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The point remains.........If we'd gone in after the 1st Gulf War, there would have been a LOT more support (me included)
In addition 500,000+ Iraqi's would still be alive........those 500,000+ are firmly at the door of the UK/USA, NOT Hussain.
Whether you like it or not; he was/IS a bastard, but the "Allies" killed just as many innocent Iraqi's over the last decade as Hussain did in all his time in power.....
And the UN, whose refusal to allow much needed medical supplies still stands!Quote:
.... those 500,000+ are firmly at the door of the UK/USA, NOT Hussain.
:angry:
But its the UK/USA that made the UN put in those sanctions.
Due to the way that the UK/USA went alone, do you really expect the UN to now drop them until the UK/USA's own mandate for those sanctions is fulfilled?
I dont agree with them, but human nature being what it is, i expect the UN to make Iraq comply with all those things now before lifting the sanctions....just to give the finger to the UK/USA.
ie Its your shit: You lie in it.
The UN was gutless to impose some of the sanctions in the first place, the UK and US do not dictate UN policy, if they did, the UN would have endorsed this latest foray.Quote:
Originally posted by Rat Faced@3 October 2003 - 22:37
But its the UK/USA that made the UN put in those sanctions.
Due to the way that the UK/USA went alone, do you really expect the UN to now drop them until the UK/USA's own mandate for those sanctions is fulfilled?
I dont agree with them, but human nature being what it is, i expect the UN to make Iraq comply with all those things now before lifting the sanctions....just to give the finger to the UK/USA.
ie Its your shit: You lie in it.
This is just one of many examples.Quote:
.... "We went to a children's hospital with rooms full of children dying of common illnesses, such as dysentery and e. coli," Dr. Bentwood said.
Since the drinking water in Iraq is not adequately treated, common bacterial killers proliferate. The antibiotics to treat these diseases are in extremely short supply, according to numerous reports.....
.....Supplies such as surgical sutures must be reused, a doctor told Dr. Bentwood, and machines such as lasers for eye surgery cannot be imported due to the sanctions. ... The hospitals, which 10 years ago were equipped with modern Western technology, are now "pretty much degraded down to [those of] a Third-World country," said Dr. Bentwood, who has worked in hospitals in Honduras and Burundi.
And people with serious problems such as cancer or heart attacks often die untreated. The problem isn't just the lack of medicine to treat the person but "the lack of a sterile environment needed to protect the patient from infection," Cathy Bentwood explained.
The Iraqi government claims it can't adequately sterilize and purify the water because it can only import small amounts of chlorine. And water treatment plants and electrical plants were damaged in the Gulf War and subsequent bombing missions.
The U.S. State Department does not deny this. But chlorine and spare parts for treatment plants, as well as other parts to repair electrical plants and hospital equipment, are so-called "dual-use items," which could also be used to make weapons of mass destruction, according to a State Department spokesperson....
:)
I think you'll find the U.N. mandate during the Gulf War (Kuwait) was to drive Saddam from Kuwait and secure it's border, more-or-less.Quote:
Originally posted by Rat Faced@3 October 2003 - 07:53
The point remains.........If we'd gone in after the 1st Gulf War, there would have been a LOT more support (me included)
In addition 500,000+ Iraqi's would still be alive........those 500,000+ are firmly at the door of the UK/USA, NOT Hussain.
Whether you like it or not; he was/IS a bastard, but the "Allies" killed just as many innocent Iraqi's over the last decade as Hussain did in all his time in power.....
The sentiment for driving to Bagdhad in order to take out Saddam was not part of tha U.N. mandate, and only existed as a remnant of "potentiality" on the U.S. military's planning boards.
As an analogy-U.S. football fans will remember, in 1989, the Green Bay Packers had the option of drafting Barry Sanders, a Heisman Trophy-winning tailback (and eventual Hall-of-Fame shoo-in), or Tony Mandarich, the steam-rolling tackle whose college career was without parallel.
They chose Mandarich, who flopped, over Sanders, who will shortly be elected to the Hall-of-Fame.
The Packers have been taken to task on every occasion since then for not having drafted Barry Sanders; even Packer fans have wept at what "could have been".
They all forget that, before the draft, Sanders said specifically that he would never play in Green Bay, no matter what.
The Packers, remembering the John Elway/Baltimore Colts fiasco in 1983 (the Colts drafted Elway, who refused to play for them; they ended up with nothing), decided against drafting Sanders thereby.
History IS important. :)
If then, why not now? What has changed about the regional issues or about the conduct of Saddam that has made you change your mind? At the time, this was not an objective of the coalition forces and this issue was a cause of tension amongst coalition leaders.Quote:
Originally posted by Rat Faced@3 October 2003 - 13:53
The point remains.........If we'd gone in after the 1st Gulf War, there would have been a LOT more support (me included)
In addition 500,000+ Iraqi's would still be alive........those 500,000+ are firmly at the door of the UK/USA, NOT Hussain.
Whether you like it or not; he was/IS a bastard, but the "Allies" killed just as many innocent Iraqi's over the last decade as Hussain did in all his time in power.....
Had we gone ahead toward Baghdad then, how would casualities be any less then than now. This time around, resistance was token and progress was only slowed by fear of chemical/biological weapons and ensuring secure supply routes. It is not as if he had rebulit a formidable army for defense.
Hussein would have played the same game of hide and seek that he is now, and his troops would have disappeared into the civilian population. Same game different decade.
Perhaps the climate, at the time, would have been more favorable for revolution as was seen in Basra, but this is merely speculation.
In later years, had the sanctions driven the civilians to the point of independent (unaided) revolution, 500,000 deaths would have been an appetizer.
So whether you were in favor of removing him then or now, people are going to die regardlesss of the process used. To lay all blame on the US/UK is a bit harsh.
Im speaking of the sanctions and bombing that have been going on for the last decade, as you well know.
It IS different now, hugely.
For one thing, the Iraqi's DID rebell, and didnt get the help they were promised, so they dont trust the people that "liberated" them earlier this year...hell would you in their place?
For another thing, the justification then was a lot greater than the lies used this year.......so it would have caused less world tension.
I agree the UN werent in favour, but then they werent in favour this year. Public opinion though, was in favour of it then.....until they found out about the highway of death that is.
I already mentioned the Basra rebellion. And I totally agree. Until Saddam is captured and brought before his own citizens, the locals are going to fear a waning interest in them (with Afghanistan as a recent precedent) and the eventual re-emergence of Saddam from some bunker. They still live in fear of his shadow.Quote:
Originally posted by Rat Faced@4 October 2003 - 00:25
Im speaking of the sanctions and bombing that have been going on for the last decade, as you well know.
It IS different now, hugely.
For one thing, the Iraqi's DID rebell, and didnt get the help they were promised, so they dont trust the people that "liberated" them earlier this year...hell would you in their place?
For another thing, the justification then was a lot greater than the lies used this year.......so it would have caused less world tension.
I agree the UN werent in favour, but then they werent in favour this year. Public opinion though, was in favour of it then.....until they found out about the highway of death that is.
The US wanted to take Saddam out in the first Gulf War, but deferred for political and religious reasons. We attempted the diplomatic route to try pressure Iraqi's to rebel and render Saddam powerless. That simply didn't work. I guess that after 12 years of UN impotence, their opinion became irrelevant. After all, the UN boils down to the five vetoes and France was never going to agree.
I see this as a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't, as well as hindsight 20/20. The situation is just not black and white as you portray it.
"Greater lies"? What are those? The bottom line is Saddam, the bottom line is unchanged.
As for your "highway of death", I am not sure what you are talking about. I am aware of a long line of Iraqi military equipment log jammed on the highway out of Kuwait. To my knowledge leaflets were dropped instructing soldiers to abandon the vehicles and surrender as the vehicles were to be destroyed. I can remember footage of leaflets dropped from planes. The tanks and such were then blown-up, as they should have been, most of them empty. To think that we just decided to up and kill everyone in the tanks without giving them chance to get out reeks of accusations of genocide. The old, under the breath suggestion, that we all we really want to kill those evil Muslims. Bah!
Some may have stayed in their tanks out of fear. A friend of mine who processed prisoners in that war was beseeched by an Iraqi soldier not to beat him. When assured that he was not to be beaten, he asked if it was true that we were cannibals, as he had been told that we were.
What a tough situation for those abandoned men.
Anyway, I just felt that the line "it is your shit, lie in it", was not just a bit harsh, but an oversimplification of a situation that has religious, military, and political facets.
Rat Faced.... the UN sanctions against Iraq were approved by the United Nations... not the US and UK alone. To blame these two countries alone is ludicrous. Besides, why should the allies cop the blame for all those deaths? Why should the UN be blamed for enforcing international law? Saddam Hussein could have chosen to end the suffering AT ANY TIME. But he chose not to. He's the one at fault. And everyone else suffered because of it.Quote:
Originally posted by Rat Faced@3 October 2003 - 12:53
The point remains.........If we'd gone in after the 1st Gulf War, there would have been a LOT more support (me included)
In addition 500,000+ Iraqi's would still be alive........those 500,000+ are firmly at the door of the UK/USA, NOT Hussain.
Whether you like it or not; he was/IS a bastard, but the "Allies" killed just as many innocent Iraqi's over the last decade as Hussain did in all his time in power.....
I'd like to know where you get your figures from as well. 500000+? Where on Earth did you get that? In any case, this still is well below the deaths known to have occurred under Saddam's regime, namely 1 million people.
He probably got them in the same way you got your 1 million!Quote:
I'd like to know where you get your figures from as well. 500000+? Where on Earth did you get that? In any case, this still is well below the deaths known to have occurred under Saddam's regime, namely 1 million people.
:)