The Hague

[pbleighton]

"You stated that the increase in violence in Iraq was a result of the invasion of Iraq."

 

No, I stated that worldwide terrorism increased sharply as a result of the invasion of Iraq, and I backed it up with numbers: A twenty-fold increase in deaths, and a fifty-fold increase in incidents.

 

"Hundreds of thousands(millions?) died in the Iraq/Iran war so violence appeared to have dropped sharply after the American invasion of Iraq."

 

As the Iran/Iraq war ended in 1988, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was in 2003, this statement is nonsensical.

 

"Still no reply as to why 'if' the American invasion triggered the 'increase' in violence that the Americans losses have not jumped, however, the killing their own people has risen sharply."

 

To start with, Iraqis were softer targets for the insurgency. At this point, our invasion has triggered a low-level civil war. Saddam Hussein's regime, as terrible as it was, was the only social order Iraq had. We smashed it, and have not been able to put anything functional in its place. This is our responsibilty.

 

"What military units/air support did Regan provide Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war?"

 

Our troops didn't fight. We supplied intelligence, economic aid, and weapons.

"Starting in 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the U.S. made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), and also supplying weapons"

Later we switched sides and supplied Iran:

"the sale of U.S. arms to Iran through Israel began in the summer of 1985, after receiving the approval of President Reagan." [7] These sales included "2,008 TOW missiles and 235 parts kits for Hawk missiles had been sent to Iran via Israel." Further shipments of up to US$2 billion of American weapons from Israel to Iran consisting of 18 F-4 fighter-bombers, 46 Skyhawk fighter-bombers, and nearly 4,000 missiles were folied by the U.S. Department of Justice, and "unverified reports alleged that Israel agreed to sell Iran Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, radar equipment, mortar and machinegun ammunition, field telephones, M-60 tank engines and artillery shells, and spare parts for C-130 transport planes."[8] [9] The London Observer also estimated that Israel's arms sales to Iran during the war totalled US$ 500 million annually [10], and Time Magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, "the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the deals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War

We have blood on our hands in this war.

 

"We cut off spare parts shipments. Perhaps you might have noticed that the weapons that we faced in 1991 and Gulf War II were Soviet Bloc weapons. The tank units had tanks starting with T series(T-54, T-72 and some T-80 all Soviet Bloc type tanks) Rifles were AK-47 rather than the American M-14 or M-16 rifles."

 

Yes, the Iraqis had Soviet weapons. I never said they didn't.

 

"Hitler had zero amounts of American weapons before attacking Poland.

Japan also did not have access to American weapons prior to Pearl Harbor. "

 

What are you talking about? I never said, or implied, that Nazi deeds had anything to do with the U.S. I gave Nazi Germany as an example of the violence of Christian civilization, and stated that history shows that Christian civilization is every bit as violence-prone as Islamic civilization, a point that you have consistently ignored or misunderstood.

 

"Without diminishing the horror of either war, Iranian losses in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war appear modest compared with those of the European contestants in the four years of World War I, shedding some light on the limits of the Iranian tolerance for martyrdom. The war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and injured more than 500,000, out of a total population which by the war's end was nearly 60 million. During the Great War, German losses were over 1,700,000 killed and over 4,200,000 wounded [out of a total population of over 65 million]. Germany's losses, relative to total national population, were at least five times higher than Iran. France suffered over 1,300,000 deaths and over 4,200,000 wounded. The percentages of pre-war population killed or wounded were 9% of Germany, 11% of France, and 8% of Great Britain."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...r/iran-iraq.htm

 

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

What military units/air support did Regan provide Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war? We cut off spare parts shipments. Perhaps you might have noticed that the weapons that we faced in 1991 and Gulf War II were Soviet Bloc weapons. The tank units had tanks starting with T series(T-54, T-72 and some T-80 all Soviet Bloc type tanks) Rifles were AK-47 rather than the American M-14 or M-16 rifles.

The following article has an entire section entitled "U.S.-Iraqi arms transfers in the war"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War

[Robert]

Hi everyone

 

Hrothgar Thanks for the detailed information about arms transfers. We did supply most of the arms to Iraq(prior to the war) and we did also 'cut off' spare parts when they did not behave.

 

We did not send military units or air support into the Iraq/Iran war.

 

Hi phleighton Please consult the above information.

 

If you want examples of America supporting/provoking war against another country. We firebombed numerous Japanese cities and nuked two of them to show our unhappiness after Pearl Harbor.

 

Germany faced round the clock bombing from the RAF and America bombers. We firebombed Dresden and Hamburg in addition to bombing numerous cities.

 

I did not understand(see) your statement about world while terrorism increases being a result of the invasion of Irag. Sorry, my fault.

 

A Dane newspaper published some offensive cartoons and some Arabs burned an embassy(two?) and the mobs also killed a number of people. Normal reaction to the invasion of Iraq from your viewpoint?

 

They riot and burn an embassy(two?) as a result of cartoons or was that also the result of the invasion of Iraq?

 

Nonsensical is how I view many of your claims. You choose to ignore the Iran/Iraq war as 'violence' because it happened 18 years ago. The Iraq invasion took place several years ago, did the terror networks really take several years to get the news?

 

Now you claim that their own people are being killed because they are 'soft' targerts. The people fighting against enemy occupation could also target their own people, however, they normally tend to kill the invaders.

 

We are to blame if the people of a nation cannot control their mass killing of their own people. We must be to blame for the Germany concentration camps and the mass killings there if your logic is correct. The largest number of deaths occured after we invaded North Africa in WWII and followed up by invading Italy, France and Germany.

 

Thanks for confirming that we did not(repeat not) send troops or air support to the Iraq/Iran war. We also cut off spare parts when the war dragged on.

 

Two Arab nations fight each other and it is our fault. Are we also to blame for the Axis attacks during WWII? Both and the Iraq/Iran happened before the invasion of Iraq.

 

You still have not anwsered my question about why we should not have allowed the invasions of Korea and Kuwait without intervention? We should have avoided fighting in Vietnam, Korea and Kuwait? How do you pick and choose?

 

Did someone that you knew die in Vietnam about 1968? It seems a strange date to suggest withdrawing. The Supreme Court ruled that the conflict was a 'war' in 1984 as I recall.

 

I never wrote that we cut off spare parts on the first day of the Iraq/Iran war.

They were able to re equip their troops with Soviet Bloc weapons by the Gulf War timeframe. An oil rich nation buys(or is given) arms by assorted nations) is a fact of life.

 

You appear to misunderstand that fact. You blame the violence on the Iraq invasion and choose to ignore the fact that that there have been wars on this planet every year since Christ. If Arabs and non Arabs both choose to fight for thousands of years, why would one invasion suddenly change their behavior?

 

They are butchering their own people(you say because their own people are 'soft'

targets. This makes no sense to me. I am going to hurt America by killing 12 and wounding 17 in an attack on a local place where the Iraq police hang out(News story in todays MSN headlines)

 

Thanks for looking up the losses in the Iraq/Iran War. A mere 300,000 dead and you say that violence is increasing because of the tiny fraction killed after the Iraq invasion?

 

Using your numbers it would seem to sugggest that violence is remarkably lower.

 

Would Kuwait really be better off with Saddam ruling there?

Would South Korea be better off with the Americans leaving them to their fate in the 50s?

Do you know something about the starvation in North Korea that I do not know?

The South Korean economy seems better than that trainwreck of an economy in North Korea.

 

Best Regards,

Robert

[pbleighton]

"Hi phleighton Please consult the above information.'

 

I have already consulted it. In fact I posted it, minutes before Richard did. You seem to have difficulty reading my posts. We actually switched sides for our own purposes (remember the Iran-Contra scandal?).

 

"A Dane newspaper published some offensive cartoons and some Arabs burned an embassy(two?) and the mobs also killed a number of people. Normal reaction to the invasion of Iraq from your viewpoint?

 

They riot and burn an embassy(two?) as a result of cartoons or was that also the result of the invasion of Iraq?"

 

You seem to be delibreately misunderstanding my point. Anti-Western Islamic violence:

1. As a movement, was primarily caused by the conduct of Western powers over the last century. There were, of course, Christian-Islamic violence before this (see the Crusades), but the installation and support of corrupt dictatorships who were (at least perceived as) friendly to the West has made these tensions much worse. The West's robbery of Palestinian lands and subsequent gift of these lands to the Jews, whatever else you may think of it, has undeniably made the situation even worse.

2. Thus, the invasion of Iraq didn't create Western-Islamic tensions. It did, however, make them much worse, as demonstrated by the statistics I quoted.

 

"You choose to ignore the Iran/Iraq war as 'violence' because it happened 18 years ago"

 

I don't do so. It is violence. What I said was that the huge spike in worldwide terrorism which started in 2003 wasn't the result of a war which had ended 15 years before, but rather with the invasion of Iraq which took place in 2003.

 

"We must be to blame for the Germany concentration camps and the mass killings there if your logic is correct."

 

This is really puzzling. I don't follow you.

 

"Two Arab nations fight each other and it is our fault."

 

No, it is our fault for arming first one side, then the other, taking advantage of other nations' misery for our own crude (oil) purposes.

 

"You still have not anwsered my question about why we should not have allowed the invasions of Korea and Kuwait without intervention? We should have avoided fighting in Vietnam, Korea and Kuwait?"

 

We should never have been in either of the three, since you ask. I never mentioned Korea or Kuwait. I will answer in detail on Vietnam, which I did bring up. You need to get your history straight. A colony of a Western power (France), which had invaded Vietnam in the first place (should we have stopped that?), was getting kicked out of the country by an insurgency led by Ho Chi Minh. He was enormously popular in the country. Eisenhower refused to get involved, telling those in his administration that if a free election were to be held in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote. We invaded, and chose to support the losing side in a civil war, due to our stupid and self-destructive obsession with Communism.

 

"How do you pick and choose?"

 

We should mind our own business, unless we are DIRECTLY attacked.

 

"Did someone that you knew die in Vietnam about 1968? It seems a strange date to suggest withdrawing."

 

I used 1968 because it was the year that it became obvious to the American public that the war was not as advertised. We could have withdrawn then, with the same end result as withdrawing later, except far fewer Vietnamese and Americans would have died. As I said earlier, it would have been much better if we had never invaded Iraq or Vietnam.

 

"You appear to misunderstand that fact. You blame the violence on the Iraq invasion and choose to ignore the fact that that there have been wars on this planet every year since Christ. "

 

I balme the upsurge in violence, no the fact that we are a violent species. The fact that violence is eternal doesn't mean that it is random. Worldwide terrorist acts went up by a factor of 50 from 2003 to 2005, and it JUST SO HAPPENED that we invaded Iraq in 2003, infuriating Muslims across the globe. WOW, WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

"Thanks for looking up the losses in the Iraq/Iran War. A mere 300,000 dead and you say that violence is increasing because of the tiny fraction killed after the Iraq invasion?"

 

See above.

 

"They are butchering their own people(you say because their own people are 'soft'

targets. This makes no sense to me. I am going to hurt America by killing 12 and wounding 17 in an attack on a local place where the Iraq police hang out"

 

They are doing so in order to drive us out of the country, and because we smashed the social order and let loose a civil war.

 

"Would Kuwait really be better off with Saddam ruling there?

Would South Korea be better off with the Americans leaving them to their fate in the 50s?

Do you know something about the starvation in North Korea that I do not know?

The South Korean economy seems better than that trainwreck of an economy in North Korea."

 

We have no idea what Korea would have been like, what direction history would have taken, had Korea turned into a Communist satellite 60 years ago. There is a good argument that confrontation is a gift to unpopular dictatorships (see Castro). Personally, I think that Korea would have wound up currently like eastern Europe (optimistically) or China (pessimistically). The North Korean dictatorship thrives on foreign confrontation. Absent that, the focus would have been on "what have you done for me lately?".

 

As for Kuwait, if Saddam had overhrown the corrupt Kuwaiti dictatorship and replaced it with his own, it is unclear whether the Kuwaitis would have been much worse off.

 

I believe that eventually, all countries will be secular, relatively peaceful democracies. However, this won't be hastened by the U.S. thumping its chest and committing mass murder.

 

All of which is irrelevant to the invasion of Iraq. We were right ot fight Germany and Japan in WWII. This gives no sanction to any other war, nor does an unjust war mean that a just war can never happen.

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

Two Arab nations fight each other and it is our fault.

Iran is about 50% Persian with a substantial number of Azeri.

Arabs comprise well under 5% of the population.

[luke warm]

"You choose to ignore the Iran/Iraq war as 'violence' because it happened 18 years ago"

 

I don't do so. It is violence. What I said was that the huge spike in worldwide terrorism which started in 2003 wasn't the result of a war which had ended 15 years before, but rather with the invasion of Iraq which took place in 2003.

no, the "spike" in terrorism is the direct result of the way in which terrorism is measured... as i mentioned in a previous post, the behavior of iraq toward its neighbors and its own citizens, in the hussein era, is terrorism by definition.. yet it isn't counted as such... do so and see how the numbers look

[hrothgar]

no, the "spike" in terrorism is the direct result of the way in which terrorism is measured... as i mentioned in a previous post, the behavior of iraq toward its neighbors and its own citizens, in the hussein era, is terrorism by definition.. yet it isn't counted as such... do so and see how the numbers look

When you offered your definition of terrorism you neglected a very basic part of the equation. Traditionally, many definitions of terrorism hinged on whether an action was committed by a State as opposed to a non-state actor. For example, the definition of terrorism used by the US state department prior to 2001 was

 

"Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."

 

I'm certainly willing to admit that the Batthist regime in Iraq was responsible for significant amounts of pain and suffering for both its own people and its neighbors. Even so, if you exclude the Iran-Iraq War I doubt that the total number of killings committed by the Batthist regimes matches the bloodshed associated with with US invasion.

[sceptic]

Going back to original post

 

Should someones neighbours be allowed to make someone move because they will endanger them?

 

Why not, if I lived next door with my kids I would be pissed off with her and happy if they moved on.

 

I may choose not to move if I lived on my own, that is my choice, but do I have the right to protect my children?, in fact is it not my duty as a parent to do something to remove danger to them. they are too young to understand what is happening and therefore are unable to make a decision for themselves.

 

I have to move? nope she can bugger off.

 

If this is a matter of principles, or protecting the rights for freedom of speech, then the governments should manage it, but do any of us have faith in the corrupt bigotted bunch of idiots that rule us all, I doubt it very much, so all you can do is protect your own

 

 

btw Anyone here live in a country that has not violated peoples basic Human rights over the last few hundred years???

 

we are all as bad as each other, oppression and terrorism takes many forms.

 

Did we really invade Iraq to get rid of Saddam, when the replacement won't be any different (I use the Shah of Iran as an example) did we not interfere there and look at the stae of play now??

 

we really are lead by some idiots and the best thing is someone must have voted them in?

 

People can only sort out there own problems if they want to, it never pays to interfere in other peoples live, I suspect that statement is one that wont be listened to

[helene_t]

no, the "spike" in terrorism is the direct result of the way in which terrorism is measured... as i mentioned in a previous post, the behavior of iraq toward its neighbors and its own citizens, in the hussein era, is terrorism by definition.. yet it isn't counted as such... do so and see how the numbers look

Sure. Then again, Sadam is an atteist, it was only during the second golf war when he desperatly needed to boost patriotism that he started pretending to be a believer. So this can hardly be what Peter refers to as moslem violence/terrorism. Of curse, one could argue that Islam is not the core issue, just a label to put on some other conflict.

 

While terrorism as such probably evolved some 500.000.000 years ago when the nervous systems of animals became advanced enough to feal (and respond to) fear, the present upsurge in Arab and/or Moslem violence against Western societies probably begun with the independance of Israel, allthough there had been some strugles against the colonial powers in Northern Africa earlier.

 

Wayne: It sounds as if you think it is ms. Ali's own fault that she's a terrorist target. In a way it is (like it's every victim's own fault that they became a victim because they could just have hired a bodyguard). But our society desperatly needs people like ms. Ali that dare to speak up for human rights. Saying that it is her own fault is saying that if we just all surrenderd to the terrorists and abandonded our belief in human rights, we would get peace. Even if this is true (it may be true in a narrow perspective) it is not a clever thing to say. The court's ruling is a victory for the terrorists and encourages them to continue their activities.

 

You don't seem to have much confidense in the wisdom of Dutch civil cervants. Are Dutch judges an exception? Or do you think the neighbours should just take justice in their own hand and throw ms. Ali out?

[luke warm]

Why not, if I lived next door with my kids I would be pissed off with her and happy if they moved on.

 

I have to move? nope she can bugger off.

 

If this is a matter of principles, or protecting the rights for freedom of speech, then the governments should manage it, but do any of us have faith in the corrupt bigotted bunch of idiots that rule us all, I doubt it very much, so all you can do is protect your own

sorry wayne, i don't quite understand this... my feelings are, why don't her neighbors (or damn near the whole country) support her?

 

when people say "the government" they sometimes forget that they *are* the government ... in the final analysis, people of all countries will have to take a stand

[sceptic]

my point is,

 

1/. if you are going to insult or disagree with these fanatics Publically, then you know you are setting yourself as a target

 

2/. The governement should be saying what she said not individuals

 

3/. If you are daft enough to say something to offend someone, you shoould be prepared to consider the impact on those around you

 

4/. freedom of speech does not exsist, I have some opinions that would get me banned from these forums or prosecuted under current laws, if I were to voice them, I do not say them publically as they would embarass some of my friends or endanger them (albeit a lower level) if I was to spout these off publically

 

so my point is if you are going to say these things, then be prepared to stand and be counted for them and you are right we should stand and support these people

 

my feelings are, why don't her neighbors (or damn near the whole country) support her?

 

I wish I could answer that, but alas I cant

[helene_t]

1/. if you are going to insult or disagree with these fanatics Publically, then you know you are setting yourself as a target

Fair enough, That's what I was refereing to when I said that s aying that it is her own fault is saying that if we just all surrenderd to the terrorists and abandonded our belief in human rights, we would get peace.

[luke warm]

That's what I was refereing to when I said that saying that it is her own fault is saying that if we just all surrenderd to the terrorists and abandonded our belief in human rights, we would get peace.

right... that seems to fit in with the definition of appeasement... someone used that word and was criticized for it... i don't know why

 

When you offered your definition of terrorism ...

actually it wasn't my definition, it was the dictionary's... in any event, given that definition, there are no innocents... all countries, all religions, all peoples are guilty on some level... i simply object to the 'blame america' crowd... why not blame the terrorists? another pet peeve of mine is when reference is made to the iraqi terrorists as "insurrgents"... they are either terrorists or they aren't... if they are, call them that... if they aren't, don't count their acts as terrorism