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Thread: so whats every1s view on the US/Iraq situaton?

  1. #1
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    so whats every1s view on the US/Iraq WAR?

    personaly im not really sure on the whole thing. my history teacher told us today it was all about oil but i cant beleive we would want to attack them for just that

    my gym teacher think its because bush is trying to distract people from the stock market

    my dad things that its because sadam is a bad guy and need to get removed
    Last edited by board Lizard; 03-20-2003 at 11:50 PM.

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    Holy chao, talk about a loaded question. Next you'll be wanting to talk about religion. I predict this thread will degenerate into a flamefest pretty quickly, but....
    IMHO, (and I consider myself mildly conservative, just a little to the right of center) there may be a little bit of truth to all of the arguments. I personally believe that GW truly "believes" in what he's doing, so I personally doubt the stock market explanation. However, Saddam truly is a bad person. Even his staunchest defenders would be hard pressed to deny that. Also though, we as a nation are very dependent on oil as an energy source, so I would be surprised if that played into it. There are many other factors that play into it too I am sure. Weapons of mass destruction, mass murder, support for Israel, opposition to terrorism. The list goes on and on. I doubt it is as simple a topic as either side would claim it is.

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    I don't think this topic should be here. I also don't believe this topic deserves our time.
    Usually I post my character here...but uh...yeah...

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    my history teacher told us today it was all about oil
    Your history teacher should have told you it was about WWII. Why is it that the US and Britain always have to bail out the world when some leader(s) goes on a rampage? He already brutilized and chemically attacked his own country men. If we left it up to the French again (noting thier lack of main line effort in WWI) Iraq would be occupying all of the middle east by the time the UN did anything to stop it. Does anyone really think that he would have stopped with Kuwait if we hadn't forced him out?

    Is it about oil? Sure, wars are always about either resources or religion. (oh I can hear the flames now on this one)

    Is it about the stock market? See above: money

    Is sadam a bad guy and needs to be removed? Ummm. Ya! Remember the kurds? Remember Kuwait? He may even be "in bed" with our other buddy over there.

    Have fun everyone.

    -Lane

    PS: Three cheers for the SEQ devs! Keep up the good work guys (and gals if there are any). I sure hope you're not reading this crap. hehe

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    Originally posted by Manaweaver
    I don't think this topic should be here. I also don't believe this topic deserves our time.
    Why not? Got something better to do?

    This goes for everyone, though... if you're gonna post here, you have to be mildly intelligent. That includes the use of proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization. This l33t scr1pt kiddie bullshit isn't gonna fly. Go talk l33t somewhere else.

    The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.

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    Mainly Ratt, because I'd like the subject not to permiate my everyday life... Speeking mainly from the fact that its popped on all the message boards I frequent. It always turns into a huge debate that never gets anywhere... I guess mainly, if you want to talk about the politics of nations, finding a good political message board would be a good idea. I guess if you'd like to find out the opinions of the SEQ users, its a good idea, though it sounded a bit more broad then that. My views? I'd rather the US not invade Iraq. The oil in Alaska that they have available could more than supply the country for quite some time. I do believe it is about oil. If it was about Saddam being such a bad boy, then it wouldn't be happening. The US has put leaders similar to Saddam into power in other countries. There area also other countries with leaders as bad as Saddam. They single him out because his nation controls a resource. Not even a very valuable one nowadays. I'm sure if the engineers in America put their minds to it, they could have an alternate fuel source readily available, cheap, and effective out within 10 years. That may sound like a long time, but they have supplies to last... or so I think.

    Either way, its all opinions, and what we think doesn't matter in the end...
    Usually I post my character here...but uh...yeah...

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    a part of me just think that the president wants to get elected again next year so he might be try to get a war going somewhere

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    Manaweaver, you being able to express your views and tell us your ideas makes me happier than anything else. Your opinion does matter to some people and because of these boards you can express them. I know some people are lame and will flame ect, but that's the nature of the readers here. Don't let them stop you from saying how you feel if you want to/need to.

    Personally I have been so freaking busy lately that I have not been able to vent my views on this topic. Tha'ts why when I had a few minutes I posted.

    I might not agree with your views or what you say, but I would die defending your right to express them. That is how strongly I belive in the first amendment.

    -Lane

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    Educators won't be the most reliable for objective opinion on this conflict. Nor will the typical news media pundits.

    Their combined silence during the cruise missile bombing of Iraqi chemical warfare installations during the Clinton administration speaks loudly to that. Former Clinton official Madeline Albright compared Saddam to Hitler then, but is an outspoken critic of our military campaign today.

    Nobody asked for UN sanctions, nor opposed unilateral action, nor called for hearings, nor questioned the president's authority when the president was a Democrat. Anybody calling for these things today need to be measured by their actions then.

    The oil argument is a patsy. Firstly, if it was all about oil we could have siezed Baghdad and turned it into our own private Exxon station during the gulf war. Along with Kuwait. We have 100,000 troops in Kuwait now for that matter...we could simply declare victory and sieze their fields today.

    Secondly, even if it were all about oil...so what? Oil is the lifeblood of civilized society. The mission of our (and everyone else's) Navy is to keep the trade-lanes open on the high seas so it and other vital trade can flow. There is certainly no shame in preventing any madman from siezing control of oil to blackmail the civilized world, which is what Saddam attempted in his invasion of Kuwait.

    Insuring the free flow of oil at market prices is the same as insuring freedom.

    Many people have a difficult time comprehending that anyone in power would ever act from principle. So we see the accusations of "distracting from the stock market", or "improving re-election chances". This is self-serving criticism, and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

    It begs the question, "Why should we re-elect a President?" Because he's "cool", or promises to give us all a laundry list of new government handouts? Or help our gay cousin get a job in the military? Or who outlaws a cartoon character, like Joe Camel?

    Or rather, should we re-elect a man who brings an end to world communism? Or ends the cold-war? (Reagan) Or repels a madman attempting to invade his neighboring country to sieze the world's largest oil fields? (Bush 1) Or leads a war to crush international terrorism? (Bush 2) Or reforms tax policy to revive the nation's economy? (JFK, Reagan, Bush 2)

    I'm thinking the latter. So yes, a successful defeat of international terrorism could very well lead to improved re-election odds for President Bush. And rightly so. And there's certainly no shame for a President to want to be judged by his actions when they are in the interest of his principles and the good of the nation and free humankind.

    I'm not going into all the reasons why this is a just war, and a necessary one. Only those who cannot possibly be persuaded oppose it at this point. Those of us with common sense never required a lot of convincing in the first place, understanding as we already do that the tree of freedom must occassionaly be watered with the blood of patriots.

    God bless America.

  10. #10
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    clinton seemed too get a lot of things done in the country. didn't he help too get medicare up or something?

    either way the country woudnt have voted him in two times if he wasnt a good guy

    but this bush guy seems too just wanna start trouble i think

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    Actually, Clinton was the first president to ever raise taxes on Medicaire recipients. To my knowledge, Clinton did not enact any program he ever promised.

    In both elections, Clinton received less than a plurality of the vote. He only received 39% in his first election.

    He won due to each election being a three-way contest. Ross Perot siphoned off enough of the Republican vote in each contest to throw the election to Clinton.

    The main point is, Clinton never had 50% of the vote in either election. More people voted against him, than for him. And Ross Perot was more of a Republican than a Democrat.

    Two years after Clinton's first election, the Republicans swept the House and Senate. Since then, almost all major governorships have been taken over by Republicans.

    In the last election, Republicans again made major gains in the House and Senate and throughout local elections nationwide.

    Al Gore's defeat was a historical first, he should have won with a wide margin without even having to campaign..the fact that he didn't get 70% of the vote...let alone lost...says all that needs be said.

    You're right the people should be trusted. Most people didn't vote for Clinton, and most people don't vote Democrat.

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    Borscht: Nothing personal, but your argument clearly doesnt appear to be objective... You are a tried and true Republican, which is fine, but saying things like:

    Only those who cannot possibly be persuaded oppose it at this point. Those of us with common sense never required a lot of convincing in the first place, understanding as we already do that the tree of freedom must occassionaly be watered with the blood of patriots.
    clearly shows that zealotism, and not common sense are at work here. According to the latest poles (CNN/Gallup Poll from Feb 9th), 46% of the country doesnt think we should go to war. Do all those people automatically lack common sense because they dont agree with you?

    Is Saddam a bad guy? Hell yeah.

    Do I think he should be captured/killed? Hell yeah.

    Should we be doing it when large portions of the country and most of world doesnt think so? Arguable..

    I'm an independant.. I have probably voted 60% democrat, 40% republican over my lifetime.. I'm a big fan of republicans on tax/financial policies (although, the $300 tax LOAN is and was stupid... i mean, really.. 90% of the country didnt realize they were gonna have to pay that back on their taxes the next year, and were screwed when taxes came up.. how does that help the economy?). I'm a big fan of democrats on just about everything else (social policy, etc).

    So, to complete this rambling. I'm not yet sure how i feel about war. I think we are moving way to fast. This guy isnt going to use chem/bio weapons, if he has them, unless we attack.. doing so would immediatly ally the entire world against him (including most of the middle east). He knows this, he wont use them... That leaves us in a bad spot.. if we attack, we will win, no doubt about that. What will it cost us? Not just our troops, but our friends and allies in Isreal, Turkey, and here in the US? I think we will see terrorist attacks here, if we attack Iraq (77% of the country aggrees, according to the same poll sited above)...

    --Jeeves
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein

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    but if we take out sadam wont it hurt osamas terrorist group since the news was saying they were conected

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    I'm not going to take issue with you calling me a zealot, Jeeves, but I don't think my statement about common sense fits the definition.

    I haven't the desire to argue about why it makes sense to do this, or why it should have already been done. It's already been decided, and the majority of Americans and the world support the decision to act.

    There are approximately 40 nations backing us, with 3 opposing us. Those that oppose have huge economic ties to Iraq, and are the nations that have been selling him much of the technology he is using in his weapons programs.

    It would be interesting to know your views back in the day when Clinton was saying precisely what Bush is saying now, and launching those cruise missiles. (on the first day of the Monica Lewinski hearings....pure coincidence, I know)

    Those who claim we are moving too fast never seem to be able to say definitively whan we *should* act. And I suspect many who offer this argument simply want to appear measured, understanding, and wise to others.

    The majority though simply have no condition under which they would approve of military action by the United States during a Republican administration. And that speaks to something altogether different than the topic of this thread.

    Saddam has been in material breach of the Gulf War ceasefire agreement for twelve years. His ties to terrorist activities are not disputable. Nobody has challenged Colin Powell's report of these breaches and the ties to terrorists, not even Bush's worst political enemies. Because they cannot be refuted.

    I don't know what it would take to change your mind, nor what constitutes "enough time" in your view. But 12 years is long enough to me, and it would seem common sense would be in line with that observation.

    Whether I'm a zealot or not.

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    but if we take out sadam wont it hurt osamas terrorist group since the news was saying they were conected
    Thats what the government is telling us... the proof is there, but is very thin.. dont trust everything you hear on the news.

    Also, read what Ratt said further up in this thread... grammar, punctuation, and spelling are all important, your posts are very difficult to read.

    Borscht: You are VERY loose with the facts.. take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at things objectively..

    Just for kicks:

    1992:
    Clinton: 43.01%
    Bush: 37.45%
    Perot: 18.91%

    1996:
    Clinton: 49.24%
    Dole: 40.71%
    Perot: 8.40%

    2000:
    Bush: 47.87%
    Gore: 48.38%
    Nader: 2.74%

    So, as we can see, more people have voted democratic, than republican in all of the last 3 presidential elections (just some of the people in the last one didnt count as much as others...). As we can also see, Clinton got a larger % of the vote in 1996, than bush did in 2000.

    Another tidbit about your whole 50% issue: The only president to win more than 50% of the vote in a 3 way race (one in which the 3rd candidate had 1% or more of

    You're right the people should be trusted. Most people didn't vote for Clinton, and most people don't vote Democrat.
    You've got to be kidding me right? Are you trying out to be on Crossfire, or something? I didnt realize that all our problems could go away now that we had Borscht here to dictate the facts, and solutions to us (especially since his facts are not correct). A quick history on the two party system, or pretty much any long term binary system you will find in nature: There will almost always be a roughly 50-50 split between the two parties.. why? Because when one party gets out ahead, the other one changes itself to compensate... look at republicans in the 1990's vs. republicans now.. you think maybe that the fact the republicas moved left some has anything to do with their new found votes? "Compassionate Conservatism" is what we are seeing now.. it certainly isnt what we were seeing from republicans when Dole ran for president. How are the democrats going to respond, eventually? They are going to more a little to the right, to pick back some of theos moderate votes... its the way the system has always worked, and will continue to work... its what keeps the government stable..

    Anyway.. if you have some well thought out, objective points to discuss, I'm always interested in a good political debate. Please try to present accurate facts, instead of making them up on the spot tho, i do hate having to go find all the real facts to counter with..

    --Jeeves
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein

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