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Vassago_Umara
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #90 on: July 21, 2004, 09:23:24 am »

I can't beleive anyone here actually claimed that Bush does not lie.  What planet have you been on?

Here is a few...

Speaker:  Bush, George - President

Date:  5/11/2004

Quote/Claim:
"Some say the No Child Left Behind Act doesn't provide enough money to meet our goals... People say, well, it's an unfunded mandate to put accountability systems in place. No, the accountability systems are largely funded by the federal government." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"This year alone, the Bush administration shortchanges American schools $9.4 billion under No Child Left Behind." - NY Times, 3/14/04



Date:  9/29/2000

Quote/Claim:
"[If elected], Governor Bush will work to…establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." [Souirce: Bush Environmental Plan]

Fact:
"I do not believe that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide." - President Bush, 3/13/03



Speaker:  Bush, George - President

Date:  4/22/2004

Quote/Claim:
"I have a responsibility as the President to put people in an administration that understands the importance of conserving our natural resources and making them better." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"Oil-industry officials have been invited to a meeting at the Environmental Protection Agency tomorrow to discuss the plan, which would temporarily raise the allowable sulfur content for gasoline." - WSJ, 4/21/04



Speaker:  Bush, George - President

Date:  9/23/2003

Quote/Claim:
“All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.” - UN Speech [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
The Administration continues its close ties with the Saudis despite the findings of a bipartisan commission investigating 9/11. The commission found the Saudi government “not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts.” - LA Times, 8/2/03


Bush sucks.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #91 on: July 21, 2004, 08:33:21 pm »

Though I agree with the end point, I would like to point out that the level of sulfur in gasoline has relatively little to do with conservation of resources. Though clean air is a good thing, it's not usually considered a natural resource. So Bush may be wrong, but those two quotes are not directly contradictory... too much.

Also, the 9/11 commission also determined that the Saudi Government was not in collusion with Al Qaeda. Still, the close familial ties of the Bush Administration to a theocratic monarchic regime is somewhat unsettling.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #92 on: July 22, 2004, 11:07:17 am »

I am quite heavily in favour of the war in Iraq, but I have not the eloquence of speech nor the detailed facts neccesary to carry on a precise debate on the war. Keep in mind though that I will not post anything I am not 100% sure of.

I would like to add a few comments regarding the iraq war.

Firstly, in regards to the argument that the US should've had UN approval:

   The UN does no favors for the US. It attempts to belittle and discredit the US at every turn, and is insanely against one of the US's greatest allies, Israel. If you don't believe me, remember the racism summit (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,33561,00.html) a few years ago that Israel and the US had to walk out of (largely unreported because of unfortunate proximity to 9/11).
Because of all these things, to then demand that the US must wait for UN approval to invade is preposterous.


Secondly, in regards to the invasion itself:

  I have seen no arguments anywhere in this thread saying that it would be better if Saddam were still in power. If I am mistaken and someone did say that, or if anyone would like to explain why they think that the US should not have invaded Iraq, and should have let a horrible dictator continue to murder his own people and refuse any sort of freedom to millions, I urge you to reply.

Please note that arguments such as "well why didn't he invade {some other place} and take out {some other horrible dictator} instead" are not logical, because to say this is the same as saying, "I agree that he should remove horrible dictators from power, but if he is going to do it to Iraq, he should go and do it to {some other place} too/instead." If that is your argument, then the underlying question should no longer be "was it right to invade Iraq" but instead be "was Iraq better to invade than {some other place}." The answere to that question is easy: Iraq is almost smack in the centre of the fundamentalist muslim countries, where terrorism is rampant, Jews, homosexuals, and many other minorities would be killed on sight, women lead horrible lives in complete suppression, personal rights and freedoms are non-existant, and children are taught daily to hate all things Western, Jewish, and non-muslim. To invade Iraq not only insures WMDs are not used against the US or its allies, not only liberates millions from Saddam, not only allows democracy to enter another middle-eastern country, not only allows rebuilding of schools, hospitals, etc, but also gives a direct presence in the middle east that neighbouring countries cannot ignore.

This is the beginning of a very positive change for the middle-east, and if countries like Spain wish cower and give in to terrorist threats (agree with the war or not, Spain chose to vote for appeasing the terrorists and doing exactly what the terrorists wanted them to do, and that alone would be a good enough reason for me to vote for a party the terrosists disliked), we can only hope that greater support for the US comes from within and abroad.

It is getting late, I may add to this later, but please don't wait to respond.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2004, 11:38:53 am by ThisAlex » Logged
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #93 on: July 22, 2004, 07:44:27 pm »

Well hello there new player. Great to see someone picked up Bios torch, since he seems to have dropped it and lost himself somewhere. Being the resident patron of debate, I'll see what I can do for you... Wink

Quote
The UN does no favors for the US


This is true. It's also the whole idea. The UN isn't supposed to do anyone any favours. It's supposed to try and be fair to all sides. Granted, it's not doing so well.

Quote
It attempts to belittle and discredit the US at every turn, and is insanely against one of the US's greatest allies, Israel


Israel does tend to heat up everyones emotions. If you want to have a spinoff discussion on this, feel free to continue here or start a new thread. This isn't the gist of your post however, so I'll skip over it for the time being. Also, it would be of great interest to me to see all these other turns where the UN belittles you and discredits you. Feel free to post any links concering other subjects than Isrrael and Iraq.

Secondly, about the whole invasion, I noticed i mangled another yes/no querstion, maybe that's what confused you?

Question by Bio
Quote
Question Beta:
Do you think Iraq would be better off with Saddam still in power?


My proper answer:
Quote
 Beta. NO (SORRY; MIXED UP THE YES AND NO THING HERE AS WELL). Now as a counterquestion, do you believe it is wrong to kill an innocent Iraqi civilian? Rememeber, answering NO will mean you're a monster and answering YES will mean you're against the war. And since it's not a complicated question, I demand you answer either yes or no.


Maybe you'd like to answer that question for Bio,  since he seems unable to?

Now for the next part, you seem to have grasped some of the arguing here rather well, and some rather poorly. I assume that you were referring to

Quote
Question two. Please give your opinion on why Iraq was invaded, bearing in mind that there are several other parts of the world where people are treated a lot worse (Sudan to name a currrent one, but people are dying and having their human rights trampled all over the place). If you in your answer point out the threat Iraq makes, please consider your answer to question one, and explain why countries like North Korea, who are actually openly threatening to invade their neighbours and start nuclear wars weren't a higher priority than a starved out country in the middle east. If you in you answer point out any relation between Al-Qaeda and Saddam, please take note of the fact that no links between the two have ever (to my knowledge) been proven, and that bin Laden never was a big fan of Saddams secular personal cult, being a islamic fanatic himself.


when you made your statement
Quote
Please note that arguments such as "well why didn't he invade {some other place} and take out {some other horrible dictator} instead" are not logical, because to say this is the same as saying, "I agree that he should remove horrible dictators from power, but if he is going to do it to Iraq, he should go and do it to {some other place} too/instead." If that is your argument, then the underlying question should no longer be "was it right to invade Iraq" but instead be "was Iraq better to invade than {some other place}."


While your reasoning is entirely correct, my question was not "Well it's wrong to invade because there are other more dangerous places", but rather "Why invade Iraq instead of other dangerous places?" This is the question you then find it simple to answer.

Quote
Iraq is almost smack in the centre of the fundamentalist muslim countries,


Yes, except they aren't fundament muslims, but rather a personal cult. As such, the fundamental muslims were actually happy to see Saddam go.

Quote
where terrorism is rampant,


And invading has really helped stop the car bombings? I note that the foreign workers in Saudi-Arabia aren't feeling safer nowadays than before the war. As stated before, most terrorism is muslim fundamentalists, which are in no way connected to Hussein, so you've really not given them anything but a new battlefield to play in. Oh, and another reason to hate America. illogical as it is, even the US striking down on their enemies makes them angrier.

Quote

Jews, homosexuals, and many other minorities would be killed on sight,


How do you kill homosexuals on sight? Do they wear a special badge? Other than that, you are right, this happened in Iraq. Just like everywhere else.

Quote
women lead horrible lives in complete suppression, personal rights and freedoms are non-existant, and children are taught daily to hate all things Western, Jewish, and non-muslim.


Again completely true but not in any way unique for Iraq.

So two good points, all which are true in an distressingly large part of the world. Not really enough to single any place out unless there are other reasons.

Or perhaps you regffered to this:

Quote
If you want to make the claim that you "are making the world a safer place", or that you "are bringing peace and democracy" then you need to do it all the time in order to look like you're telling the truth. You can't just go "Well, this troubled country we'll fix, but the rest can rot." When you do that, people start looking for hidden agendas. "Why that country, and no other?" they wonder. Normally, everyone would look to the UN for guidance. And while not perfect, most of the time the UN does work partially. However, if you choose to ignore the UN, and make claims to being a saviour, then you must be so everywhere. Otherwise you are but a petty country protecting your petty interest, no better than the Soviets invading Afghanistan, or Finland for that matter.


And this is what you somehow fail to see. Regardless of wether all (or indeed any), of the speculations that are flying around are true, as long as the only reason to invade was "He was a bad man" people will suspect the US of acting because of their own dark motives.

Quote
To invade Iraq not only insures WMDs are not used against the US or its allies,


Yes, nonexistent weapons are hard to use. They'd have been even without the invasion.
Quote
not only liberates millions from Saddam, not only allows democracy to enter another middle-eastern country, not only allows rebuilding of schools, hospitals, etc,


Very true, Iraq is becoming a better place and noone denies that. At some point the amount of people saved from Saddam will undoubtedly outweigh the amount ofpeople who died in the war/aftermath. We may even be there already, hard to say really.

Quote
but also gives a direct presence in the middle east that neighbouring countries cannot ignore.


Why not? They've ignored Saddam so far, the only difference is now they'll be ignoring "The captialist scum who control the puppet regime". Any good they see coming out of Iraq will simply be explained with "The evildoers are bleeding the muslim world dry, and rewarding their mindless drones". Or something similar. It wn't stop the neuigbouring countries young from joining the Jihad.

Quote

This is the beginning of a very positive change for the middle-east, and if countries like Spain wish cower and give in to terrorist threats (agree with the war or not, Spain chose to vote for appeasing the terrorists and doing exactly what the terrorists wanted them to do, and that alone would be a good enough reason for me to vote for a party the terrosists disliked), we can only hope that greater support for the US comes from within and abroad.


Well, technically I believe that Spain had already decided to withdraw their troops before the attack, but i agree with you. It was a mistake to pull back.

Now getting back to the invasion, there is an obvious difference of thoughts here. I'll attempt to explain mine and see if that clears anythign up, feel free to comment, explain your own.

Wars are primitive. It hasn't been acceptable for a nation to go to war with another since before world war one for anything but the gravest of matters. In this time of peace and enlightenment we are suppsoed to represent, war isn't a viable alternative. Violence begets more violence, as everything from Korea to Iraq has clearly shown. That's why dozens of dictators have free reign, because even though we could wage war on them, we do not. Peace brought by war is seldom a lasting peace.

However, sometimes a war can become inevitable. If someone attacks you, you of course have the right to defend. That is why everyone followed after 9/11. The US was attacked, we knew where the perpetrators were and they were a grave threat to us. In it'sd own way, it was as justified as it gets. That we managed to remove the Taliban was a bonus, but it wasn't the goal. Dirty business as it is, that war is still unfinished and now largely ignored.

There is a difference however, between striking back at an enemy that attempts to do you harm, and striking out at an potential enemy that possiby might do you harm in the future. Then you suddenly lack the justification. Especially if the evidence you have is flimsy at best.

As an example, imagine MI6 found documents that indicated that Cuba might harbour intentions against the E.U As a result E.U invades and conquers Cuba, freeing the Cubans from oppressive communist rule. However, as this is not the E.U standard procedure soon rumours will begin to flourish that the invasion was all due to the coconut and sugar plantations.

Now, would you believe that we invaded because we were genuinely concerned about the Cuban people's plight (even though we ignore that of Bela Russia for example, or other close by countries), or that we were buggers? Especially if it turns out that MI6 was wrong, and that no weapons can be founsd anywhere.

Well, I digress but I rather liked the example. Now, where were we.

Oh yes. So what most of us believe is that it is WRONG to invade another country, regardless of country, on a hunch. Certainly, some good has come out of it. But if you would take credit for the accidental good your actions have caused, then you must also take the blame for what evil they have caused. Dead civilians, growing anti-western feelings, that sort of thing. Of course, you may want to argue that miore good than bad has come out of it, but those are relative terms, and very hard to quantify. Certainly a lot of people lived that otherwise would have died. But a lot of people have died as well, who would probably have lived otherwise.

Conclusion: If we all get to invade just beacuse we feel threatned even though we cannot prove it, I except China will hold Taiwan in a matter of minutes, and Korea in a few days. But most of us don't do that.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2004, 07:51:29 pm by Lukipela » Logged

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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #94 on: July 22, 2004, 08:32:23 pm »

As Lukipela is always capable of making all the best points in the shortest possible time, I'll only add the following small sentiment from the American point of view, and let his points stand on their own:

Freedom cannot be given to people.  Freedom must be taken from tyrants by people willing to die for it, only then will it be cherished enough by the people to guard it against threats.

We knew this once, as it is one of the defining principles of our nation, and I find it intellectually dishonest to ignore it when discussing "liberation" of another country.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #95 on: July 22, 2004, 09:50:14 pm »

Well, The vast majority of western Europe was pretty glad to have been liberated from Nazi Germany by US forces at the end of WWII  Wink
However it is ofcourse a different matter when the oppresive regime is a people's own government. That does complicate matters.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #96 on: July 23, 2004, 12:04:26 am »

Quote
The UN isn't supposed to do anyone any favours. It's supposed to try and be fair to all sides. Granted, it's not doing so well.


I think you understate slightly, but I'll consider us close enough in agreement to move to the next point.

Quote
Israel does tend to heat up everyones emotions. If you want to have a spinoff discussion on this, feel free to continue here or start a new thread. This isn't the gist of your post however, so I'll skip over it for the time being. Also, it would be of great interest to me to see all these other turns where the UN belittles you and discredits you. Feel free to post any links concering other subjects than Isrrael and Iraq.


There are constant "condemnations" of Israel and the US, but I'll try to find some specifics for you later. I don't want to get too deep into this, so I'll just post a link to a reasonable solution I think you'll agree with. http://www.americantaskforce.org/101.htm Please note the only ommission I feel should have been present in the presentation is that Arafat must be removed from the picture before there can be any chance of peace, he has clearly demonstrated his contempt for Israel and democracy. (two examples, when Barak offered Arafat 98% of what the Palistinians were asking for and Arafat refused, and recently wheen Arafat appointed his COUSIN to a key position is his government. Arafat is a clear dictator with only his own interests in mind)

Quote
Now as a counterquestion, do you believe it is wrong to kill an innocent Iraqi civilian?


Yes, it is wrong. It also is less wrong to kill (inadvertantly) an innocent Iraqi civilian for the sake of saving a greater number of other Iraqi civilians, and removing a great deal of guilty Iraqis. I believe you agree with me, at least partially:
Quote
Very true, Iraq is becoming a better place and noone denies that. At some point the amount of people saved from Saddam will undoubtedly outweigh the amount ofpeople who died in the war/aftermath. We may even be there already, hard to say really.


Quote
they aren't fundament muslims, but rather a personal cult. As such, the fundamental muslims were actually happy to see Saddam go.


They were happy to see Saddam go, but they were much more unhappy to see the Americans come. Attacking Iraq instead of say, Iran, helps protect against the risk of every muslim country uniting under one banner to cause an outright world war. Now that the presence is there though, if Iraq is rebuilt and becomes a flagship of Western Civilization, complete with prosperity and democracy for its people, these countries will not be able to keep small (alone unnoticable, added together unstoppable) ideas and values seep through their borders.

Quote
And invading has really helped stop the car bombings? I note that the foreign workers in Saudi-Arabia aren't feeling safer nowadays than before the war. As stated before, most terrorism is muslim fundamentalists, which are in no way connected to Hussein, so you've really not given them anything but a new battlefield to play in. Oh, and another reason to hate America. illogical as it is, even the US striking down on their enemies makes them angrier.


I address some of this above and, if you'll bear with me, I'll address the rest at the end.

Quote
Regardless of wether all (or indeed any), of the speculations that are flying around are true, as long as the only reason to invade was "He was a bad man" people will suspect the US of acting because of their own dark motives.


I'll get to this too, it all ties in together.

Quote
Yes, nonexistent weapons are hard to use. They'd have been even without the invasion.


Ties in too.

Quote
They've ignored Saddam so far, the only difference is now they'll be ignoring "The captialist scum who control the puppet regime". Any good they see coming out of Iraq will simply be explained with "The evildoers are bleeding the muslim world dry, and rewarding their mindless drones". Or something similar. It wn't stop the neuigbouring countries young from joining the Jihad.


An important point, also addressed below.

Quote
it is WRONG to invade another country, regardless of country, on a hunch. Certainly, some good has come out of it. But if you would take credit for the accidental good your actions have caused, then you must also take the blame for what evil they have caused. Dead civilians, growing anti-western feelings, that sort of thing. Of course, you may want to argue that miore good than bad has come out of it, but those are relative terms, and very hard to quantify. Certainly a lot of people lived that otherwise would have died. But a lot of people have died as well, who would probably have lived otherwise.

Conclusion: If we all get to invade just beacuse we feel threatned even though we cannot prove it, I except China will hold Taiwan in a matter of minutes, and Korea in a few days. But most of us don't do that.


I'll start here. "If we all get to invade just beacuse we feel threatned even though we cannot prove it", lets get right down to it, "even though we cannot prove it". THIS particular statement is what I believe is one of the most important arguments, especially in the minds of the anti-invasionists.

I'm going to prove it.

It is no secret that children in many schools throughout the muslim world, Iraq included, are taught from the youngest of ages to hate everything non-muslim. This kind of hate is often less apparent than the hate a nazi might display if you were to talk to him, but it is still there. The difference between the hate a nazi shows and the hate a possible (future) terrorist shows is unclear, but the underlying emotions are the same. Now this is not enough reason to invade a country, especially a country that doesn't display this trait as much as others. But once you add to it the fact that these muslims have children at rates that blow away any hope of western populations keeping up with them, and each generation passing the hate on to the next, so that the children don't even think anything is strange about hating Americans, you realize that something must be done.

Quote
And invading has really helped stop the car bombings? I note that the foreign workers in Saudi-Arabia aren't feeling safer nowadays than before the war. As stated before, most terrorism is muslim fundamentalists, which are in no way connected to Hussein, so you've really not given them anything but a new battlefield to play in. Oh, and another reason to hate America. illogical as it is, even the US striking down on their enemies makes them angrier.


I would be willing to concede that you may be right, it may make things worse as a whole in the muslim world, but you would also have to be willing to concede that doing nothing, indeed even trying to just help in humanitarian ways, could also allow things to continue to escalate ad infinitum until the problem is unstoppable. I personally would rather invade Iraq and take a proactive approach rather than wait to see what happens and possibly realize that I made a mistake when it was too late.

As for WMDs, three possibilities exist:
a) They were/are there, and simply aren't/won't be found.
b) They were not/are not there, and intellegence was flawed.
c) They may or may not be there, but that wasn't why we invaded. We just SAID that was the reason.

Only (b) could be a real reason against invasion, and if it were, than Bush would only be a small part of the blame. But lets say (c) is the truth, and Bush's real reason is what I stated above. Why would he lie and say it was WMDs? Because to say "we're invading because we need to re-educate muslim children" can be misconstrued and manipulated in so many ways that anti-bush media and press would easily tear him apart, even though his intentions were just.

If all that I have said is true, we did NOT invade on a hunch, nor on "iffy" intellegence, nor did we do so unreasonably. We saw a REAL threat that needed to be dealt with. We ARE dealing with it. It cannot just be Iraq though. The teachings of hate have to change everywhere, because each generation brings more hate and more numbers than the last. If we cut of the hate at the source, future generations will not have to deal with what our generation is going through.

Quote
Peace brought by war is seldom a lasting peace


If we teach young Muslim children not to hate blindly, even if we had to go through a war to be able to do that, we WILL be able to bring real and lasting peace to an area previously ruled by corruption, oppression, and hate.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #97 on: July 23, 2004, 12:44:53 am »

I would posit that dropping food aid which looks the same as cluster bomblets will not teach children not to hate the US.
I would posit that torturing and sexually humiliating people will not teach children not to hate the US.
I would posit that violently entering thousands of homes searching blindly for resistance fighters will not teach children not to hate the US.
I would posit that leaving the capitol without electricity 60% of the time a year after we took over will not teach children not to hate the US.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2004, 12:45:13 am by Death_999 » Logged
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #98 on: July 23, 2004, 12:47:34 am »

I get the impression that you believe that the muslim parents will continue teaching their offspring to hate everything western as you say ad infinitum. While this may be true if all external factors are to remain constant, what would happen if living standards in the middle east would improve? If every family would have reasonably easy acces to the basic necessities of life like food, clothing and shelter and on top of that some extras like a computer, a TV and a reliable means of transportation, then what would be the reason to continue with this jihad? I mean, the jihad is supposed to make things better for them right? Well what if it is allready good enough, dont you think Achmed Al Mohammed would rather remain seated in his comfy chair smoking his waterpipe watching some telly with his kids then go out and have him and his sons blow themselves up in some foreign country?
You could use this in an argument that the western world should just invade and regime change the whole lot... but wouldnt things like debt reduction for third world countries and doing away with dishonest trade barriers do the trick with a lot less bloodshed?
Sure, at first the rich will get richer, I know, thats the nature of our species apparently, however as their wealth increases, the poorer segments of the population will follow in most cases.
Or maybe I am just naive  Roll Eyes

edit: sorry D999, I didnt know you posted allready, I was replying to the guy before you
« Last Edit: July 23, 2004, 12:49:08 am by ChainiaC » Logged
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #99 on: July 23, 2004, 01:51:14 am »

Quote
I get the impression that you believe that the muslim parents will continue teaching their offspring to hate everything western as you say ad infinitum. While this may be true if all external factors are to remain constant, what would happen if living standards in the middle east would improve? If every family would have reasonably easy acces to the basic necessities of life like food, clothing and shelter and on top of that some extras like a computer, a TV and a reliable means of transportation, then what would be the reason to continue with this jihad? I mean, the jihad is supposed to make things better for them right? Well what if it is allready good enough, dont you think Achmed Al Mohammed would rather remain seated in his comfy chair smoking his waterpipe watching some telly with his kids then go out and have him and his sons blow themselves up in some foreign country?


The terrorist attacks are (for the most part) not about improving the quality of muslim life. When Nick Berg was taken hostage and murdered, the terrorists were not saying, "we're doing this to better our quality of life." They did it because of fundamental values and fundamental religious beleifs. If we give them money, they will spend it to buy weapons. They don't care about their quality of life, because they've been taught that if they kill Americans, Jews, and other "enemies of Ala," they will go to heaven and be rewarded in the afterlife. The only way to stop this is to prevent children from believing in this in the first place.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #100 on: July 23, 2004, 01:52:18 am »

Quote
Firstly, in regards to the argument that the US should've had UN approval:

   The UN does no favors for the US. It attempts to belittle and discredit the US at every turn, and is insanely against one of the US's greatest allies, Israel. If you don't believe me, remember the racism summit (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,33561,00.html) a few years ago that Israel and the US had to walk out of (largely unreported because of unfortunate proximity to 9/11).
Because of all these things, to then demand that the US must wait for UN approval to invade is preposterous.

The United Nations consists of 191 states across the world with a common goal of peace, respect, and human rights. If they are at odds with the United States on some occasion, this can be because the rest of the world is unobjectively against the US, or it can be that the rest of the world actually has a point. If you're not prepared to at least consider the latter, any discussion relating the UN is doomed in advance.

The United States didn't have to walk out on anything. They weren't the only countries that disagreed with the draft statement. But while countries like the EU countries and Canada attempted to reach a statement that they could agree with (after all, it was still a draft), the United States just walked out. Reading this, this, and this it is not inconceivable that they may not have given the conference a fair chance in the first place.

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I have seen no arguments anywhere in this thread saying that it would be better if Saddam were still in power.

This thread is about the Bush vs. Kerry choice. It's important to seperate the issues of whether invading Iraq was a good idea, and whether the administration's actual motives to do so were honorable.
(That does not mean that if the latter is the case, the wisdom of those choices aren't still open for discussion.)

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To invade Iraq [...] also gives a direct presence in the middle east that neighbouring countries cannot ignore.

You say that like it's a positive thing. I suspect this will only provoke more agression against the United States.

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(agree with the war or not, Spain chose to vote for appeasing the terrorists and doing exactly what the terrorists wanted them to do, and that alone would be a good enough reason for me to vote for a party the terrosists disliked)

This is a very dangerous view. Even when a group's methods are regretable, that does not exclude the possibility that one or more of their motives is actually valid. By doing the opposite of what terrorists want, you may make a very bad decision in the other direction.
The correct approach, as I see it, would be to do what you consider best, regardless of what the terrorists want.

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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #101 on: July 23, 2004, 01:58:59 am »

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The United Nations consists of 191 states across the world with a common goal of peace, respect, and human rights. If they are at odds with the United States on some occasion, this can be because the rest of the world is unobjectively against the US, or it can be that the rest of the world actually has a point. If you're not prepared to at least consider the latter, any discussion relating the UN is doomed in advance.

The United States didn't have to walk out on anything. They weren't the only countries that disagreed with the draft statement. But while countries like the EU countries and Canada attempted to reach a statement that they could agree with (after all, it was still a draft), the United States just walked out. Reading this, this, and this it is not inconceivable that they may not have given the conference a fair chance in the first place.


That is BS. The summit was nothing but an exuse to bash Israel, and the US was the only country with enough decency and balls to stand up against it. There was no "maybes" at this conference. It was clear, unmistakable, and blatant. Do your research next time.

(please excuse my language)

Here is another article from less right-winged CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/africa/09/01/racism.durban/
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #102 on: July 23, 2004, 02:05:32 am »

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That is BS. The summit was nothing but an exuse to bash Israel, and the US was the only country with enough decency and balls to stand up against it. There was no "maybes" at this conference. It was clear, unmistakable, and blatant. Do your research next time.

(please excuse my language)


Well, normally I don't get involved with these threads, but, without siding on either side, how do you think it is umm.... Well not valid ThisAlex? I seem to think that the links that Mee-eep provided are fairly solid......
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #103 on: July 23, 2004, 02:09:18 am »

I apologize for my outbreak, I had a surge of emotion and did not control myself.

The BBC links do not currently work, and the UN resolution page is not valid evidence because it does not portray the tone of the summit. Various quotes in the two articles I posted give a better idea of the true intentions of many countries.
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Re: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread
« Reply #104 on: July 23, 2004, 02:12:15 am »

Also, look at PP30 in the draft:

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[Reaffirming that colonization by settlers and foreign occupation constitute sources,
causes and forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance;]


This pretty explicitly says that Israel is racist for its disputes with the Palistinians. THAT is bs.
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