Iraq War Inquiry

[La_Dolce_Vita]

The thing is the West would have basically ignored Afghanistan if it hadn't been complicit in 911 - it had done for the 10 years prior to then, and lets be honest the West isn't scheming to invade Nepal no matter how many pipelines could be laid through its mountain passes.

 

I tend to think that the West's ignoring of Afghanistan prior to 911 - which would seem to be something LDV should be happy with - isn't something to be praised.

You completely misunderstand my take on things. My issue is with how easily violence is used to resolve matters, but importantly a very good recognition of what the American interests were and what their past involvement has been in Afghanistan. The United States is responsible for much of the problems in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. Their efforts made it possible for the Mujahideen to gain control over the country and institute a level of terror worse than the Taliban. The US cared little for Afghanistan once it had played its part in the earlier war. Of course it only became concerned when planes crashed into the Trade Centre. But then, all fingers were not pointed at Afghanistan after 9/11. There wouldn't have been good reason to meddly exclusively in Afghanistan. What about other nations?

 

I am quite happy to see opposing political organisations supported financially and with other aid in fighting a repressive regime, but it is a different matter when another country invades and maintains a presence in another nation to satisfy its own interests, which may incidentally eliminate the members of the former regime.

 

My attitude is that if an intervention ends a regime which killed many of its civillian population each day through design or neglect and replaces it with one which allows its population to develop and live in peace; then that good can be used to justify some of the bad created by a war fought for another reason.

How do you know it will result in development and living in peace? All we know if a government with some democratic principles instilled in it has been established for the sake of maintaining control over the people. What is this assurance that things will be better? And the problem for me is condoning such action in these countries by disregarding the principal causes of the conflict and choosing the justify through incidental results of the war. I absolutely oppose the primary reasons for the war.

 

I don't think that is necessarily illegitimate, especially when the reason for the occupation in the first place was also legitimate.

LDV seems to disagree - after invading and bringing misery to many the West should just leave and allow an evil, violent and despotic regime return. That really doesn't make sense to me.

Legimate in what sense? From simply a legal point of view. I would say it is both morally illegitimate and legally unsound if for example we pay more than lip service to certain convention and principles that are comes from the Nuremberg trials or the UN charter.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I would say quite a lot, if you openly declaired your homosexuality in quite a few countries you defend here I doubt you would have your freedom long enough to make another comment.

Still it isn't relevant. I haven't defended the Taliban - where have I apparently done so? And what does being gay have to do then on what I apparently SHOULD condone or condemn in respect of this war? My first thoughts are fuck all, but please explain. (Though I think Alias needs to do more explaining.)

[jimbms]

I would say quite a lot, if you openly declaired your homosexuality in quite a few countries you defend here I doubt you would have your freedom long enough to make another comment.

Still it isn't relevant. I haven't defended the Taliban - where have I apparently done so? And what does being gay have to do then on what I apparently SHOULD condone or condemn in respect of this war? My first thoughts are fuck all, but please explain. (Though I think Alias needs to do more explaining.)

No need to explain further, just try the alien concept to you of reading and thinking.

[Republican]

This was also a legacy of the wars past and present.

 

To put it bluntly from the web.

 

The U.S. dropped so much depleted uranium on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War that birth defects in Iraqi babies increased by 500 percent in the next 12 years. The radiation was so bad that 67% of American Gulf War veterans ended up having babies with serious birth defects as well. In 2003, we dropped so much depleted uranium on Baghdad that radiation levels rose to 2,000 times normal. Depleted Uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years. Essentially, we have eliminated the Iraqi population (and many our of own troops) from the healthy human gene pool.

Source? A lot of studies have said DU has negligible effects on humans (in the environmental concentrations caused from munitions, inside someone it's obviously a different matter, the same as any heavy metal)..

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full...588/1801?ck=nck

http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s010110a.htm (NATO statement)

 

In a previous post you also commented on the effect of post-'cheap' oil, and the effects of that on food production - you'll be surprised by how little oil-equivalent the transportation element of food production uses, it's a lot cheaper (in oil terms) to produce livestock in NZ (largely due to the climate and soil features) and ship it over here than to produce in the UK. This would change as oil gets more expensive and farming gets less oil-intensive, but I think you'd be surprised how much of a transition from oil would be required for this situation to reverse.

 

And a world population of seven billion, that would still be alright?

[Terse]

LIES THAT TRIGGERED IRAQI WAR

 

From The Guardian

 

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.