The US soldier executing an Iraqi wounded

[formerly known as hf]

Incidentally...I would like to bring to general attention the point that what the US did in the Cold War can't be reasonably evaluated piece-by-piece, or by assuming that everything else was just like it is now. You have to actually get some idea of what the Cold War world looked like before you can really talk about it.

I'm well aware that the Cold War is an immensly complex subject - and that events can only be understood in context - I just think that it's worth realising the attitude of past AND present US governments - they will support somone when it suits their aims, and attack them when it suits them too - and, though there are reasons, those reasons are not the reasons that they use in public... as seen by the WMD debate in the UK - it is well documented, even on mainstream media, that reports on Iraq indicated very little or no capability, certainly not the 'imminenet threat to th UK' that Blair spoke about...

Politicians lie - no one should ever forget that - they are hypocritical and they lie - how else would they get votes?

Though the 'War on Terror' does have a disturbing similarity to the more extreme Cold War perspectives...fighting against an ideology, not a country...a vast but amorphous force that bypasses borders with relative ease and uses subversion everywhere...

Exactly - It is virtually impossible to fight an ideology - to fight fanatasicsm in any form - you can't control people's mind - hence no war, of any kind, will ever remove the threat of terroism. No matter how many 'rogue states' are invaded - people will still think and believe what they wish...

It is just silly to think that the answer to terror is war...

[Sunni Daez]

While we are on the subject of 9/11 I just felt I should post this, though I doubt many of you will actually regard it.

http://freedomunderground.org/memoryhol ... n.php#Main

I found that site interesting, thank you

[Pirog]

The Industriallist>

The Iraq war is bad. But I think it's safe to say that it's much better than Vietnam was.

I agree. But the problem still has to do with human nature. I'm not saying that the US troops are wiping out entire towns in the current war in Iraq, but I'm sure that individual killings of civilians and disabled opponents, where no real danger is present, happens quite a lot. It's simply the reality of war.

If he was so intelligent...why did he break resolutions? Why hide weapons that certainly couldn't save him if he got into trouble?

I don't generally advocate total surrender. But when you're in a situation where your only concievable defence is the mercy of your enemies, it seems like the smart thing to do is throw yourself on it entirely.

I think even the most optimistic American advisors where surprised by how easy the war was won. It could have gone very differently. The American public isn't prepared to see heavy casualties, and if for example the Republican Guard hadn't fled from Baghdad the whole war could have ended differently.
As to why he broke resolutions etc., simply because he could I would guess...it wasn't a big reason for why the war was started, so without Bush in charge he would still be breaking them...

Not that I'd entirely put it past the government...but I would like to point out that you've just invoked an immense conspiracy, which I think you said you wouldn't.

I thought this conspiracy was allready a stated fact. The intelligence reports blown out of proportion, the false accusation of Saddam trying to get hold of plutonium from Nigeria, the WMD's etc. You think that is simply a mistake by the American government?

Such things have been done before, certainly. Though I'm not really aware of any since the end of the Cold War. There were some interesting bits involved in the startup of the Vietnam war.

Really? I think such things are quite common. One that comes to mind is the huge fraud in '94 where the fifteen y/o Nayirah witnessed to the American congress about how Saddams soldiers took children out of incubators and left them to die on the floor in occupied Kuwait. That had a huge effect on the determination to go to war.
It was later discovered that she was the daughter to the Kuwaiti ambassador in USA, and that everything she said was a lie. She hadn't even been in Kuwait at the time...but of course, then the war was allready in motion.

Another example, that didn't get as big impact but rallied the American public when it started to get discouraged, was the fake rescue of the captured soldier Jessica Lynch in the beginning of the current war. From what I have heard it still hasn't got much attention in American media that it was fake.