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Originally posted by: RRS-1980
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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
have y'all forgotten how it felt to see Three thousand innocent people blow away? Have you no sympathy for them?!

The symptoms of American amnesia are showing again... you seem to forget about the compassion displayed worldwide after the 9/11 massacre. It took a whole war to dimnish it.
None of us here ever presented even a hint of sympathy to Hussain, bin Laden or terror groups. Like I said before, they should be all neutralized long time ago. American intervention in Afghanistan to overthow the Taliban regime supporting terrorists was understandable - I don't see anybody arguing about that.
But we do wonder about the sudden change of priorities. TV suddenly stopped to talk about bin Laden and switched to Hussain, as if the first was no longer a problem. This, and other (alleged?) aspects (the profits of US gaining control of the oil fields in Middle East, personal vendetta of Bush family etc.) make us question the legitimacy of US intervention. We do not say that Saddam is OK. Do not mistake us with those freaks who wanted to be his live shields.

To be honest I was sort of frustrated by the sudden shift of focus myself. I didn't really become suspicious or anything. I just thought in his zeal to remove Hussein made Bush lose focus on bin Laden. And that is one of Bush's mistakes I mentioned earlier. And I am glad to know that you aren't completely insane. I guess the media likes to mention only the most absurd anti-war people.

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
At the time bin Laden hadn't slaughtered 3000 innocent people and there was no way we could've know what would happen in 2001.

No way to guess? If you give a granade to a maniac you think he will be grateful and is not going to throw it into your house?
They weren't given weapons without a cause... they were meant to be a dangerous group, but their target supposed to be USSR, and not USA... but things got out of control and the "good" terrorist transformed into bad terrorists...
If you fight by the sword, you die by the sword.

True but at the time the Soviet Union was slaughtering anyone who spoke out against them and they intented to take that into Afghanistan. I think we did what we did for the right reason even if it cost us later. But if we had better intelligence before 9-11 we might have been able to prevent it. I'm not going to start bashing Clinton or anything. Just making a statement.

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
And why do you say the war on Terror is "propaganda?"

Because formerly USA was the state sponsoring the terror groups and Arab regimes and now you're playing saint.
Have you heard about Crusades? The ones aimed to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims? Everything in the name of Christianity and God? Do you know where the last Crusade ended? (I'm not talking about Indiana Jones here ) It destroyed Constantinople, the heart of Byzantum, the Eastern Christian church! Why? Because it was business! They were the competition and Western Roman Empire wanted none.
That is why I'm sceptical when people shout that some war is waged in the name of God, Nation, Freedom etc. Wars are usually about economical influences of a given state(s) and their immediate profits.

Of course. I know all about the Cruisades. I went to a private Christian school until two years ago and they made sure our generation doesn't repeat any of the mistakes of the past because of ignorance. And I think that the Crusaides are probably apart of why Muslims hate Christians so much. And I understand your skepticism but.. I think that the president should have to earn distrust. I mean it seams to me that most of you are against the war in Iraq because you don't trust Bush rather than distrusting Bush because we went to Iraq.

But my view is that history has shown that if you try and appease evil dictators then your wasting your time. Evil must be confronted and destroyed. Before WWII Churchill insisted that something be done about Hitler, but the nations of Europe then said "we are for peace" and then in 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. Same with Hussein. Appeasment doesn't work. We tried to avoid war for years but he violated nearly 20 UN resolutions (which of course, mean nothing to the UN) I think Bush Jr. understands that (he did go to Harvard, right?) and is now doing something.

One more thing before I get off of this soap box. The point has been raised that terrorism can't be defeated. Personally I think the "War on Terrorism" is a mis-nomer. I agree that terrorism is too... something.. to be eradicated by military force. The president clearly stated that the objective is to go after organized terror cells like Al quaed and governments that support them. Obviously we can't kill every Timothy McVeigh out there.

*Falls off soap-box and face-plants*