Iraq, again

And McKinley when he began the Spanish-American War was a saint, right? :wink:

Yanny, we already had a thread and vote about going to war with North Korea. Does WW3 sound good to you Yanny?

Bush is a hipocrit. I might support him more if he wasn’t all talk and no game. He threatends Iraq with war, because he knows he can win that war easily. But North Korea? Nooooooooooo…… And by the way, he’s lieing outright to us about the crisis. He said he wouldn’t give aid to the North Koreans for dismantling their weapons program like Clinton did in 94, no instead he’ll just give “Energy and Food assistance”.

First of all, why is it hypocritical to go after a regime who is desperately trying to accumulate weapons of mass destruction? If anything, the North Korean situation stresses the importance of dissassembling such dangerous powers before they get such weapons.

North Korea:
1.) 3rd largest military in the world
2.) Potential to hit both South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons (at the cost of potentially millions of lives.)

Yanni, a war with NK is not in anybody’s best interest. However, Don Rumsfeld has already said that military options are not off the table yet. Let’s not stick our heads in the sand though, a war with NK will cost MANY lives.

Iraq will be an easy win the for our military, and the quicker we start and end that campaign, the better off that entire region will be. Once that is accomplished, we can focus our efforts on NK. I believe that NK is smart enough to know that if they use those weapons or attack ANYBODY, then they lose any and all political leverage they have gained thus far.

Iraq is doing nothing wrong. As recently as today, Iraq has been cooperating with the UN teams. They turned over a large batch of Missles simliar to those found last week. And about those Missles, I don’t see what the big deal is. They were old, empty, and expired. They probably couldn’t of been used if the Iraqis wanted.

First of all Yanni, what you just said is about the most naive thing I have heard yet. Iraq is doing nothing wrong? Are you aware that the burden of proof is on Saddam, and not us? He has to prove to us that he has no weapons, not the other way around. The only reason we’re even tolerating these pitiful UN inspectors is to appease the almighty UN gods.

The big deal with the missile shells found last week is not the potentiality of using them, it’s the fact that Saddam did not tell us that he had them. Even further evidence that he’s not being truthful about what he has.

Hey DS
Prove to me that you’ve stopped molesting children.
The onus is on you!!

(arrghhh . . . sputter sputter . . . no one has proved that i am STILL molesting children . . . shoot, how DO i prove a negative?)

Also the missles that were found (122’s i believe) are weapons allowed Iraq post-1991. They have a range of about 10 km and are maybe useful in conventional warfare.
i’m of the Hans Blix school.
Let’s find the smoking gun, and then decide what to do. Given his reputation as a “crazy person” i’m very thankful that SH is reacting as “calmly” as he is right now.

So, North Korea is aloud to extort aid from us, but Iraq isn’t aloud to sit and do nothing? If anything, we should go after North Korea now for the exact same reason we need to go after Saddam Hussein, via your logic. What your saying is basically “Oh, get Weapons and we won’t do anything…”.

Fine by me. Let’s call their bluff and threaten NK with military action. What I’m saying is that we should focus on one problem at a time, and at this moment, we’re committed to Iraq. There’s no logic in completely abandoning Iraq in favor of another war.

After we’ve kicked Iraq’s ass, let’s go take care of NK. (Using military if that’s what’s neccessary.)

Again, a double standard. Your allowing North Korea of commit Nuclear blackmail on us.

Perhaps, but military options against North Korea are not justifiably as simple as “Well, since we’re doing it in Iraq….”

So, Bush’s rhetoric only applies to weakling countries that have oil. Oil is what its really about isn’t it? China then could do whatever it wants, the US won’t do anything.

Weak excuse. If it was about the oil, we would’ve been in Iraq a long time ago. There’s not much in between us and those oil fields…

In the past 3 months, Iraq has let inspectors back in. They have given up a large amount of weapons (despite what Bush said, their report last month declared most of known weapons production facilities, which Iraq used to call (and still does…) comericial chemical factories), he has cooperated with Inspectors (Yesterday, handing over a large stockpile of tactical chemical warheads).

Sure, Iraq did all that, but only with the shadow of the American military looming over those UN weapons inspectors. Perhaps if NK had the same “persuasive” powers at their door, they would oblige to let us in also.

Yanny, remember, we took a vote and decided that the PRC (let alone S. Korea, ungrateful post war bastards) would not stand for us crushing N.Korea like a bug.

hahaha, what’s worse? A couple of guys getting together to determine the future of foreign policy…? :roll:

The situation of leaving NK and going for Iraq reminds me slightly of Lennox Lewis not being willing to fight one of the Klitschko brothers, but fighting weaker opponents.
The only difference ist, that Lewis would lose to Vitali or Vladimir, while the US would still “win” (in a way) against NK.
But otherwise, it’s much the same: You choose the thing that is easier and more money…

The problem with this entire situation is you liberals are (yet again) scrambling for your next excuse for not taking out Saddam.

First it was “it’s not our job to deal with Saddam.” Then the UN security council voted unanimously in favor of getting involved.

Next it was “well…the inspector’s haven’t found anything.” Then the inspectors DO find something. Now that the inspector’s found something, then liberals automatically come up with “well, it’s not a big enough infraction…”

Now we’ve got “well, what about North Korea!” You expect anybody to take you seriously? It’s blatantly obvious that the liberals are just out there fishing around for their next excuse for leaving Saddam in power.

I mean, c’mon, how long do we have to playcate to this gullible United Nations and their frivilous attempts at controlling a madman?

@Deviant:Scripter:

North Korea:
1.) 3rd largest military in the world
2.) Potential to hit both South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons (at the cost of potentially millions of lives.)

The size of the military doesn’tmean it’s a good military. Quality over quantity. The Chinese have the largest airforce but the best airforce is the IAF.

True, but if you have the ability to simply “throw” thousands and thousands of troops at us, then there tends to be a lot of bloodshed.

First, the U.S. air force is what the IAF is patterned after (they even fly U.S. planes.) THough the IAF is one of the more powerful airforces in the world, they are not nearly as flexible as the U.S.

Second, my big thing about Iraq is that I could support bush if he was pushing for humanitarian (Sadam starves about 50,000 children a year) but he has proven with Afganistan that he is not wiling to put up the tens of billions to put Afganistan back together again (and not Cuban Platt Amendment style but rather NGOs restoring farming abilities and hospitals, and Turkish troops keeping the tribes from killing each other [we should pay turks to keep a couple of divisions in Afganistan])

So, I am stating simply that, President Bush is going into Iraq for 3 reasons while leaving North Korea alone.

1. Oil. All his contributers.
2. Politics. An easy war = votes
3. Ease. Iraq is not a challenge. There is little chance for something to go wrong. Less risk for Bush.

Like I said before, if we wanted the oil, we could have it. There’s nothing standing between us and those oil fields! We wouldn’t be wasting our time trying to give Iraq every peaceful opportunity to end this war without bloodshed.

The Iraq situation was developing (and was being logistically planned) before North Korea even declared that it was restarting it’s nuke program. This reminds me of a line from The Sum of All Fears that goes something like this: “I’m not worried about the guy who has a thousand nukes, I’m worried about the guy who’s trying to get one.”

What have they found? Conventional missles which Iraq is aloud to have. Not only that, but expired, empty, and forgotten missles.

Dang, with that kind of innocent & defensive tone, you would make a good Iraqi general. :wink:

The hour the Missles were found, Iraq even insisted they were in it’s weapons declaration. Bush says they weren’t, but of course only Bush and Iraq have seen the original declaration

LOL :P and yet the Iraqi’s wouldn’t even tell us where to find that so-called referal to the missiles inside the declaration. If it’s in there, then show the world…

The difference between Iraqui and N. Korea can be summed up in a single word:

OIL! :cry:

The U.S. backed Saddam in Iraq in the 80s because Iran was threatening to conquer Iraq. If Iran conquered Iraq the US would have lost a major supplier of oil. Iran was our enemy because we help to overthrow their democratic government and reinstall the Shah dictatorship. Why? We did that because their was a communist party in the new iranian democracy, and heaven forbid they might win some seats in the government and that might have interuptted the flow of oil.

I am so ashamed to be an American when I hear about the horrible things my government has done to people around the world for oil. :x

Its disgusting that the richest most powerful nation in the world has stooped to the point of installing dictators and overthrowing dictators to maintain our energy supply. If we are truly the greatest nation on the Earth, then humanity truly sucks! Bring on WW3 because the cockroaches that survive the nuclear winter will be more honorable, and noble than the best Americans. The “greatest” nation on Earth.

Death to Humanity!

@Deviant:Scripter:

So, I am stating simply that, President Bush is going into Iraq for 3 reasons while leaving North Korea alone.

1. Oil. All his contributers.
2. Politics. An easy war = votes
3. Ease. Iraq is not a challenge. There is little chance for something to go wrong. Less risk for Bush.

Like I said before, if we wanted the oil, we could have it. There’s nothing standing between us and those oil fields! We wouldn’t be wasting our time trying to give Iraq every peaceful opportunity to end this war without bloodshed.

ahhh but Bush is employing barely the loosest of arguments and strategy in order to make this palatable to the more warlike Americans. But by goading Iraq the way he is, i’m kind of surprised that SH is showing the kind of restraint that he is.
Trying to give Iraq every peaceful opportunity to do what? To say “here, come into my country, look everywhere, interview everyone, go nuts”? How has he not complied yet? I’m really curious as to what is so different between now and the end of the Gulf War when the Nato force pulled out that requires that we go in and slaughter a bunch of iraqui’s again. Iraq is being completely compliant as far as i can see . . . maybe if the weapons inspectors actually find something, or if Iraq goes and attacks someone/commits genocide again or something like that, then i can see “going in” . . . .

What have they found? Conventional missles which Iraq is aloud to have. Not only that, but expired, empty, and forgotten missles.

Dang, with that kind of innocent & defensive tone, you would make a good Iraqi general. :wink:

well, i’m guessing you’re joking, but really “DS - although we insist that you nearly totally disarm, we will let you keep some weapons to defend yourself with, including short-range missles”
“oh no, thank you Nato - i don’t care if Iran overruns us, we don’t want to keep these missles”. Why would Iraq not keep some (albeit emptied) missles if they were allowed to?

The hour the Missles were found, Iraq even insisted they were in it’s weapons declaration. Bush says they weren’t, but of course only Bush and Iraq have seen the original declaration

LOL :P and yet the Iraqi’s wouldn’t even tell us where to find that so-called referal to the missiles inside the declaration. If it’s in there, then show the world…

it may well be a matter of time. Even if they are not in the declaration - who cares? It’s not like they’re “contraband missles”. Really, the US has to do MUCH more than it is doing to commit war on another country at this point. I mean PLEASE. SURELY Bush can show SOMETHING by now. Either Iraq doesn’t have a whole lot going on and Bush is running out of good reasons to march in, or Blix et al. is just not done yet, in which case what harm will waiting a little while do? I mean really, are they going to go attack Israel in the next couple of months just because they’re not currently being invaded?