The US govt. continues its campaign to alienate everyone

Everything else
21

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/iraq/nirq055.htm

The numbers will be much worse for a full on invasion of a dug in country where a majority of the soldiers are based in urban centers.

The day I’m shown a picture of an Iraqi chemical weapons lab or a mass of illegal materials, then I might support a war on Iraq. But 500,000 casualties, no matter which side they’re on, all in the name of removing one man seems a bit extreme to me.

And for the love of god, we are alienating every ally we have. Spain is the only country supporting us that has the full support of their government. Even Blair, who is practically a member of Bush’s Cabinet, is fighting off a hostile takeover in Parliment.

How loud does the rest of the world have to scream before the Bush administration will listen?

I’m not just some peace-nick here. I agreed with removing Iraq from Kuwait. I agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan. I even agreed with the bombing of Libya. And yet I can not agree with taking the lives of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people on an assumption with no real evidence.

22

Guess you missed Colin Powell’s presentation with pictures of the mobile bio factories and that whole thing about illegal missiles they had sitting around?

Even Blair, who is practically a member of Bush’s Cabinet, is fighting off a hostile takeover in Parliment.

Well, much of Parliament may still be against him, but apparently he’s getting more of the populace on his side every day:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003101096,00.html

Things may not turn out as bad for Blair as we thought.

23

I am not a peacenik. In fact given proper evidence and reasoning I think a persuasive argument can be made on going into Iraq…its the way Bush operates, not what he is doing. You could actually act like you gave a damn about world political opinion, United Nations etc…you don’t have to tell everyone that we think they are insignificant. It just does not help. Frankly I am so much more concerned about North Korea anyway. There we have some folks with proven nuclear abilities, willing to sell anything to get currency, starving, in a completely failing country with Seoul just minutes away and the ability to lob a missile at California and Bush stops doing flyovers…meanwhile we are ready to play the bully on Iraq who is destroying their missiles, playing the media, cooperating at least to some extent with inspections…Does anyone really wonder why the world thinks the man and his administration is fucked up?

24

Not you in particular, graller, but I fear too many people worldwide are against the U.S.'s actions because they do not like George Bush and his overall politics.

I did not vote for Bush and will not vote for him in the next election more than likely. I think, though, that the administration hadto make a decision early (and did) to either take a hardline where Iraq and its violations were concerned or play the back and forth political game and negotiate with Saddam. Last year many hawks assumed and I believe the admin. planned on us invading after the first of the year. Inspections began and many though it would occur once the inspections were over. Now, experts are saying mid to late March.

Whether the take it or leave it approach was a good idea is debateable. I think Bush has moderated it considerably or we would have been at war weeks ago. The U.S. is still waiting on resolutions. Still waiting on France, Germany, and Russia. Possible, now, going to wait around on further U.N. inspections.

Meanwhile, Hussein plays his mini-brinkmanship game. Inspections over, Powell lays out his evidence, and it looks like worldwide sentiment may be swinging. Almost the next day, Saddam says he’ll co-operate and we seem to pull back a bit. Patience wears thin again and lookeee here, Iraq comes up with a couple of missiles to destroy for the cameras to see. Oh and now a couple of the scientists Blix wanted to interview weeks ago are suddenly ready to go. Saddam states that he is heartened by Americans, Brits, and Aussies and their peace protests because all he wants is to protect his people and live in peace. Unless they marry his daughter, leave the country, and then come back after talking with people abroad. Then they will be summarily executed. Son-in-law or not.

Saddam is dicking the U.N. and everyone around. He can do this forever and, if our intelligence is true, use his mobile factories and storage facilities to build up his arsenal. Plus, he still has not accounted for all that he stated he had in '96 or '98 (can’t remember, sorry) that he “buried”. No evidence he actually did that, but inspectors are not pressing on this issue.

I could go on, but I see by the clock on the wall that our time is up. Just what I see.

25

Wake up people ! The world has always hated the USA. It’s just that now they have been given something tangible to latch on to.

And whether you like it or not American Tourists do have a large impact on what people think of America. As the most visible export from America they are reknowned for their loud voices and mightier than thou attitudes.

It’s not our fault that most American tourists seem to come from the South where there seems to be widespread hearing impediment among the local population.

:wink:

26

Huh?

27

LOL! Exactly.

28

Good points all - As I said I am behind the intention, just not the way he is executing it. And yes American tourists are embarrassing…but go to Disney and check out the Germans if you want to see some rude tourists…I think it is some function of being in a foriegn land that just brings out the rudeness in people.

29

I wonder if all the American tourists are dumb because the smart ones don’t particularly want to go to Europe.

30

:lol:

31

Yeah, who needs a treasure trove of art and architecture offering an exilhirating window on the history of Western civilization when you could just go to a Medieval Times restaurant, scarf down a cheeseburger, and get home in time for Joe Millionaire instead? Brilliant deduction there, Jeb.

32

Yeah, who needs a treasure trove of art and architecture offering an exilhirating window on the history of Western civilization when you could just go to a Medieval Times restaurant, scarf down a cheeseburger, and get home in time for Joe Millionaire instead? Brilliant deduction there, Jeb.[/quote]

Man does he have Americans pegged. An analysis which is, surprisingly, filled with pop culture references most often gleaned from television.

33

I wasn’t talking about “Americans,” I was talking about one specific American who says it’s smart to avoid travel Europe. Which is a pretty dumb thing to say. Try not to get your schizophrenic cultural superiority/inferiority complex in an uproar.

34

I wasn’t talking about “Americans,” I was talking about one specific American who says it’s smart to avoid travel Europe. Which is a pretty dumb thing to say. Try not to get your schizophrenic cultural superiority/inferiority complex in an uproar.[/quote]

Lord knows Matthew G. does not need me to jump to his aid, but I could have sworn he was simply making a little joke. As in:

Would it not be funny if all of the smart people in our nation new how good we have it and saw no need in worrying with Europe? That would leave only idiots travelling to Europe which would lead to Europeans thinking we are all dumb which would lead to us making fun of Europeans on message boards because they think they are all better than us.

Something along those lines. I have never been to Europe and would love to go myself. If you could register on these boards and include your whereabouts, I could be persuaded to make arrangements to avoid your little portion of paradise if it would make you a little less defensive.

35

I’m just saying the educated prefer Asia; that’s all.

36

Ohhhhh. I thought only the Asians were educated. I had it confused. To be so eerily short and all have the exact same head of hair, those little bastards sure have a lot of fancy book learnin’ goin’ on.

37

Tourists are most always boneheads, it comes with the unfamiliar territory. Living in L.A., we get tourists from everywhere, and they all stomp around wearing the same heavy clothes and “Please Mug Me” signs. Look people, walking through the middle of Pershing Square wearing leather shoes, a backpack, and studying a map is not conducive to a pleasant stay. You are like some sort of mobile ATM for Crackhead Savings & Loan. Get back over to The Disney Resort & don’t leave until they have taken all of your money the legal way.

My personal favorite tourist line happened while I was being a tourist myself at Disneyworld. My wife and I were sitting on a bench waiting for a fireworks show to start, and a family of Texans was standing nearby discussing the fine meal they had at Chez Disney that evening. The mom says to her husband, “I don’t know what kind of wine they had in that box, but it was not cheap, it was very good.” Luckily, my burst of laughter didn’t lead to a fight - I freely acknowledge that the Texans would have whipped my laid-back Californian ass.

38

Oh boy!

The government has identified 300 Iraqis in the 60 countries whom officials want expelled, the U.S. officials said. Some are operating as diplomats out of Iraqi embassies, the officials said, adding that the foreign governments are expected to comply with the U.S. request

Is that “are expected to comply with the request” as in we anticipate they will, or as in “they’d better do it or else?”

39

Guess you missed Colin Powell’s presentation with pictures of the mobile bio factories and that whole thing about illegal missiles they had sitting around?

[/quote]

I saw Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. and was left oddly unswayed. It was the same old thing: We know they had these 12 years ago, so they must have them now, even though we have no evidence of this.

As for the missiles; they had a maximum range of, what, a few kilometers longer than was allowed? And we want to slaughter thousands of people over that? 163 kilometers isn’t even far enough to hit Israel or Riyadh. The extra 13 kilometers didn’t increase their potential targetting one iota. It’s like shooting a man in the head because he shorted you 15 cents on your change from a $100 bill.

Once again; if I saw some hard evidence that Iraq had dangerous forbidden weapons or the technoledgy to make those weapons, I would support an invasion.

Hussein is a monster and a danger to the region. But there are dozens of dangerous rulers out there who have no business ruling a nation. And Bush isn’t even using Hussein’s humanitarian record as his reason to attack; he’s just spouting off on how we know he probably might have something hidden away somewhere, if we’re not mistaken, and if he does’t now then he can maybe make something somewhere down the line if we don’t kill him and all his leadership.

I don’t see why we have any business marching over 120,000 troops into Iraq, killion tens to hundreds of thousands of people, and probably losing thousands of our own troops, on a hunch.

40

It’s getting extremely annoying how the administration refuses to own up and admit this is for regional security, not national security. I don’t care how red your face gets when you shout it on Crossfire, the chance of Saddam actually attacking the US unprovoked is zero.

Now, the chance of him attacking SA or Kuwait again…