Vidicschin, this is where you and I disagree. I believe Iraq had no WMDs, otherwise they would have found something, evidence of there being some just before the war. Syria has been known to have chemical weapons for some time, so I doubt Saddam sold his weapons just before the US invaded.

I did make a mistake when I said the US were not wrong, they weren't. They lied.

I think you are doing them an injustice if you genuinly believe they don't give a chit about lost innocent lives - unlike the 'civilians' that were celebrating the thousands of innocents that died in 9/11
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Which civilians are you refering to?
Palestinians who have seen American side with their enemy who has not only occupied but continue to oppress and steal their lands?

The line from "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" comes to mine "I was in awe, David had struck Goliath".

And if they really cared, then why back the murderers and those who keep their populous brutally down and then condemn other such nations that do such action?

They do not care. They care only about their bottom line.

Vidicschin, this is where you and I disagree. I believe Iraq had no WMDs, otherwise they would have found something

...................

Not if Sadam shipped them out. It is what I would have done.

And we know he had used them a decade before on the Kurds. Of course you may well wish to believe he had turned over a new leaf and was going to be a model citizen and not have this stuff anymore.

And Vidicschin you could carry on believing that Iraq could have attacked us in 45mins. The WMDs were a lie. The US wanted to put their own man to lead Iraq. Things didn't work out for them in that front. The fact that no WMDs and no traces were found (which should have been found if he had just gotten rid of them like you suggested) shows that the US wanted their war and got it.

And Vidicschin you could carry on believing that Iraq could have attacked us in 45mins.

.........................

Actually, I wouldn't believe that.

(which should have been found if he had just gotten rid of them like you suggested)
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Why should they have been found. Stick your oil drums of the nasty stuff on the back of a truck and drive it over the border at night time.

No one would be any the wiser. This, sadly isn't something that is difficult to do.

Rez

Forgive me but you seem to have plenty of bad things to say about one side and very little to say about the other

You talk about Israel oppressing the Palestinian people yet have nothing to say about Saddam Hussain who oppressed his own people

Nothing will ever convince me that organisations like Al Qaeda, The Taliban and individuals like Saddam Hussain and his henchman are/were nothing more than vile murderous monsters that simply cannot be compared to people like The British Prime Minister

You really think Cameron would turn up at the house of a British subject and put a child into a sack full of hungry cats to get the parents to talk? Or is that BS too?

Comments like this "Of course you may well wish to believe he had turned over a new leaf and was going to be a model citizen and not have this stuff anymore." suggest otherwise.

When Saddam used Chemical weapons against the Kurds why didn't the US and the UK make a fuss? Because he was our dog (as some CIA agents put it) then. WMDs was a pretext. The evidence they used was cooked up and have come out as being false. They wanted their war and got it.

It was recently proven that the Regan administration had helped Saddam use chemical weapons against the Iranians in the 1980s

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/09/05/odonnell-reagan-let-saddam-buy-and-use-chemical-weapons/

Rez, i'm with you.

You'll always have the odd thicko who thinks the US and the UK are squeaky clean and never did anything for self interest.

When Saddam used Chemical weapons against the Kurds why didn't the US and the UK make a fuss?

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They did. It was well documented.

Macca, Saddam is no worse than any other dictator out there, yet we used him when it suited us and we do that around the world. When people claim that the UK and/or US government cares about the people of those countries, their actions say otherwise. Otherwise why back the guy incharge of Uzbekistan who is just as bad as Assad and Saddam?

And if that doesn't tell you how i felt about Saddam then you clearly aren't able to read between the lines.

"Nothing will ever convince me that organisations like Al Qaeda, The Taliban and individuals like Saddam Hussain and his henchman are/were nothing more than vile murderous monsters that simply cannot be compared to people like The British Prime Minister"

Al Qaeda, The Taliban and individuals like Saddam Hussain and his henchman are/were nothing more than vile murderous monsters, on this we agree.

But the British Prime Minister may not personally do what those groups have done but successive governments have allowed and even supported people like Saddam and his henchmen in plenty of other countries.

Take a look at the coup in Egypt and the coup that happened in Burma and see the response of the US to both situations. why was one a coup while the other wasn't?

Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 7 minutes ago
When Saddam used Chemical weapons against the Kurds why didn't the US and the UK make a fuss?

................

They did. It was well documented.
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Did they? Was it?

Just to be clear, I am asking if they made a fuss when it happened rather than years later.

Last post from me, just going to let you know it is 1:15 here (China) and I should really get some sleep. I'll check on this later when I am at work (and most of you guys asleep).

comment by The Rez Devils (U11181)
posted 1 minute ago
Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 7 minutes ago
When Saddam used Chemical weapons against the Kurds why didn't the US and the UK make a fuss?

................

They did. It was well documented.
------------
Did they? Was it?

...............

Well I can remember seeing news reports on it in the Iraq Iran war, and later when he used it on the kurds.

I could have inmagined it I suppose. It is ironic though, that the US sided with Sadam during the Iran war.

It's widely known that in the last Donald Rumsfeld went over to Iraq to help sell weapons, including chemical weapons to Saddam...

Then he's sending sound bites about "we don't know what we don't know"...

The Americans also had the Taliban leadership flown into the US to talk about territory where a new pipeline would go.

Double standards are rife when it comes down to securing resources.

It's all "game theory"

It's impossible to be whiter than white in world politics, there are the worst kinds of people all over the world and we all have to deal with them whether we like it or not, one way or another.

I actually don't care about the chemical weapons, they're nasty but 1000 dead people in a chemical weapons attack vs the other 99,000 that had died previously due to conventional weapons, I know which I'm more angry about. How many dead is enough to make China and Russia care?

I'm also angry at the stance the MPs took, 13 votes isn't a majority that speaks for the country and to rule out any kind of military intervention was plain stupid. I don't wish to see boots on the ground but I also don't wish to see 500,000 dead and no one doing a thing about it.

One thing that you'll notice among all of this though, it's mainly muslims that kill muslims, whether it's afghanistan, iraq, syria, libya, egypt and then of course muslim fundamentalists just attacking anyone they feel like in africa. We had our small skirmishes/wars in some of these places but the majority of the dead are killed by car/suicide bombs, ieds, assassinations, not by western military personnel.

Reggie

Best post on this subject.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Cal

No one can fix the middle east. Any of it. As Reggie and Macca have pointed out, the muslims are hell bent on killing each other.

It would be very easy for us all to just sit back and let them get on with it.

But, the oil must flow. If it doesn't the Western World comes crashing down, and it will not take very long to happen either.

Some really thought provoking comments

Thanks all for contributions. I throughly enjoyed the discussion and perhaps we're all a little more educated on the core issues in the middle east

Thanks for making the thread Metro, surprised nobody had made one sooner, so cheers.

Metro

No one really has a handle on the workings of the middle east.

What we do know, is that the West, which includes the USA, UK and the rest of Europe are dependant on middle east oiol.

And it must continue to flow at what ever is the cost. Governments will continue to make misguided decisions on how this is acheived.