Completely OT : Cannes, Mickael Moore and the Iraq War

[Simeron]

Maybe I am out dated and out of touch. Maybe I am just too old now to fit in with the more "enlightened" views of today but, I certainly don't see the war in Iraq as a BAD thing.

Maybe the reasons we went in were not the ones that we should have been using but, there were more then enough reasons to go in there and do what we did. We know that Saddam had WMD and used them in the past on the Kurds and the Sheites within his own country when the US lacked the guts to stand up and make the monster pay back in 1991 for his crimes due to "world opinion".

We know that the Al Q terrorists planned and executed the 9/11/01 attack on this country and we also know for a fact that Saddam was funding Al Q and providing training bases within Iraq so that this group could continue to attack innocents across the world like the bombing in Bali after 9/11.

Yes, if the American people were knowingly lied to there should be an accounting. Yes, the mistreatment of captives needs to be dealt with openingly and fairly. Yes as American we should be a shining beacon to the world that there is a better way to live. We should lead by example.

But the eagle carries spears and arrows as well as the olive branch for a reason. Its time that the rest of the world understands that if you want that American military might to protect you and your interests..there is a price you have to pay. If you want American blood to be shed, America expects a HIGH return on that precious payment.

And if you make the mistake of thinking America is a paper tiger who is all growl and no fangs, you better understand that there is not a place on the face of the earth that we won't come and find you no matter the cost.

There are "rules of warfare" but, there are also times when those rules go out the window. War is war. It's not civilized. Its not supposed to be. I can't understand when the idea got started that war could ever be "clean". Even in the heyday of "civilized" warfare it was not clean. Sure, limit the death of innocents as much as possible but, take out your targets.

I am not saying anything goes here but, this watered down wring your hands and worry stuff gets to me. War is not something to be entered into lightly but once you enter into it, do what you have to do to win. Try to make it as civil as possible yeah but, don't worry so much about keeping it clean that you end up losing MORE of that precious American blood then you have to.

As a people, we should have killed or ended Saddam's rule in 1991-1992. Simply put, he should not have been in power today. If we had, more then likely the Towers would still be standing and the world would be a far better place. But for a FACT, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi people, men, women, children and babies would be alive today. Possible MILLIONS would be.

I don't understand why people seem to think the President has the political power in this country either. The President has very LITTLE political power. The true political power resides in 476 representatives and 100 senators that form the US Congress. Congress writes the checks. Congress makes the laws. Congress declares war. The President has one major power other then CinC and that is Persuasion. He can try to get Congress to do what he wants. So if you want to start pointing fingers, make sure you point them to the Hill as well as the White House. There is enough blame to go around to all those people up there Republican and Democrat.

But never say that what we did in Iraq was wrong or bad. Millions of people live better today then they have in 30+ years in Iraq. Some live better now then they ever have and many more will have a far better life now. The vast majority of the children will now be able to learn freely many things, not just what their "masters" want them to know. Women will be able to be all they desire and finally have a say in the lives of thier children and men.

The biggest shame I see of America is that we didn't do this sooner and that we have so very many more countries where we should do it.

As for reasons, how can we say we are a beacon to the world when we know of horrors like toture camps in Syria for children as young as 5 years old?

We know that people are resorting to cannabalism in North Korea just to try to survive?

We know that women are killed for simply showing thier face or speaking thier mind in Iran?

There are hundreds...thousands of reasons to do what we did in Iraq elsewhere. The question is why should we do it.

And the answer is that we are looked upon as the world's police force, its time the cops started busting the criminals.

Not long after 9/11 an article was written in the Daily Mirror, an English newspaper that is normally rather left wing. I think it sums things up rather nicely.

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A thoughtfully written piece in one of the most left wing newspapers in the UK. Just a word of background for those of you who aren't familiar with the UK's Daily Mirror. This is one of the most notorious Left wing, anti-American dailies in the UK. Hard to believe that the Daily Mirror actually published it, but it did.

Begin article:

ONE year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting - the mass murder of thousands, live on television.

As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.

An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate.
Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil.But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance.
Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the Last year.

There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country- too loud, too rich, too full of themselves and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic.

And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood.

A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon?

And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries - were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them?

What touched the heart about those who died in the twin towers and on the planes was that we recognised them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands and wives. And children.

Some unborn.

And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan.
The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.

The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11.

Remember, remember. Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers.
Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum.

Remember, remember - and realise that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.

So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray?

Pass the Kleenex.

So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot.

That it didn't is a sign of strength.

American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11?

How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that -
and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that
9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism". A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell", if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe.

The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth. The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived.

But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand -assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.

I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic.

Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start remembering that.

Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers.

Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper.

And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department. To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein.

Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait. Now we are told he likes Quality Street. Save me the orange centre, oh mighty one!

Remember, remember, September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America.

No, do more than remember. Never forget.

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Sadly, from this old, out-dated, war mongering American's viewpoint, far to many are doing exactly that...forgeting.

Maybe Iraq didn't have direct ties to 9/11 and maybe they did. The FACT is, they had Al Q training camps in Northern Iraq. For all we know, some of the very people that crashed those plane into our cities were trained there before coming here. But the fact is, there were more of the same kind of people in those camps.

And the fact is it is high time the world's only remaining superpower let the rest of the world know that if you pull the tiger's tail you best hold on REAL tight because the other end with the fangs is going to be coming to get you.

Adm. Yamamoto said to an aide that told him of the great victory at Peral Harbor this...

"The attack may appear to have been a great victory. But the declaration of war was not yet given at the time of our attack. The American people are a proud people and will feel great insult at this feeling it was a sneak attack. I fear all that we have accomplished by this great victory is we have awoken a sleeping giant that will come to consume us all."

Sadly, it seems Bin Laden and the rest of the world forgot THAT lesson too.

So yes, we should be restrained in our response and as far as I can tell, from the fact there are still no mushroom clouds across the entire middle east nor large areas of wasteland from our wrath, we have been fairly true to that.