I don't generally double post, but I though this would shed some light on the situation for a lot of people. I received the follwijg from a friend of mine and all accounts are verified as fact:



Now, does anyone else think that the US should sit back and wait for everything to work itself out?

Didn't think so.

Uhh... ascoose me, where the hell did he say that? :confused:

I'm not quite sure about some other country coming into save the stuff in WW2 if there was no US though... but you can't really say they wouldn't... who knows, maybe knowing that there isn't that great US military power there, some other countries could have all done something... *shrugs* I hate WW2 stuff and research so I'm not quite up on all the facts... but whatever...

And you completely ignored my freind's post :-o Although I guess the topic has moved away from Iraq, and to taking what Angrist says the wrong way and the bashing his views...

Least it seems to me that you misunderstood that...

Him saying he was blaming the US for the holocaust would sound something like this...

"THE US CAUSED THE HOLOCAUST BECAUSE OF *some direct reason*"...

What it sounded like he was actually saying was that there was this big war going on and the US waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and then finally said "Ok we'll join in now" and it was too late, when they could have ended it earlier...

Or something :unsure:

And just to make a little comment, just because the country has done some good things in the past and all, it doesn't mean you have to like the way it's being run today...

What if someone was just like "The US is a good country and all, but seriously I think Bush and them are making some rrreeeaaaally stupid decisions nowadays..."

Would you still yell at them with your blind patriotism about how they're wrong/scum/whatever?

I don't even really like Angrist (hey, might as well be truthful here ;) ), but it just seemed like you took what he said the wrong way, so yeah :unsure:

Angrist basically said that the Holocaust happened because the US didn't step in earlier and stop it. You can play all the semantics you want, but thats what he said.

And my point has never been that we do everything right, my point has been that the only reason why we do things wrong is because we tend to be only country who tries to help. Its hard to do anything wrong, if you don't do anything. While in hindsight Vietnam was a very bad idea, in the political climate of the time it was fully supported when it first started.

DH, you keep accusing me of blind patriotism when I am one of the few posters on this thread who has actually cited history and fact to back up my statements while people who argue with me use strictly opinion, media propoganda and conjecture.

As for Iraq, check my last post before thinking that I have shied away from that subject. One year ago we claimed that any country that harbored terrorism was an enemy of the free world, and the rest of the free world agreed. Now a year later everyone is knuckling under to the false notion of a "civilized resolution".

I understand that other countries have been the targets of terrorism, but to compare a random car bomb or granade to the incineration and dismemberment of thousands is insulting to me. Not to mention that the next biggest victim of terrorism, Isreal, is also under the political microscope for their defense of their people. The US is not THE TARGET for Islamic fundamentalist terrorism now that it has been shown that it can be done.

The problem lies in ethnocentric thought. We think that because the Western world has a high value on peace and human life, that every culture does and reason will win in the end. The flaw in that argument is that the Middle East has a culture that is completely different from the Western World. They are essentially a thinly tied tribes held together with religious fanaticism and violence. Their constant warring with one another has left the oil-rich countries dominated by religious and military despots and oil-less countries left with multiple factions in a constant state of struggle. Many Arabs do not know what peace is. In an interview I watched with a member of an Afghani tribal warrior, he said hge enjoys fighting, because without the fighting there wouldn't be anything left but poverty and despair.

But we still all strive for the reasonable, peaceful resolution and men like Saddam Hussein use our humanitarian nature against us. He constantly tests our mettle by refusing to allow inspectors into his fascilities, and then just when he feels that international opinion is about to turn on him, he turns around a says:

"I have a change of heart. Come in a check them as much as you want." This, of course, is after he has had months to move any biological or nuclear weapons he has to safe locations. And we all fall for it.

Mark my words, if we continue to tip toe around international opinion and allow those who have no reason to fear a durty nuke being set off in their country, we will be attacked again. And this time I fear more will wind up dead.

Deathshand, like Al Gore, your "this isn't that bad" attitude will cause innocents to be killed.

Holy crap, this thread is still getting posts!? Someone's gotta put an end to this.

Well since I'm a dumbass and I hate getting into big debates about things like this, I didn't even read some parts of your post... ;)

But I decided to reply to this part...

First of all, a "Dirty Bomb" wouldn't even be a very big devistating thing... people hear the nuclear material part and they're like "Nuclear Material!? A NUKE!? HUGE EXPLOSION YADA YADA!" but a dirty bomb is just like a normal bomb laced with Nuclear Material... Sure it would kill people and most likely render a small area of wherever uninhabbitable for awhile (quite a long while), but it wouldn't be like a nuclear bomb, and it would in no way top Sept. 11th in death toll...

Now a normal nuclear bomb/device/thing is a different story... But I think that would be quite hard for them to get that in this country... :unsure:

But I dunno...

And yes we will be attacked again eventually in one way or another... Big or small... In the US or just US interests abroad... I think it's pretty much inevitable, even if we try to do something about it... Simply because there are sooo many terror cells in soooo many countries...

But whatever... I guess doing something is better than doing nothing in some situations, and yes having a "this isn't dangerous" attitude is bad in some cases, but having a "SHOOT FIRST AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER YEEEEHAW I WANT A WAR W00T W00T!" attitude is too... What if you attack someone and then find out they weren't doing what you thought they were doing or whatever? Then chances are the US would think up some way to cover their asses... I'm not saying they're NOT up to something suspicious, I'm saying WHAT IF they're not... And of course you say WHAT IF they are, but saying what if they are is just as much a possibility as saying what if they aren't when nobody knows 100% for sure... And just as dangerous... don't do something and if it turns out he is up to no good, some place gets attacked and people die...

Attack them and have it turn out he wasn't doing what we thought he was doing, people die and chances are it'd give Arabs and Europeans (like Angrist ;) ) another reason to dislike Bush and stuff...

"But we still all strive for the reasonable, peaceful resolution and men like Saddam Hussein use our humanitarian nature against us. He constantly tests our mettle by refusing to allow inspectors into his fascilities"

I know this is a much smaller scale, but I constantly have people coming in and out of my room and it's quite annoying... Sometimes they could in and I'm like "I don't want anybody in here right now" Or say things like "Man I wish I had a working lock on my door"... Does this mean I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing? No, it means I don't want a bunch of people wandering in and out of MY room...

It's easy for us to just say "Well just let the damn inspectors in and all will be fine!", but Saddam might just have some big ego (or whatever it would be called) and is like "No! This is my country and I don't want weapons inspectors in!"...

Does it sound suspicious? Yes... Does it means he IS doing something suspicious? No...

And really, I think he most likely is... and I'm not necesarily against attacking Iraq... But I'm just looking at all different possibilities rather than "HE'S DEFINANTLY UP TO NO GOOD! LET'S GO IN AND TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY WHEN HE'S ALREADY LET WEAPONS INSPECTORS BACK IN AND IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF THE WORLD DOESN'T LIKE THE IDEA!"

And you'd probably argue that "Bush and them must have good proof and all that that Iraq is up to no good, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to push the idea of attacking Iraq so much"...

But if they had such amazingly good proof, why are a number of big countries still against the idea?

It seems like EVERYONE is very divided on the whole deal, and yet the people who want to attack are yelling and screaming that it's so damn obvious and we need to do it and all that... If it was so damn obvious, why are people so divided?

Bah I dunno, I hate this whole issue where people get so divided about things and bicker back and forth about it...

Whatever the US does, I just hope they do the right thing and don't make a mistake... Meaning if we attack Iraq, they better have really been up to no good, otherwise public opinion and stuff in various European countries and the middle east could go down (if it's not already low enough)...

I hate debating about serious topics :D

Edit: Oh, and I still don't think Angrist meant that the Holocaust was the US's fault, and it doesn't sound like that's "Just about what he said" to me...

Oh yes a dirty nuke would be the equivalent of having a rock thrown through our collective window. That makes perfect sense. :rolleyes:



We also thougth it would be quite hard for them to hijack our own planes and kill thousands of innocent people, so lets completely ignore the past and march on blindly into the future. Once again, that makes perfect sense.



Ah yes, so we should just sit around and wait for them to kill us. What a wonderful philosophy



If we had the shoot first ask questions later mentality, the entire Middle East would be a steaming radioctive crater right now. The fact is that Saddam is not complying with the conditions of his surrender. That is a big problem and needs to be resolved one way or another. It is obvious that the "reasonable" solution is not working.

Are you F**KING KIDDING ME? That is the stupidest comparison I have ever heard in my life. I don't even have to rebut that, it rebuts itself when you use common sense when reading it.



Saddam's ego or whether or not he is even up to no good is not the issue here. As I have stated repeatedly in my posts, HE HAS VIOLATED THE TERMS OF HIS SURRENDER IN THE GULF WAR. That is reason enough to force him to comply. Excuse me is I hold little sympathy for Hussein's right to privacy. The man should be dead by now for his crimes against humanity.

The last time the international community allowed a hostile government to slide in terms of surrender, guess what happened? The Nazi war machine. As a part of the terms of surrender for Germany during World War One it was deemed that Germany could not have a standing army greater than 80,000 I believe (I'm not positive, but it was around that number maybe even less). When Germany annexed Austria they had a standing army of nearly 1,000,000 troops because the free world ignored Germany's blatant disregard for the terms of surrender.

This is not fiction, this is not a scarey bed time story that you tell to your kids to make sure they brush their teeth and say their prayers at night. This happened. There is a reason why there are terms of surrender. Don't think this couldn't happen again.

This will not fix itself. This will not just go away. That type of thinking has caused millions of people to die in the past, and if it does not change it will most likely happen again.

"Oh yes a dirty nuke would be the equivalent of having a rock thrown through our collective window. That makes perfect sense."

Wait.... are you saying Sept. 11th was like a rock being thrown at our collective window or something?

So I guess that would make a dirty bomb being like throwing a pebble at it and not even making a mark? ;o


"We also thougth it would be quite hard for them to hijack our own planes and kill thousands of innocent people"

We did? There's a difference between not even thinking they'd do something, and thinking they wouldn't be able to do something...


"Ah yes, so we should just sit around and wait for them to kill us. What a wonderful philosophy "

I never said that...

"Are you F**KING KIDDING ME? That is the stupidest comparison I have ever heard in my life. I don't even have to rebut that, it rebuts itself when you use common sense when reading it. "

Yes, it is quite stupid... I even pointed out that it was a much smaller scale, what I was saying... I was just trying to make a point that maybe he just doesn't want a bunch of people looking around his country, searching a bunch of places, etc... And I knew you'd say something like that... It would also be quite stupid if Saddam was not letting weapons inspectors in simply because he didn't want them in his country when he didn't have anything to hide, wouldn't it? It would make him look suspicious when all he had to do was let them in and get it over with... But who's to say that's not what he's doing? People do stupid things... I'm sure you've done stupid things before, havn't you?

I'm not saying that IS what he's doing, I'm saying WHAT IF... Which is basically all you're saying too... what if he does that, what if they attack us, what if this what if that, everything is just what if, which I guess is a big reason people are so divided on the issue...

But yeah whatever... I can't stand history lessons, so I think maybe I'll leave this discussion, since chances are even if someone could come up with a very good reason why we shouldn't attack or someone made you sound wrong, you'd just keep yelling about how you're right and blah blah america is good, america is god, america is never wrong, blah blah yada yada...

There's no use in arguing in favour of USA, everyone is always against the best anything, whether it be a sports team or a country. It's just jealousy. Bush could create a cure for cancer and save the world twenty times, but he'll still be an asshole according to people from "those" little countries, like Holland.

B-Bush...cr-create...a c-c-cure for...CANCER!? Heh...ha ha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahaha hahahahaha *gasp* hahaha! Oh, my side hurts so badly! Though, in all seriousness, I can actually see that happening... not! :stupid:

just a point...

although you all seem to have moved past the holocaust

and now the point:

um, a lot of people didn't know about the holocaust, or at least it's magnitude. i'm not a big history buff but i know that the americans came in to the war and *then* they started finding all the death camps. so you can't really say it's the american's fault, since they didn't know. yes, had they entered the war earlier they might have stopped the death camps earlier, but without them knowing about it, you can't blame them for "not stopping it".

point over.

you may continue the yelling.

Freakybob making an intelligent post? Heh...ha ha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahaha hahahahaha *gasp* hahaha! Oh, my side hurts so badly! Though, in all seriousness, I can actually see that happening... not! :stupid:

:lol:

haha

DH, you claim to have never said things, when I quote you showing that you did, and then procede to contradict yourself in you very next post to cover your butt. Amazing.

When it comes to terms of surrender, there are no WHAT IFs... you comply, or you are made to comply. Those are the rules. You can't make up new rules because he might be making Brownies instead of Mustard Gas. Final.

And this is why I don't even try too hard to debate things...

Cuz either way I sound like an idiot....

Cuz I am an idiot ;)

:-o