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The US was already involved. FACT.
82% of Americans believe the war is related to 911. The US has the right to defend itself. Kevlar forgets American losses in all of the wars including the war on terror.
Strategically, the UK is blind to how smart Tony Blair is and how he positioned the UK well with he world's wealthiest and most open market: the US. Not to mention the one most invested in by the UK. We go down...you go down. Vous comprendez Kevlar?
Ellaboration after me bath :P
Your belief in Churchill's quote is very touching but as has been pointed out that was 50 years ago, also convienently forgets that the USSR was on our side in WWII! That you accept that quote is your opinion of the special relationship but I'd ask you to point out direct examples where we in Britain have benefited from the special relationship.
I'm afraid 82% of Americans are wrong, hoodwinked by the propaganda coming out of the White House which is being unchallenged by the American media. I'll say it again, no Iraqis were involved in 9/11, bin Laden is believed to hate Saddam because Saddam ran a secular Iraq rather than an Islamic state.
I don't forget American losses, or at least if you claim that I can claim that you forget European losses in conflicts. My point is simply that America is a naturally isolationist country and does not get involved in conflicts out of magnamous reasons but for reasons of national self-interest - America got involved in World War One because of the sinking of the Liusitania (sp?) and the German promise that Mexico could have most of southern America if they invaded, they only got involved in World War Two because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and the Germans were allied to the Japanese, Korea and Vietnam were taken up because of the international situation in which the US found itself under political threat from the increasing power of the USSR. The people of Europe have seen the effects of war in their towns and cities which is why they are more squeamish about war than the Americans who although getting involved have not been directly invaded themselves. The real war on terror is being carried out by our secret services in MI6 and the CIA who are monitoring Al-Qaeda and keeping an eye out for potential threats not by the US military bombing the hell out of poverty stricken countries.
The UK is blind? Surely if we are opposed to our leader we are entitled to do so under a democracy? We don't feel the need to blindly follow our leaders whatever mistakes they make. The trouble with America at the moment is that they have lost all sense of criticism of their leaders which is a very dangerous thing, I'd rather be overly critical of the Prime Minister than too trusting.
What exactly does the economy have to do with this? I thought this was all about a shared mission or something?
Value £ million
European Union
Exports 107,142 57.3% Of Total Exports
Imports 108,976 50.5% of Total Imports
United States
Exports 29,371 15.7% Of Total Exports
Imports 28,566 13.2% Of Total Imports
Don't make me laugh!.
That is why I'm for the single currency [selfishness] because it will benefit us [/selfishness]
Just because we trade with them doesn't mean we have a special relationship :P
It's right to keep democratic governments in check. It's also important to celebrate your country when it does something...so right.
I've learned from watching my first war how terrible war could be. I also learned what a wonderful sense of national pride you can have when you see people being liberated.
Do as you like. I'm celebrating.:crazyeyes
We also invest in Papua New Guinea and they also invest in us. It isn't a dual dependency UK-US, everyone depends on the US doing well as they are the sole economic superpower now.
EU 30770
USA 9193
World Total 41972
And the figures are from the Office of National Statistics whch does practically (if not all) the statistics for the UK
EU 58.1% (Germany 12.5%, France 10.2%, Netherlands 7.7%, Ireland 7.3%), US 15.4% (2001)
We're the biggest buyer of UK goods of any country. We send the most tourists to the UK of any country...no one is even close. And the UK is the largest direct foreign investor in America.
These were all supposed to be happy thoughts...not causes for fighting. Anti-American people in the UK are too stupid to talk to.
Hmmm. Diplomacy. I never thought of that for a career.:eek:
Do the world and our country a favour and don't consider it. We already have an administration with all the diplomatic ability of a brick.
As for your belief that US trade is more vital to UK national interest than its EU trading partners, think again. World trade is largely treated on the basis of trading blocs, not in terms of bilateralism. The EU far outwieghs the economic value to the UK than we do. The EU is also a much larger free market than the US, though at this point in time not as globally powerful, but its time in that sphere is coming faster than you wish to believe.
I burst out laughing in my school's media center. I was shh...ed. Until I pointed out how no one else is in here on a Friday afternoon....
The diplomacy line was sarcastic after what I said about Anti-American people.
How lovely, a Churchill topic. Perhaps I should post a collection of my favourite Churchill quotes?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,849122,00.html
The Churchill you didn't know
Thousands voted him the greatest Briton - but did they know about his views on Gandhi, gassing and Jews...
Thursday November 28, 2002
The Guardian
I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between communism and nazism, I would choose communism.
Speaking in the House of Commons, autumn 1937
I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.
Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919
It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King.
Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931
(India is) a godless land of snobs and bores.
In a letter to his mother, 1896
I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place.
Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937
(We must rally against) a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin.
Quoted in the Boston Review, April/May 2001
"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable.
Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31
The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed.
Churchill to Asquith, 1910
One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."
From his Great Contemporaries, 1937
You are callous people who want to wreck Europe - you do not care about the future of Europe, you have only your own miserable interests in mind.
Addressing the London Polish government at a British Embassy meeting, October 1944
So far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90% of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50/50 about Yugoslavia?
Addressing Stalin in Moscow, October 1944
This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States)... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."
Writing on 'Zionism versus Bolshevism' in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920
So far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90% of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50/50 about Yugoslavia?
America will no longer sit back and wait for terrorists sponsored by brutal nation states to bomb its homeland.
I for one am releived that for once an American leader is willing to take pre-emptice action against terrorists , and the regimes that hide them.
The world is a nasty place , the west must look after its own interests first , if that means helping to free a people from the brutal regime of a dicatator , even better.
I am from the UK , and have been in support of the war from the beginning , I also beleive that the UK and US should seek out these terrorists wherever they may be hiding , be it Syria , Saudi or anywhere else.
We must fight these people. If the French and Germans had there way , Saddam would still be in power , his people would not be free. I am especially angry with the French , who , having totally opposed the war from the beginning , are now making demands as to Iraq should be run afterwards!
The UN has proved itself as a useless bureaucracy , tying itself in knots while Saddam had time to escape.
The UKs future is with the US and 'New' Europe. 'Old' Europe is a lost cause.
The WMD are there , give them time to find them , perhaps Saddam removed them to Syria while the UN was messing around.
And also , 'Dubya' tried to take the peaceful route , he went down the UN route , persuaded by Tony Blair to give it one last try. People like Saddam (or Hitler) do not listen to demands , ultimatums or appeasement , the only way to stop him building weapons and starving his people was to send the troops in.
Also , the troops have done a fantastic job , theyve managed to conquer a country the size of France in 3 weeks with only a couple of thousand civilian casualties. All credit to them.
Yes they were, do you not remember the Al-Samoud missiles being destroyed before the war? Also most of Iraqs WMDs had been destroyed when the inspectors had to pull out in 1998 because the Americans were going to bomb them.
Yeah and when we've invaded Syria they'll have been magically transported to Iran and then when we've invaded Iran they'll have been magically transported to North Korea.... I have no doubt the Americans will "find" some empty shells which they'll say could destroy the whole world if we'd left the invasion for another hour.
Dubya wasn't interested in the peaceful route - he was set on war from day one, why else do you think he denied the vote on the second resolution? To stop the UN voting down his upcoming war. Also Saddam Hussein is not even in the same league as Hitler so let's stop with the whole White House History For Dummies belief that Saddam = Hitler. His people were starving because of the sanctions that were placed on them after the Gulf War, before 1991 Iraq had a reasonable living standard.
The troops aren't the issue here - the issue is the rights and wrongs of the war they were deployed in and the war was wrong.
Matadore, welcome to the site.
And you expressed what a recent pole showed in the US. Most people support Bush's stance on Syria. In December, Hezbollah was in Africa and gave information and perhaps chemicals that enabled Al Qaeda to blow up the hotel and almost shoot down the Israeli airline. That's what caused Hezbollah to be put on America's list of terrorist organizations.
Iraqis are helping us. And we got a lot of documents. This is why Bush is so sure regarding Syria. And for the first time, even the Arab Street is questioning the truth in broadcasts from Arab Networks. Also North Korea is eager to negotiate with anyone regarding its nuclear capabilties and hasn't run a test of the facility they said they were going to run. So to me it's all good...it's all working.
The signals from World media show vastly differing perspectives than youre likely to see on CNN or FX dear boy. You have obviously been spared any images of rising anger and hatred and condemnation toward us.
It would do you well to travel a bit before presuming too much.
aljazeera.net
Me boy. You Cheetah.:p
Article title: Mixed feelings on the Arab Street.
What it does show is that, as has been pointed out to you numerous times, as much as Saddam may have been despised by his people and other Arab citizenry throughout the region, he also was seen as a leader who stood up to what is considered imperialistic intentions of the US.
So youd best read thoroughly what is written before jumping to such glorious conclusions. Tension is growing and the longer we pursue Bush's unilateral bashing campaign, the bigger the mess successive administrations, and the American public (at home and abroad) will have to answer for.
Another article about the Arab Street for Cheetah...from boy.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/899448.asp?0dm=C1APN
pnj, I would refer you to the close of that second article for the warnings that I have as well made to you concerning gloating too early. The nature of that land isn't going to be transformed simply because we come in with promises of democracy. Such terms mean something completely different to their ears than to ours.
Most Americans your age cannot even point out Iraq on a map of the world. Why should we care what the majority of yanks think?
If you are trying to tell me that Israel is willing to fight to the last American then you are not really telling me anything I do not already know.
Would this be the Iraqis you flew in from abroad, to stage the ridiculous rally pulling down the Saddam statue?
Would these be like the documents proving Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Niger that were found by the UN to be not just fakes - but poor fakes?
The Arab Street is overwhelmingly anti-American.
Its not working at all. Every single day America is in Iraq billions of dollars of American capital are pulled out of its faltering economy. The Soviet Union bled to death in this manner.
Quoting myself. Cool.:cool:
Iraqi doctor and his wife walked hours to the US military to tell them where Jessica Lynch was.
Another Iraqi hid a camera on himself, went to the hospital where she was held and filmed how to go into the hospital and get to her room.
Iraqis have told the Americans where the WMD are stored...underground.
Iraqis told Americans where the French made mobile bioterrorist labs were.
Iraqis told Americans where other POW's were held.
Iraqis told Americans where Iraq's top leaders were: that's why we bombed them with precision bombs. (The pictures you showed Hey seed were of casualties from Iraqi weapons.)
Russia, as usual, backed the wrong side: Iraqis didn't want Saddam.
Bush knew that the peaceful route wouldn't work , yet he tried it anyway , in a show of support to his loyal ally Tony Blair. Bush had already realised how ineffectual the UN was and that something had to be done with Saddam , with or sithout its support.
Also , its true that Hitler killed a lot more people than Saddam , but Saddam still butchered millions - does that make him any less worthy of retribution?
This new Bush doctrine is at last a concerted attempt by the US to sort out the mess that is the Middle East , they should be applauded for at last taking a hard line and working to straighten things out.
The BBC is overwhelmingly anti-war , if you have been watching its coverage , as I have , it constantly makes the war seem like a death march and that it is going terribly , when the opposite has been the case.
I find myself switching over to Fox news more and more for upbeat coverage on the war , at least they support the troops , and that is vitally important when waging any campaign.
Yes , the Arab street is still overwhelmingly anti-American , but the US will change that. When Arabs realise how much better off Iraq is under US jurisdiction with US dollars pouring into the country they will begin to question their allegiances.
Also , to all those opposed to the war , now that it is over and Saddams people are freed , would you turn the clock back to when he was in power and thus avoid war?
No , thought not.