Bush's Speech..

[Rat Faced]

Originally posted by MagicNakor+19 March 2003 - 11:15--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (MagicNakor @ 19 March 2003 - 11:15)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--lil_z@19 March 2003 - 07:32
btw, afghanistan is really not an oil rich country. they r very poor and contribute very little economically. they may have oil, but not like iraq.

I never said Afghanistan was an oil-rich country. 300 barrels a day isn&#39;t producing much at all. All I said was "Afghanistan has oil," which it does, to the person who said "Afghanistan doesn&#39;t have any oil," which is untrue.

[/b][/quote]
You forgot to mention the oil pipeline now being built through it.......which the Taliban wouldnt allow to be built. This will carry a LOT of oil.

It may be pure co-incidence that the President (?) of Afganistan and US Embassador there worked for the oil company building it......and people in the US administration are major shareholders in this company.

[dwightfry]

Originally posted by Crackedup@19 March 2003 - 11:24
And I would still like to hear an answer as to why Bush Snr didn&#39;t finish the job off 12 years ago - that surely would have saved the lives of countless Iraqi&#39;s who have been tortured or killed in the meantime.

The reason the the U.N. allowed the gulf war was because Iraq was taking over another country, (forgot which one). The U.S. could only fight to keep Iraq out of that country, so as soon as we won and got them out, their was nothing we could do. We weren&#39;t allowed to take any further actions.

That is what I was told anyways.

[Rat Faced]

Originally posted by dwightfry+19 March 2003 - 18:24--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (dwightfry @ 19 March 2003 - 18:24)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Crackedup@19 March 2003 - 11:24
And I would still like to hear an answer as to why Bush Snr didn&#39;t finish the job off 12 years ago - that surely would have saved the lives of countless Iraqi&#39;s who have been tortured or killed in the meantime.

The reason the the U.N. allowed the gulf war was because Iraq was taking over another country, (forgot which one). The U.S. could only fight to keep Iraq out of that country, so as soon as we won and got them out, their was nothing we could do. We weren&#39;t allowed to take any further actions.

That is what I was told anyways. [/b][/quote]
There was a huge International Effort in Desert Storm...with the backing of the Arabian/Islamic Countries.

There would have been no backing from the Arabian/Islamic countries for a full invasion of Iraq. The UN and Arabian countries therefore insisted that Desert Storm stop at the Iraqi border.....as to go further would cause more problems than it solves.


Hmm.....bit like today really.

[Z]

Originally posted by MagicNakor+19 March 2003 - 12:15--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (MagicNakor @ 19 March 2003 - 12:15)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--lil_z@19 March 2003 - 07:32
btw, afghanistan is really not an oil rich country. they r very poor and contribute very little economically. they may have oil, but not like iraq.

I never said Afghanistan was an oil-rich country. 300 barrels a day isn&#39;t producing much at all. All I said was "Afghanistan has oil," which it does, to the person who said "Afghanistan doesn&#39;t have any oil," which is untrue.

[/b][/quote]
hey, dont get upset. im not an expert in this area, all im trying to say is that afghanistan is a pretty poor country, and their amount of oil does not help them out very much. Compared to iraq, the world depends on iraq for its oil.

BTW, please, would everyone with an opinion about bush&#39;s motivations and plans please read this article from newsweek: The Arrogant Empire originally posted in this thread my Crackedup. It is an excellent article which shows many different points of view. And its written by and American with a foreign name. (i cant say theres much bias in the article).
B)

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by Rat Faced@19 March 2003 - 19:47
There was a huge International Effort in Desert Storm...with the backing of the Arabian/Islamic Countries.

There would have been no backing from the Arabian/Islamic countries for a full invasion of Iraq. The UN and Arabian countries therefore insisted that Desert Storm stop at the Iraqi border.....as to go further would cause more problems than it solves.


Hmm.....bit like today really.

Thats not exactly true.
The ground forces may have stopped at the iraqi border, but our aircraft were giving Baghdad hell.

I&#39;m not really sure that the ground forces stopped there.
Does anyone else know? This calls for a bit of web searching.

[MagicNakor]

Originally posted by lil_z@19 March 2003 - 22:24
hey, dont get upset. im not an expert in this area, all im trying to say is that afghanistan is a pretty poor country, and their amount of oil does not help them out very much. Compared to iraq, the world depends on iraq for its oil.

I&#39;m not upset. Rarely do I get upset over forums. Just correcting a misconception. B)

[Z]

magic nakor: okay, sorry.

the other guys:
about the gulf war, ya dwightfry and zardoz, the iraqis invaded kuwait (where the US is based now) and the US pushed them back. once they were contained, the US backed off, if they had pushed in further, there would have been severe casualties. (this is also just from what i am told, but how would ne1 know neways? )

[my man otis]

Originally posted by Rat Faced+18 March 2003 - 23:38--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rat Faced @ 18 March 2003 - 23:38)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Crackedup@18 March 2003 - 19:22

I do find it sad that so many US citizens, probably not the enlightened ones on this board, know so little about what&#39;s going on outside their shores.&nbsp; Perhaps it&#39;s part of the whole cultural thing.&nbsp; You know the &#39;second is the first loser&#39; thing and having a World Series sport in which the world doesn&#39;t take part.

You may like to read a very interesting article that is upcoming in 24 March edition of Newsweek:
The Arrogant Empirewhich covers somethings a lot better than I can.

Can I ask Americans to read this link posted by Crackedup? [/b][/quote]
The article is very well written. I am a true believer in the repeating nature of history, that simple lessons hold true regardless of time and place. Major, singular powers in past history have faded for various reasons. It may happen to the United States. That is another issue for another time.

The issue now is the validity of the war.

The war is not about oil. Americans can care less about the price of oil. I drive a large SUV because I want to and can. If the price of oil rises, so be it. A 20% cost in the price of gasoline doesn&#39;t have a huge effect per person. In 10-15 years power cells will be running in most cars on the road so it won&#39;t matter. We&#39;ll be talking about &#036;0.25/gallon gasoline and giving loans to Middle Eastern countries that have failed to diversify their country&#39;s revenue stream.

The quote above, stating that it is sad that American&#39;s don&#39;t know what&#39;s going on outside of our shores, may be true to some. But the converse is also true - citizens of other countries don&#39;t know what&#39;s going on inside of our borders.

Hijacked planes destroying buildings 4 blocks from where I work everyday is nothing the United States is used to and certainly nothing we will accept. As the article so elloquently points out, there was a military response unlike any other seen in history. We have the equipment and the means to do so.

It is not our problem that other countries will not or cannot respond to terrorists in this manner. I see the "new" Manhattan skyline as I go to work every day. I fear that my office may be next. It can happen again and probably will, regardless of actions we take. But we sure as hell aren&#39;t going to sit around and wait for it to happen.

There will be remarks that the war costs too much, the inspections were working, etc. But you can&#39;t put a price on over 3,000 lives that were lost on that day and uncounted numbers lost to terrorism in the past. You can&#39;t wait to see what may happen, you can&#39;t wait to give terrorists time.

But what counts is my safety as an American citizen. Do what has to be and what will be done.

[Z]

ok otis, but this war is not about terrorism at all. (or at least its not a response to 9/11).
i agree the article was very good indeed.
i also agree that Saddam should be taken care of. but inevitably killing any amount of innocents in the path cannot be justified in my view.

[my man otis]

The war is about terrorism, though. Preemptive strikes to avoid future terrorist attacks on the US. Whether or not you trust Bush&#39;s word is another issue, but in his letter to Congress yesterday explicitly states

"acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." [emphasis mine]

The psy-ops the US military has been running have resulted in surrenders before the war actually begun. The innocents that will die will mostly be human shields, as Hussein has put many strategic military assets in civilian locales. I do fear a battle in the streets of Baghdad, and I do hope for minimal innocent deaths.

But if nothing is done now, how many innocents can die in a terrorist attack in the future? How many innocents have already been slaughtered under Hussein&#39;s reign? You have to expand the realm of impact here.

War isn&#39;t good. It certainly isn&#39;t justified in all cases, but here I do think it is. I respect your opinion, however, and see your point.