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Post by glendo on Feb 15, 2003 22:30:27 GMT -5
i was in my first protest march today. while a lot of them there were 'professional protesters' it was all new to me.
i was astonished on how many people turned up. in fact, people were still turning up when it was supposed to end. the city is full of people. surely the biggest protest ever.
before i left the house, the TV shows all over the world is protesting. millions and millions. Sydney had .5 million, melbourne estimated 200.000. press are estimating 10-15 million protesters globally, but surely it is more.
this (proposed)war is a world war..... a world war against war.
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Post by daSilva on Feb 16, 2003 1:14:50 GMT -5
Yeah it was really great how they used violence in Greece to protest war. (See sararcasm).
One question, is the world a better place with or without Saddam in power, yes or no?
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Post by glendo on Feb 16, 2003 8:34:21 GMT -5
not sure... but it would be a hell of a lot better if the US being in charge.
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Post by Topcontender on Feb 16, 2003 10:40:53 GMT -5
They cliamed 1 mil in Britain, but i wonly saw a few thousand. The numbers are way over stated at functions like this.
Plus professional protestors are not what i call a real diffrence of opinion
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Post by JWK on Feb 17, 2003 2:40:19 GMT -5
Short term- of course the world would be better without saddam in power- but the consequences of the way they are going about getting him out may be phenominal. Look at what has happened to countries that the US has interfered with, hello Osama, Hello Saddam. Im not saying that all US influence has been detrimental, as they have done a wealth of amazing things and put some people better off, but generally when they screw around emplacing pawn leaders by expelling those in power to pursue the aquisition of physical assets(and you cannot say that at least one of the main reasons of this war mongering is not the overwhelming urge to capitalise on a massive oil reserve) things go awry. Take the classic example of funding Osama against the soviets in the urge to keep an iota of controll over the region and its significant resources, rather then have it fall into the hands of an emeny who would not let them see even a seed of its fruits(of course amongst other reasons such as protecting the people of the region against an opressive force((the soviets)). No worry that those funded then went and became an evil campaigned against but 10-20 years later).
A country does not pour billions of dollars into a situation, while giving meagre comparitive amounts in aid to countries in desperate need, unless they expect at least a significant return for every dollar spent. How could they justify putting so much money into something from which they would recieve little, to help a significantly smaller percentage of the people they could peacefully help with the same amount of money in other places, without expecting an equally large reward to the money expended in the effort.
...Hold on im ranting...
Think in terms a little longer then present and near future, quite frankly i think this action(warfare) is doing more harm than good.
...but thats just my 2 cents
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Post by daSilva on Feb 17, 2003 10:49:57 GMT -5
No offence JWK but perhaps as well as looking long term you should also look further back than the last ten years. Europe, Japan, South Korea and others have all done remarkably well out of US interference. Of all the world's great powers over the ages the US is by far the most philanthropic and least agressive. I don't see them as war mongerers but more as world police, and Saddam is a renegade who has been playing silly buggers with the world for the last 12 years, same with Kim Jong Il threatening to nuke the US. Instead of looking at this as war or no war you should check out how Saddam has flaunted the UN resolutions and rules for the past decade. I personally believe that Dubya is playing some high stakes poker right now, and its working, Saddam is starting to comply, but it has still taken since November and he still has a long way to go.
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Post by srrhinpassing on Feb 17, 2003 14:38:54 GMT -5
Europe, Japan, South Korea and others have all done remarkably well out of US interference and then there are North Korea, Nicaragua, Panama, Chilli, Cuba, Lebanon... But this was then and this is now. Like Afghanistan is now. I heard they're doing just grrrreeeeaatt....Karzai is now the mayor of Kaboul! S..
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Post by RacerX on Feb 17, 2003 23:15:10 GMT -5
I have to side w/ da silva on this one.
Srrh, look at the countries you listed...the US isn't running them...LOL! The ones that are messed up are generally run by dictators.
North Korea? What influence does the US have there?
To my knowledge, the US has never occupied North Korea. They've never declared war on Chilli or Nicaragua or Panama, and occupied said countries. (OK, my history isn't that great, but...) I mean if you look at the majority of those countries, they have some pretty screwed up governments which give their people little (IF ANY) say whatsoever.
Yes, I remember the US taking Noriega out of Panama, but eventually, the poeple of their country have to stand up, take responsibility for their lives.
Afghanistan...Come on, I think the jury is still out on that one, after all it hasn't even been a year yet.
I think the US does have a pretty good track record where they've actually occupied countries in the past.
As for the protestors...I'm laughing my arse off at the few hundred that showed up at the Capitol here in Austin. Talk about professional...LOL...these were the same people who always show up at the environmental protests at the capitol. H'mm, here's these so called "Environmentalists" protesting the fact that the US is about to rid Iraq of Saddam.
Isn't that the same Saddam whom blew all the oil wells, intentionally lit them afire all over Kuwait as his forces tried to pull out? Funny, I think they burned for almost a full year before they were all put out. I'm obviously not an environmental scientist, but I'm guessing this couldn't have been too good for the worlds environment...LOL!
Jeeze, these are the same people that intentionally spike trees: where the environmentalist drive a steel spike into several trees in the area where lumber companies are at work, knowing it will cause a chainsaw to break and snap back causing damage to the operator of said chainsaw. These kooks justify this by saying a human life isn't as important as a tree...LOL! Wuff.
Oh well, I've voiced my opinion on this crap. It's nothing more than a power play...power IS going to change hands, sooner or later. They just need to figure out the best way to do it, without bringing harm to people.
Hey glendo, you really think it's better to have Saddam in charge, in the long run? Again, I don't know where you get your news from but seriously, that man is not right. He has palace after palace, and his people starve. He lives a pretty plush life, while his people can't get medicine and proper hospital treatment. you call that better off? So what you're saying is that countries run like Iraq are better off than countries which are run via "democracy", or at least the people live free?
Following this theory, you're saying that countries like N.Korea, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc are better off than those like the U.S., Germany, Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, etc. I really find this hard to believe...that you really feel that way.
Also, another (most obvious) country left off your all's list, that the US supports, or has had influence in: Isreal.
I can't believe you missed that one...I mean, isn't that the real problem for many out there?
Who knows, RacerX
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Post by smokingun on Feb 17, 2003 23:29:41 GMT -5
RacerX, how would you explain pakistan (a fundamentalist country run by a dictator) which was heavily aided and abetted by the US to the extent that the then (democratically elected) prime minister of india had to actually stand up to the US navy's attempt to block india's ports? how would you account for Osama and his buddies pocessing stinger missiles? how would you account for some of the afghan groups fighting in kashmir (thankfully the US calls them terrorists now before they were freedom fighters) pocessing these same weapons? can you honestly say that the US acted in a manner that could be claimed to be morally correct? even at that time did they not think about whom they were helping and against whom?
i wonder has any US president been hauled up on charges of using chemical weapons? how would you explain Agent Orange and the effect it continues to have today on new born children? is it less horifying because it was the good guys (read americans) who used these weapons?
smokingun
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Post by RacerX on Feb 18, 2003 0:44:56 GMT -5
Smokingun,
Greetings!
Wuff, good questions. Again, I confess, I don't know jack squat about the Middle East & Asia. I had no idea that the US was blockading the ports of India.
As for supplying weapons, hell yes. I've acknowledged in other posts, that I'm well aware of the fact that the US has tampered with many countries. I am convinced it is why Russia couldn't over-run Afghanistan.
I know our government is very manipulative & this gets us into alot of trouble. I agree with ALOT of what JWK posted, however, for this discussion, I was thinking more on the lines of countries the US has actually occupied and glendo's statement that Saddam is a hell of alot better off than the US.
I guess that depends on how you want to live though.
As for Agent Orange, YES, this is a tragedy. Especially if it is still effecting babies being born today. That's messed up. This country should do everything with-in reason to assist those people.
Another thing worth noting, in some countries, the people rejected our way of life. How do you help those that won't accept your way of life, or won't accept your help? (I know the governments answer: force'em to accept it, or screw'em and let'em go without) How do you get help to those people? Will their government allow it? Look at Cuba? The people their are starving, and there's no reason for it, but Good O'l Castro, he's taking great care of his people compared to what the U.S. could do for them. (Sarcasm). Or for what THEY could do for themselves. Anyway, I'm off on another tangent...
As for War Crimes to U.S. Presidents. Why not? What makes a U.S. President above the law? I was for the impeachment of Clinton, simply on the grounds that he committed perjury. I assure you, if it had been me or any of my friends that had committed perjury, we'd be behind bars. Why's he so special?
If any U.S. President uses chemical, or biological weapons, they should be punished. As for those that authorized the use of agent orange, I'm thinking they're all dead. I don't know for a fact which ones did authorise its use, but the only ones I could think of are LBJ & Nixon. If this Agent Orange was a banned substance, then by all means, they should have been brought up on charges as War Criminals.
Th only problem I see with that, is simply who's going to charge them, and so what if they do? It's not like they'd be in a position to do anything about it. Hell, the UN doesn't give a shit that Saddam gassed the people in his own country. If they did, they sure can't do anything about it.
Or what about the many countries in Africa? The UN obviously doesn't give a damned about them either, and from what I gather, we're talking MILLIONS of people being murdered in just a few years time. It barely makes the media over here...
Talk about mass murderers. These bastards aren't human. They kill for the sake of killing. Does Kofi and the UN do anything about that? Hell no.
It's like I said earlier, it all boils down to power and money. I get angry just thinking about it. We all get played like a bunch of pawns & idiots. The media sucks it all up, and we're supposed to just go on as if everythings A-OK! Wuff.
Sorry I went off on another tangent. It's late & I'm just tired & rambling...
Later, RacerX
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Post by Henrik on Feb 18, 2003 2:32:09 GMT -5
I posted about this in the US Government thread but got no reaction yet, but since RacerX is bringing up crimes by US government officials, just wanted to show you what happens to some.
Elliott Abrams, newly appointed director of Mideast affairs for the National Security Council (and I assume a fairly important position these days when it comes to advising the government) is a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration who was convicted on two counts of lying to congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, then pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
So, now we know what happens to some criminals...
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Post by Henrik on Feb 18, 2003 5:13:30 GMT -5
I have read in several places comments made by people that are pro-US, in which they keep stating that the rest of the world, and France in particular, are now pro Saddam.
Instead I believe what we are witnessing is simply how successfull the Bush administration have been in alienating themselves from the rest of the world. Ever since they came to power, they have worked in a direction to isolate the US from the rest of the world. I have been bringing up a number of these actions here basically since Bush was elected. Now that they could use some support, they are simply reaping what they planted. How do they then react to this? By being even more arrogant!
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Post by sh on Feb 18, 2003 9:31:22 GMT -5
Srrh, look at the countries you listed...the US isn't running them...LOL! The ones that are messed up are generally run by dictators. North Korea? What influence does the US have there? To my knowledge, the US has never occupied North Korea. They've never declared war on Chilli or Nicaragua or Panama, and occupied said countries. We're not talking invasion here RX. da silva mentionned "interference". Surely if the US interfered in S.Korea, they did like wise in the North. And they interfeered in Chilli (Helping Pinochet in Power), Nicaragua (remember, Ronnmy boy?) etc... As for the good track reccord of the countries invaded by the US...like where? Korea? Vietnamn? The US air force used napalm on villages.... As for Afghasnistan: all international forces are based around Kaboul (hence my joke that Karzai is mayor of Kaboul) but the rest of the country was "sold back" to the war lords and opium production grew by 1200% since the "invasion". What's more, once the US becomes the identified agressor, all acts of "terrorism" against US targets, will become justified acts of "resistance". Why the US wants to be one of the most hated country in the world, I dunno...it really beats the hell out of me... The first vistim of this war is truth. Democracy was a collateral damage... S...h
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Post by USPatriot on Feb 19, 2003 9:55:13 GMT -5
We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names
Not in our name will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths no more transfusions of blood for oil
Not in our name will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil
Not by our mouths will we let fear silence us
Not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil
Not by our will and Not in our name
We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity
We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice,freedom and peace
Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real.
NOT IN OUR NAME !!
Best Regards, US Patriot.
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Post by Cine_Man on Feb 19, 2003 16:39:35 GMT -5
Here is a link if you're interested: www.purpleheart.org/m0597a2.htmAnd a further footnote. There was an erroneous rumour floating around that the substance paraquat was a form of Agent Orange that was used in an aerial anti-pot campaign. Paraquat is not Agent Orange. Orange is only one of the cocktails that the USGov used in Vietnam, there is an entire wet bar that was left behind. The news doesn't stop there, though... Orange is actually a mixture of a common herbicide... 2,4-D (you've heard of that -- its still in widespread general use -- I think its the active ingredient in 'Roundup') and 2,4,5-T ... which was banned in 1985. 2,4,5-T's main contaminant is dioxin. I'm thinking, why didn 't they toss in some PCB's just to make it more interesting? Cine_... Amendments: 2,4-D is actually a Restricted Use Chemical now, in the U.S. and is not used in Roundup -- which is "Glyphosate" --a supposedly safe herbicide... check this out.... www.jrussellshealth.com/pests24d.html
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