Saddam Hussein Wants A Debate

[Jeff_Rice]

You guys should watch the history channel. You would then learn what he does to people.

I don't want to describe them here.

STANZAS ON FREEDOM
James Russell Lowell

Men! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters, for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true Freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

[FAKrogoth]

Originally posted by Jeff_Rice
You guys should watch the history channel. You would then learn what he does to people.

I don't want to describe them here.

The issue at hand here is not whether Saddam Hussein deserves to die. Few people actually like him. What we're debating is whether the United States has the right to forcibly depose the leader of a country, when said leader has not attacked us. I don't think we do.

Remember the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me?" There's a big difference between saying that you hate America and taking chemical/biological/nuclear weapons across the ocean and actually setting them off. We're not at war, and they haven't made any noticeable moves towards preparation for an attack upon the US, so we have no justification for a preemptive strike.

[Pin Man]

FAKrogoth- Look at what I said about the U.N., obviously you didn't read it...

[Jeff_Rice]

My point was mainly through the quoted poem. Freedom comes with responsibility, and part of that is to help others to gain it.

[Scottie2Hottie]

To all those people that say we are hipocrits because we make weapons and wont let Iraq build weapons---- We can make weapons more one major reason...WE PRETTY MUCH CONTROL THE U.N.... We are the primary seat in the U.N. Countries in the U.N. can make weapons... We do make weapons like everyone else but you forgot one thing... We don't make weapons of mass destruction... We make weapons that are legal unlike Iraq and North Korea...

on the contrary, we have not only resumed our nuclear weapons program, we also have stated that they could be used in retaliation against a chemical or biological strike against our troops. As I type "the US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention." -(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=383006)

Even if Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction, who are we to tell them they can't have them. Quite frankly, they have good reason to. At least two if not three of Iraq's neighbors have nuclear capability. Isreal, Saudi Arabia, and most likely Iran have nuclear programs.

I agree with FAKrogoth, and quite frankly I don't think Saddam is a good guy. but, you must keep in mind America's track record of depicting enemies as barbarians to justify war http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/todays_e...759272,00.html
But, even if Saddam is a horrible man it's not our responsibility to barge our way into a country and try to change thousands of years of tradition because we think it's the better way. Remember, The fetters of Plato's Cave are easy to break, but the will of it's occupants to remained fettered is one of the strongest forces

[Onizuka]

I can see valid points in most everyones arguments however to the people that think the u.s. is a "good" country within all of this needs to understand that what the main goal of this whole thing is not to get rid of saddam but bring democracy to the middle east. plus you cant forget the oil complex, obviously its not a major part of bushs decision but im sure he will take advantage of all the oil.

I think that bush actually believes that if he gets rid of saddam and puts in a democratic government that other countries surrounding iraq will follow suit.

Whoever thinks that the u.s. does not make weapons of mass destruction needs to open their minds..this country is portrayed as a shining beacon of light within all of these "evil" countries. The president really needs to learn some ways to deal with problems other than calling leaders "evil".

as a side note the people of south korea are more afraid of bush than of kim...but then again the comment was made that kim was a "midget in the land of not so tall people".

[DanL]

To all of you who are you saying that Saddam has broken every single wish of the UN deadline wise, he's evil because he just wants to stir up trouble, yada yada yada... that's the same exact thing the U.S. is doing.

I believe the US forced already one possible resoultion to the UN. That got shot down. Now we're pushing for a second one, and we still have stiff opposition. France is strictly against us, Germany is strictly against us, Russia is on the borderline - our only really powerful ally is England.

Almost nobody wants this war (except for us trigger-happy Americans, of course). Turkey has just denied us from using their country as a launching base. Many prominent celebrities are voicing their opinions against the war (just to name a few: Bono, George Michael, Sheryl Crow) - so much that the directors of the Grammy's threatened to kill the mics on any celebrities who began giving anti-war speeches.

Yeah, Saddam isn't cooperating with the UN, but as I see it, neither is the US. One of our resolutions got shot down in the UN. So what do we do? We use our raw brute strength as the last remaining superpower to push another one through.

Anyways, my point is this: to all of who said Saddam has defied the UN by missing every single deadline, take a look around. We're using out position to BULLY the UN.

We may be the last superpower, but guess what! Even WITH our obviously endless powers, a decade ago it took a coalition of THIRTY some-odd nations to beat an area about the size of Texas. Time are changing - you can't continue looking at this from the old imperialistic point of view. We're no longer powerful enough to take the world on by ourselves, and I think some people have to realize that.


To finish up, check out these links:
Gulf War 2 (aka World War 2.5)
US Spying on UN Security Council Delegates
Last (locked) CD Thread About Saddam

[edit]Forgot to add this quote... this floated around the interweb a few weeks back:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war
in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry,
infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of
their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know?

For this is what I have done.

And I am Caesar."

[Pin Man]

CAN PEOPLE READ?! We can make these type of weapons because we are in the U.N.... They are in regualtion too... Saddam is just playing a game... The reason why we should go to war now is because if we don't they will have more bigger and stronger weapons... Open your eyes guys... If we don't strike first, they will... This is not a game... This is as real as it gets... He as been playing this game since like 1991...

[DanL]

Originally posted by Pin Man
CAN PEOPLE READ?! We can make these type of weapons because we are in the U.N.... They are in regualtion too... Saddam is just playing a game... The reason why we should go to war now is because if we don't they will have more bigger and stronger weapons... Open your eyes guys... If we don't strike first, they will... This is not a game... This is as real as it gets... He as been playing this game since like 1991...

We make these weapons because nobody can stop us from making them. Saddam wants 'em because once he gets 'em, people can start listening to him.

Having The Bomb is just like having an ace in your sleeve - nobody's going to attack you. India and Pakistan have 'em, so we can't boss them around anymore. Iran is working on their nuke program so we won't be able to boss them around. North Korea has The Bomb, so we can't do anything to them.

Speaking of which, N. Korea Warns of [Nuclear] Disaster if Attacked

This goes back to my entire imperialism comment - back in the days, we COULD go around bossing country's around cause there was nothing they could do about it. Now we can only boss around people who don't have The Bomb, or whose allies don't have The Bomb. I think that's not realized yet.

To finish, I want to link you to this cartoon again: Gulf War 2 (aka World War 2.5)

[Pin Man]

Seriously I don't think you know what you are talking about cause I sure as heck don't... No country bosses another country around... Bomb or no bomb... It's all about sercurity and being in the U.N.... If you are in the U.N.(which we pretty much run), then you are allowed to have certain weapons that are within regulation...

[David Kelly]

every thread that has to do with war always gets out of hand, much like this one has...