I am guessing you have no idea how things are over there. I was in Iraq from March through August. Here are some things about Iraq the media has NEVER told you.

Every family (mother, father, brother sister, grandparents uncles and aunts) in Iraq has had a member beaten, put in prison or killed via Sadam. A man in Al Mahmuduyah who spoke decent english told me this.

Sadam told his people that the Americans would kill their babies when we moved in. A woman broke down after one of my soldiers played with her son at a check point. That soldier had a new born back in the states that he had not seen.

80-90% of the people in Iraq support Sadam not being in power. The other 10-20% are the people who benefited from Sadam being in power. This info was given to me by an Iraqi man at wal-mart.

You cannot deny that Sadam is guilty of crimes against humanity. He authorized the killing of anyone who was against him. He gased the Kurds, made any body who protested his rule "disappear". The last I knew the mass graves were in the 10,000's. How can you say this war was not justified? I know the world hates the US, but why do they have to stick up for Sadam to show they are against the US. I will laugh at the ignorance of anyone who says the world is worse off now that Sadam is gone. If anyone is going to be mad about the war it should be me. I spent 11 months away from home and my life was put in danger so there would be a free Iraq. And after all is said and done, I fully support our actions over there

I do not hate the US and i definatly dont support saddam but i would of prefered it to of been a UN operation and that the politicians had not mislead us about the supposed WMD which makes the war look a lot more about oil! I am glad saddam was captured and he should definatly be charged with crimes against humanity, but he should have a lawyer otherwise i will not respect the outcome! everyman has a right to a fair trial no matter how great his crimes!
Iraqis fighting back? Only those supported by terrorist organisations can fight back and they arent fighting for iraq theyre fighting because they hate the coalition forces, or are being told to fight!

Originally Posted by Doody

I am guessing you have no idea how things are over there. I was in Iraq from March through August. Here are some things about Iraq the media has NEVER told you.

Every family (mother, father, brother sister, grandparents uncles and aunts) in Iraq has had a member beaten, put in prison or killed via Sadam. A man in Al Mahmuduyah who spoke decent english told me this.

Sadam told his people that the Americans would kill their babies when we moved in. A woman broke down after one of my soldiers played with her son at a check point. That soldier had a new born back in the states that he had not seen.

80-90% of the people in Iraq support Sadam not being in power. The other 10-20% are the people who benefited from Sadam being in power.
This info was given to me by an Iraqi man at wal-mart.
You cannot deny that Sadam is guilty of crimes against humanity. He authorized the killing of anyone who was against him. He gased the Kurds, made any body who protested his rule "disappear". The last I knew the mass graves were in the 10,000's. How can you say this war was not justified? I know the world hates the US, but why do they have to stick up for Sadam to show they are against the US. I will laugh at the ignorance of anyone who says the world is worse off now that Sadam is gone. If anyone is going to be mad about the war it should be me. I spent 11 months away from home and my life was put in danger so there would be a free Iraq. And after all is said and done, I fully support our actions over there

Hi Doody, I guess I am one of those people who has no idea what it really is like in Iraq.

You are are a very brave person who has had to put up with a hell of lot in carrying out your Governments wishes.

I suppose one thing about having a democracy is that we have a free press that sometimes manipulates news and doesn't always get things right.

How long to do you think most US voters will keep supporting the US military in Iraq?

Do you think the US is safer now after the US ousted Saddam?

Do you think the Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites, Turkamen, etc will be able to hold a stable democratic government together after the US soldiers have left Iraq?

I agree with you that Saddam has committed massive crimes against humanity and deserved to be removed (but with UN backing).

It is a pity that Bush didn't have the guts in the beginning to use "the crimes against humanity" excuse to kick out Saddam.

Extending your argument a little, Bush, Blair and Howard should now get involved in another war in Sudan where crimes against humanity are occurring right now. The conflict between Muslims of African and Arabic descent threatens to turn Dafur (West Sudan)- a region as big as France- into a vast slaughterhouse. At least 10000 people have been killed in the conflict, up to a million are desperately trying to escape it and, with the rainy season closing in, up to 350,000 may die of starvation.

Catch you later Doody.

hey aussiejohn,

Thanks man. I do put up with some crap just for being over there. I really hate it when people hold it against me for being over there. As a soldier, I don't have a choice as to wether I go or not, I go where I Army sends me.

I am not sure how voters will support our actions over there. I find it odd that there are hoards of people in the States who are set against operations in Iraq, but most soldiers are very supportive of Iraq. There are too many people in the US who accept something just because it was said by a famous person.

There must be trust in Iraq before a government can work. Each ethnic group over there has done something to the other. No one really trusts eachother at the moment. I have no idea how long it will take for trust to take hold. If we look at Bosnia, that may take years.

As for the UN, I am not happy with their track record. They were in Bosnia for almost a decade and there was no peace. NATO went in and stopped major fighting within 6 months. It seemed the UN turned a blind eye to the atrocities in Rwanda. The UN's track record with Iraq is not impressive to me. And yes, there is Sudan. I firmly agree with you that we (US or UN) should be over there attempting to stop the blood shed. Someone can argue that the US is doing nothing, but the UN is right there with us. Until the UN does the right thing everytime, I believe the US has the right to do things with out their backing. For them to criticize us is hipicritical

Well, I am off to France to check out the last part of the Tour de France....I'll chat more when I get back in AUG

Originally Posted by Doody

hey aussiejohn,

Thanks man. I do put up with some crap just for being over there. I really hate it when people hold it against me for being over there. As a soldier, I don't have a choice as to wether I go or not, I go where I Army sends me.

I am not sure how voters will support our actions over there. I find it odd that there are hoards of people in the States who are set against operations in Iraq, but most soldiers are very supportive of Iraq. There are too many people in the US who accept something just because it was said by a famous person.

There must be trust in Iraq before a government can work. Each ethnic group over there has done something to the other. No one really trusts eachother at the moment. I have no idea how long it will take for trust to take hold. If we look at Bosnia, that may take years.

As for the UN, I am not happy with their track record. They were in Bosnia for almost a decade and there was no peace. NATO went in and stopped major fighting within 6 months. It seemed the UN turned a blind eye to the atrocities in Rwanda. The UN's track record with Iraq is not impressive to me. And yes, there is Sudan. I firmly agree with you that we (US or UN) should be over there attempting to stop the blood shed. Someone can argue that the US is doing nothing, but the UN is right there with us. Until the UN does the right thing everytime, I believe the US has the right to do things with out their backing. For them to criticize us is hipicritical

Well, I am off to France to check out the last part of the Tour de France....I'll chat more when I get back in AUG

Thanks for your interesting reply. Have fun in France.

aussiejohn

The invasion of Iraq still to this day seems pointless to me. They did not have ICBMs to hit us with nuclear or chemical weapon. They would of had to get real close to us and by then the coast gaurd would be saying "Sail your sail boat back to the sand dunes". They also said that they could hit Israel with a chemical weapon ECT... Who in there right minds in the middle east would screw with israel right now? There pissed off Jews with good weapons. If i was Sudan, Jordan, or even Iraq for that matter wouldnt even cough in there direction.

Originally Posted by DontEatAnAnimal

They also said that they could hit Israel with a chemical weapon ECT... Who in there right minds in the middle east would screw with israel right now? There pissed off Jews with good weapons. If i was Sudan, Jordan, or even Iraq for that matter wouldnt even cough in there direction.

They [Iraq] did it before.

Originally Posted by RnderSafe

They [Iraq] did it before.

Yeah, that's true -- in 1990. People might have forgotten it. I think it's right for the US to do what they have done in Iraq. Better to install a new government in Iraq than to let the former regime continue. What the world needs is peace.



"War is the path to peace''

I think that the iraqi people can obviously can fight back or other wise the U.S. Soldiers wouldn't be dying at a pace that they are. I am young and don't really understand all of this and probably never will. But i can't comprehend what was going through bush's mind when he started this war. It is not like we are going over there for one year and going to take down the communists and the taliban and expect the iraqi people to bow down to democracy. It was a very big decision that wasn't thought through well enough for the risks and consequences. Saddam is gone and peace has started to rise, but then we have to look at the iraqi people and wear their shoes for once. Obviously they don't want democracy or other wise terrorists wouldn't have killed the future president over there. Doesn't that tell us something right there. If some country came to the U.S and expected us to lay down all our values on the table and give them up we would fight back too. I mean it is a big change that just can't happen over night. Some signs are right in front of our face and some aren't. I believe that this will rise to become another Vietnam war and bush is doing nothing about it except ship more troops over seas. He is bad for the U.S. and he should be out of office. The only thing good about this war is that the economy is rising due to the availability of jobs. Our men are dying over there and we are getting nowhere.

Well, I can understand why we went into Iraq.

Saddam certainly needed to be removed from power. His periodic defiance was serving to diminish Western influence in the Middle East, his funding of Palestinian and other terror groups was destabilising the region, and he had murdered and tortured people in huge numbers (and was still doing so).

The issue was that to remove Saddam would never be straightforward. Sanctions and periodic bombing did not affect the regime's power. Saddam had good personal security, so assassination was out. Helping the Iraqis remove Saddam themselves was likely to provoke interventions by Turkey and Iran, so that was no good. The only option left was invasion - but until 9/11, invasion simply was not possible politically, due to both domestic and international public opinion.

The paradox of 9/11 was that while it made it politically possible to invade Iraq, it also meant we suddenly had other priorities. The murderers who attacked the USS Cole had now shown that they could launch a major attack on the United States itself, and if they could do that, they could attack or destabilise any country in the world. Saddam, conversely, had not killed a single American (or British person) since 1991.

It can therefore be argued that the United States and Britain should not have invaded Iraq when they did, but should instead have focussed on increasing the stability of the global system (for example, looking again at the Palestine issue), while at the same time building the global political and security environment that would have enabled the capture or killing of the remaining al-Qa'eda elements world-wide.

To my mind, the invasion of Iraq was not immoral, unjustified or done to get the country's oil: in itself, it was probably a good thing. It was nevertheless a policy error: while Saddam rots in a prison cell, Bin Laden's people are still out there, still armed, and determined to massacre as many people as they can before they are gunned down.

All we have done is given them time to regroup.