War In Iraq Debate

[Jarnhamar]

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Last time I checked I'm not the only one asking this question...

I digress, I'm on a plane in a few hours and won't be online for some time.   Everyone enjoy the holiday period wherever you are...

Have a safe flight and consider that your flight is safe(r) because our presence (and blood) in Afghanastan and Iraq is keeping their attention over there and not over North American skies.

 

[MissHardie]

The reason for this is that the rhetoric being perpetuated amongst students has nothing to do with education and everything to do with indoctrination.

I completely disagree. As a university student myself, taking courses now primarily from the faculties of political science and history, my experience has been that rarely if at all do professors foist rhetoric down our throats for the purposes of turning us all into good little lefties - or fanatical right-wingers for that matter.  My professors have only been too happy to debate with me my admittedly realist-biased arguments for purposes of making me think and defend my claims in a logical fashion. 

</end hijack>

 

[48Highlander]

I'm not sure any of us know the "real situation" as all our information is secondary sources; however, I don't suggest you know any more or any less than I do.  As far as learning anything, I don't think an internet forum is the place for that.  I will continue to read books, articles, newspapers, etc. at my local library to broaden my scope of learning.  In fact, if you'd like to suggest any that you think will help enlighten me to "the real situation" that you are aware of, then by all means, I'm always willing to listen.

Your use of  "People like this" lacks respect for anyone of differing opinion.  Short of calling myself, or anyone who wishes to address the reasons for the US invasion of Iraq idiots, you are being insulting to anyone who wishes to post on this board with an opinion different than your own.  It's difficult for a person to acknowledge someone else's opinion when they don't project an image that allows someone to respect them first. 

Wrong.  My use of "people like this" lacks respect for anyone who continues to spew the same uneducated rhetoric when presented with clear facts and statistics.

What books have you read that provide figures which show that civilian deaths in war have steadily increased?
What books have you read which show a clear scientific backing for the idea that depleted uranium has enough radioactivity to cause harm?
What books have you read that suggest a war has to provide peace and a stable government within 2 years of it's begining?

The fact is you haven't.  From your lack of knowledge I can tell you've never opened a book on any of these subjects.  You've been pumped so full of dogma and rhetoric that you're willing to beleive any statement critical of the US or "the west" as a whole.  You're been so indoctrinated into that form of thinking that you don't bother doing any research of your own, other than repeating the same tired lies and half trouths amongst your university buddies.  If you had bothered to do some research, if you DID try to keep an open mind, you'd realize just how ridiculous the vast majority of your statements are.  Instead of trying to open your mind a little, you jump topics whenever you can't back one up, and accuse me of being closed minded and insulting for refering to your type of fool as "these people".  You're not fooling anyone.  I've had discussion with heads of activist and pacifist groups, and I've had some success getting them to see things from a different perspective.  Recently I had Jan Slakov, a well known pacifist and anti-military activist within the Canadian movement, admit that some of the points I've discussed with her have made her reconsider her opinion on the Canadian army and western militaries in general.  If I can convince a pacifist to consider the posibility that force is sometimes required then why in the hell can't any single one of us convince YOU of ANYTHING??

 

[Infanteer]

I completely disagree. As a university student myself, taking courses now primarily from the faculties of political science and history, my experience has been that rarely if at all do professors foist rhetoric down our throats for the purposes of turning us all into good little lefties - or fanatical right-wingers for that matter.   My professors have only been too happy to debate with me my admittedly realist-biased arguments for purposes of making me think and defend my claims in a logical fashion.  
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It's hit and miss with the university crowd.   I had some real good ones in my day (I never knew their positions on anything) and I also had some real goof-offs who take every extra moment on their course to lob ad hominem attacks at George W Bush and denigrate US Policy from their lofty position of tenure.

The problem is that the latter crowd tends to get the press and tends to be the vocal representatives of academia.   The attempts to enact divestiture of Israel on university campuses is a good example.

 

[48Highlander]

I completely disagree. As a university student myself, taking courses now primarily from the faculties of political science and history, my experience has been that rarely if at all do professors foist rhetoric down our throats for the purposes of turning us all into good little lefties - or fanatical right-wingers for that matter.  My professors have only been too happy to debate with me my admittedly realist-biased arguments for purposes of making me think and defend my claims in a logical fashion. 

</end hijack>

    I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that ALL proffessors and ALL students behave that way.  Just that it is extremely common amongst the students.  When the Iraq war first started I used to get groups of them trying to convert me on a regular basis, and I wasn't a student.  I can just imagine how much more focused their activities would have been "at the hub" so to speak.  If you're right and teachers don't generaly rant about politics in class, then that's good, but it's also unfortiunate that no balanced discussions about these things occur either in a classroom environment or amongst the student organizations.  The biggest problem is that lefties tend to stick with lefties, and the same goes for the right.  Both sides indoctrinate themselves by constantly repeating the same lies to eachother.  That it doesn't occur all that often in class is a blessing, but it doesn't change the end result.
    Anyway after watching the video at www.academicbias.com (and thanks again infanteer for that link) I find it pretty dificult to beleive that teachers aren't responsible for large portions of that indoctrination.  I am willing to admit though that the situation may be different in Canadian Universities, but I think that's unlikely.

 

[Infanteer]

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Last time I checked I'm not the only one asking this question...

I fail to understand how the lookie-loos can point their fingers and say "LOOK, NO WMD!!!" without pondering the question what happened to them.   Are you assuming that:

A) A tin-pot dictator who used them repeatedly to bolster his position and his powerbase would suddenly decide to adhere to the demands of the international community and throw them away.

B) They just vanished into thin air (Which the Law of Conservation of Mass doesn't seem to support).

I've yet to see a plausible explanation that exonerates the Ba'athist regime of the charges that were leveled against it frequently between 1991 and 2003.   Iraq is a big country and there are some neighbours (states and otherwise) unfriendly to the US around it.

PS: You never answered the claim against your ad hominem attack on President George W Bush.   Moral tap-dancing gets tricky, doesn't it.

 

[MissHardie]

Infanteer,

It's hit and miss with the university crowd. [...] 

True enough.  I think my experience is due in most part to my attendance at the U of C, located in the bastion of conservatism that is Calgary.   


48Highlander,

I actually had one history prof sit down with some of his students after class to have a discussion on the war in Iraq - not because it was related to his course (WW2), but because we students were interested in having a discussion and wanted him as a facilitator and moderator.  Balanced discussions do occur, just very, very rarely.  Unfortunate, as you say.  Too bad the socratic method has gone mainly by the wayside - I find it the best way to gain an education.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Whats a WMD?
A device that kills without emotion, ethics or morals?  Capable of killing large numbers of people and inciting terror?

Isn't that hussain?

So we went to war, didn't actually find any huge bombs but we caught a guy more than willing to commit genocide, as indicated by past actions.
In my opinion we got a rather large and deadly WMD.

 

[Britney Spears]

<a href=http://www.antiwar.com/ips/suri.php?articleid=2931>Opposing viewpoint on the gassing of the kurds</a>

 

[Slim]

If he was the leader of the country at the time then i would say that he was responsible at the time for whatever went on in it...and besides, he didn't jump to punish the perpetrators of the massacre, did he

Guilty as charged!

Slim

 

[Infanteer]

Interesting perspective on the Halabja incident.   However, I was merely using the gassed Kurds to shore up a point.   The article doesn't refute the fact that Saddam possessed and used chemical weapons.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja, he said. "The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent â “ that is, a cyanide-based gas â “ which Iran was known to use. "The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time."

Regardless of the one scenario, the controversy doesn't alter the intent of my question.

I fail to understand how the lookie-loos can point their fingers and say "LOOK, NO WMD!!!" without pondering the question what happened to them.   Are you assuming that:

A) A tin-pot dictator who used them repeatedly to bolster his position and his powerbase would suddenly decide to adhere to the demands of the international community and throw them away.

B) They just vanished into thin air (Which the Law of Conservation of Mass doesn't seem to support).

I've yet to see a plausible explanation that exonerates the Ba'athist regime of the charges that were leveled against it frequently between 1991 and 2003.   Iraq is a big country and there are some neighbours (states and otherwise) unfriendly to the US around it.

PS: You never answered the claim against your ad hominem attack on President George W Bush. Moral tap-dancing gets tricky, doesn't it.

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps someone can find this, but wasn't there a news report a few months ago that Polish coallition troops had found an IED built around a nerve-gas artillery shell?

As to making things dissapear, during my tour in Bosnia, British forces found 120 metric tonnes of ammunition around Banja Luka during a large coordinated sweep. This stuff was stashed back in 95 near the end of the hot war, but based on physical evidence collected at the scene, it was still under "someone's" care and control, and the bulk was still usable. On a smaller scale, we would find grenades, rockets, rifle grenades and other military goods in our UXO pit on most mornings, as people decided that they didn't want this stuff in their basements and tool sheds after all. A mass grave with 60 bodies was also discovered near Banja Luka. This was after eight years of "peace" and concerted efforts by military and other agencies to either track down arms and ammunition caches, or entice people to turn it in.

The $21 billion dollars Hussein lifted from the "Oil for Food" program could buy a lot of people to look the other way, dig really deep holes or otherwise stash the WMD right up to the moment Gen Tommy Franks troops crossed over from Kuwait. When the truth about the "missing" 300 tons of high explosives came out at the end of the last US election, (Not the story, which was an intentionally misleading propaganda piece for the Democrats) it was revealed several convoys were tracked leaving the ammunition compound and heading towards Syria. As a state of hostilities had not yet commenced, there was no action that could be taken.

Whatever Saddam Hussein was doing since the end of the first Persian Gulf War, he certainly made every effort to make everyone inside and outside Iraq believe he was in possession of WMD, and made no effort to dispel these fears, even when it was obvious that was the only way he could forstall an American attack. So the question about WMDs should actually be in the other court. Why was Hussein behaving that way, and what did he do with his WMD stockpiles?

 

[Britney Spears]

<a href=http://www.informationwar.org/state%20terrorism/Britain_using_chemical_weapons.htm>Par for the course</a>

"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes to spread a lively terror"

-Winston Churchill, on the Iraqi/Kurdish Uprising. 1920.

 

[Infanteer]

People say the darndest things....

"I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed."

Mahatma Gandhi, May 1940

Different times I guess - I'm sure you can tell me how many times Churchill actually used poison gas?  As well, I'm sure every President from Truman on has mused about immolating whole societies with thermonuclear weapons at one point.  

Actions speak louder then words:

Gandhi's actions guaranteed the independence of his nation.

Churchill's actions stemmed the tide of totalitarianism during Britain's darkest hour.

Saddam....?

 

[Britney Spears]

I'm sure you can tell me how many times Churchill actually used poison gas?

Well, at least once, it seems.

 

[48Highlander]

Not that I'm a big fan of Gandhi, but in his defence:

Background for the above quote: It was made in May of 1940, when the battles of World War II were just beginning, where the Germany's blitzkrieg was indeed swift and relatively bloodless compared to the battle trenches of the World War One. Also at the time the persecution of the Jews in the eyes of the world was limited to lowered civil rights, concentration camps and gettos. Just a few years before even so notable an adversary to Hitler as Winston Churchill, in his book Great Contemporaries (1937) had declared: "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."

 

[Infanteer]

Well, at least once, it seems.

I'm reading the article, and I can't seem to find any concrete examples of gas attacks, just attacks by a gamut of other weapons systems .  I honestly do not know much about the British efforts to pacify the Mandate, so I can't argue with you. 

However, again, I will state different times.  Churchill just come out of a war where poison gas was the norm.  Saddam ruled Iraq in an international setting in which the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction is an extremely grave breach of "the norm".

You can reach through the pages of history and find examples of great figures using means which we would now abhor to achieve their goals.  My question is where are you going with this?  Does this somehow exonerate Saddam Hussein - he's not a cruel dictator but a victim of historical circumstances?

 

[Britney Spears]

I'm reading the article, and I can't seem to find any concrete examples of gas attacks, just attacks by a gamut of other weapons systems .

Yeah, the article was a little vaguely worded, but try <a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html>this one</a>

My question is where are you going with this?

To illustrate that public opinion is rarely succeptable to reason, and the power of the "Rudder&Finn" method. Certainly in light of the preceding articles the gas/genocide argument doesn't have as much kick as it would on the uninformed.

 

[48Highlander]

Yeah.  I find that, generaly, when people start trying to justify the actions of tyrants by pointing out that the US did the same thing to the Indians hundreds of years ago, or in this case the UK to Iraqi's 80 years ago, it's time to stop talking.  Anyone arguing such a ridiculous line of logic can not be reasoned with.

 

[AmmoTech90]

Yeah, the article was a little vaguely worded, but try this one

That article provides no concrete evidence that gas was used and in fact contradicts itself on that specific point:

Its states that the army used gas attacks but does not specify what type.  Was its a lethal or riot agent, quite a lack of details that, to me, shows the author is presenting facts with little backup or the army used some riot control agents.  Considering the CF is trained to use those agents in similar circumstances to what the British were facing is that so unsual?  It then goes on to say that there were no aerial chemical raids.

Do you have anything that definitively says the British used war agents against the Kurds?  I've been to places (Ethiopia/Eritrea) where lethal chemicals were used against the population.  Seventy years later the memory of that is still very strong and the munitions are still being found.  Odd that this hasn't happened with the Kurds.  They remember conventional bombing but no chemicial attacks.  Which would leave more of an impression?