Have you not seen the media bashing Trump, the opposition party bashing Trump and ahead in polls? You're calling that a dictatorship? The same as Sadd...
Expecting Iraqis to be as intelligent and sensible as Americans is the opposite of condescending. And the fact that they are not is exactly why the We...
This is why we need 20 liberations under our belt. We STILL don't have enough data to understand war, and in the long term, we need that. In my opinio...
The US soldiers did that (hazing terrorists) ILLEGALLY and they were TRIED and JAILED. Where was your mock concern when Saddam was LEGALLY chopping ou...
The US is already a secular capitalist liberal democracy which is the best system we know of. I don't like Trump personally, and he will be gone in 0 ...
Almost all of the death toll was due to sectarian violence, not war. Are you saying we should let religious bigots decide whether they can enslave a p...
The operative word there is "believe". People have all sorts of faulty beliefs, so if you only have a belief, and a police force as exists in a modern...
But this is exactly the heart of the problem. We're dealing with a world that has traditionally been rife with dictators. The dictators are never goin...
Even without the threat that Saddam posed, there was the fact that he was raping and mutilating Iraqis. I don't know how anyone can look at video of S...
As I said before in this thread, if you believe there is a "rule" that protects Saddam's "right" to rape women and mutilate men, then you should: 1. I...
Sorry, I don't see any straw man. If you opposed the liberation of Iraq, it meant that you wanted to see a criminal like Saddam remain in power to con...
I have admitted that I am unsure what terminology underpins my position here. On the one hand I couldn't care less if Bush ordered the liberation of I...
Even if you wish to incorrectly label America as fascist, why didn't you play off one fascist against another to get the end result, which is the non-...
It is Saddam who was the fascist. He was brought to justice by anti-fascists. If you claim to be an anti-fascist you should have joined the campaign. ...
Note that as previously mentioned, I did manage to get a Russian to flip position, and he explained his mental process here. Basically if you cease to...
No, all anyone is asking you to do is be a citizen who supports the police (or a posse) who is in the process of arresting a criminal. You don't perso...
This is actually a formula for doing nothing, because you can never be certain of anything. If you see a woman being raped in your neighborhood, maybe...
Surely this is the basis for a meeting of the minds? Instead of sitting back and expecting Bush to articulate a perfect reason for liberating Iraq, wh...
No. There are Muslims on both sides of the war. 87% of Afghans supported non-Muslim US over their local Muslim dictator. These people are staunch alli...
I've been trying to reconcile this with the intent of the Iraq war. If Bush's intent was to see lots of dead Arab Muslims, that would have been wrong....
I am curious at what mental blocks exist that prevent people from understanding that criminals need to be brought to justice, and whether there is a c...
The Iraq was most definitely NOT a war crime. If you believe there is a law that protects Saddam's "right" to rape and mutilate, you have a duty to ig...
I'm not pro-US-war crimes. Nor is the American government or the American people. If an American commits a war crime, or any crime for that matter, th...
No, that is not my position. If I knew a family was about to commit a terrorist act, and I saw a serial killer enter their house, indeed, I would not ...
And that description is best suited to Saddam. Which you happily ignore, and even go so far as standing in the way of those who would put an end to hi...
BTW, I'm Australian, and only 50% (to my shock and horror) of Australians supported the liberation of Iraq. The other 50% are apparently closet sociop...
Yes, it is perfectly clear. The US et al waged a war of liberation. They successfully managed to convert a dictatorship into a democracy, something th...
No, it's not whataboutery. It's the fact that Saddam was a criminal who ordered the rape and mutilation of innocent Iraqis, and by any sane philosophi...
After further thought, I think this is where the fundamental problem is. It shouldn't matter if the intent is wrong. What matters is whether the actio...
The US doesn't speak with one voice. Decent Americans, and in fact, decent people the world over, supported the liberation war (which is all it actual...
Ok, I have another unstated assumption here. I consider war to be a tool, to be used whenever it is strategic to do so. I don't see it as an inherentl...
"If we're proposing to be the world's surgeon, should we be careful to first do no harm?" Sometimes when the police are responding to a rape call, the...
"Just the first paragraph alone shows how you don't understand sovereignty" Yes, this is another assumption. That women have the right to not be raped...
YOU should have had the right intent. YOU should have been agitating for a war of liberation for the right reasons. There are tactical reasons why WMD...
I thought the first part of the above quote, exactly because of the second part of the above quote. If Australia had a cruel dictator, I think 99% of ...
The "way of the land" in 2003 was that Saddam was ordering the rape of women and chopping out the tongues of people who spoke against him. I thought t...
I should also point out that the US doesn't "own" democracy. And it is the Iraqi people's politics that were being forced on the Iraqi leadership, not...
I'm still waiting for my Russian friend, but I have a comment. Are you saying that this nebulous group of "power elite" in Iraq speak with one voice? ...
It is difficult to know what the US would have done without 9/11. Note that at the time (2001) I was still trying to secure Europe. The Baltics were n...
I listened to it, but I didn't need to. In 1991 the Cold War hadn't been won. Securing Europe was FAR more important than Iraq. We didn't want to do a...
That is an interesting take. I'm not sure how you measure "domestic elite" and why you ascribe such importance to them. But for starters, the Iraqi pe...
This is actually a good sign, not a train wreck. The Iraqi politicians know they are free to say whatever they want about the US. And the Iraqi people...
Yes, for one single year the American occupation force was micromanaging everything which is what an occupation force is required to do. But then they...
Yes, that is what I am here for. Thankyou. If Australia had a cruel dictator that was raping my daughter, I would rather take my chances with the Russ...
We can debate whether Just War Theory needs to be updated or not. Or do you have a dogmatic belief that it is perfect in its current form and there is...
What's illogical about that? It was done with great success in Panama. If Australia had a military coup and the US came to Australia to dislodge the d...
No, the official policy of dictatorships is that the dictator will kill anyone who takes up arms against him. Surely you can see the difference betwee...
Millions upon millions of people supported the Iraq invasion, including me. Why don't you simply ASK (not TELL) them (or ask me!) what their motive wa...
While it doesn't matter how many people Saddam killed? And how many more people need to die in car accidents in the US before you start campaigning fo...
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