An Image Problem

[Ben Gash]

The sad thing about this whole international dispute is that Chirac is being held up as some kind of saint. The man is a total crook who HAD to win the last election because he'd have gone to jail if he didn't.
As for Chirac's motivation on the Iraq issue? I think the oil deals worth tens of billions of dollars that France had with Iraq were something of a factor. For France it really was all about oil.
However, France has never been averse to manipulating the news or history. Did you know that the free French under De Gaulle liberated France? The British, American, Canadian, Indian, Nepalese and Polish dead at Omaha, Sword and Juno were obviously just tourists (and then they have the nerve to desecrate our war graves- that lost them a lot of friends here).
Did you know that the French resistance liberated Paris? The fact that the Wermacht were in full retreat was entirely incidental.
Let's not forget that the only reason France needed liberating was because when the Germans attacked the French fled back to Paris and surrendered, leaving our asses stranded in Belgium, and the French free to set up a collaborative puppet government.
The Americans are acting like terrorists? Yeah, cause you see the Americans blowing up a civilian ship in a foreign port ALL the time.
Anyway, two years ago the self righteous UN was being portrayed as the bad guy in Iraq.
I had a point when I started

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Ben Gash
Anyway, two years ago the self righteous UN was being portrayed as the bad guy in Iraq.

The UN criticism was warranted, IMHO, as the UN sanctions were a) making things worse, and b) not making things better. A bad combination!

However, it was mainly the US proper, and not the UN generally being criticized in this matter. A sad bit of irony is that much of this criticism originated from France, yet recently they were the major power overtly preventing the lifting of the sanctions, even though the mandate they'd been implemented under had become inarguably invalid.

There's alot of wildly-misplaced animosity towards France being peddled these days. The above, however, is IMHO a very good reason to feel they have erred in a most grievous manner.

[Stranger]

- the red, white and blue was modeled after the French tricolor

wrong, try cracking a history book before assuming such nonsense. The stars and stripes predates the French tricolor. The colors of th French flag were chosen by Lafeyette. He simply took the red and blue striped flag of the city of Paris and divided it with a white stripe to signify the French monarchy.


As for the "betrayal of France by the US":
Sorry, it was a marriage of convenience for both the French an the USA. It soured when France wanted us to be their underling. Besides attacking US merchant ships is not the act of a friendly nation. Also let's not forget that once Louis XVI was dethroned the deal was dead as the treaty was with his government.

PS I'm not a France-hater. However I hate it when people make up sh1t to win an argument.

[Becca]

Those last three posts were the best agument against France I've heard.

My problem isn't with France, per say, it's with idiots who discide they "have to do something" and end up comming up with all kinds of wild a$$ scheems that are A) impractical, B)harmful to those they claim they are trying to support, and C) based on lies or misconceptions. If you want to talk sh!t, fine, but at least take the time to do some research on the facts your are basing it on.

[patriot]

I've done my research now. It is definitely not about oil. http://www.democracymeansyou.com/sat...plainified.htm

[Souljah]

Christopher -

You seem pretty confident attempting to justify things from the comfort of your armchair, without seeing the full potential of the suffering and pain they cause.

Genuine hypocrisy, or simple failure to think something through properly before forming an opinion?

Well am I wrong? Services DID work under Saddam didnt they?
Now everythings been blown to bits.....and would I be so wrong to say that the ones to make sure everything is run THEIR way would be the US and UK?
Can you really justify the war to me based on the point of liberation?

Also, I guess thats the difference between me and you....
I HAVE seen what war causes first hand - and I would not wish that upon anyone.....I may be in my armchair now but I have witnessed it and you cannot really tell me that you know better before you have too.


-greg

[@PLUGO]

Hey I just heard on the Radio that the US is allowing only 7 UN weapon inspectors to examine how much uranium was looted from Iraqi nuclear sites & those 7 are to be "accompanied" by US military personal at all times?

Would anyone care to explain why I shouldn't take this as an indication that the US is "hiding" something WRT the whole WMD in Iraq debate?

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Souljah
Well am I wrong?

Whether or not you're wrong is entirely unrelated to the observation that you directly and overtly did exactly what you criticized everyone else for doing.

As an aside, you're also wrong.

Can you really justify the war to me based on the point of liberation?

I can justify it. Whether or not it's justified to you is entirely out of my hands.

Also, I guess thats the difference between me and you.... I HAVE seen what war causes first hand

I wasn't aware that you knew anything about my life experience.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Design Sifu
Would anyone care to explain why I shouldn't take this as an indication that the US is "hiding" something WRT the whole WMD in Iraq debate?

The presence of WMD in Iraq was never under question.

[@PLUGO]

Whaaaaaaa???

I'm not sure if I understood that ...

to date I have yet to see ANY credible "proof" of WMD's in Iraq that hasn't been later "disproved" upon independant verification.

You seem to make that statement as if you know something everyone else doesn't...

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Design Sifu
to date I have yet to see ANY credible "proof" of WMD's in Iraq

But then again, are you really that interested in informing yourself? Your latest treatment of Wolfowitz would suggest to me you're not. Not that there's anything wrong with that; only that one shouldn't firmly close their eyes, then complain about not seeing anything.

The entire UN, of course... and I say "of course" here because this has been covered so many times it's almost absurd that it has to be repeated... signed off on the unanimous agreement of the presence of WMD in Iraq. Many members of the UN were the very people from whom Iraq aquired the WMD. The weapons inspectors were not sent to look for WMD, they were sent to verify and supervise incidences of WMD disarmament at the hands of the Iraqis. None of this is a secret. If I speak with some kind of special authority on it, it's because I've chosen to look these things up for myself, rather than trust the media, government, or corporations to dictate my opinions to me. Even if none of this were the case, there is ample, direct, overt, well-known, obvious evidence of Iraqi possession and use of WMD; a prominent example of which would be the Halabja incident. And, of course, it's now been widely and specifically discussed as to how the emphasis on WMD came about in the first place, notably as a matter of, to quote directly, "beaurocracy."

With all of this foundation in place, I have no idea how your point of view is sensical. What do you suppose occurred to these WMD, such that a conspiracy would have to be erected to hide their absence? Did they evaporate? Or perhaps you suppose there was a 30-year old conspiracy involving almost every country in the world to invent the presence of the WMD in the first place? Given that the full nature of the "beaurocratic" reasons for emphasizing WMD are now in full public knowledge, what purpose would even such a conspiracy serve? Who benefits from it? The only people saying that there was an imperative to find WMD to prove the overt purposes of the Bush administration were it's critics, who chose to ignore the above foundation; however that foundation is now right out in the open, so even they can no longer make this claim with any modicum of sense. So what purpose does this alleged conspiracy even serve any more?

Other than providing something to ***** about to people who adamantly refuse to inform themselves, even when the information in question is now widely discussed in the public domain...

[Souljah]

"Whether or not you're wrong is entirely unrelated to the observation that you directly and overtly did exactly what you criticized everyone else for doing.

As an aside, you're also wrong."


I did not - I merely pointed out the fact that in Iraq now there are barely any working systems - it is in chaos. Which has been stated as a fact, most of the systems that WERE operational when Saddam was in power are NOT now.
Whether you choose to believe it or not is your problem.

"I can justify it. Whether or not it's justified to you is entirely out of my hands."

Can you actually present me with credible evidence then, that the people of Iraq are now 'liberated' andf that the people will get what THEY generally want?
Whether I choose to believe it is no doubt out of your hands but you can still present some information can't you?

Many people think that the general feeling in Iraq is that of happiness now that Saddam is gone - In truth it's more like fear over what happens next - People cheering American troops - you have to remember that theyre not likely to be swearing and cussing at the people that have a gun pointed at them and have a motto that goes -
"If your not part of the solution your part of the problem"


"I wasn't aware that you knew anything about my life experience."

Well tell me then?

[@PLUGO]

I don't doubt your being an intelligent person Chris, yet mixed with your expression there of, is also what seems to be a similar kind of closed-earedness you seem to decry.

You started off with a presentation of how you where going to answer my question only to a series of unspecified assumptions based both on what you've determined as fact as well as suposition on what you're assuming to be my position. At the same time you included a bit of self agrandizing while again attempting to "put down" the person you claim to be educating with your answer... me .

With that "foundation" you've then launched into a "explaination" based on assumptions you've made. In essance replacing my original question with one of your own and answering that.

So getting back to my question, rephrased:

After a War "sold" on the "beaurocratic" premis that Iraq's cache of WMDs pose an eminent threat to both the world at large & the US, why would the US place such obvious restrictions on the same weapons inspectors that where originally tasked with verifying their destruction?

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Design Sifu
a series of unspecified assumptions based both on what you've determined as fact

So call me on one of those points and I'll give you ample resources on it. Simply mentioning the possibility that something I've said isn't established doesn't make it so.

as well as suposition on what you're assuming to be my position

So explain how I am wrong and how it changes my argument. Simply mentioning the possibility that I have made an incorrect assumption which invalidates my argument doesn't make it so.

At the same time you included a bit of self agrandizing while again attempting to "put down"

I'm at this present moment sincerely disappointed and frustrated with people's inability to see beyond partisan lines and take the necessary steps to inform themselves before holding strong opinions. As you stumbled here recently in your mistreatment of the Wolfowitz quote, you're feeling the brunt of my disappointment. Is this fair? Is this gentlemanly? Assurely not. For which you have my apology, but not my retraction. I'll admit my expression of this emotion is unfortunate, particularly as you don't represent any specific cause of it, but I won't hide my dissapointment.

premis that Iraq's cache of WMDs pose an eminent threat to both the world at large & the US

I don't accept this as a premise to begin with. Neither the beurocratic nor moral implications of the WMD require that they "pose an eminent threat to both the world at large & the US." In other words, you're making the argument you disagree with more stringent than it has to be in order to artifically bolster your disagreement of it.

why would the US place such obvious restrictions on the same weapons inspectors that where originally tasked with verifying their destruction?

This is a good question, and one that IMHO goes more towards revealing what's going on in the world right now. To answer concisely, the Bush administration has a sincere distrust of the utility and intentions of the UN, and as such is motivated to limit it's activity.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Souljah
I did not - I merely pointed out the fact

Your criticism was that people seemed willing to justify something without being exposed to it's downsides. From which you continued by justifying something without yourself being exposed to it's downsides (I'm assuming here you're not an ex-pat Iraqi, please correct me if I'm wrong). The hypocrisy here isn't veiled.

that in Iraq now there are barely any working systems - it is in chaos. Which has been stated as a fact, most of the systems that WERE operational when Saddam was in power are NOT now.

There were some great systems operational, like the "civil engineering plan" of bulldozing entire cities of Shiites following the 1992 uprising, leaving hundreds of thousands of refugees over night and contributing significantly to a starvation death count in the millions. This would be a pretty good example of something you're willing to justify without having been exposed to the downsides, I think.

Can you actually present me with credible evidence then, that the people of Iraq are now 'liberated' andf that the people will get what THEY generally want?

The people of Iraq are "liberated" from the Saddam/Baathist regime. I'm not sure how/if you disagree with that, so I won't elaborate. I'm not sure what other definition of liberated you're working under, so I can't elaborate on that.