Dumb Canada Comment

Pete, the first Gulf War did not end. There was a conditional ceasefire. Saddam has not lived up to the conditions, therefore the ceasefire is null and void. Is that a simple enough position for you.

Also, Pete, we have position opening up at my company and I immediately thought of you. Basically, we're looking for someone to push papers for about 12 years, but not really do anything. Maybe make up some hard deadlines, but never really stick to them.

So, Jesse, we should base our national defense on what other nations think? Is this a high school popularity contest? Did it occur to you that France, Germany, and Russia maybe have alterier motives?

Also, I did not say anything about trusting politicians, but I concede that perhaps they have more intelligence information than I do and clearly more than you do.

David,

quit acting like a knob, please. You can just kiss my sweet ass and find someone else to argue with if you're going to start getting personal.

You and I have no reason to declare that Saddam hasn't substantially lived up to his disarmament obligations. Maybe we strongly believe that he hasn't, but we can't declare unequivocally that this is true. We imposed 1441 as a final opportunity to check the state of disarmament, and then attacked in the middle of implementing 1441, while the inspectors were reporting real (admittedly imperfect) progress.

This is the clearest example of acting in bad faith that I have ever witnessed.

You are correct Jesse. The damage has already been done.

As kids growing up in this country we learned in history class of the evils of preemptive wars, the evils of striking against a country that has done us no harm.

Pearl Harbour was the first time since the War of Independence that a foreign power attacked American soil. the Japanese did so, they claim, to prevent an overwhelming American attack against them. They did so as a preemptive measure.

As Americans we have ever since that day correctly fought against the concept of the preemptive strike. We have told the world that such wars are immoral, we have told the world that America is above such an action.

A no first strike policy got us safely through the Cold War when the Soviet Bloc had millions of Kilo Tonnes of weapons of mass destruction aimed at our citys.

Well America, George W. Bush just re-wrote the history books. We are no better than the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbour.

The pre-emptive genie is out of the bottle and can never be put back in. We will forever be the target of any nation with a grudge and the will to strike first. We can never again claim the moral high ground that we have stood on since Pearl Harbour. George W. Bush has debased this nation and sullied the reputation of every man and woman who has ever served it.

Shame on him and shame on us for letting him do it.

Pete, I see you deftly avoided my ceasefire point. I'm guessing becaues you don't have a good counterpoint. You're getting good at avoiding the facts.

1441 was just another resolution in a long line of resolutions. How many more resolutions would you issue? Eventually, you'll need a 5-digit resolution.

As for bad faith, I guess Saddam wasting the world's time and money for the past 12 years was not bad faith. That was acceptable. But the US drawing a hard line in the sand, that was just plain deplorable.

Pete wrote:

Asterix,

you know full well 1441 contained no deadline. The only deadline was the ridiculous 48 hours that Bush imposed, and it wasn't tied to disarmament or 1441, it was tied to Saddam leaving.

Pete,

Yes, there was no official date deadline in 1441. So what would have been the rational limit you would have imposed, given quasi-omnipotent powers? Numerous dates were thrown around the past few months, only to get pushed off further and further into the future by countries who were happy to have other people do the heavy part of "containment". How long do YOU define indefinitely? Would two or even twelve more years be fine with you, so long as Blix was regularly able to report "improved co-operation" every couple of weeks?

What happened last night was awful. Quebec has different views then the rest of Canada. They once protested too many Canadian flags in our Parliment.

Actually the booing started at a basketball game in Detroit at a Pistons game. It also happened at the Nassau Coliseum during the Leafs/Islanders series. The reasoning was they were booing the Leafs and not the country. Canadians never booed the American Anthem in mass until last night to my knowledge.

I'm sure its possible that the American Anthem will be booed in US arenas as a form of protest.

Who was the first person to break 2:10 in the marathon?

David,

my reply was in direct response to your ceasefire point. Perhaps because I didn't use the word "ceasefire" you missed what I was saying. Let me rephrase myself.

The conditional ceasefire at the end of the Gulf War imposed a number of requirements on Saddam, one of which was disarmament (point to note, Saddam leaving the country was not one of the conditions of ceasefire).

For 12 years, Saddam has, in many people's view, been toying with the world and flaunting the will of the UN by rebuilding his forces, and supposedly developing WMD behind our backs. In 2002, the world got sufficiently fed up to demand that Saddam demonstrate he is living up to the ceasefire obligations, particularly the one related to disarmament.

This demand was delivered in the form of UN resolution 1441. 1441 imposed inspections among other things. It did not, unfortunately, prescribe a deadline or dictate tangible measures to demonstrate compliance. The only measure we have of whether Saddam was living up to 1441 is the considered opinion of the inspectors, as then interpreted by UNSC.

The inspectors, while not completely happy with progress, have reported generally favourable results, and considered that a few additional months would have been sufficient to complete the mandate.

Undertandably, not all UNSC member states accept the views of the inspectors. Nevertheless, they were all that the world had to go by which could be considered reliable and truthful.

A compromise, such as proposed by Canada, among other countries, with a realistic deadline and measureable objectives, backed by the clear threat of force, would have been a balanced and responsible approach.

Starting this war was not a responsible action.

1. We had not demonstrated or stated any hostility toward the Japanese. They attacked us because they were engaged in a bout of imperialism with Germany and Russia. That's what I learned in history anyways. Perhaps you need a refresher course.

2. I'm glad that you're not in charge of the defense of our nation. Why don't you try your passifist BS on Saddam? Maybe he'll soften up and repent for all his atrocities.

So, if we had started the war 30 days later under a Canadian approved resolution, the war would be justified.

Pete wrote:

Asterix,

you know full well 1441 contained no deadline. The only deadline was the ridiculous 48 hours that Bush imposed, and it wasn't tied to disarmament or 1441, it was tied to Saddam leaving.

Pete,

1441 was passed in the fall of 2002 and it required full and immediate compliance. Saddam jerked around the inspectors for 4 months or so and only showed some limited cooperation when the US and UK amassed 250,000 troops on his borders and starting beating the drums of war. Four months is plenty of time to determine if Saddam is complying. The fact is he did not comply and the UN did not enforce its own resolutions.

Not so Proud American wrote:

We are no better than the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbour.

... except that we gave Iraq 12 years notice of the attack, rather than making it a suprise.

"Starting this war was not a responsible action."

That's a subjective statement. Many believe that not only is it responsible to oust a dictator who has attacked his neighbors at least 3 times, used chemical weapons on enemies within and outside his country and models himself after Stalin, it is LEGAL as well. See the subjective analysis at the link from a former State Department legal advisor.

And that makes it better how?

A preemptive first strike is a preemptive first strike, and it doesn't matter how long you've been rattling your sabre beforehand.

What we did is probably worse than what the Japanese did. We've been bombing Iraq alomst daily for 12 years and not once have they threatened this country. We have done more to provoke them into acts of terrorism and/or retaliation and yet they have refrained from doing so.

We have absolutely no reason to believe Iraq is a threat to us. If 12 years of bombing hasn't done it, nothing will.

The Japanese on the other hand were probably correct in assuming that their territorial ambitions in the Pacific would run up against those of the United States sooner or later, hence their decision to strike first.

We had no reason or justification to strike first. NONE.

DougC-

No need to address Pete anymore. He's run out of counterpoints and slinked away from this thread. Apparently, if we had adopted the Canadian plan to give Saddam 30 more days, than this war would be OK by him. At least I understand his motivation now. America bad, Canada good.

Are you for real? Justifying the attack on Pearl Harbor. And then going to the next extreme and saying that was less wrong then our current war. Japan agressed because they were in it for world domination with Germany and Russia. For god's sake man, learn your history.

BTW, cowards post anonymously.

sorry, i was just responding to the one sentence that was the MOST stupid of all your comments. guess i should have know better. your posts are so ridiculous, it's not worth going into ...

hey, what happened to all those french jokes ?!?! ... never fired, only dropped once !! haha !! hillarious !!!

David Small: I don't blame Pete for not responding to you; you seem to be unable to carry on an actual 'discussion' without being rude and/or insulting. Unfortunately, you share this trait with a number of other people visiting this site. (I'm so offended and frankly saddened by the remarks by caseyski on page 1 that I have no response to him/her.) By the way, your comment on the first page of this thread

David Small wrote:

We'd boycott Canadian products, but you don't make anything. Is that your point?

.

is rather silly. As was pointed out in a prior thread on Iraq (in which you participated), Canada is a top supplier of oil to the U.S., among other things. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it is currently THE top supplier of oil to your country. Furthermore, the U.S. purchases roughly 87% of our exports, and this is not 87% of nothing: