You’ve got to chew your food with hard teeth before you can digest it with soft juices. It takes both. The trick is getting it in appropriate relative portions.[/quote]
Are we going to argue about pizza again?
Flike:
When has it ever been other than the US supplying 80 to 85% of the troops?
Next, when was it ever going to be the right time to take out Saddam? We only waited 12 years?
Also, see this interesting comment?
Until then, Spain’s election will hang over Europe like a mist of fear and forgetfulness. Spaniards in particular should have recognized the family resemblance between the Islamo-fascist boast, “You love Pepsi Cola, we love death.” and the Falangist slogan, “Down with Intelligence, Long live Death.” They in particular should have remembered that fascism under any cultural guise can be neither appeased nor bargained with,
If Spain’s participation in Iraq had not been available as an excuse, the Reconquista would have served as equal justification
[quote=“fred smith”]Flike:
When has it ever been other than the US supplying 80 to 85% of the troops? [/quote]
WW II
That argument doesn’t hold, either. Why couldn’t we wait until we had the UN on board? Why was the timing of the war in Iraq related more to consolidation of Bush’s political power (midterm elections and the upcoming presidential elections) than any real threat that Saddam posed to the US?
[quote=“fred smith”]Also, see this interesting comment?
Until then, Spain’s election will hang over Europe like a mist of fear and forgetfulness. Spaniards in particular should have recognized the family resemblance between the Islamo-fascist boast, “You love Pepsi Cola, we love death.” and the Falangist slogan, “Down with Intelligence, Long live Death.” They in particular should have remembered that fascism under any cultural guise can be neither appeased nor bargained with,
If Spain’s participation in Iraq had not been available as an excuse, the Reconquista would have served as equal justification
For a bit more information on why many at the UN were not keen to see Saddam ousted and this perhaps had something to do with the US$2.3 billion in kickbacks that various members including the assistant secretary general in addition to the French and Russians were receiving, just how fair was it to ask the US to wait longer and was it done with the right motives?
Read all about it here…
I know this is a hard concept for some to grasp, so I’ll try to reduce it to the simplest algebra possible:
WAR AGAINST IRAQ ≠ WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
Remember, “Iraq” has four letters and begins with the letter I, while “terrorism” has nine letters and starts with T.
No. The vote in Spain is a victory for the Spaniards who wanted a change in government. It’s not the Spanish voters’ responsibility to never want anything that terrorists might also want.
delete
Given the hysterical outrage over Halliburton’s overcharging of the US government (not proven yet) by US$18 million, I wonder how much outrage will be directed at the UN for the US$2.3 billion various members took out of the mouths of starving (and no doubt wailing) Iraqi women and children. The men, of course, don’t matter.
AU:
No one said, certainly not me, that the Spanish cannot vote for whomever they want. BUT I can decide if I think that decision was wise or not. Surely, we have heard a great deal about how Bush was such a poor choice despite being democratically elected. Therefore unless you have never made an anti-Bush statement, I guess we are both still able to question the poor choices that the voters have made WITHOUT in any way implying that democracy should be ended?
Why do you only mention the millions illegally siphoned into Halliburton’s pockets, Fred? Don’t forget to add on the hundreds of billions of wasted dollars that Bush’s ill-considered foray into this quagmire is costing US and other countries’ tax-payers, plus the astronomical cost in terms of destroyed infrastructure and environmental degradation in Iraq, not to mention the monetarily incomputable cost of the tens of thousands of people killed and the hundreds of thousands or millions more who have been and are still being injured, maimed, traumatized and plunged into a living hell worse than any they ever endured even under Saddam’s despicable regime.
Appalling as Halliburton’s theft undoubtedly is, it pales into insignificance in comparison with these other items in the debit column of Bush and Co.'s Iraqi ledger.
[quote=“Omniloquacious”]not to mention the monetarily incomputable cost of the tens of thousands of people killed and the hundreds of thousands or millions more who have been and are still being injured, maimed, traumatized and plunged into a living hell worse than any they ever endured even under Saddam’s despicable regime.
[/quote]
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3514504.stm
the fact that you would call the current situation a living hell worse than anything they endured under saddam would be funny if it weren’t so wrong. i like how you threw in the word despicable, though. it almost shows that you care a whit about what life was like for the iraqis under saddam.
[quote=“Au”]
Hard words.
I thought democracy is intelligent. I thought the voice of the Folk is truth:
The first step is to say, that the majority opinion is not intelligent.
The second is to ignore it.
The third is don
Judging from the majority of objective accounts coming out of Iraq, it’s a great deal worse for a very large proportion of the population, pretty much as bad as before for others, and better for a lucky few. The sum total of the Iraqi people’s happiness and safety has evidently been much diminished. Whether it will continue thus remains to be seen, though there are clearly more grounds for pessimism than optimism on that score.
But would you care to elaborate on how exactly, in your perception, their situation has improved so greatly under US occupation? Life without basic utilities, jobs, food, or medical care, with no effective enforcement of law and order, and under constant threat of being blown up, robbed, raped or murdered, doesn’t seem to me to fit in with any such perception at all. Is it because you think that being ruled by Americans is the greatest boon that any human beings on this planet can experience, no matter how ghastly the other conditions of their lives may be?
sigh did you even check out the link?
Omni:
Tell me what the US destroyed in its invasion of Iraq. Have you heard of smart bombs. In fact the US destroyed almost nothing, the looters the most and really the problem was years and years of neglect. Hell, even Taipei doesn’t have sewage treatment plants that are sufficient to deal with its waste. How in the name of all that is holy is the US going to supply this in one year?
delete
[quote=“SCL”]I know this is a hard concept for some to grasp, so I’ll try to reduce it to the simplest algebra possible:
WAR AGAINST IRAQ != WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
[/quote]
Nobody ever said that the WAR AGAINST IRAQ = WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
The war and reconstruction in Iraq is part of the War Against Terrorism.
You forgot to mention that the majority is “technical” only, somewhere in the 54-58% area according to recent polls - and that it’s less than before (was close to 70%).
Thus the approval of the war by the American public is in fact declining. Latest poll results
And given that Americans (and the rest of the world) have been earlier misinformed by the Bush administration and other polls showed that Americans have been influenced by what can only be called biased media reports (in particular Fox News) *) one can’t really blame them for making what could be called a not-so ‘intelligent decision’ at the time. The latest trends however show that they are making more ‘intelligent decisions’. 
The following report / poll results may also be of interest: More poll results
*) I posted the results some time ago where it was pointed out that the majority of those who were missinformed (and thus plain wrong on most issues asked) were Fox News watchers.
75-85% of the smart bombs used in Iraq have hit their target. That’s an improvement over Kosovo (~40%) or the first Gulf War (~50%). But remember, smart bombs are only as smart as the people telling them where and what to hit.
not sure how you guys describe things in germany, but 58% to 37% is a pretty good-sized majority. notice only 51% of respondents approve of bush. so there are 7% who don’t voice approval of bush who still support the war.