So let me get this straight. 15 insepctors

[Annorax]

An accidental explosion wont set off the few NUKES Saddam's got sitting around, but I'll bet he's got shittons of conventional warheads that would go off and fuck the place up pretty good... and besides, if a secondary explosion did enough damage to the nukes, wouldnt they become a radiation hazard?????

[Pissed_Macman]

We should be more concerned with biological weapons than A-bombs.

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by choasforages:
yeah, i hate saddam ALOT , i also don't like the chinese government, hell, i don't like most countrys government. but saddam has to go, but we should be careful. sure we could kick saddams ass, but what about the rest of those sucidal motherfuckers. you take one on, the rest will probably follow. besides the first thing i thought after 9/11, is to take a cruise missile, and blow up that shitty holy rock in mecca. call it an attack on their "symbols", becuase, well they said that the world trade center's were a symbol of the U.S.'s power. but that would piss too many U.S. muslims off, as well as destroy a "world" history item, damned complications of a good idea

this is racist and backward. you are implying that every muslim in the world was involved in the destruction of your pretty towers. don't you care about justice? don't you want to hold the actual perpetrators of the september 2001 tragedy to account, rather than blindly taking 'revenge' against a race or a country that you perceive needs to be taught a lesson?

how come your country doesn't give two hoots when other innocents are slaughtered? china has been illegally occupying nepal for decades, and all you can say is you don't like china?
it's this sort of attitude that america must grow out of now it has big man's guns.

choas, i am sure you are not as simplistic as i imply, so do not take it personally, but i bet a lot of other people really are this racist and backward.

also, i must mention, void main, don't take what i am about to say personally since you, and i am sure many others like you, have a well considered attitude towards foreign policy even if i don't happen to agree with you 100% on it (and why should we agree? we are essentially bound to disagree, since we come from different countries!). That aside i honestly think that there are too many americans (and too many with their fingers on the button i bet) who think it's their god given right to blow parts of the world up until the whole planet is one big united states of america (or one big 'ex-weapons-of-mass-destruction factory', whichever comes first). If Asimov or Heinlein had written what is happening now in the world in a novel 50 years ago, it would have rightly been thought of as tragic science fiction.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[voidmain]

Calum, you are almost making the same mistake as the person you are calling racist. Many people here lump all Americans into a single group because of the radical views of a few. It really bothers me when people do this, just like it probably bothers the good muslims that they were lumped in with a few extremist terrorists.

But we've been through all of this before. I am pretty sure I said earlier that I believe Saddam is not good for Iraq or the rest of the world. I believe he is a threat to us, and he has proven to be a threat to his own people. I hope that the people of Iraq uprise against him, but that isn't likely to happen. I believe Saddam does have to go one way or another. I certainly don't believe the answer is to drop a big nuke in the middle of Iraq as the people of Iraq are just caught in the middle of all of this and deserve a better life.

We all have different views of things, it doesn't seem that anyone is going to change any other persons opinions about things so there really is no point in discussing it as far as I am concerned.

And in this case when I say I am upset, I don't mean with you, but with the political talk in general.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Calum]

you misconstrue me, which is what i was hoping to avoid with my disclaimer.

i do not for one moment wish to lump all americans in with each other. it's a continent sized country and i'd be mad to think they were all android like and thought the same as each other. i am only saying that there are many who probably do have too proprietorial (?) a view of the world.

the USA is quite geographically isolated from the rest of the world and as you point out yourself, it is easy for people with limited experience to simply apply second hand opinions that they have not tested to satisfaction for themselves.I was careful to say that i think a lot of americans believe they have too much claim on the rest of the world. For all i know, many more (or many less) may have a totally different outlook. I haven't been to the USA and i do not pretend to have anything other than second hand experience of americans myself. void main, you are much more qualified than me to say what large numbers of US citizens opine.

Also, i think you and i have got over our bickering and i think that as long as people listen to what each other are saying, that discussion can move forward.

Also, i didn't really mean to say choas was racist, but what he says sounds very close to some nasty racist things i have heard people (usually echoing somebody else) say, which did strike me as very racist indeed. racism only hinders development and i think it should be made clear that racism of any sort has no place in the future.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[voidmain]

Maybe I read more into what people write than I should. But it also bothers me that people think we have radical people with their finger on the button. We do have a lot of checks and balances that prevent any sort of radical activity like that, in fact almost to a fault.

Another thing that bothers me about general anti-American discussions typically bring up (you haven't that I recall) is there are some sort of alterior motives for the actions that the US takes. For instance I still constantly hear people say the Gulf war was entirely based on oil and not to free Kuwait. If this were true the US (and friends) would not have stopped just at the liberation of Kuwait. They would have pressed on into Baghdad and taken over the country, claimed the oil for their own and be done with it. But no, the goal was to liberate Kuwait and that's exactly what happened, nothing more. Maybe more should have been done and we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now, but that would have been beyond the scope at the time.

I'm sure I'll get flack over this one from many so I should have stopped while I was behind.  

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Maybe I read more into what people write than I should. But it also bothers me that people think we have radical people with their finger on the button. We do have a lot of checks and balances that prevent any sort of radical activity like that, in fact almost to a fault.

if you didn't, the world would have been blown up when nixon was in power.

however no human designed system (in my opinion) is sufficient to hold the full power of such a military power in proper check. the only possible justification for its existence is to stop lunatics like these dictators of which we are talking from excercising their power over helpless individuals. This purpose obviously should not be in the hands of only one nation, but instead should involve the whole world as a proper democracy.

as for ulterior motives, who knows? who truly knows?

the english went to war in the falklands in the early eighties purely so that margaret thatcher could win the 1983 general election, for instance. the english don't vote for the opposition in times of war, so many innocents died under the guise of protecting the borders of the empire when what was actually happening was that thatcher was being helped over possibly the rockiest part of her career as prime minister. allegedly.

What i have just said is libel of course (or it would be if i hadn't said 'allegedly' at the end there). none of this has ever been proved. that's how it is though.

If people aren't given the facts, they generally assume the worst, which is often worse than the truth.

[lazygamer]

quote:its called bush 2.0 is out for war.

too bad hes making a terrible statigic error, we are fighting a war in afgahnistan, but we are starting one in iraq. didn't we learn anything from hitler, or his defeat, the fact that two front wars don't work.

Ok I could be very wrong here. I've always thought of the American military as very very very powerful. Powerful enough to take on any 1st world country's army and win, yet still be beatable if a variety of 1st world countries ganged up on America.

So I don't see how the two fronts rule applies when your enemy is vastly inferior to you. In addition, Afghanistan is not a true war or enemy. combat operation. As for a war with the arab world, I still think the US would pull through.

Still, I could be grossly misinformed about the US's strength...

[Calum]

well if iraq has 'weapons of mass destruction' then the 'my guns are bigger than yours argument is totally moot. we reached the point long ago where destructive capacity was saturated, in the same way that you cannot make a cup of tea taste any sweeter after the seventh teaspoon of sugar. Let me make an example:
say iraq has managed to create a nuclear arsenal with the capacity to depopulate the entire planet, and let's say for argument's sake that the US has the power to depopulate the planet 29 times over (a figure i pulled out of my arse). Who's side is more powerful? the US of course! and what's more they are 29 times more powerful.

H O W E V E R . . .

If Iraq happens to push the button first then the US will have nothing but some lethal bookends and a whole lot of dead citizens. Whoever says 'fire' first wins. that is the essence of mutually assured destruction. One wonders if the US needs a cold war simply to justify it's own huge nuclear capabilities.

Also, this is the reason why any 'our army's bigger than yours' rationalisations are outdated and irrelevant.

[dot.this]

quote:by chaosforages:
besides the first thing i thought after 9/11, is to take a cruise missile, and blow up that shitty holy rock in mecca. call it an attack on their "symbols", becuase, well they said that the world trade center's were a symbol of the U.S.'s power.  

Imagine if someone hijacked a Royal Saudi jetliner and flew it into Mohammed's house in the midst of Hajj. (That big black box in the middle of Mecca is supposedly Mohammed's house; Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca all good Muslims must make.)

Seeing that happen would make all Muslims stop and rethink terrorism. Remember, they have seen only their success at the terror game. If they saw what terrorism can cost them, they would have second thoughts about preaching Jihad, Wahhabism, and terrorism.

Of course, simultaneous with the destruction of Mohammed's house would be a message taking responsibility, and saying, "THIS is terrorism. Go tell your Mullahs and Imams that terror breeds terror. If they want to keep preaching Jihad, this is the result they will get."

Maybe then, the surge in violent radical Islam will settle down and we can get back to living in peace.

[psyjax]

You said it. Terror breads terror, which is why your idea is dumb  

seriously...

You can't fight violence with violence, two wrongs don't make a right, etc. etc.

I think the whole thing was handled correctly.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
One wonders if the US needs a cold war simply to justify it's own huge nuclear capabilities.

That's a nice thought but a cold war can only work if both sides are rational and don't want the entire world to go up in smoke. Saddam has yet to prove to me that he is rational. In a dictatorship one person truly has a finger on the button. Not so in the case of the U.S. and the former Soviet Union,  no matter how many times people tell you otherwise.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Annorax]

Yeah, that WOULD teach them about terrorism, but are we really that pathetic that we need to sink to their level???? Don't kill civilians with it, just blow the rock up in the middle of the night when theres nobody there - it cleanly removes their symbols, teaches them the meaning of terrorism, and isnt nearly as "low" as what Osama did to us. I hate to have to advocate destroying something millions of ppl see as a symbol of their culture... but Osama did that to us here, and he's not going to understand any action just aimed at his resources... the people he claims to support must SEE FOR THEMSELVES the damage he has caused us!

[KernelPanic]

quote:Originally posted by The Rev. Annorax:
Yeah, that WOULD teach them about terrorism, but are we really that pathetic that we need to sink to their level???? Don't kill civilians with it, just blow the rock up in the middle of the night when theres nobody there - it cleanly removes their symbols, teaches them the meaning of terrorism, and isnt nearly as "low" as what Osama did to us. I hate to have to advocate destroying something millions of ppl see as a symbol of their culture... but Osama did that to us here, and he's not going to understand any action just aimed at his resources... the people he claims to support must SEE FOR THEMSELVES the damage he has caused us!

How old are you? That is ridiculous. Thinking that is acceptable, but it is the kind of thing that stays a mere personal though.

[Annorax]

Tux... I have to disagree with your post. If you disagree, attack the post, not me.

As for my thoughts, lesser actions have done approximately NO good - Osama's still out there, building up resources for whatever he's going to do next, and removing his stranglehold on Afghanistan didnt help. I believe the only way to convince his followers (notice i dont say muslims.... i'm not the kind of person to condemn a billion people for the actions of a couple dozen) that his way is NOT the way to achieve what they think is right... and destroying something they consider an important symbol may be the way to do that.