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Originally posted by ilovetheusers
I totally forgot about this thread. May have missed a good argument too. Darn.
Buckle up. :p
There is still no dispute; Saddam is not a pleasant chap. He has done atrocious things to his people and even regularly killed his closest cabinet ministers. He likes to spring clean in case some of them decide to overthrow him.
There are plenty of sources for pictures of wounded civilians. If we were looking at more balanced images we would see more of this type of thing. Our views are biased! Either because it’s difficult to look at the consequences when things go wrong, or our governments do not want us to be embarrassed and therefore angered by the floods of wounded caused by tragic mistakes. It’s naive to think that we aren’t also subject to propaganda.
Countries further removed from the conflict and those opposed to the war are certainly showing more of these images. Importantly they are being watched by many Arab nations. If we are to understand the source of hatred we have to address the causes. If we continue to turn away from something because it is difficult to face then we make ourselves more hated. It is a vicious circle; you need only look to Israel for a glimpse of the future unless policy shifts.
The region feels oppressed by the west. Extremism is a side effect of this and at the moment we are making it worse not better.
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5 guys mistreated in Guantanamo Bay. Boo hoo. Someone isn’t allowed prayer mats and other items that might be used as a weapon against guards. Oh how my heart bleeds… Weep, weep. Didn’t we just see American soldiers on TV with their brains blown out by close range gunfire? Oddly to me this seems to be a bit of a contrast…
They’re all mistreated in the opinion of international law. I wasn’t talking about a few of them. There have been 21 releases and there are 660 still held. The camp fails to meet the requirements laid down to protect prisoners of war. Don’t get carried away with the Unlawful Combatants thing because as I said before this too is illegal. I’m not talking personal opinions I’m talking about breaking the law. Read the stories I linked before. It’s all there in black and white.
I said that I personally think that it probably is reasonable to hold many of the people in Guantanamo. BUT… Not indefinitely at least not without trial. There has to be a point where you worry about the innocent men among the 660. You have to prove that they belong there because there are innocent men there and some who were forced to fight for the Taliban.
I did also say that the pictures of dead soldiers were abhorrent? You aren’t getting an argument out of me on that one.
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Christian aid – well, I didn’t see any humanitarian crisis, in fact I saw a giant boat loaded with food and reports of how water was given to those who needed it… Odd how this group is against military action. Isn’t this the same religion that started the crusades and tortured millions in the name of their god back in the day? I must be confused, but I’d never refer to any religion that killed millions in the name of it’s god as a source to back up a viewpoint for peace. Please don’t think I’m getting down on Christianity in general, I mean, I am but it’s not coming off how I want it to.
You really ought to have deleted that para before you posted it. :) There must be drugs out there to help restrain the voices.
You are right you didn’t come off too well. I’m sorry I tease but you really went off on one there. :)
There was a crusade but it was quite a while ago and I don’t think this organisation have much in common with the Christian nutters who went out and converted / massacred during 1095 and 1291. (Yeah I did use a search engine.)
You mean this British ship? The Sir Galahad aid shipment.
It may be a big ship but you highlight an example of "spin" They took 650 tonnes of aid into Umm Qasr.
This was the only large shipment due for some time.
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From the BBC web site
Save the Children echoed this sentiment saying aid from the military was just a "drop in the ocean" given the UN food programme estimated 460,000 tonnes of food was needed to feed the Iraqi population each month.
650 Tonnes sounds like a lot until you realise they need 460,000 Tonnes.
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Please read Stupid White Men. NO. I am not going to read a book written by a man well known for distorting facts to suit his own agenda. Michael Moore is a dig dong of the highest caliber. See, I live here and I vote using this system. I have used the punch card system every single time I have voted and it was never difficult. There are instructions, people to help you and the cards are never difficult to read unless you are an idiot. Maybe people too stupid to push a pin through a hole net to an arrow that leads to a candidates name (and I support that right) but my gawd, I really don’t want people that dumb voting… I know the liberal arguments and I can tell you that it’s 90% BS.
Freedom of speech lets me say that Bush and Clinton are chowderheads. Mike Moore is a dingus and he’s full of it and he lies but not telling the full truth and changing things to suit his own needs. It has ZERO to do with someone getting published. Let me let you in on a secret of how publishing works. Publishers publish according to whether or not a book will make money. There is no great conservative overmind that keeps Mike from being published until the grannies at your local library raise a fuss…
Mike Moore was already published un-edited until September 11th. His 1st publisher wrote to demand a re-write after that. Then they were going to sue him for not changing the book. The books were actually printed by the publisher they then refused to put them on the shelves.
I read about the distorted facts in “Bowling for Columbine”. I have even had correspondence with the chap whose site debunked the film that someone linked before.
You still can’t dispute what was written without at least finding it in a library and checking it out. He refers to American public records.
The way that masses were barred from voting because of their names is a scandal. Large parts of a community known to have voted for Gore were very craftily excluded from voting. There’s all sorts of scandal in the book which link to the next point…
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Bush is giving contracts to his buddies.
That’s not really the full statement. BBC report, see last paragraph - Contracts handled by the US Agency for International Development.
The fact is that the work is being doled out to American companies. The “TRUST” being setup to rebuild Iraq means that contracts are being paid for by Iraqi oil. This is what everyone was criticising before the war. It isn’t very subtle. It certainly isn’t at all diplomatic when people are calling this an occupation and not liberation.
But like you said, it appears corrupt and if so then people should be punished.
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A grad student wrote the document that was referred to by the British govt… Uh, huh. Odd how he must have psychic powers because they just found a lot of ricin and botulism organisms like the manual detailed how to make… Also, an interesting fact mostly not covered by our “oppressive conservative” media is that there was a fuselage of a passenger jet and training manuals about how to use short bladed weapons (box cutters). That student must be Nostradomus’s great, great, great, etc, grandchild…
They couldn’t deny it. The paper was published on the University web site journalists were all over it.