.....................

[Larry Brown #43]

...................

[Kilmer17]

Hannah Storm said the celebrations were staged.

[Larry Brown #43]

.................

[NavyDave]

Some arab countires are saying that but I think/hope Kilmer just forgot to add the to show he was being sarcastic.

I still cant get over the protesters in michigan being swallowed up by the crowd of Iraqis americans kissing pics of Dubba ya and the ground while saying thank you bush thank you USA

Going have to get back orders for Crow at those trendy hollywood eateries among other places in the peoples republic of Cali huh?

[skinsfan44]

The left will spin anything to push there agenda. They don't want anything good to happen that will give Bush a victory in anything.

I agree that we should have opinons from both the left and right, but some of these so call left wingers, are border line Marxist, Fascist b@st@rds.:cuss:

[The Evil Genius]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

Hannah Storm said the celebrations were staged.

ABC last night said that of the 18 people dragging Saddam's statue around, 7 were journalists and even highlighted them.

Then they broke down the second by second draping of the US flag and then Iraqi flag over the Saddam's statue before it got pulled down, and then made some reference that the flag was "missing" when it started to come down (I didn't understand their point here).

I tend to agree with Carls post - the Iraqi's would be pissing on an American Flag just as easily......I think most of them are just happy that the bombing of their homes will peter out...

[Larry Brown #43]

...........................

[JackC]

I don't care if it was staged. We should stage them, it's good for our country to do it!

[codeorama]

I don't consider myself a left winger, I am independant, but on the war issue, I'm more left than you guys...

My take is that I have never said freeing Iraqi people woudn't be a good thing... But I have been against the war because I am against the US being peacekeepers and trying to convert everycountry to our way of life. My feeling is that our way of life may not be for everyone (see Russia).

But I was under the impression that this war was about Iraq being a threat to the US? Obviously now, that's not the case. In my opinion, the public was tricked into support, we were told that Iraq was a direct threat to the US and we needed to do something about it. Garbage.... I know some of you won't agree with me, but that's my opinion.

Finally, I totally feel that if a democrat were the president (I'd say or an independant, But that will never happen), the right's support would not be there as heartily.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it.

[Larry Brown #43]

................

[skinsfan913]

Codeman you hit the nail right on the head! I agree with you wholeheartedly.

[Guest SkinsHokie Fan]

No way in hell were any of those celebrations staged. Those people are happy. The left refuses to let them be happy and enjoy their new found freedom.

If it was the Soviets that liberated Iraq from Saddam in the 80s the left would be happy. But not now. Not us. Because America can do no good in the world

[Kilmer17]

The left would look at those pictures and claim there were 2 million people if it was a protest in SF.

Code, this war has and is about many things. Liberation is one. Security for the US is another. Oil is yet another. Liberation comes first because it happens instantly. We will find the WMDs once we have the time to search for them. Up til now we've focused on defeating the enemy. After that, the oil will start to flow.

[Tarhog]

Code,

Thats a pretty premature statement. Just as those that a week ago were saying we were going to 'wade in our own blood' when it turns out we were well on our way to kicking @ss and taking names (with 1/3 the casualties of the 1991 action), saying the war is not about protecting America from the nexus of terrorists and WMD's is premature. Lets just say, for instance, that we discover that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Iraq was well on their way to having workable primitive nukes. Just because the Iraqis may rejoice in their liberation does not mean this was our primary goal. The hunt for Iraqs WMD's and secret weapons programs has barely even begun. Lets wait before we judge what this war was and wasn't about.

[Tarhog]

I'll also add that anyone who saw those pictures yesterday and tries to spin the reaction of many Iraqis as a farce, 'staged', or simply cow-towing to their new 'master' is intellectually dishonest. Granted the jubilation is not universal, and there probably are some that privately resent us while publicly waving/smiling. But there was genuine joy on a lot of those faces. Bush was largely right about how we'd be received. It may hurt to admit it, but its a bitter pill some are going to have to swallow.

[The Evil Genius]

Originally posted by The Codeman

I don't consider myself a left winger, I am independant, but on the war issue, I'm more left than you guys...

My take is that I have never said freeing Iraqi people woudn't be a good thing... But I have been against the war because I am against the US being peacekeepers and trying to convert everycountry to our way of life. My feeling is that our way of life may not be for everyone (see Russia).

But I was under the impression that this war was about Iraq being a threat to the US? Obviously now, that's not the case. In my opinion, the public was tricked into support, we were told that Iraq was a direct threat to the US and we needed to do something about it. Garbage.... I know some of you won't agree with me, but that's my opinion.

Finally, I totally feel that if a democrat were the president (I'd say or an independant, But that will never happen), the right's support would not be there as heartily.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it.

Code...somewhere in there is something that could open a new can of worms here on this board.

If Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US - then how did we rolL over them so easily (for the second time mind you)? Shouldnt this have been a much more drawn out conflict? Did Dubya spin this as something more than it is/was? Or did the military overestimate the strength of the Iraqi forces or underestimate the strength of ours?

I dont agree with that argument - I do feel that Iraq was an imminent threat and Saddam needed to be removed. North Korea, however, is a much more imminent threat, IMHO. But thats another subject.

As for the difference between support for the way by GOPers if a Dem was in the Pres...we discussed this about a month or so ago. Remember the article that was dug up from a few years ago when the Dems were calling the GOPer's refusal to support our actions in Kosovo (I think it was Kosovo at the time) un-american?

As a side note, did anyone watch South Park last night? Funny line I heard in a long time - America is so great because we can appear like we want to go to war and kick *** and at the same time we can be anti-war and appear that we want to protect life. America is so great cause we can be hypocriticaL

[codeorama]

When I say Iraq being a threat, I don't necessarily mean the discovery of WMD. I believe that a potential terrorist has multiple options to aquire them. Any nation can covertly sponsor terrorism. My point is that if you take away the terrorist spin, Iraq is not a threat.

In order to say that they are a threat, you have to prove that they are giving these WMD to terrorists. And if there is evidence, the current administration has done a terrible job of conveying that to the average joe. Iraq does not have the means to launch an attack on the US other than by passing WMD to terrorists, but Terrorists can get them from Iran, Syria, Russia, China, N. Korea and on and on....

What would happen if we found out Terrorists were getting WMD from Russia? Would we invade Russia? No way.. they have nukes, they have a means to defend them selves.

[fansince62]

John Kerry announced that he still feels there needs to be a "regime" change!

[The Evil Genius]

Originally posted by Tarhog

I'll also add that anyone who saw those pictures yesterday and tries to spin the reaction of many Iraqis as a farce, 'staged', or simply cow-towing to their new 'master' is intellectually dishonest. Granted the jubilation is not universal, and there probably are some that privately resent us while publicly waving/smiling. But there was genuine joy on a lot of those faces. Bush was largely right about how we'd be received. It may hurt to admit it, but its a bitter pill some are going to have to swallow.

Why woudl that be a bitter pill to swallow? If I was in the anti-war crowd, I would be happy that we aren't as hated as feared.

I guess I am cynical, but I just don't think that the Iraqis love us as much as the US media is portraying...now feared, yeah I think they fear the US now.

[Tarhog]

Yes, you're correct. And now Syria, North Korea, China, the Russians and everyone else knows what we have the military and political will to do to them if they attempt it. Don't underestimate this message. We effectively shutdown Moamar Qaddafi in the 80's with one brutal strike. We've just done it again on a grander scale.

Bush made no bones about the fact that this was new territory for US policy. He didn't expend a whole lot of energy trying to prove beyond dispute the link between Iraq and terrorists. He said all along this was about pre-emption. I think the most compelling argument that was ever made was the prospect of a nuclear device going off in an American city. You're correct that this threat is extremely difficult to detect, counter, and deter. But surely we have to expend whatever effort necessary to try and stop it. And destroying a hostile, dangerous regime thats sworn to harm us (and possibly possessed or was developing the means to do so) is a start in that direction. The fact that we have had 'an easy time of it' doesn't prove Iraq wasn't a danger to begin with (the lefts next argument). It might well simply show that Hussein's military is not full of a bunch of suicidal sick savages and that they have refused to carry out his orders. Remember, we've reportedly run an incredibly intense campaign to encourage the Iraqi military not to go there. Were the Bush Administration evil and without integrity as many have suggested, they'd have ENCOURAGED and BAITED the Iraqis into using WMDs in order to create absolute validation for the war.

[EagleSteve]

This response is incredible:

"The Lebanese channel, Al Hayat-LBC satellite TV, aired an interview from outside the Palestine Hotel with a British woman who had come to Iraq to act as human shields against the invasion. She expressed shock at the speed of the collapse of Saddam's authority, and said Iraq was free until U.S.-led troops arrived."

From: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83734,00.html

Iraq was free? Was this taken out of context or is that woman brain-dead?

[Tarhog]

Originally posted by The Evil Genius

Why woudl that be a bitter pill to swallow? If I was in the anti-war crowd, I would be happy that we aren't as hated as feared.

I guess I am cynical, but I just don't think that the Iraqis love us as much as the US media is portraying...now feared, yeah I think they fear the US now.

TEG....I absolutely agree, they don't 'love us', at least not in some grand majority way. But in the end they'll respect us and their lives will be vastly improved. My 'bitter pill' comment reflects my belief that many of the pompous, condescending critics of the current administration would rather have had things go to hell than to have to support the Bush Administration, this war, or admit that they misjudged the situation. Maybe I'm the cynical one, but I think this is an accurate assessment.

[Henry]

Here you go:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2700-2003Apr10.html

The Rest of the West Is Less Than Impressed

By Jefferson Morley

washingtonpost.com Staff

Thursday, April 10, 2003; 8:57 AM

What if they gave a victory party and nobody showed up?

The Western online media outside of North America seem far less impressed by the news out of Baghdad than their U.S. counterparts. Even in countries allied with the U.S. war effort, the toppling of statues of Saddam Hussein is being greeted less as an occasion for joy than an opportunity to comment quietly on the American way of war.

The French are certainly not in a rush to expound on the Bush administration's apparent victory. Today's editorial in Le Monde , the antiwar daily in Paris, was written about the time U.S. tanks rolled into downtown Baghdad yesterday. But the editors' focus was not on the imminent demise of the regime, but on the U.S. attacks Monday morning on the Palestine Hotel and the al-Jazeera offices in Baghdad which killed three journalists.

These attacks, already ancient history in the speedy American news cycle, are symbolic of U.S. tactics in taking of Baghdad, say the editors.

"A flood of fire vis-a-vis the slightest threat or what is perceived as such: air raids and tank fire and heavy machine gun shooting in a crowded downtown. The civilian victims undoubtedly number in the hundreds. A military culture is the cause: the massive use of force against the slightest danger, so much the worse for civilians. The British army gives a contrary example: that of patience and reserve. To preserve the future, even if it requires taking risks."

British critics of the war are subdued but still full of advice.

"On one level the US-British success to date is deeply impressive and on another, troubling," write the editors of The Guardian , the leftist London daily that lead the antiwar campaign in the British press. "Saddam's overthrow is a great boon. But Iraq's 'liberation' must not lead to internal destabilisation or external exploitation. Pre-war promises must be fulfilled; there must be long-term follow-through and a major rethink, too. For George Bush's America must understand that Iraq does not mean future pre-emptive, unilateral, illegal war-making is now somehow OK. Sometimes war proves unstoppable; but it is seldom OK."

Compared to getting the water supply running again, talking about history at this moment might seem a luxury, writes historian Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian . "It isn't. Dealing rightly with the past is more important even than water for the long-term health of a future Iraqi democracy," he says.

Garton Ash, who made a name for himself writing about transition from communism to democracy in Eastern Europe, warned that against U.S. plans to try Iraqi war criminals under American law.

"There's always the suspicion among the defeated in a war that any subsequent trials are "victors' justice". Nothing could be better calculated to confirm that view than this crass proposal."

Garton Ash says establishing democracy depends on being sensitive to the defeated Iraqis.

"Trials should, usually, be confined to the very worst category of human rights violations and war crimes. They should be conducted by a neutral international court applying international humanitarian law that was in force at the time the crimes were committed. Otherwise you violate a principle of justice by making it retrospective. If you use your own national laws, or make up new ones to fit the occasion, this, to the defeated, does not look like justice at all. "

In Switzerland, victory celebrations get short shrift in favor of the Swiss's favorite topic: banking. The top Iraq story in the English-language edition of the Zurich daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung declares, "Saddam's successor has controversial Swiss past."

The story details how Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite candidate to run post-war Iraq, ran the Geneva branch of the Lebanese bank, Mebco, which is owned by his family. The story details why the bank was shut down by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission in 1989.

In the Madrid daily El Mundo the lead story reports that the war goes on. Turkish officials are quoted saying the Kurdish advance on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is unacceptable. The photo of Iraqis holding up a sign that says "Bush: Yes Yes Yes" is relegated to second place.

The front page photo in another Spanish daily, El Pais reports, not on celebrations, but on the arrival of the Red Cross. On the opinion page, the editors write that Hussein's fall "is a reason for satisfaction, but adds, "Although the scent of the victory distracts those who carried it out, this war was avoidable. The world is better without this dictator, but the management of this conflict contributes to debilitation of the already fragile international order."

In Australia, the most junior partner in the war coalition, the Sydney Morning Herald doesn't treat the fall of Baghdad as a big deal. The paper's lead story is about a battle for a palace north of the Iraqi capital that "demonstrates the fighting is far from over."

And the paper's cartoons give a more sardonic Down Under view of the American victory. One shows a U.S. tank pulling down a statue of the United Nations. Another shows three hooded figures, one adult, two children (a poke at the dimunitive British and Australian roles) smashing a bee hive called the Middle East. A swarm of bees is headed for a nearby group of peacefully picnicking Europeans.

© 2003 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

[Cskin]

The leftist media is going to find something to write about..... and I can guarantee it won't be a glowing report.

Of course the Iraqis are going to be a bit apprehensive about us being there. Freedom is scary.... because the right to choose becomes available. With that....mistakes are made. To this point, the Iraqi people haven't been given the opportunity to choose....to make mistakes. Defiance and free thought in the Sadaam regime equalled death.

The antiwar protesters shouted about their concern for the kids of Iraq. What about the kids placed in prisons at age 4 who refused to support the Baath party regime. Those kids are now free....to grow up and make their own choices. What of the Kurds gassed in the north.... the Shiites murdered in the south? Do these people remember them?

This vacuum that appears to be visible in Iraq is simply temporary. The leftist media continues to show Iraqi people pleading for food and water...... but they fail to mention that they didn't have food or water BEFORE we got there. To think that the U.S. and the coalition has the power to provide them with food and water overnight.....intantaneously..... and free of danger is absurd.

And....our initial reasons to go to war with Iraq are still valid and clearly visible. Sadaam has the WMD, we' just haven't had the time during the shooting...shelling....and fighting to find them. I guarantee the depths and tunnels of Baghdad will reveal weapons we never imagined.... giving great pause to our forsight to attack them before they attacked us. Have we forgotten the terrorist camp in the north...complete with chemical labs and evidence of Ricin and Botulimium production. Are you not aware that Ricin is one of the most lethal biological agents known to man. And.... can you with a straight face concur that Iraq wasn't aware of the existence of such a camp?

Listen up you Liberal America haters.... you're time Effing up this country are OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

[redman]

Originally posted by The Codeman

I don't consider myself a left winger, I am independant, but on the war issue, I'm more left than you guys...

My take is that I have never said freeing Iraqi people woudn't be a good thing... But I have been against the war because I am against the US being peacekeepers and trying to convert everycountry to our way of life. My feeling is that our way of life may not be for everyone (see Russia).

But I was under the impression that this war was about Iraq being a threat to the US? Obviously now, that's not the case. In my opinion, the public was tricked into support, we were told that Iraq was a direct threat to the US and we needed to do something about it. Garbage.... I know some of you won't agree with me, but that's my opinion.

Finally, I totally feel that if a democrat were the president (I'd say or an independant, But that will never happen), the right's support would not be there as heartily.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it.

Code-

you made a statement in the Jane Fonda thread questioning what 9/11 had to do with Iraq. That, plus the underlined portion of the above quote prompted me to respond.

Was there a direct connection between 9/11 and our reasons for invading Iraq? No, not to our knowledge. There are certainly some provocative connections coming to light between Iraq and terrorism in general, and between Iraq and al Qaeda in particular. But we haven't directly linked the terrorist acts on 9/11 to Saddam's Iraq.

Where 9/11 comes into play is that it changed our view and awakened us to the fact that we cannot sit back in blissful isolationism and ignore threats from abroad, simply thinking that our response to an attack, however massive it might be, will prevent horrific destruction on our shores. That obviously applies to al Qaeda and the regimes which harbor them and like-minded terrorist groups, but it also applies to rogue states that either tacitly or actively support them, or who are willing to risk it all to develop WMD's that they would use to at least pressure neighboring states into accepting their greater influence in the region.

Iraq was an example of the latter. North Korea is an example of the latter. Note that this does not apply to every penny-ante dictatorship in the world, but simply those who would throught the threat of violent force seek to oppress those in neighboring states, support terrorist enemies of the U.S. or directly threaten us or our important allies - or all of the above. There are (fortunately) relatively few such states, however if their power and development of WMD's is allowed to fester, it won't matter.

That's the fundamental reason why we were justified in going into Iraq. That we have also liberated an oppressed people, and that we can hopefully instill in them the love of truth, freedom and democracy is a side benefit, especially if that love of freedom and democracy becomes contagious in the region as those things were, for example in Europe.