ohsherrie wrote:The Sushi Hunter wrote:Politics isn't a good thing to discuss sometimes, because it could turn people who are friends into enemies.
With that said, one thing that has to be put into consideration here. There are people who are killing themselves every day(suicide bombers, etc.) to take away the lives of people who live in freedom, and it will take people who believe in freedom to give their own lives so people can continue to live in freedom.
Yeah, and that's why the war in Afghanistan was a just war. Iraq had nothing to do with it. Now our soldiers are giving their lives for Bush's ego and to keep the oil barons rich.
Oh boy, a few thoughts from someone that was there ...from '91 to '03 the US and coalition
forces enforced 'no-fly' zones and various other UN sanctions in Iraq as
a consequence of Iraq's un provoked invasion and subsequent willful
destruction of Kuwait.
In case the weak knee'd and overly green crowd
don't remember Sadaam burned every oil well he could reach in Kuwait and
set off one of the worlds greatest environmental disasters. Once the
sanctions, which were directed by the UN, were in place by '91, Sadaam
then began to shoot at coalition aircraft and violate the sanctions at
every turn.
During the 90's Sadaam drained the ancient swamps of the
southern Tigris/Euphrates river and burned them driving the Shiites from
their lands and their traditional ways to make a living. Sadaam's
belligerence grew by each year and could only be characterized as a
rogue leader. The people of Iraq might have been physically better off,
reliable power, water and a relatively stable day to day life, but they
were slaves to his regime and lived in fear and not in control of their
own destiny.
He intentionally played games with his nuclear ambitions
and as we now know conducted a pretty effective deception campaign to
influence us to believe he had or was close to developing the capability
to deliver WMD. With that capability always comes the option of
exporting it to terrorists.
He had close connections with Syria and we
now know pandered to Al Queda under the premise that the enemy of my
enemy can also be my friend. Invading Iraq may not have been the best
solution at the time, but only time will tell. For now we know Al Queda
and other organizations want to strike the US and its interests. But
for now their resources are tied up in Iraq as they have stated that is
the center of their war on the west right now. For us to engage them
there means that they are using their precious resources, time and money
to fight us OFF US soil. So we can carry out our daily lives without
fear. Arguably this may be temporary as an open border is nothing but
an invitation for them to open a second front at our back door!
that's not exactly the case. The storm wasn't upgraded to a cat 5 UNTIL about 2 days before it hit. It was, I believe, a 3, which for the folks along the coast is a walk in the park. (I rode out a 3 when I lived down there, and it wasn't that difficult) Plus, the storm turned toward them at the last possible instant (particularly those along the MS gulf). The PROBLEM was the ineptitude of the city and state officaials who seemed completely unprepared for something like this. There's lot of blame to go around...