Re: So the war on Iraq was decided before 9/11

NateSMZ - Why do you automatically think Osama when I say terror groups? al Qaeda isn't even the biggest terror group, they are an umbrella organization that provides training. They have very few of their own fighters.

And they were fighting people with our weapons, technology, and money. We didn't put them in power in any stretch of the imagination.

Z-BosoN - I spend a great deal of my time looking at this war and terrorism in general. I'm not talking about the liberal general consensus or the conservative general consensus. I'm talking about the general consensus of people who actually know what they are talking about. The experts in this field. You want me to find someone's blog on google or some stupid reporter who just prints whatever they hear? If that is where you get your information that I feel sorry for you.

 

Paragon if you consider yourself an "expert" on the subject so be it. I have also read a great deal on the subject, as I have participated in these kind of debates a lot. I have encountered absolutists who are so convinced they are right and that their word is law that I have learnt not to try to convince them of anything.

You disagree with me right? You think all I say is bullshit right?

So tell me, why is it that you have to insult me as well as calling me ignorant, powering me down, and coming into the chat room just to say I'm dumb and that you feel sorry for me and leave? Can't your arguments back you up?

Grow up dude.

 

lol bush has great speech skills ??!!!

http://www.youtube.com/v/eKgPY1adc0A

bush won the elections because of huge financial backings from the weapon manufacturers, who became outrageously rich during the 2nd world war. once the war ended they should have all but shut down their productions but that means going out of business, the weapons people had tasted the forbidden fruit and wanted more, instead of shutting down most of their factories they kept quite a number of them intact, churning out much more weapons than even the global demand. the weapons have to be sold and the bosses behind the businesses are ever watchful for opportunities to sell their weapons, not missing any chance to fuel and sometimes even create conflicts in africa, south asia and many other poorer parts of the world.

 

Oooooo Politics. Isn't this against the rules?

Well. Paragon, thats the good old question of the chicken and the egg isn't it. The United States may not have given them the authority to take control of afghanistan the way the ISI did, but they most certainly gave them the means. The Taliban would not have been even considered to do the job for ISI unless they were already known as a force, a force that had proved its mettle against the soviets with weapons that came from the United States via the CIA. Without those weapons the ISI would not have been able to employ them the way they did. And with the millions of dollars the CIA distributed to the Taliban they also became a force to be reckoned with as it allowed them to recruit more troops and to purchase more weaponry and even technicals. To say that the US did not apply a significant change to the region and is not responsible for the Taliban as they were is ignorant and smacks of attempted self-acquittal.

On top of which Paragon. The oil is the accepted reason among the general public to think otherwise is folly. Sure the media says Terror links and WMDs but after having occupied the country for going on 4 years there has been no evidence to irrefutably prove the existence of either. Short of militia groups within Iraq who claim to be apart of the Mujahaideen or Al Qaeda does not mean they truly represent them.

 

BnetBreacher Bush indeed does have great speakings skills

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IoXgRtDysLY

His speech completely convinced me of that threat.

 

i can assure you that speech wasn't written by him

 

lol I know, just playing

 

i just stay with my opinion that the world would change for the better if the states of america became independent countries

 

that would cause way too much instability...

 

lol another civil war. Amirite? amirite? lewlimrite.

 

Because Osama attacked us... not the IRA. =/

Here Billy, have some fireworks with shortened fuses, detailed plans on how to make a potato gun and 500 bucks.

Oh, and by the way, I am of course not responsible for anything Billy does!

 

I never liked using the "We supplied the Taliban" thing a lot in arguments or getting into it much. When you think about, who in the world would have thought "Oh dang, they could one day harbor a man who'll one day smash our towers to the ground" at the moment? The main adversary at the time was the Soviets, and that was the focus. I'm never too fond of that argument because really...would YOU have thought that the Mujahaideen or the Taliban would be a major problem for us in the future? Was there really ANY implication that something like 9/11 was going to happen during pre-Gulf War era? And even if there was, who would you have considered the bigger threat back then, the Soviets or terrorists?

Now, as I have said before, people on both sides tend to not know what they're talking about, but i find more so the anti-Bush people. Why you ask? Because for the majority, the majority of their information comes from Micheal Moore movies. First off, I really dislike Micheal Moore, he seems like one of the most annoying and close-minded people you could ever talk to (close-minded is still close-minded no matter what side you take). Second, his own information is mostly conspiracy theories and half-telling the actual story when you look at it thoroughly.

When you really look at it, the video is still just a conspiracy theory....no one should take this as indisputable proof or anything...a document would be proof, and the minute we find one, tell me, I'm open to new ideas....but all these conspiracy theories are really just starting to get silly.

 

Well, yes - the Soviets appeared more dangerous at the time. I'm not attempting to argue that. I'm just pointing out hypocrisies and ironies.

It is rather ironic that we supported a "terrorist group" and tried to use them essentially like our little pit bull or something... and then in later years, we end up figuring out that we can't control the animal.

And it's rather hypocritical to say that Saddam had ties to "terror groups", and had to be removed - when we ourselves have much stronger ties to those same "terror groups".

 

Well yea...but would you rather keep supporting the pit bull that's already fighting our enemy, or would you have rather sent out OWN troops in and start WW3? Yes though...it is rather ironic, but life usually turns out to be most of the time. That's my way of thinking.

Yea...politics is hypocritical and always makes things a lot harder....but I also understand the concept of HAVING to do things even if it seems bad. Don't get me wrong, we DIDN'T have to go in Iraq, we certainly didn't have the right to, but at the same time you gotta think about the hard time the generals and such in Iraq are having right now because the damn politicians aren't exactly helping you out with doing what you need to do.

All forms of politicians are hypocritical. Like nowadays with the Armenian genocide thing...why are you going to condemn a factual genocide 90 years ago and that will absolutely do nothing, when you're openly sabotaging making your own soldiers' lives any easier?

 

I agree with that sentiment.

Disagree with the war. Support the soldiers.

 

Yeah...I've always seen my future in either foreign affairs in something like the UN or NATO or up there in the armed forces, not like a grunt all my life though, like higher tier, around Major or Colonel, hell maybe even a general. Those two things just happen to be the stuff that I feel I'm good at.

 

Z-BonoN - I'm not an expert and neither are you. Experts have a lot more experience in this field and those are the people I listen to. Not the media. Not the common people who can't even point to Iraq on a map. Not some blogger who can't even get paid to write. You sarcasm is just as bad as my calling you ignorant so don't get all high horsed and shit saying that I'm attacking poor little you. My facts are more than sufficient to justify what I said but, as usual, theres some idiot taking shit out of context.

NateSMZ - IRA? Seriously? Do you actually think that those are the only possible terror groups? There are dozens of Islamist terror groups.
As I said before and as you completely failed to pick up on. Both sides of that war had funds and weapons from the United States. Hell, after the soviets left and their puppet government fell, the first government there (which also had US stuff) was a nationalist government not a fundamentalist islamic government. And the Taliban was just a bunch of students sitting around in madrasas before the ISI gave them weapons for the single purpose of taking down the government in afghanistan and installing a fundamentalist islamic government. The US never said give these weapons to the taliban so that they can overthrow the afghan government. After the Soviets left the US didn't give a shit about that area although they probably should have because then we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now.

 

Paragon. Me and Nate both said "The americans gave Taliban money and weapons and it made them notorious in the days of the Soviet-Afghan war. And without this notoriety they would have never been considered by the ISI who merely gave them the authority to establish a government." Did you think they threw away their old guns after the war ended? The ISI did not need to supply them with more armaments, they had their own as it was.

 

Um the Taliban was not one of the top mujahideen factions in the Soviet-Afghan war. They only started really doing anything after that war was over. As I have said before. They were not an important group during the Soviet-Afghan war.

Also, NateSMZ, I noticed you referred to those who fought against the soviets as terrorists. This is incorrect. The mujahideen never attacked anyone who was not an enemy combatant. They were groups of fighters opposing Soviet occupation. Their targets were military, not civilian.


Please read about this war before commenting on it. I already have.

 

If they were so unimportant paragon what was the need or cause to supply them or to use them as the ones to take power in Afghanistan? That makes little to no sense to me. Seems to me you'd WANT a well known group to take power otherwise it'd be suspicious that some faction nobody's ever heard of walks in and starts running shit. I think you're getting your information wrong here para, and dont take that as an insult happens to the best of us. I'm going to re-read up on the subject, I suggest you do the same.