peace can only be maintained with superior fire power

[alainbryden]

Mindfields, you cannot hide from avatar! It want's you to want it. It needs you to need it.

[trillobyite]

Just to let y'all know,I'm IN Iraq right now ,serving in the Army. It's sooooooooooo not about us right now , it's ridiculous.They are having enough problems enacting their political transitions that the provincial council approved, and getting the people who are in effect, not in command any more to leave. The coalition forces are here to observe at this point . I'm in the middle of a potentilly very hostile environment,and you don't see the coalition running around telling people where to go and what to do. It's up to the Iraqi police and National Guard, and we're letting them handle it themselves as much as possible.

Thanks for being living proof

But honestly, if you talk to most of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq you'll see that America isn't playing a huge part in the common lives of Iraqi civilians. The soldiers are there to maintain a strong hold, as a way to provide protection or against the terrorists.

[MythamX]

I concur. If we were there to do anything else but keep their lives going smoothly during the election, what with the bombings and all, we would have done it by now. Overall, in no way is America trying to do anything but help, and we're doing a damned good job. As long as our troops (looks at t montana) are in there, Iraq is a much safer place. Oh, and T, I highly respect you as a U.S. soldier, and wish you the best in Iraq.

[Shetage]

what about nobody having any power whatsoever....(besides their own strength?)...would this result in anarchy or complete peace?

(anarchy because there would be no true leader)

[jewpinthethird]

what about nobody having any power whatsoever....(besides their own strength?)...would this result in anarchy or complete peace?

(anarchy because there would be no true leader)

Why did you even bother asking a question if you were just going to answer it?

[Shetage]

would this result in anarchy or complete peace?

that is the question

[alainbryden]

You missed the part where we were carrying on a topic.

[MythamX]

It's people like Shetage that make Critical Thinking into 'Special' Thinking. And yes, you did answer your own question. Now someone post a topic to carry on this thread before it gets killed, I'm really enjoying it. I honestly can't think of one, and would rather reply than start a topic.

[trillobyite]

Gladly mytham.

"BAGHDAD, Iraq - As more people lose loved ones to the relentless violence, Iraqis are becoming increasingly angry at insurgents, even staging public demonstrations condemning militants.

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While it is impossible to precisely gauge public opinion, it is clear many Iraqis have grown tired of two years of insecurity, and some are directing their wrath at those behind the bombings and attacks.

“I demand that they be put in the zoo along with the other scavengers, because that is where they belong,” said Bassam Yassin, who lost his brother to an insurgent attack in Mosul. He spoke Wednesday after relatives of victims protested outside a police station in the northern city.

Iraq’s majority Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds have long criticized the largely Sunni Arab insurgency, portraying the militants as terrorists, loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime and foreign fighters.

Public criticism from Sunnis
But the insurgents are now also being criticized publicly by prominent Sunnis, including opponents of the U.S. presence.

“The real resistance should only target the occupiers, and no normal person should consider dozens of dead people to be some kind of collateral damage while you are trying to kill somebody else,” cleric Ahmed Abdul-Ghafur told worshippers Friday at Um al-Qura, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad. “Everybody should speak out against such inhumane acts.”

The growing anger was underlined this week in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite Muslim city south of Baghdad where a suicide car bombing on Monday killed 125 people — the deadliest single attack since Saddam’s ouster.

It touched a nerve in Hillah. More than 2,000 people chanting “No to terrorism!” demonstrated Tuesday outside the clinic where the bomber drove into a crowd of Iraqi police and army recruits, setting off an explosion that also killed civilians at a nearby market.

On Friday, hostility to the insurgency apparently boiled over into bloodshed in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad. Townsmen attacked militants thought to be planning a raid on the town and killed seven, police Capt. Hamadi al-Zubeidy reported.

Anti-insurgency TV campaign
Anger against insurgents is being fed, in part, by a government television campaign. Last week, U.S.-financed Al-Iraqiya TV aired a series of reports showing men describing themselves as insurgents calmly talking about how they had beheaded dozens of people, kidnapped others for ransom and raped women and girls before killing them.

“People are realizing that the captured insurgents are not superheroes. They are timid people who kill for money and they have nothing to do with jihad,” said Karim Humadi, head of programming for Al-Iraqiya.

Insurgents have attacked Nineveh TV, Al-Iraqiya’s affiliate in Mosul, where most of the purported confessions were taped.

Last week, gunmen kidnapped one of the Mosul station’s anchorwomen, shot her four times in the head and dumped her near her home. The victim, Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, had called the insurgents “terrorists” on air.

The anger over deaths caused by insurgents does not always translate into acceptance of U.S. troops, who are still widely blamed for the chaos in Iraq. And many people support the insurgents, arguing they are fighting a just war to rid the country of U.S.-led troops who invaded in 2003.

Little acceptance of U.S. troops
“The Iraqi people are brave and won’t accept any foreigner on their soil. They will fight the occupation troops until force them to leave Iraq,” said Haitham Abdul Razak, who was a captain in Saddam’s army, which was disbanded by U.S. authorities.

Although American military deaths in Iraq passed 1,500 this week, they do not approach the toll among Iraqi civilians and their security forces. Bombings and other attacks killed more than 300 Iraqis just in February.

Groups like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq have made no secret that they hope attacks aimed at Iraq’s Shiite majority will provoke Shiites into a sectarian war with Sunni Arabs, who make up the core of the insurgency.

They hope such a war will mobilize the Sunni Arab community, thought to comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people but who dominated under Saddam’s regime.

Yet the insurgents’ tactics are increasingly denounced by prominent Sunnis like Abdul-Ghafur, a cleric with the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, believed to have ties to insurgents.

“This is not the right way to drive the occupation out ... killing Iraqis is not the way to liberation,” he told worshippers. “We call upon those who have power over these groups to stop massacring Iraqis.”"


Summary: Even the anti-American Iraqis hate the insurgency. I don't see how anyone can defed these vile terrorists who are also killing Muslims and call them "freedom fighters".

[MythamX]

Because, sadly, instead of actual education, most of the Iraqi people have been schooled to hate America. They have been raised to hate us, and they don't plan to change their minds any time soon, no matter what greatly inspiring show of the freedom and liberty we stand for that our troops illustrate. However, the new generation of Iraqis are being born into a new country, with a free government, and an end to the evil of tyranny.

This is America's goal, and we're not pulling out of Iraq until it is a reality. In fact, I'm sure many of our troops are reluctant to be in Iraq, but we aren't giving them a handicap, more of a jump-start. America is still sending supplies to fund their schooling and help those who need it. The Iraqi children are going to grow up in a land where they can be free and educated, offered jobs of great importance, and even become government officials to help their nation reach its upmost potential.

So, yes, there are people who think America is evil, and terrorists are wonderful. But this does not change the fact that we are going to give up helping the country of Iraq become untainted.

[hatakikakashi]

I'm not saying that we have the right to do what we did in Iraq. Whether or not it was the right thing to do I don't care, I'm glad we did. I know that we are just that much more secure now that he is no longer in power.

Even if Sadam didn't have WMD, he wanted us to think that he did. He didn't let the inpectors do their job on purpose so that we couldn't prove that he didn't. I think he wanted us to be afraid of him and what he could do to us. He ruled his people with fear and wanted everyone to think that he was powerful, I think 9/11 was the worst thing to happen for Sadam Insane.

What's more important to you your own personal safety or being politically correct.

I see it kind of like this. You at school(the world) with dozens of other people (countries) and some asshole(Iraq) is trying to get you to think that he's got a gun. Your pretty popular and lot's of people like you, because you try to be nice and help other people, but lot's of people hate you too because you can't mind your own damn business. So anyway youv'e fought this guy before for picking on a freind of yours who sells you... oil . You know he's a wuss and can't fight so your pretty sure he's got a gun and want's to kill you. You ask some neutral people to go find out if he really has a gun but he won't let them. So what do you do then?

I'd just kick the guys ass then say whoops. I guess you didn't have a gun after all. Sorry,but that's what you get for screwing with me. Then the guy goes to the hospital and your having to pay the medical bill. Now everyone hates you because they say you shouldn't have done that he didn't have a gun and you had no right.

[FlashStinger]

Not to step on toes, But i think Saddam thought he had WMD. Do you think he honestly went to the facilities, no, that puts him in a very public, very unsafe place, very much unlike Saddam. On the other hand, you have the scientists and other researchers trying to make these weapons. Are you, knowing Saddams reputation of punishment, (i.e. Rape of you{if applicable} your mom and sisters, public stoning, flogging, draining of half the blood in your body until you die, and other types of torture), going to tell him that you do not have the WMD that he has been funding you for? I think not, you tell Saddam Huessein whatever he wants to hear, and maybe you live. You tell him what he doesn't want to hear, and you can just as easily put your head between your knees and kiss your butt goodbye. Saddam, in my opinion, believed full well that he had WMD, and therefore, so did we. To Saddam, The US, and the rest of the world, he had the weapons, and they were just in hiding. Now that we go in, we find that they don't exist, oh well, it is still a humanitarian relief. Do you remember what their life was like before we came in? This is a real step in peace, and I as a bush hater, can say this is one thing he has done right. Bringing a chance at peace to a part of the world that hasn't experianced it since the neolithic revolution.

As for North Korea, the president of North Korea (can't remember how to spell his name), may be a psychopathic lunatic, but he isn't stupid. The man has maximum of 2 nuclear weapons, he is not going to use them. He is going to hold onto them like a baby with a blanket. He KNOWS that the United States code of conduct in war is to not use nuclear weapons, unless they have been used on us first. Were not going to touch him and he knows it. If he uses them, whats he got left??? Nothing. The countries that should worry are Japan and South Korea and China. He has threated them, and accepted bribes to make sure they don't get bombed. He is in it for the money, and his own protection. No one is going to use his weapons against another country, because if you attack a country in the UN with nuclear arms, you can say your last prayers cause there isn't a whole deep enough for you to hide.

Back to the topic of this thread. Using the military is not the way for world peace, but neither is disarment. Sure it would be nice to get all the weapons out of this world, but it won't happen. Humans are naturally violent, how do you think we beat out are predicessors, sitting down and asking if they wanted to live, no, we killed them. We learned to survive, and we killed anything that would prevent our survival. There is no way weapons will be gone, and all forms of organised government needs some type of military. Hey, even Canada has a military. The point is, it should never be used, only a way to waste money It is to keep drugs out of the borders, and protect it's borders from invaders that shouldn't be using their army. If a country uses their army, the rest of the world should be able to unite and end the conflict. This is a means of peace, but it won't happen at the rate things are going now. Why go for world peace? give every communitry peace, and you give world peace. Too many people try to fix the big problem, without looking at the small things that lead up to the problem. Each community has it's own weakness that if improved, would make world peace. Hey, it's a dream, but a far fetched one at that.

[FlashStinger]

FYI: the new president of Iraq is Kurdish, not Sunni or Shi'ite