OT: US Pres election

[Atrocities]

Originally Posted by lch

It is also one of the biggest limitations, if not the biggest that I know of, of those constitutional rights that you seemed to be so aware of. Does it only take some nicely packaged words to sway your principles?

Originally Posted by Atrocities

The fact was we genuinely believed that Saddam was a threat. From credible news stories from ABC to the History channel the argument against Saddam was believed to be valid. History proved otherwise.

So you come across as somebody who is totally unprotected against manipulation by the media. Maybe a simplistic black and white view on things, too, but I don't want to exaggerate too much into this.

I am sorry but this comment of yours seems to be on the verge of some sort of unwarranted personal attack. Is that your intent here?

If you say that Saddam was perceived as a real threat, when what did that threat look like? This is mostly a rhetoric question, but think about it and tell how Saddam could have been a threat to the US.

I can only reiterate what was in the media at the time. So I cannot add much to this other than that. I would point out that a bunch of dudes living in mud huts managed to take down four planes, two buildings, and punch a hole in the Pentagon. Saddam, with much more resources at this disposal, could, and at the time was believed to be a threat. Again, we were wrong.

One thing that I don't want to touch again is that there was absolutely no link at all from 9/11 to Saddam. Was it just that the time was right?

These are the facts and they cannot be denied.

Originally Posted by Atrocities

Am I sad to see him overthrown and dead, no, the man was a tyrant responsible for more deaths than all of the deaths that followed the US invasion by 10 fold.

I dislike this altruistic perception of the USA as a worldwide police force. I simply cannot keep up this image in my mind anymore. There are dozens of warlords in Africa that committed and still commit far greater atrocities than Saddam ever did, and they're still alive, they're still doing this. Why doesn't the self-declared peace force get to work there? And as I said earlier, I am quite uncertain if the quality of live in Iraq has really improved and if you can call it "prospering" now.

I cannot dispute your comments here as they are true. There are far worse SOB's than Saddam and there is no excuse for any civilized nation to allow them to continue to reap horrors upon innocent people.

As to your uncertainty about the quality of life in Iraq, I can only repeat what I have been told by my nephew who was their. I have no reason to doubt him or his word. But I concede your point, until the mainstream media gets off its collective arses and finally gets down to doing some real unbiased reporting, we will not know the truth about Iraq's alleged prosperity.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Atrocities

I am sorry but this comment of yours seems to be on the verge of some sort of unwarranted personal attack. Is that your intent here?

I was only hinting at it by my "I admit I'm getting polemical" sentence earlier, but to get this straight across, no, I am not interested in attacking you personally. I mostly want to get you to think. I am not somebody who is reasonably convinced by conspiracy theories, but at the same time I don't trust the media or politicians too much. I still hope that I can come to my own conclusions about things, and I hope that they're right. Better than just letting others do the thinking for me and adopt their position undigested.

Originally Posted by Atrocities

I can only reiterate what was in the media at the time. So I cannot add much to this other than that. I would point out that a bunch of dudes living in mud huts managed to take down four planes, two buildings, and punch a hole in the Pentagon.

Something that, and here unfortunately I might come across as a heretic in a medieval "there is only one truth, and it's our truth, no questions" society, is still disputed territory. As far as I know, the FBI still did not find any direct link of the 9/11 suicide bombers and Bin Laden. Except some videos with muffled voices. You get lots of those after each of these kinds of attacks, I guess. I remember that I defaced my own websites some years ago for a week or so. A few weeks later, I found a russian cracker site on the web that claimed that they hacked my site and defaced it. :P

[Atrocities]

Originally Posted by lch

I was only hinting at it by my "I admit I'm getting polemical" sentence earlier, but to get this straight across, no, I am not interested in attacking you personally. I mostly want to get you to think. I am not somebody who is reasonably convinced by conspiracy theories, but at the same time I don't trust the media too much. I still hope that I can come to my own conclusions about things, and I hope that they're right. Better than just letting others do the thinking for me and adopt their position undigested.

Very well said.