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Because Peter had a kid and Christopher wanted to see his new nephew.
LOL!
http://eustonmanifesto.org/joomla/
Surely the whole point of joining the armed forces is to protect the country, and you would expect that at some point in your service you would be called up to fight. So if you don't believe in violence, why join in the first place?
That just seems really stupid to me.
How so?
How the hell does anyone protect the country
Precisely
There were additional problems with people who joined the territorial army, thinking they would only "defend the country", being sent as part of an invasion.
And let's not forget someone of the best responses to the pro-war crowd has come from figures on the right such as Ron Paul & Paul Craig Roberts.
As are the hypocrites on the left, but at least the Right wing opponents have a history of self interest.
Oh yes, i forgot, the war is being waged to improve the lives of iraqis and give them "freedom and democracy".
Just a pity that if ever they do have "freedom and democracy" (once they've finished killing each other, that is), Iraq will be a radioactive death zone contaminated by tonnes of DU.
How can opposing that be "selfish" or "isolationist"?
And self interest is a good thing? You're a complete nut sometimes!
self interest=the west=how we live?
No he's on about Mat being a nutter sometimes, he was taking the piss, implying he's always a nutter.
Yes.
Incompetence of execution is a seperate issue.
Because all you would have to offer is a brutal status quo under a psychopathic crime lord and his family.
You misinterpret me. I said that the right wing opponents are selfish isolationists - but they have a tradition of that through Kissinger etc. The left has no excuse not to support the removal of a fascist.
Say what ? Sounds like someone called an election ?
And you have no excuse to excuse fascists that America supports. Puppet Governments all over the world that serve America's interests. Surely you can see the hypocrosy in that? No?
I've never once said that Sadam was a good person, that I loved him but this war is a big fucking sham, one of the biggest blunders in World History. You know it too.
The horrors of DU have been publicly known for well over a decade yet the US has knowingly increased use of DU munitions dramatically because it provides superior armour for tanks and as a munition it offers excellent armour penetration. If DU use was a result of incompetence then all radioactive munitions would have been scrapped after the Gulf War once the full effects became known.
They weren't, so it clearly isn't.
...armed and supported by the very people who then waged war against him, killing over a million children via sanctions and hundreds of thousands more since the occupation.
The left has a tradition of opposition to war, and Kissinger - evidently a supporter of the neo-cons - is no isolationist.
Its called force protection and you will notice that most civilised countries like to conserve the lives of their soldiers.
Yes, it is. Subsequent errors made in Iraq in no way lessen the case for the removal of Saddam by force.
Over 20 years ago. Anyway, do you not think that the fact that Saddam was given limited material assistance by the US increases the responsiblity of the US to remove him?
You avoided the argument. It is impossible to deny that, if the anti-war crowd had had its way Saddam would be in power.
Whats worse is, they continue to chant their mantra of 'Troops out, Stop the war' and completly ignore what would happen if they got their way. The continue to support the bloodthirsty Iraqi 'resistance' as a way to spite America. Never mind the people who get blown up by suicide bombers - racist suicide bombers who pick on grounds of race and creed - not whether they have worked with the occupiers.
Yes, and it is its worst tradition. The pacifist tradition which appeased Hitler and Stalin and continues to make excuses for Islamist horrors across the world.
Get a clue about Kissinger and neo-conservatives. Kissinger was a realist who believed nations had interests and not principles. You will find that he was responsible for such reprehensible actions as Chile, Iran Contra and support for other odious regimes.
What you lot need to understand is that where the interests of American power and ordinary people (in this case the Iraqi people) collude, the only principled stance to take is one of riding the beast to a better future.
You will find that this stand leaves you free to critiscise subsequent incompetencies of the invasion and avoids the straitjacket of the dreadful mantra I listed above.
At the expense of radiating the entire population. Didn't you say the invasion was to benefit the Iraqi people?
DU doesn't discriminate between troops and civilians anyway - everyone is affected.
Are you (laughably) suggesting the US gov't and military are unaware of the effects of DU? That's the only way such an "error" could be made, although it's patently obvious that when masses of DU are used repeatedly in several theatres over more than a decade, each time with outcry, there is no "error".
Most likely it was part of the plan all along. Arm a dictator of a strategically important region, encourage him to be aggressive, then take him out on the pretext he's a dangerous tyrant and install a puppet government.
Saddam remaining as dictator of Iraq would have been a far better prospect than civil war and massive nuclear radiation. Thus far, it'd have saved the lives over a million people and in the future, a great many more.
The lesser of two evils.
Interesting to note also that the US could have easily had him overthrown by Iraqi insurgents who asked for support during the closing stages of the Gulf War. The US refused, withdrew and knowingly allowed the remnants of the Republican Guard to take them out.
All of this is irrelevent.
Isn't that what Clandestine argues? To an extent...
Hyperbole.
I am suggesting no such thing. I have not once said that governments do not practice realpolitik.
You give our policy makers too much credit.
This is ludicrous.
I would prefer to see Saddam taken out and some Western presence put in to oversee the tough transition to constitutional democracy. The alternative (a break up of Iraq after Saddams death with no Western force in place to mitigate the resultant civil war) does not bear thinking about.
The US withdrew because its UN mandate did not cover a liberation of Iraq. I would regard its failure to ignore the UN and the court of world opinion then and take out Saddam as one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes of the last 50 years.
How can we have a debate if you refuse to engage with my points? I counter your ridiculous and petty points about depleted uranium weaponry so the least you could do in return is admit that, because your posiiton is so compromised, you have no answer to my point.
Except that life without said Fascist is actually worse for people, as at least the Fascist ensured some degree of lawfulness and order. Instead we have a state of anarchy, and not in the political sense.