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Originally Posted by teethandclaws In support of tyreay, maybe we should be able to vote on whether or not we are involved in the U.N. If we are involved in the process of the U.N., we would have more information available to us, helping us in our decision of determining whether or not we should go to war. In addition, we would have a better barometer of the whole world situation, rather than the limited views of those in our own country.
I don't mean we should base our decisions solely based on what the U.N. has to say. We are an independent nation and ultimately ours is the final decision. But we should not close ourselves off from the rest of the world. War is not the only issue we as a nation need to be focusing on. Calling a group of people who are basically peaceful assholes is counterproductive.
As for Saudi Arabia's place in all of this, yes they do have some responsibility for the events of 9/11. They probably knew beforehand that some of their people were disgruntled and were being provoked to violence, on a massive scale, and were developing enough wealth and power and organization to carry out this violence. The Saudi's harbored these terrorists, the one's responsible for 9/11.
Perhaps we should freeze the assets of the Saudi's here in the United States until we are able to fully investigate their role in these events. I'm not talking about the little people who have come here seeking asylum, I'm talking about the oil magnates, etc. Some of whom just use our economy having nothing to do with a life here or with our lifestyle. The ones that pay 'us' off to keep us silent about them.
In addition to this, I remember stories of American children being kidnapped and forced into marraiges with Saudi Arabian men, that would be considered illegal, as well they should be, here in the U.S. What have we done about this? This is nothing short of legalized child molestation and rape.
They may have made some minor improvements in their human rights policies, very minor when applied to women and children, the ones that need the most protection, and we give them a huge pat on the back. We suck up to these rich assholes, forming an alliance with them. I think we need to make better choices on who we choose to call our friends.
That a shit-head Iraqi dictator got taken down, I do not at all regret. I think we are seeing now that the people of Iraq are simply not ready to run their own country. They are still very divided, and no matter what happens, their county will not be free, a true democracy.
Sure, we saw lots of women out there voting. Were they equipped with enough information about the people they were voting for to make an informed decision about how their lives would be impacted? Probably not.
Were their votes influenced by the men who control their lives, probably.
(Off topic, look who gained quite a bit of power in Egypt. The muslim brotherhood. Do you think that 25% of women voted for this extremist, anti-woman group without coercion from the men in control of their lives? Not if they have the least little clue about what they're voting for.)
I have watched what has been said regarding this war since before it started. Our reasons have changed over the course of this war, from weapons of mass destruction, to changing the political structure of Iraq,to dealing with the Iraqi insurgents, to alleged Sadaam-al qaeda ties, to the terrorists who carry out suicide bombings from numerous extemist muslim groups who have thronged to Iraq since this war began.
We've got the big guns and that gives us the right, yet still this war is being fought. We have indulged in behavior during this war, including torture and degradation, that shames many Americans. It seems to me we are at a loss as to what to do and what the right thing to do is, but we keep on doing what we've been doing, because to do nothing would show the world we are weak.
In elementary school we are taught that violence is not the way to solve problems. We are called strong and wise as children if we turn the other cheek and talk out our differences. Violence begets violence.
We want to think of our wars as being non-violent, the people who are killed as targets, like an arrow being launched into a target. The truth is war causes human suffering and death. Suffering that can last decades beyond the end of the violence, affecting the lives of many.
What causes insurgents? Are they all Sadaam loyalists? No. Some have just been victim to the violence and through feelings of hopelessness, have been drawn to retaliate in violence. Insurgents are Iraqi's who live in Iraq. Iraq is their home, they don't want us in their home.
Insurgency is based on revenge, which may be a childish reaction, but is that not how our war got started in the first place?
We were attacked and our people were killed. Many innocent people. The ones who physically attacked us are dead. They died when the planes they were flying blew up. Were any of the people associated with this attack from the Iraqi government? We have found that answer to be no. |
11-29-2005, 08:27 PM
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