thank you barbie that was what I was talking abou tearlier, with not
finding the wmd that was there, imo.

theres a lot of opinions about this which is good. unfortunately about
those opinions and the people who have them, myself not excluded ,,,we
all believe we are totally right and the other person is a total moron,
well personally i think your something else but wont go there. Im sure
that the truth lay somewhere in the middle
someone said the army brainwashes you, to that person- i think your veiw
of us is funked up, smoke another one. Im a free thinking humanist who
chose my profession knowing full well what i was getting into...but i'll
tell you what, i'll agree to being brainwashed if you admit that your
political party has brainwashed you and hijacked the common sense you
used to possess.
someone said i need to grow up and quit being naive', to that person
(who is a 22 yrs old), i am a combat medic, ive pieced together more of
my friends than i care to remember and Ive bagged more than i should
have- ive grown up in blood, how about backing off a little bit when
talking to me about whats going on over there, ive been there and no
matter how many friends you say you have over there-you havent been
(want to trade scars),you said all you really know is how you feel, so
... educate yourself. oil? please.

barbie you are 100% correct, thank you.
thank you too daniel.

the constitution spells it out clearly...it is illegal & immoral
and for a society that claims to be founded under god....
well..which god are we refering to here..the one that loves
all children..or the one that allows you to blow them to bits
in the streets...god of love? or a dark god of money?
boil down all talk about war to one reality..it is death...it is
killing children..think about that in church this sunday and ask
god to excuse you for being a hippocrite...

This Administration give a new
meaning to hypocrisy.

It's not only hypocritical,
but lying, stealing, cheating,
influence-peddling, racketeering,
war profiteering and so many
criminal activities that are
sanctioned it boggles the
imagination!

I stated MY personal views, and the 'no comment' crud was kinda silly.
Excuse me if I don't sit here all freakin day to reply to forums. I have
a life. I have the right to see it as I see it, and those of you who
think we live under an honest government are in for a rude awakening.

"the constitution spells it out clearly...it is illegal & immoral"

Davinci, please read the constitution and tell us what part of it yu are
refferring to that states war is illegal.

"I stated MY personal views, and the 'no comment' crud was kinda silly."

First let me apologize for the ambiguosness of my statement "no
comment". i was not refferring to you alone, but to all of jsh, trying
to get more input into the thread. That being said, You stated your own
personal opinion (see above quote). if you look back at my opening
sequence, I specifically asked for facts and not personal opinions. We
have plenty of threadsout there for your personal opinion, and I want to
try and keep this one as fact filled as possible, fo rthe sake of
argument. I want someone to prove to me that this war is illegal as
they believe. But you will never do so by simply stating your opinion
without backing it up with evidence.

To me the question of whether or not it was illegal is moot.

From my point of view it was totally unnecessary, not in the best
interest of the USA, and basically at utterly stupid move.

Even if it was legal it was a stupid move.

Saddam just wasn’t that BAD! He wasn’t making any threats, and invading
Iraq when we did was clearly against world opinion even at the time. It
was just a stupid move period.

It was NOT in the best interest of the USA by far!

Many people in the far east (India and China in particular) saw Saddam
as the good guy, and Bush as the villain.

They point out the FACTS that Saddam was tolerate of the presence of
Christianity in Iraq, and he was also tolerate of women’s education.
They also point of the FACT that Saddam was one of the most ‘Western’ of
all Arab leaders.

It was utterly stupid for the USA to stomp him out.

It was a really bad move!

It doesn’t really matter whether it was a ‘legal war’ or not to me. It
was a stupid thing to do.

And yes, the chaos that resulted because of it is precisely why it was a
stupid thing to do!

Saddam was no immediate threat to the USA.

I would love to agree with you Abra, but not being from the US, I get
nailed as not being entitled to an opinion...

See Australians, don't count, nor other country's opinions, because the
only opinions that count are US ones, and only if it is agreeing that
the US cannot make a mistake, or ever be worong.. (Vietnam ring a bell,
anyone?)...we both (Australia and the US) have our hands dirty, as well
as the UK,in some of these wonderful wars, Afganistan, Kosovo, umm,
Timor, and yep you guys are there too, potentially North Korea..as well
as Iraq.. but see, us little guys dont get an opinion..or aren't
entitled to one..apparently.

Jess wrote:
“I would love to agree with you Abra, but not being from the US, I get
nailed as not being entitled to an opinion...”

Well, don’t feel singled out Jess. According to George W. Bush the very
congress of the United States of America isn’t even entitled to an
opinion!

And he claims to be for ‘democracy’?

Yeah right.

One of the ironic things I have found, is if I don't agree, I get
labelled as a Liberal...I don't even know what a flippin' Liberal
is...if I don't believe in God, I am an atheist...

Is there something to do with if you don't conform you need to have a
label?

Bizarre...and once again this freedom of speech thing is a slippery
little thing...no black or white with that one..

Liberals – people who enjoy thinking and like to have a wide range of
choices.

Conservatives – people who have trouble thinking and prefer to keep
choices to a minimum

I’ll catch hell for saying that but I don’t care.

daniel ....will refer you to thread called "legality of war"....it
has all the classic constitutional points there...boil it down to
this...Congress has the power to declare war..not the pres...
since WW2 we have gotten away from that by allowing the
pres to take "action" in emergencies...well this "action" has gone on
for 5 years now in Iraq
constitutional scholars would agree that all presidents since
WW2 (maybe before even) have violated the constitution with
undeclared wars...that circumvent the congress

read the other thread to avoid a lot of repetition here..

Ahhh, so liberal in your thinking..

versus conservative in your thinking...

and they are political parties???

Doesn't sound like rocket science to vote..or not.

Whether legal or not like Abra said he wasnt that bad .If his people
thought so then they should have started a revolution.Right now we are
fighting their civil war a la Vietnam.Why should any of our soldiers die
for that.I say we pull out,make friends with the new regime and build a
Wal-mart.
PS.Why didnt the CIA just assasinate Saddam and save a few billion
bucks?

[ Begin Major Hijack ]

Jess wrote:
“and they are political parties???”

No not really. The political parties are Republicans, and Democrats.

The Republicans ‘tend’ toward conservative thinking.

The Democrats ‘tend’ toward liberal thinking.

Although, it does seem that over the years this unofficial divide has
grown dramatically on both sides. Republicans seem to be getting
fanatically conservative, and the Democrats seem to being getting
fanatically liberal.

Years ago, it used to be that the Republicans stood for the big
businesses and industry (they still do). They call that ‘trickle down
economy’. The assumption is that if the major industries are going good
then everyone else will do good too. (i.e. Strong industry = Strong
nation)

The Democrats were more focused on the ‘working man’ and the small
businesses. Their ideas was to make it easier to get into business up
and running and help them grow. Help the small person achieve the
“American Dream’ (i.e. Strong people = Strong nation)

That was the original thrust of things years ago, and may still be the
underlying principles of the two parties, but anymore conservatism and
liberalism seem to have overshadowed everything else.

[/ End Major Hijack ]

Sorry for the interruption, you may now return to your regularly
scheduled topic.

Thanks Abra..

"daniel ....will refer you to thread called "legality of war"....it has
all the classic constitutional points there...boil it down to
this...Congress has the power to declare war..not the pres... since WW2
we have gotten away from that by allowing the pres to take "action" in
mergencies...well this "action" has gone on for 5 years now in Iraq"


I'll tell ya what davinci, I'll do ya better than that, I will go read
the constitution itself again like I suggested to others before (After
all if you wont do it yourself why ask others, right?). But my
understanding has always been that niether congress NOR the presidency
has total power. They need to cooperate with each other all the way
through. Congress can not just "declare war" or make a law without
running it by the president for his approval. If the president does not
agree witht he proposal he/she vetoes it. period. It then goes back to
congress who has the opportunity to revote on it and must have a vote of
at 2/3 (might be off by the percentage but you get the general idea)
approval to override the veto. This is one of the bigget and primary
reasons the two house parties are always so excited to have total
control of the house, because it is easier by far to get that two-thirds
vote from one party than it is from two parties. Now, onthe flip side of
the coin, the president can not (normally) just step in and say this is
how it is tough luck go away. he has to follow the same process, except
he does not get the opportunity to pass a reccomendation against the
houses veto of it. The president is stuck revising it over and over
again until the house agrees with his proposal, or just drop it.
Now in the case of national emergency or threat etc etc etc, the
president does have the power to override congress (like in declaring
war). however he has a specific time limit, I believe it is two days,
to provide a written report to congress detaling why this action was
neccesary. This is because in the case of an emergency you do not have
the time to have the council meet and deliberate. You have to act
immediately and decisively.
In the case of Iraq, President Bush was shown irrefutable (at the time)
evidence that saddam WAS a threat not only to the united states but to
the world at large. He was shownt hat Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction, and was ferrying them out of the country. To this day
everybody knows that saddam was doing everythign he could to prevent
inspections of his country, leading the "inspectors" by the nose on
tours instead of letting them inspect. Everyone knows he was outright
ignoring the world leaders decisions on specific issues such as nuclear
production.
This put all together spells THREAT. president Bush declared war,
believing we had to act immediately to prevent anopther attack, possibly
nuclear. he filed his report with Congress, and after deliberation
Congress agreed with president Bush's actions and sanctified (for lack
of a better word) the war with Iraq.
And I am not even going to go into the issue of "this action taking
place five years after the fact" at this time, although I promise I will
come back to it later on.

In conclusion, president Bush eblieved we had a major threat against us
and acted as he saw fit declaring an emergency and preparing for it. He
filed with congress like he was supposed to. Congress agreed with his
actions and sanctified them. This is how it is written in the
constitution to work. A system of checks and balances between the
rulers of the country.

"Saddam just wasn’t that BAD! He wasn’t making any threats"


Abra, if you honestly believe saddam hussein was not all that bad, and
that he was so with the united states, or the western world, and if you
believe he "tolerated" anything other than himself and his own fancies,
you need to go back and do some more research. I am sorry to have to
disagree with you here, but Saddam was one of the worst dictators not
only in recent history, but in collective history as well. If someone
looked funny, saddam had them killed. If they did not immediately fall
down and worship his feet, (so to speak) saddam had them killed. He did
NOT toerate ANYTHING to do with womens movements or activities or
anything else. As far as Saddam was concerned women were here for one
purpose:to serve her husband, father, brother, uncle in that order,
quietly and immediately with no conditions attached.

A suggested reading for you: "SADDAM: THE FACE OF EVIL" by Mark
Cantrall and Donald Vaughan. I can not remember the name of other books
right now, but they will be mentioned in this one as well as suggested
reading material.

"I would love to agree with you Abra, but not being from the US, I get
nailed as not being entitled to an opinion..."


Sorry for the slow reply jess hun, I am working on two hours sleep
here,lol...

please do not feel that you can not give your opinion in any of my
threads. I care not what color, culture, background or age you are. If
you have an honost opinion that pertains to any of my threads (and in
this case something factual as well, cause I want someone to proove me
wrong, lol) I would more than welcome your input. And as far as the
nonsense about only americans having a say in h ere? I will stand up
next to you right now (figuratevily speaking; I cant afford to come over
there or bring you over here to do so literally, lol) and back you up
one hundred percent. As long as you dont try inciting a revolution or
naything you can count on me