| | Peopled_Diagram,
I was stating my point of view and I did not state the first post for substantial criticism, though I have no problem with your criticizing it. I have no doubt that you might find my beliefs incredible, and since neither of us have close contact with the evidence, we will both have to weigh our understandings of the situations with our worldviews and see what we believe is more plausible. I will try to be civil, despite the fact that I think that in your zeal to respond, you refused to give my views a charitable interpretation.
You fail to understand the real reason for the invasion. The clear and real danger to people is nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. Iran is well on the way to nuclear activity. Its a two pronged approach. Iraq had designs, plans and potential implementations towards nuclear bombs. They had biological weapons and the residents in some parts of North Iraq were exposed to these. Iran is in the same direction although much more advanced. From a strategic point of view, the taking of Iraq gives two advantages. Firstly the introduction to democracy and secondly it is at Iran's doorstep.
I understand all this, have heard it all before and I think that most of it is either based on a fantastic interpretation of the evidence, or a misguided view of human nature, though it is not all nonsense. If Iran is well on its way to nuclear activity (and the evidence is sketchy), it will be partly because of what happened in Iraq. The latest report from the Bush-appointed weapons inspector shows that Saddam had no weapons and few means of acquiring them even if he wanted to. And if a war to achieve strategic "advantages" is a justified for you, fine- I can't argue with value judgments. I thought most wars were so horrible that the only just ones were fought in self-defense or against imminent threats (and if you think Iraq qualifies, fine - I don't think so). Finally, any democracy in Iraq would be Islamic and based on Sharia, just as is the case is in Iran. What you probably mean is that Iraq is an American colony run benevolently by America and is next to Iran.
9/11 demonstrated that Islamic terrorists are a very big threat and in the best possible interests of our society, we must ensure that they never, never get their hands on WOMD.
Who attacked America on 9/11. The result was the invasion of Afghanistan and look what has been done to help civilians there. (recent election comes to mind). If you think that the US wouldn't care about civilians, your image of the USA is so barbaric, it is beyond what the reality is.
You are free to conflate the War on Terror with the War on Iraq - your viewpoint justifies it, mine doesn't. I think I'm right, but I know where you are coming from. I was speaking about Iraq - there was collateral damage in Afghanistan, but complaints about lives lost have been relatively minor because the war was viewed as justified.
Hijackings, bombings, barbaric decaptitations, torture, 9/11 - at what point do you smell the coffee?
Which of these, if any, answers my point about military capabilities? And which of these couldn't have been done by any lunatic in America?
So let us believe that it was a lucky break and crawl back under our idealistic rocks? I suppose when a nuclear device is smuggled into the USA, in a shipping container - that will be a fluke as well.
I think that there is a clear difference between using box cutters to hijack a plane and smuggling a nuclear device in a shipping container, and there are measures that can be taken against the latter that do not include invading countries without nuclear devices. Moreover, there is a debate (now popular in Britain) over the efficacy of dirty bombs.
Finally, there is NO way to be sure that a country cannot be attacked by some new method of warfare, though I agree that some defensive stances are better than others . I would have put the resources that were put into the Iraq war into sealing the Mexican border, which is still as porous as ever, and to my mind, gives lie to the claim that the war on terrorism is being fought with rigor.
(I really have to stop pulling my hair out at this comment). Intelligence is open to public forum and debate? Information you have found out from the enemey is information you want to hide from your enemey. Releasing it to the world will allow your enemy to be aware of what you know, therefore they can be better prepared. Mass deception of Americans ? Well, lets leave the generalisations to the media and the length of the attention span of Mr Joe Average. What I meant was that Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN that was falsified by the findings of the weapons inspectors. The MI5 and CIA gave the Weapons Inspectors intelligence on where to search, none of which produced results. The Niger yellowcake document was faked. If you do not consider Colin Powell's UN speech to have been a weapon of mass deception, then I think that your respect for truth is suspect.
The rest of your post is a response to points taken out of context and I am averse to responding to such criticisms of my posts (for one example, is the US presence in the Middle East limited to Iraq?). Despite my withering criticism of your response to me, I can accept most of your points (apart from the claim that the Bush government did not intentionally mislead the American populace on the WMD issue) as being well motivated by a policy of self-defense that I think is in error.
But can you understand my writing in that sense? That is the million dollar question and the main point of contention - that people can disagree in humane manners on complicated issues and do not have to pull out hairs or insult others to do so (though an acknowledged and friendly does of jabs can be a good thing amongst friends if taken in the right spirit).
Cheers.
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