U.S. Presidential Election. Who would you choose?

can't say i have seen it.. but i did read his website and have just read some of the letters written to him http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1319718,00.html .... equaly i am sure some one could make a film disputing the points made ..sure facts are facts , its possibly how you connect those facts . I can't take that film seriously as much because he (i think) ignores every other country apart from america . Its the whole americentric spin ...i can't work out ..yeah sure they are big and powerful ...but Mr Blair could have said no.... i hear no conspiracys about him ?.

 

What you consider proven and what someone else considers proven may well be two different things. You'd do well to show a little humility before arrogantly dismissing the opinions of others.

Now you see most of us here believe this is exactly what Bush and Blair are doing. Different perspective, huh? Shows you how subjective these things can be.

And by that token, others might find your views offensive. However, I respect the fact that you hold your views in good faith and for what you believe to be the right reasons. However, what is really offensive is when you dismiss the views of others with whom you disagree.... just because you disagree with them.

Again though, if you find the majority view on this site so offensive, why are you here exactly? I really don't get it.

Rubbish. People are opposed to the war in Iraq because they think it's unjustified and a bad idea. Hell, even on Bushes own terms, the war has proved to be ill-founded. The specific war goal was to overthrow the Iraqi regime on the basis that it was producing weapons of mass destruction. There was also allegedly a fear that these weapons would be shared with Al Qaeda. Now seeing as all concerned now admit that there were no WMD in the first place, and seeing as there isn't a single scrap of evidence that Iraq was colluding with Al Qaeda, then the war can not be said to have been justified.

Furthermore, many of us believe the price for overthrowing the regime was too high. Thousands have died, the middle east has been further destabilised, and Al Qaeda has been given a new recruiting ground, propaganda, and training arena. Added to which, overthrowing the regime just because it was unpleasant was never a stated war goal.

I have no idea why you're so cynical in the first place, so I've no idea what kind of information you require.

 

This is not personal..so calm down a little. ??

well for 1 http://factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=261.html .. the so called shady links with haliburton . Whats that all about ?.

I read lots of comments about the dossiers used ... but none about resolution 1441 ..why is that http://www.state.gov/p/nea/disarm/ . This ressolution is if pushed why i believe the war is valid ..

If i frequented a forum full of people that shred my point of view ... i doubt i could find one... The other side i think are people that would wish to drop a big bomb on the place. Their are people that don't share the majority view.. and when these people point out quite clearly a point that is not correct ..the thread dies on its ass..followed by another thread along simmilar lines days later.

In this battle for who is right and who is wrong ... i think the point i consider is are their iraqi people that support this 'war' , yes i do believe so ...... all this 'bitching' is fair enough but 'at the end of the day.....' How can you dispute their point of view.

all probably true...what propaganda supports terrorists the most. surely if information is found to be false (on either side) it should be taken out of the debate..

I am cynical because you have used the death of thousands to make me feel fucking awful.

gee whiz your doing nothing for my karmic level

 

in my oppinion.. and it is just my oppinion... it seems that you are allowing yourself to be moved into a media enforced mindset... you should probably take a really hard look at both sides before you make your decision on wether bushes crusade of capitalism was a good thing. i ,like evry1 else in the world, am constantly bombarded with information bastardised by the media... and bastardised in such a way as to make out that we are all ways in the right. " so we've gone to war, its allright look what good we're doing".. when really the harsh reality is masked by stupid stories like the american troups adopting a dog coz it was lame and would get killed by the wild packs that roam iraq... i dont see them adopting an iraqi child who's mum they blew up with the last unecessary motar volley.
if you choose to accept that this war is right and it was necessary to go into iraq in the first place then you are falling into the media trap which thousands of others do evryday... it is important to search out the answers.. find the other side and form an oppinion on the answers you get... then if you still think the war is good then fine... each to thier own.. but i certainly wont be inviting you to my birthday party( hehe no jelly and icecream for you)

 

I have not fallen under the media spell...i tend to swich off..but saying that

Not true the BBC believe this war to be wrong and go out of their way on primetime to tell us that. Thankfully the BBC is so large other stuff they do balances out this and they (to their credit) have people that don't share their collective opinion.. can't remember the last positive story that came out of iraq ??? Good news is not intresting enough i guess .. shame that.


I am not a nasty person..and can go with out talking about iraq or anything 'offensive' for hours ... so reconsider ... i love jelly and ice cream.

 

Huh? I'm perfectly calm, thank you very much. I'm sorry if you have a problem with clearly expressed, well informed opinions.

.... is a topic all in itself, and hardly the main reason that people are opposed to the war.

Well the secretary general of the UN is of the opposite opinion, and believes the war to have been illegal under international law. So I'd say there's certainly room for an alternative point of view, and one that isn't limited to the leftie fringe, or "wishful thinking", as you seem to believe.

Their are plenty of Iraqis who hold an entirely different point of view. How can you dispute their point of view? And doesn't it seem a little rude to reduce people's moral concerns over a war to the status of "bitching"?

I'm sorry. That doesn't make sense. Please clarify.

OK, you've totally lost me. I'm not interested in making you feel awful. I'm simply pointing out that there are a very large number of people opposed to the war in Iraq, and that those people have well-founded views. You're perfectly entitled to disagree with those views, but to dismiss them as "wishful thinking" is very rude and ignorant.

 

Maybe there's another reason for that that has nothing to do with BBC bias?!?

 

Just thought ... you might be right about the media .. so in a few years all the positive stuff will get shown..in a nice documentary..saying even though x amount of people died look at the place now.. to does this now may give the impresion they are supprting this war..the general public are collectively anti-war (IMHO) and upsetting the general public is not on..

 

well i suppose it boils down to an unfothomable mindset.. i cant understand how faced with all the facts you can still choose to defend the war.. but then i suppose you cant see how when faced with all the facts i can come to my lefty conclusion about how much it all stinks of corruption and sucks massive bush-nuts... so we shall agree to disagree.. but when the truth finally does come out i want a written apology...


and yeah you can come to my birthday but you have to sit in the hall with your jelly and icecream while us leftys play pass the parcel.

 

I said

i did not say wishful thinking ..ok this may mean the same thing ..but repeating it makes me sound like i think that all other opinions apart from my own are wishful thinking...thats not true.

i said this

you say this

i thought you were taking it as a personal insult or something...anyway now that i am aware your perfectly calm..i don't feel so bad ..moving on .

This he said a year and a half later..plus he sheepishly said 'if you wish'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm

we agree diffrent people have diffrent opinions.. morale concerns , don't you dare start on that .... fundementaly this war was not illegal and the 'bitching' i mention is the going over and over this ..moraly it might be questionable you are perfectly correct . But people shooting back at us and killing innocent people are of questionable morality don't you think .

Ok saying mr cheney is corrupt and that ...well read http://factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=261.html now this should be taken out of the debate... Haliburton a whole other thread ... sorry to go over this , please start a new thread or just tell me here why HALIBURTON ARE SO BAD...

Yes and their are a very large No. of people that have well founded views to the contary (not me ). Wishful thinking i guess i mean that when alegations are proven to be false ... then to continue to believe them to be true is wishful thinking. Not that the whole basis of your opinion is wishful thinking.This is true on both sides , but i just see it more from some anti war people...so if you think that is ignorant and rude then sorry ..

 

Yeah i will be waiting for mine as well...

I read the gaurdian you know ... am i still a rotter.

 

No, but you did clearly imply that you feel that opposition to the Iraq war has no factual basis, and therefore those who choose to hold to this belief are practicing wishful thinking.

That really is the most pathetic cop-out I've ever heard. The secretary general of the UN expresses his opinion that the war is illegal, and you dismiss his opinion because it was sheepish and delivered too late. Now that is insulting.

This is what makes your stance incredibly arrongant and insulting. Many people (including the secretary general of the UN and various legal advisors) believe the war to have been illegal. You're entitled to your opinion that it wasn't, but that's all it is - an opinion. Not a fact. Stating it as though it's a fact is insulting, rude and childish.

That's a whole other topic.

This is the basis of your problem. You take the facts that suit you and then believe a case to have been proven. There are many facts, and many opinions. You may see one set of facts and regard the case as closed, but another person may see another set of facts and disagree. Unless you're in a position to validate every single piece of information in front of you, then all you have is an opinion. And others are just as entitled to opinions of their own.

Personally, I regard the case agaisnt the war to have been adequately proven. If you don't accept this, would it therefore be reasonable for me to accuse you of wishful thinking?

 

PUZZLED BY THAT...but you may read something into it that i don't see.

you said not the main reason people are apposed to this war ??? what are your main reasons ?? .. what are the main reasons ??

I read cheney is profiting from the war ...then i read the link and it says this is not true , in the context of wich it implies.. my take is that people say cheney is profiting so this is one reason we are their (in iraq) .. do you believe this to be true ???

He also said

"You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now,"

Does this mean that no elections should have taken place ??


yes he is allowed his opinions ..... but just because he said these things some people take it as a fact ... i maybe wrong on that assumption.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005644

Like this article says ...more than one resolution was made 17 not one or two. How many does the man want ?

yeah but why did you actualy mention kofi in the first place .. as an example of how right you are ?? I maybe assuming a little here i admit..

Yes but my cheney example .. this is not opinion its a fact . If this fact is not correct ... then correct another assumption of mine...please.

Please re read what i said..and don't try and make out that i am implying something that i am not.

 

In all honesty I really don't think it's gonna make the slightest bit of difference who wins. Let's face it, America is stuffed ... none of the new laws or constitutional amendments from the last couple of years will be reversed no matter who gets in, the war will not be called off and the imperialism won't stop.

Land of the free? Once upon a time maybe ... but not anymore. The 'American Dream' has been turned into a nightmare.

 

I outlined the reasons in my previous posts.

I'm not that interested, so have never investigated. Whether anyone stands to profit from the war is just a side issue for me (although clearly as the main beneficiary of post-war rebuilding contracts, America as a whole clearly stands to benefit, as well as the strategic goal of securing oil production).

I'd certainly say so. What's the point of holding elections if they aren't seen to be fair and reliable?

I agree. But equally, the fact that you diagree with him does not justify you dismissing his opinion out of hand.

You and I aren;t debating the legality of the war. We're debating how one should show respect for the opinions of others. Clearly there's room for argument over whether the war was legal. My point is not to argue that it was illegal, but to point out that you should respect that there's room for disagreement - just because someone does not hold the same opinion as you, it doesn't automatically make them wrong. Nor does it mean that they're ignoring the facts. It simply means that they've studied the evidence and reached a different conclusion. The secretary general certainly isn't someone who's opinion you should be dismissing so easily.

You're assuming a lot, actually. Like I said fairly clearly, my point in quoting the secretary general was to illustrate that a wide variety of people (not just hippy lefties) have questioned the legality of the war. My point was not to demonstrate to you that I'm right and you're wrong, but rather to demonstrate that there's room for more than one opinion, and that you shouldn't be so dismissive of the opinions of others.

How do you know it's a fact? Can you vouch for the veracity of your source? Have you personally checked the information in the article that you quoted? How do you know it's not a misrepresentation? You choose to believe it - that doesn't make it a fact.

Huh? What are you talking about?

 

well so this whole forum is just opinions ?

well people make dicisions in the real world from what they read and see ..so if we are merely sharing opinions thats one thing but sometimes facts are important. Please investigate from your own personal opinion if the example (cheney) i gave is not factualy correct..


I think that you have lots of intelectual opinions , on the diffrent things i have asked .. but are not willing to share them with me. If your main point is that people are dying and that kofi annans opinions may be valid.. then fair enough. Your not answering any of my points so lets agree to disagree yeah..save us all a bit of time.

If your not intrested in anythig about this war apart from the peeople dying then i would say your moraly right.

 

When you're quoting third party sources that aren't expressing a widely-accepted or independently verifiable piece of information, then yes.

You're entirely missing the point.

Your case originally was to argue that people are anti-war "because people are ultra liberal and left wing that they wish for these things to be true". The point that I'm making is that you can no more say this of others than you can say it of yourself. Both parties have studied a set of facts and arrived at different conclusions. That doesn't mean that people who're anti-war are enagaged in wishful thinking anymore than you are - they simply reach a different conclusion from the available evidence.

Facts can be important, but they're often subjective. You can't state a fact as a fact without being able to verify the source of that fact. If you can't do that, then it's effectively just an opinion.

That's correct. I have no interest in getting into a debate with you on an issue where, at the end of the day, we'll just end up disagreeing. I doubt I'll convince you of my beliefs any more than you'll convince me of yours.

I'm not sure what your point is. I've replied to everything you've said, so I fail to see how I'm not answering your points.......

 

Ok ok.. if i had put a some people here and a possibly their..i would not appear as arrogant.. i apologise for that.

I am going to think about what you say..but even so ... you do tend to manage to avoid lots of things..but i am just a bit jaded.

i am talking in general ...what i say is true...look around.

 

Absolutely. There are wishful thinkers on either side of the debate, and if you were only talking about specific individuals rather than making generalisations, then I'd have no argument with that.

Not sure what you think I'm avoiding exactly. If you could be a little more specific......

 

I was generalising ..but then again i read only the people that actualy post their opinions , on the war .. and have found most that are anti-war do resort to side issues .. or major issues , depending on how you see it. People like yourself , i guess are safe because you generaly don't resort to side issues...from what you have said here .. i would say that your just against all the killing ? and that people are entitled to their opinions wich you like to pull apart or agree with on a intelectual level (i'm prety easy hahaha) . If this is your entire reason for not agreeing this war is right i can perfectly accept that , i understand and have no problems with it... . I only say your avoiding things because , i can't believe you have no opinion on what i said.. i don't wish to point the finger at anyone thats not realy fair..but you have been around here, you must see a pattern of some sort . Anyway i like the hip forums and i am not realy critising ... i just made a comment and now i am making it clearer (hopefuly). I think i must have hit a nerve with you ... sorry about that.