteria, Somalia. So whats different about Uganda?

Well for one thing, no one is pretending that Saddam was a benefactor. And to the other, if evil bothers Americans so much they should check out what is going on in the West Bank and Gaza right now, with their blessing, funding, arms and support. The problem is American hypocrisy and the fact that we have ample evidence of their disregard for human life, which surpasses even those of the dictators they keep warning us about. WMDs in Iraq? The US has used them. Nuclear weapons in the ME? Yup, courtesy of the US administration, there are 400 of them in Israel. Genocide of blacks in Africa? Thats Clinton's curriculum vitae. Global danger from crazy maniacs who hold people hostage with nuclear weaponry? Just look at those tens of thousands of nuclear weapons under your bum, mate. You're the only ones who have used them. Twice.

So yeah I believe Americans believe they are responsible for saving the world. In theory. In practice, everywhere around the world, we find it hard to keep track of all the nameless collateral damages that keep piling up

No one ever considers the human cost - with the occasional and very rare exception of say, a Moria Kelly. Occasionally its good to look at the people concerned as individuals and recognise how their individual lives are destroyed by American weapons. e.g. Emmanuel Kelly and his brother

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQRf4g079UY


Emmanuel Kelly was adopted by his Irish-Australian mother, Moira Kelly, "Moira Kelly is also the legal guardian of 2011 X Factor contestant, Emmanuel Kelly. Emmanuel's brother, Ahmed Mustafa is a quadruple amputee and a swimmer who has set his sights on representing Australia in the 2012 Paralympics in London. Both the boys were from Mother Teresa Orphanage in Baghdad. Emmanuel Kelly shared their inspiring story of adoption on X Factor."




So you want to save the victims of warfare? Start with the ones you create and then leave behind as nameless nobodies

 

Well I don't have veto power over the US contingent to Uganda, so all I can say is, we both will have the opportunity to see if this time, this mission will work out or not. I hope I'm wrong. When people are suffering, they will take any hand thats offered to them for help. So regardless of how many times Americans screw it up, you know that next time people are still going to be cautiously optimistic that maybe this time around will be better. Thats because they really have no other choice in the matter.

But I've become incredibly cynical about American role in increasing militancy around the world - that way, anything they do right will surpass any expectations I could have while stuff like this

is just what I expect will happen anyway

 

is this an opportune moment for the 2nd verse?

/anxious

 

Well, at the time of the invasion of Iran, during which time we knew him to be gassing the Kurds, and torturing his own citizens, we were fine with it...

All the above from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war

...So you might as well wonder why it was fine with us in the 80's when he was invading and using prohibited weaponry on one set of people we didn't like (Iranians), and another set we didn't give a crap about (the Kurds-who did rebel against Saddam's government, not that it makes it ok to gas them.).
Then when Saddam Hussein invaded people we did like in a much more restrained manner(Kuwait) we invaded...Do you think this had everything to do with strategy and very little to do with humanitarian motivations?