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Do you think George Dubya Bush is a war criminal?

13

Comments

  • #62
    AckwelFoley
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,556 ✭✭✭✭AckwelFoley


    Trying to label bush a war criminal is laughable.

    im at pains to understand why there is no witch hunt when it comes to real criminals like the great zimbabwae administration or perhaps china, north korea or the serbs?

    ...oh wait, i do know..its anti americanism.. People just love to hate america regardless of what they do.


  • #63
    Frankie Lee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,277 ✭✭✭Frankie Lee


    snyper wrote: »
    Trying to label bush a war criminal is laughable.

    im at pains to understand why there is no witch hunt when it comes to real criminals like the great zimbabwae administration or perhaps china, north korea or the serbs?

    ...oh wait, i do know..its anti americanism.. People just love to hate america regardless of what they do.

    No I hate all mass murderers equally.


  • #64
    Morzadec
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,952 ✭✭✭Morzadec


    prinz wrote: »
    That's the difference between global consensus and agreement and unilateral action with no justification other than to interfere in Georgian affairs, between ethnicities.

    Global agreement? I think you'll find the U.N. voted against the Iraq war and Bush went ahead anyway. The undermining of the U.N.'s decision inclines me to say 'yes' he is a war criminal. If it was a leader of any other country who went against the U.N.'s decision we wouldn't even be having this debate. No other country in the world would've been able to go against the U.N., which was supposed to be set up so maniacs like Bush wouldn't be able to invade countries at will with no justification.


    What makes it even more sickening was that the U.S.'s decision wasn't even justified - no WMD's were found.


  • #65
    arybvtcw0eolkf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,608 ✭✭✭✭arybvtcw0eolkf


    Not only do I believe that if he'd been another countries leader he'd be facing trial in The Hague, but I also believe he's a very evil person and probably a lunatic.

    .


  • #66
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    Terry wrote: »
    I do and I have my reasons.
    Unsanctioned invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Gitmo and the breaches of the Geneva convention make him twice as bad as the supposed terrorists he was chasing.

    His close relationship with the Saudis (A country which treats women as slaves) was sickening (Obama is no different).

    Anyway, that's just my opinion.

    There's a poll.
    Vote in it in the way you want. It's private.
    Feel free to voice your own opinion within the site rules.

    No I don't.


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  • #67
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Frankie Lee wrote: »
    No I hate all mass murderers equally.
    Can you distinguish clearly between the United States and a Warlord that burns villages, rapes girls and women and brainwashes children to be boy soldiers? Say what you will about GW but I dont think he raped any kids.


  • #68
    ShooterSF
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,822 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Frankie Lee wrote: »
    No I hate all mass murderers equally.

    So if an Army starts killing people how do you propose stopping them?


  • #69
    dlofnep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,759 ✭✭✭✭dlofnep


    Yes, he is a war criminal.

    Holding people in what could only be described as a concentration camp.. Internment without trial, and disgusting torture of people who have no been found guilty in a court of law.

    I believe many members of his camp should also be up for war-crimes, for leading the American public into a war in Iraq on false pretenses. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the back of Saddam - But I'm not happy with how America went about doing it. They lied to their own citizens in order to get them to support the war in Iraq.. It has lead to 100,000's of deaths, and absolutely zilch has been accomplished. Iraq is the same ****-hole, if not worse than it was 10 years ago.

    My gripe isn't so much with Bush, I think he was a puppet - But with his camp and government. They dictate who's the terrorist and who isn't. They dictate what's right and what's wrong, even if it means contradicting themselves.

    They get onto China about human rights issues (which I agree with), but they themselves have breached basic human rights with Guantanamo.

    It's not a witch-hunt against American, but rather - against a moronic Government who tries to dictate to the world what's what.


  • #70
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Overheal wrote: »
    Can you distinguish clearly between the United States and a Warlord that burns villages, rapes girls and women and brainwashes children to be boy soldiers? Say what you will about GW but I dont think he raped any kids.

    No, but if you followed Seymour M Hersh's articles in the New Yorker, you'd know its probable that children were raped to put pressure on prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and certainly that men were anally raped with implements in Baghram.......


  • #71
    nlgbbbblth
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,668 ✭✭✭nlgbbbblth


    Overheal wrote: »
    Can you distinguish clearly between the United States and a Warlord that burns villages, rapes girls and women and brainwashes children to be boy soldiers? Say what you will about GW but I dont think he raped any kids.

    yeah - Bush didn't kill anyone. If you wanna blame anyone then blame the US soldiers themselves. No one forced them to join the army.


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  • #72
    Frankie Lee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,277 ✭✭✭Frankie Lee


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    So if an Army starts killing people how do you propose stopping them?

    Whatever Gandhi would have done, mass protests, civil disobedience etc.


  • #73
    Frankie Lee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,277 ✭✭✭Frankie Lee


    Overheal wrote: »
    Can you distinguish clearly between the United States and a Warlord that burns villages, rapes girls and women and brainwashes children to be boy soldiers? Say what you will about GW but I dont think he raped any kids.

    Most of the time the Warlord is funded by the US and uses US built weapons, so its difficult to distinguish.

    Of course China and Russia do this also but not on such a widespread scale.


  • #74
    ShooterSF
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,822 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Frankie Lee wrote: »
    Whatever Gandhi would have done, mass protests, civil disobedience etc.

    Ok. To each their own I guess. I know I'd rather fight back than say "Hey don't you point that gun at me".


  • #75
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    nlgbbbblth wrote: »
    yeah - Bush didn't kill anyone. If you wanna blame anyone then blame the US soldiers themselves. No one forced them to join the army.
    Interesting point. But remember in Vietnam and Korea there was a Draft (though there has not been one sinc) and those soldiers did burn villages and rape women. Who gets the blame? The government that conscripted the individual or the individual who committed an act which was entirely outside of what he was trained and ordered to do?

    Also - Movie Reference - but if you remember a Few Good Men, the 2 marines involved were still found guilty of conduct unbecoming a US Marine, and were dishonorably discharged from the service. They were following an Order, passed on from a Lieutenant which came from a Colonel, but they were still expected to have an understanding of the actions they were carrying out. The Colonel in this case violated a Standing Order from a JAG Rear Admiral.

    Despite being ordered to torture and interrogate detainees in Guantanamo, those Soldiers still deserve to stand trial, imo. And go along up the chain until you find the original order. However, Obama very recently exercised his Office to Pardon these individuals: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055541103 In a way if you were to persecute those individuals you would have to persecute anyone who ordered them to do it, and we all know where that chain ends up, and I don't think Obama would really have the stones to go that far - this was the easy out.


  • #76
    nlgbbbblth
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,668 ✭✭✭nlgbbbblth


    Overheal wrote: »
    Interesting point. But remember in Vietnam and Korea there was a Draft (though there has not been one sinc) and those soldiers did burn villages and rape women. Who gets the blame? The government that conscripted the individual or the individual who committed an act which was entirely outside of what he was trained and ordered to do?

    In Vietnam / Korea, the individual soldier should get the blame.


  • #77
    Terry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,073 ✭✭✭✭Terry


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Surely you don't think Gitmo and the concentration camps are the same?
    Of course not. I never so much as implied they were.
    forget the concentration camps for a minute and think about all the Russians killed when Hitler invaded Russia.

    Gitmo is a place where the Geneva convention is completely ignored and it was Dubya who gave those orders.

    prinz wrote: »
    Oh right so what was that about the Americans leaving Afghan women to legal marital rape? You're contradicting yourself. Either you want democracy and human rights or you don't.
    Why have they not taken out the current president of Afghanistan if they are so worried about marital rapes?
    Oh yeah, the war monger is no longer in power.

    I didn't agree with how the Taliban were running Afghanistan, but I also did not agree with the way Bush went in guns a blazin'.

    Uhm..yeah pretty much. If the allies had followed your view nobody would have stood up to the likes of Hitler in case civilians get killed in the crossfire :confused: Bizarre attitude. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed as the allies swept across Europe to liberate country after country from tyranny and dictatorship... this is the first time I've heard anyone use that as a reason that they shouldn't have done it.
    Not comparable.
    Hitler and the Axis were invading countries around the world.
    The Afghans were shooting people with AK47's (and some CIA supplied arms).
    Saddam allowed (eventually) Hanz Blix and his crew into Iraq and they confirmed there were no weapons of mass destruction.

    Better question what did they do to deserve Saddam, remember this was a man who tested his new weapons on his own Iraqi people for years.Was hated by much of the Arab world as a bully and a despot and at one stage in an "election" got 100% of the vote based on a 100% turn out. Not even Dubya managed that one.
    That's not a better question. That's just a statement trying to undermine my argument.
    All the Americans had to do was send in a few CIA dudes and let them loose.
    The Iraqis could also have fought against Saddam.
    With the right amount of organisation, dictators can be taken out and with far less casualties than an American led bunch of cowboys.

    ..........right........ so bombing market places and Mosques and murdering Iraqi civilians is patriotism if they do it.......
    Nope. That's idiocy.
    Shooting occupying soldiers does not make you an insurgent though.

    Like I said do you think Churchill should have gone on trial for war crimes against the Germans? tbh there's actually a better case to be made there.

    So because Bush won, that makes everything ok?


  • #78
    ShooterSF
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,822 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Terry wrote: »
    Of course not. I never so much as implied they were.
    forget the concentration camps for a minute and think about all the Russians killed when Hitler invaded Russia.

    Gitmo is a place where the Geneva convention is completely ignored and it was Dubya who gave those orders.

    Your comparison not mine ;) I think he went overboard I also think it was probably an extreme paranoid reaction he had to 9/11 and not a premeditated plan beforehand. It still could have been handled a hell of a lot better.
    So because Bush won, that makes everything ok?

    There is a precedent to be fair. Name one leader who won a war and was prosecuted for war crimes without being captured by more powerful enemies.


  • #79
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Terry wrote: »
    forget the concentration camps for a minute and think about all the Russians killed when Hitler invaded Russia.

    Gitmo is a place where the Geneva convention is completely ignored and it was Dubya who gave those orders.
    You're still comparing a detainment camp to the field of battle, versus soldiers and civilians who were killed and prisoners who are fed and accommodated, who have also, subsequently, been interrogated and tortured. No mass killings in gitmo. No Nazi's gunning down fleeing Russians with Lugers.
    Why have they not taken out the current president of Afghanistan if they are so worried about marital rapes?
    Oh yeah, the war monger is no longer in power.

    I don't know much about Afghanistan but I assume to believe a democratic govt is in place? And these people still voted to maintain this law? Majority rules, what can you do?
    Not comparable [Allies retake of Europe : Middle East conflict].
    Hitler and the Axis were invading countries around the world.
    The Afghans were shooting people with AK47's (and some CIA supplied arms).

    The afghans had leading terrorist cells operating within their borders, manipulating the actions of multiple other terrorist cells, across The World.
    Saddam allowed (eventually) Hanz Blix and his crew into Iraq and they confirmed there were no weapons of mass destruction.
    From our perspective, Saddam could have had enough time (for as long as he stalled for - days if not weeks) to conceal his nuclear proliferation program, or have it dismantled and buried in sand temporaily. Essentially, all the time was lost from the Credibility of Hans Blix's invespection.
    All the Americans had to do was send in a few CIA dudes and let them loose.
    The Iraqis could also have fought against Saddam.
    With the right amount of organisation, dictators can be taken out and with far less casualties than an American led bunch of cowboys.

    The Bob Woodward book, Plan of Attack, goes into vivid detail about the planning stages of the Iraq War - those options were discussed, but for reasons many and varied, the option to use military force was ultimately invoked.
    Nope. That's idiocy.
    Shooting occupying soldiers does not make you an insurgent though.
    When its against the agenda of the standing indigenous government, yes it is. This isn't like when Hitler invaded France and a french man shoots an occupying Nazi: this would be like if Hitler overthrew the Monarchy in France, installed a French Run government elected by the people of France, supplied peace forces to maintain stability during the New Government's formation, and then a Monarchy-loving Frenchman kills a Nazi.
    So because Bush won, that makes everything ok?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman
    When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22 percent in the Gallup Poll as of February 1952 was actually lower than Richard Nixon's was in August 1974 at 24 percent, the month that Nixon resigned. Public feeling toward Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years, however, and the period shortly after his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation among both historians and members of the general public. Since leaving office, Truman has fared well in polls ranking the presidents. He has never been listed lower than ninth, and most recently was seventh in a Wall Street Journal poll in 2005. He has also had his critics. After a review of information available to Truman on the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism.[166]
    Truman died during a time when the nation was consumed with crises in Vietnam and Watergate, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career.[167] In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House. Truman has been portrayed on screen many times, several in performances that have won wide acclaim, and the pop band Chicago recorded a nostalgic song, "Harry Truman" (1975).
    Due to Truman's critical role in the US government's decision to recognize Israel, the Israeli village of Beit Harel was renamed Kfar Truman.
    The Truman Scholarship, a federal program that seeks to honor U.S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy, was created in 1975.[168]
    The President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering, a distinguished postdoctoral three-year appointment at Sandia National Laboratories was created in 2004.[169]
    In 1951 President Truman established the Science Advisory Committee as part of the Office of Defence Mobilization. Renamed the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it lasted until President Nixon disbanded it. It was reinstated by the first Bush administration under the name PCAST.
    The USS Harry S. Truman was named on September 7, 1996. The ship, sometimes known as the 'HST', was authorized as USS United States, but her name was changed before the keel laying.
    The University of Missouri established the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs to advance the study and practice of governance.[170] The university's Missouri Tigers athletics programs have an official mascot named Truman the Tiger.
    To mark its transformation from a regional state teachers' college to a selective liberal arts university and to honor the only Missourian to become president, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University on July 1, 1996. A member institution of the City Colleges of Chicago, Harry S Truman College in Chicago, Illinois is named in honor of the president for his dedication to public colleges and universities. The headquarters for the State Department, built in the 1930s but never officially named, was dedicated as the Harry S Truman Building in 2000.
    In 1991, Truman was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol.
    Thom Daniel, grandson of the Trumans accepted a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame in 2006 to honor his late grandfather. John Truman, Truman's nephew, would accept a star for Bess Truman in 2007. The Walk of Fame is in Marshfield, Missouri, a city Truman visited in 1948.


    Done reading that passage?
    this is the man that effectively dropped the two biggest bombs in recorded history: Little Boy, and Fat Man. He has not been tried for War Crimes, and never will be. Nor will his predecessor, who sanctioned the Manhattan Project. GWB can't hold a roman candle to HST, literally, or figuratively.


  • #80
    giggsy664
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,457 ✭✭✭giggsy664


    I demand "I don't care" be replaced with "Arabi Jaguar"


  • #81
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    giggsy664 wrote: »
    I demand "I don't care" be replaced with "Arabi Jaguar"
    Or Iraqi Jaguar..


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  • #82
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Or ' O ma Gawd, they're comin right at us'


  • #83
    Irishcrx
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,861 ✭✭✭Irishcrx


    America have been war criminals for many years they just cover and lie through their teeth anyone with half a brain could see this they have had relations with so many middle east countries they don't care about the people american or otherwise it's all money and power.


  • #84
    prinz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    Terry wrote: »
    Why have they not taken out the current president of Afghanistan if they are so worried about marital rapes?
    Oh yeah, the war monger is no longer in power.

    So you think they're wrong to spread democracy, but when they do establish a fledgling democracy they are wrong for not imposing outside laws on the elected government of the country......... damned if you do, damned if you don't.
    Terry wrote: »
    I didn't agree with how the Taliban were running Afghanistan, but I also did not agree with the way Bush went in guns a blazin'.

    You love the old cowboy stereotype.I suppose that applies to the many many many countries who have contributed to the force in Afghanistan?


    Terry wrote: »
    Not comparable.
    Hitler and the Axis were invading countries around the world.
    The Afghans were shooting people with AK47's (and some CIA supplied arms).
    Saddam allowed (eventually) Hanz Blix and his crew into Iraq and they confirmed there were no weapons of mass destruction.

    So Saddam didn't invade countries around him? :confused: Test WMD on his own civilians? Cause the deaths of far far far more Iraqis than have lost their lives since the war? The Taliban were training recruits from across the world the best ways to go about murdering and terrorising on a grand scale.


    Terry wrote: »
    That's not a better question. That's just a statement trying to undermine my argument.
    All the Americans had to do was send in a few CIA dudes and let them loose.
    The Iraqis could also have fought against Saddam.
    With the right amount of organisation, dictators can be taken out and with far less casualties than an American led bunch of cowboys.

    So a war is a war crime, but sending in a hitsquad is ok? Really hilarious this argument. Absolutely nonsensical given your overall position on this.
    Terry wrote: »
    Nope. That's idiocy.
    Shooting occupying soldiers does not make you an insurgent though.

    In case you hadn't noticed they're not occupying. They are present at the invitation of the Iraqi government to maintain the peace and security which would not be possible without their help.If the Americans had packed up and gone home and left a bloody civil war behind them the same people would be damning them for not staying put.
    Terry wrote: »
    So because Bush won, that makes everything ok?

    No that's not my point.Presumably you harbour the same sentiments for other world leaders past and present?


  • #85
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    NO! I’m pretty confident history will be far more kind to GWB than most here are (but not when it comes to fiscal responsibly). He left Obama with the kinds of powers and institutions he needs to prevent further attacks, and successfully prosecute the long war on terror (a new kind of war all nations need to figure out how to combat). He left behind the Department of Homeland Security, reorganized intelligence services with newly developed capacities to share information, and a revised FISA regime that grants broader and modernized wiretapping authority. If Obama chooses to abandon these tools, and we are attacked again, I doubt history will be kind to Barack.


  • #86
    PeakOutput
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,638 ✭✭✭PeakOutput


    i hate the guy and think he is an idiot but no he is not a war criminal

    going into iraq was the right thing to do imo (weather or not they did it for the right reasons is irrelevant imo no country with the power to remove a dictator like saddam should stand by and do nothing) and they won the war fairly quickly the mess it descended into afterwards was the mistake.


  • #87
    jhegarty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,138 ✭✭✭jhegarty


    The big problem with the whole WMD thing was that Sadam wanted everyone to think he had them.

    He played silly beggers with the UN because he knew Iran would kick his ass if they found out he didn't have them.

    The only difference between Sadam and Hitler was how good their respective armies were.

    I don't agree with gitmo , but I think the world in 2025 will be a better place because of the two invasions.


  • #88
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    prinz wrote: »
    So Saddam didn't invade countries around him? :confused: Test WMD on his own civilians? ?
    2002 wrote:

    IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

    Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

    This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
    C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
    (my bold and underline)
    It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force
    (my bold and underline again)
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

    Libya...that lost a war with Chad....
    Prinz wrote:
    In case you hadn't noticed they're not occupying. They are present at the invitation of the Iraqi government to maintain the peace and security which would not be possible without their help.

    So they helped establish a Government that then requested them to stay....very convincing.

    The majority of Iraqi oil fields are in Foreign control, and the economy is organised along lines set down by the unelected CPA run by Bremer, who used staffers strictly from the right of the US political spectrum....Hmmmm. Very 'mission accomplished'


  • #89
    prinz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    So he didn't invade Kuwait, fight a war with Iran, fire missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel? He didn't test out his new toy poison gas on the IRAQI town of Halabjah to see if it was any use, so he could then use it on Iran?

    A secret top-level meeting about a possible future conflict, of course it was not to be distributed to the press, so don't see what that has to do with anything.Saddam got enough warnings about the threat of military action against him.

    As for Iran, North Korea and Libya, fire ahead. It wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest to see those little tinpot tyrants go either. The problem is Saddam was a bad leader, with limited resources despite what he liked to claim he had, whose people were terrified of him, had very little control over the population or army once the invasion began, and the country collapsed.

    Attack Iran and you may kiss a lot of Israel goodbye, plus the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would put up a proper fight against groundtroops. You think 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths is bad, multiply that figure by 5, 10.... and you might start getting a picture of what a similar assault on Iran would look like.

    Ditto if not worse for North Korea.1,100,000 ideological, highly trained and equipped troops just itching to go to war, plus a Revolutionary Red Guard of up to 5,000,000 more. You want to guess how many would die in that invasion?


  • #90
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    prinz wrote: »
    So he didn't invade Kuwait, fight a war with Iran, fire missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel? He didn't test out his new toy poison gas on the IRAQI town of Halabjah to see if it was any use, so he could then use it on Iran?

    Seeing as he was backed by the US during that period, I fail to see the relevance of bringing it up to say it justified an invasion by that same state. The fate of the Kurds and the Iraqi people only became "important" when Saddam bucked US interests.

    Secondly, you seem to forget that the vast bulk of his military and weapons manafacturing was destroyed and dismantled during and post Gulf War 1.
    prinz wrote: »
    A secret top-level meeting about a possible future conflict, of course it was not to be distributed to the press, so don't see what that has to do with anything.

    Then I'll point it out to you. Its the view of the US chief allys Government. It states that the US had decided to go to war, and explains that the whole buisness of the Weapons inspectors was a ruse to justify war. It shows that they did not consider him a threat to his neighbours, and that the public line of him threatening them, the British or the Americans was in fact a complete fabrication. It shows that the US had put little planning into the aftermath, which was to have grave consequences for the Iraqi people.

    And yes, it wasn't distributed to the press. What was distributed to the press and the British parliament was a series of half truths, lies, wild speculation and cherry picked facts to justify a war that there was in fact no need for.


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  • #91
    wes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,749 ✭✭✭✭wes


    prinz wrote: »
    So he didn't invade Kuwait, fight a war with Iran, fire missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel? He didn't test out his new toy poison gas on the IRAQI town of Halabjah to see if it was any use, so he could then use it on Iran?

    The West supported his war against Iran, and also were supported him, during the period where he gassed the Kurds.

    As for invading Kuwait and firing missiles at Saudi Arabia, yeah he did those things and the West invaded him during the first Gulf War. What does this have to do with justifying the second one? It has feck all to do with it. Personally, the war of aggression launched by the US/UK axis is no different than Saddam's war against of aggression against Kuwait.

    Now after the first gulf war, he had no capability to attack anyone and was already punished by sanctions which resulted in a lot of civilian deaths, especially among children. He was no threat anyone at this point in time and was not engaged in any aggression.
    prinz wrote: »
    A secret top-level meeting about a possible future conflict, of course it was not to be distributed to the press, so don't see what that has to do with anything.Saddam got enough warnings about the threat of military action against him.

    So? The US wanted a war with a nation and made up lies about WMDs and what. So what if they gave him warning? He had no WMDs. It was the US who were in the wrong in this instance.
    prinz wrote: »
    As for Iran, North Korea and Libya, fire ahead. It wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest to see those little tinpot tyrants go either. The problem is Saddam was a bad leader, with limited resources despite what he liked to claim he had, whose people were terrified of him, had very little control over the population or army once the invasion began, and the country collapsed.

    So he clearly wasn't a threat to anyone.
    prinz wrote: »
    Attack Iran and you may kiss a lot of Israel goodbye, plus the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would put up a proper fight against groundtroops. You think 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths is bad, multiply that figure by 5, 10.... and you might start getting a picture of what a similar assault on Iran would look like.

    Ditto if not worse for North Korea.1,100,000 ideological, highly trained and equipped troops just itching to go to war, plus a Revolutionary Red Guard of up to 5,000,000 more. You want to guess how many would die in that invasion?

    What exactly is your argument here?!? How does it justify the Iraq invasion?

    **EDIT**
    Oh and Bush is a war criminal and should be sent to the Hague and would hopefully be sharing a cell with Omar Al-Bashir, but I think I have a better chance winning the Euro Millions and the Irish Lotto jack pots in the same week.


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