1. Palestine attacked Israel first. They suicide bomb their citizens. I really don't give a f### what war crimes the Israelis respond with, because, frankly, the Palestinians aren't speaking up for their governmnent and beliefs, so the innocents are lumped in with the idiots until they show otherwise. I don't know if you know this, but Palestine is trying to take over Jerusalem, so, you know, that's kinda like Saudi Arabia invading the US for New York, if you understand analogies (because you didn't get the point of the others...)

2. Why is comparing the amount of articles about the fighting in Iraq to the democratic situation affect this argument? You didn't deny my stating that it was a non sequiteur, so I donno.

3. <jperr75108: How about good old Guantanamo? The UN has told us to close it because of... torture?>

A. Guantanamo isn't under the Geneva Convention's jurisdiction.

B. The UN is corrupt, they should mind their own business and clean up their own actions before they start telling the people that run the UN what to do. (i.e. maybe they could stop raping people in Africa. Yeah. Where's your precious UN heroes now? Or, maybe the fact that they are in charge of stopping the genocide in Africa right now. They are doin a pretty good job.)

C. Between torturing criminals and innocent (allied) lives, I'll torture. That's not something you can argue about.

D. Ok, please show me where it tells what they are doing to the Guantanamo inmates, if the torture in question is anything other than:

1. Dogs
2. Sleep deprivation
3. Dehydration
4. Standing
5. Water/drowning

Please point out to me where they were doing the stuff Saddam did (1. Kidnap woman off street 2. Rape her or option B: 1. Kidnap man off street 2. Hang him by a hook off the ceiling by his wrists 3. Electrocute his testicles). Please don't even waste your time with Abu Ghraib. I know you and your liberal friends all think that was Bush's doing. But.........no proof. Sorry.

i. It's proven ineffective. Why would we torture people if we weren't getting accurate information.

ii. We have no guarantee to gain information, so the risk of being caught for dehumanization and torture would outweigh any imaginary gain by torturing.

iii. "Torture" is a very loose term. You may consider the things above torture. If so, you should lift some weights/gain some confidence to understand that not everyone lives in super-duper idyllic imaginary worlds that liberals live in. People tend to picture everyone else how they are. Liberals hope that everyone else will play nice and get along smoothly (which doesn't happen). Conservatives are brutal, and so assume others are brutal (which in this case is true).

4. <jperr75108: We have, in Bushes presidency, gone from a budget surplus to a huge deficit, and we are of course, on top of the world still.>

Umm, yes, yes we are.

5. The fact that governments are at least putting SOME faith in us is showing something. You are putting no faith in the American government. You don't know an eighth of the international factors that Bush knows (and neither do I).

6. If you need to see something to know it's there, then you will have a difficult time with walking, eating, writing, etc....

I'd hope Saddam talking about his WMD programs would convince you that they are WMDs, because if you still asserted that he didn't have any, it would just make you look foolish.

By the way, they have found poison gas: http://www2.jsonline.com/news/gen/a...

And what was that stuff that Saddam killed all those Kurds with? Oh yes, a WMD.

Thank you, goodnight.

Two separate cases of finding chemical weapons of mass destruction (poison gas):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...

This is from the Washington Post, the most liberal US newspaper there is.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...

And add onto the fact that Saddam committed genocide of the Kurds using what? Oh, yes, a WMD...

ooooppppssie. Well anyway, I think I remember Bush stating there were nuclear warheads in scud missles at some point. We gave him money to get these chemical weapons also, and this is another proven fact, and you also stated this in a recent post. Im not sure these constitute as "weapons of mass destuction anyway, as he had no real way to release the gas.

And? The guy manufactures illegal weapons before or after we go to war with him: he's still bad, and he still manufactures WMDs. Congratulations.

Here's another article about the same finding. Look what else they found:

http://www2.jsonline.com/news/gen/a...

<The tan barrels were found in a 3.5-square-mile storage area that also contained missiles, missile parts, gas masks, protective gear, a stripped mobile weapons laboratory and large storage containers covered by camouflage netting.>

Yes, no WMDs. Get real.

So lets see, the points you have conceded are:

1. There are indeed WMDs (there is poison gas)

2. Saddam was bad and had to be deposed.

I never said saddam wasnt bad, I said it wasnt worth it to get rid of him at such a high cost.

usa also got involved in coreea and vietnam. why did they do it? well, because they just wanted to stop comunism from spreading. it has been done with great risks and high costs, but the cause was just, i guess (at the time, many other communist countries banned the usa for the intervention mostly because, hey, we thought communism will last forever and that this is a good thing; and what history proved after some 20-30 years? that the usa were right! communism died and it died mostly because there was overwhelming proof that it was wrong, not good)

let's remember how when hitler entered in austria and in czechoslovakia just because he wanted so, the leaders of civilised world did nothing. wouldn't there been big chances to prevent the ww2 if those leaders would have reacted to that? hitler maybe just wouldn't dared to start ww2 if he would have seen that other countries have decent reactions when he has entered in austria and cehoslovakia. instead, england and france did just nothing, and so he was encouraged to start ww2.

and if we look now at saddam in 1990, when he annexed kuweit just like that, wasn't that a similar situation? if the usa wouldn't have intervened, who can guarantees that saddam wouldn't have reacted in the same way as hitler: by annexing other neighbouring countries?

sure, i admit that the second war with irak was a different matter, and i think i've explained why (i think) was the main reason for the usa to start it. but then, why did the iraky people cheered when saddam was defeated? why did they torn down his statues? yes, i know that maybe not everybody was very hapy, but take a look at that: maybe the big majority of the iraky people was indeed hapy, and only a small minority didn't like that, and precisely this very small minority is doing all the killing ever since. but i'm sure that people's will is not that of detonating car bombs every day. this bombing is what just a small minority of extremists are doing. and then again, why a civilised country should stand back in front of extremists?

the war with the extremists is a weird one, a new and dirty one, but there were not the usa who started it. there were the extremist muslims who started it. in this war it's obvious that one cannot see his ennemies and that he should look everywhere in the world for them. that's why extreme measures need to be taken, by all the countries, to prevent terrorism.

Good thinking :-)

Hi! First time in Your forum. Went through this last page, and I suppose it must have been quite an effort to try and get Your points across, while the words were falling on, more or less, deaf ears!

I saw today we are going to be on the same team in coming consultation game, so I thought to pay a visit and introduce myself. To You and a few other CG members I have not met yet.