War on terror - is it terrorism itself?

[Taz]

We hear a lot about the Americans abusing detainees in Iraq. Here's a story closer to home:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle328214.ece

[BEANFro Elite]

These incendiary weapons are banned under an international treaty.

Well sorry to rain on your parade but White Phosphorous isn't banned yet, its being debated for a banning under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

But yes I agree it is very horrible way to die / maimed; the chemical forms liquid droplets which from what I could gather stick to the victim or subject for destruction and burns and burns and burns until there is no oxygen, do a Google image search.

Go here for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

[eldren]

1) that the justification given by the US (and UK) government for intervention in Iraq was that Saddam had chemical weapons that he was prepared to use....and yet the coalition forces used chemical weapons in prosecuting the war. Hypocrisy much?

Not quite. As I recall, it was weapons of mass destruction, not strictly those of a chemical nature. Not to mention that WP is classified as an incendiary, according to the Wikipedia page. So your comparison, I feel, is somewhat unfair.

On the whole WMD thing, my personal feeling there is that it doesn't matter if there were any or not. I remember how back in the 90's, the media was harping on about how evil Saddam was, torturing & killing his own people, etc., etc., etc. Now that two major countries actually do something about it, suddenly everyone goes "No, wait, stop." If I lived under a regime like that, I personally would be very happy to have external intervention, WMD or not. As the quote goes, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’, and here I feel the US/UK are those good men.

On the issue of oil, I also highly doubt that's a motivating factor. Do you honestly believe the US or whoever is just going to go in, say "This belongs to us/XYZ company of our nationality now"? Don't you think the new Iraqi government would have even the smallest of problems with this if the US/whoever tried it? In which case, are there any actual reports of the US/XYZ company actually taking over Iraq's oil? Has the Iraqi government made any noise regarding their oil? Since, to the best of my knowledge, the answers to the non-rhetorical questions is no, then I don't see why oil should enter the picture at all, unless you can give me conclusive proof (Ie. on CNN's website "US company sets up after war to export Iraqi oil") that the answers is yes.

On the issue of prisoner abuse, yes, it happened. Conversely, do you honestly believe the US/whoever went and said "Let's go to Iraq and torture people"? Or is it more likely that a handful of soldiers or a commander perpatraited these acts? Also, the article on abuse that Taz links says British-trained police. Does that say British police? No, it doesn't. And as the article clearly says, Britian is pushing very hard for the abuse to be investigated by the Iraqi authorities, so that those responsible can be brought to justice. This seems to be more that the Iraqi authorities, having been exposed to such violence for decades, consider it normal. Of course, it's not, and in time the perception will change. Racism didn't disappear from South Africa when Nelson Mandela was voted into presidency in 1994 and it still hasn't disappeared 11 years on.

In my opinion, the whole Iraq issue is littered with rumour and arguments phrased in such a manner as to elicit emotional response. Yes, it was a war. Yes, civilians got hurt. Yes, there being WMD is doubtful. Yes, there was prisoner abuse. Yes, some people do horrible things of their own accord. This has been happening for thousands of years. Sure, that doesn't make it right, but I believe the US and UK authorities are trying their best to bring those repsonsible to justice.

[specofdust]

The simple unfortunate problem with this is what while the majority of our citizens may be good men and women, our leaders are not. Back in the 90's while our media were harping on about saddam being a nasty man, the US were selling him weapons(right up untill a few weeks before they invaded), and we were selling him anti-bioweapon formulas, that can be easily reverse engineered to create plentifull stocks of some bio-weapon(that was both before and after the first gulf war).

As for the true motivations, my suspicion would be that the security of the oil in iraq was a priority. The fact that oil prices shot up due to iraq was just a bonus, also its nice to have another lapdog in the middle east, near Iran, whos we're gonna hear alot more about in the coming years, most of it will be bullpoop too.

[TheAnimus]

To try and be moral about a war is hard, as bart simpsons sugests the only good wars are the star wars triliogy.
The problem with iraq is the politions sold it to us on the wrong note. We should never of abondoned the kurdish uprising. Its probably very likely that bush the elder feals there is unfinished buisness.

Its now a quagmire, of religous groups with differing ideas. Without a dictator there is such a big power vacume, we really need a lot more (well trained) troops to keep the peice, but thats a political no no. (because we don't care about them at all, enless we think they might level a tower.)

[BEANFro Elite]

Iraq is an even bigger mess now than before and it seems whatever happens goes regardless of what the Geneva Convention says, its true, its also a war of ideals and rumour as when rumours like the US / Coalition doing something contrary to the aforemented convention then yo get some kind of riot or a few days of intensifyed insurgency activity.

This coming from someone I know (a family friend) who is serving as we speak in the US Marines...

This I'd imagine is why the US hates Al Jazira as they seem to report everything even before its been confirmed...

[TheAnimus]

indeed BEANFro Elite, its the problem with most media, and Al Jazira are too concerned with serving their own agenda to think about conciquencies of presenting things as fact.

Whats even more worrying is people who claim they can't see difference between say the gaurdian report, and a good news source. Jinkies, most people here have no excuse for that as they have been given a good schooling, and should be able to do simple analysis.

[Taz]

Al Jazeera is probably the most respected news organisation in the Arab world. Its journalists were trained by the BBC in the early days. It gets a lot of bad press from Western news organisations - much of it unfairly in my opinion.

Its news reports are uncensored and watching some of the footage led me to believe how pointless war is, hence my anti-war stance. It shows unedited footage of both insurgent attacks and coalition attacks. Both are equally stomach-churning.

I watch Al Jazeera quite a lot (as well as Fox News, BBC News 24 and Sky News) as I have a limited grasp of Arabic, having worked in the Middle East over the years. I would say that it's probably the least biased, even less biased than the BBC!

Bear in mind that it is headquartered in Qatar - a US ally - and where the coalitions' Central Command for the Iraq war is based, although i'm not sure if that's still the case presently.