you know this is the thing that I hate about you immigrants. first you come to this free land of ours then, take our jobs, benefit from our strong currency and then you go on to mock our respected president.

Shame on you…!

Laine, I am hoping you are being sarcastic - of course, my regular readers will get the joke in your comment for sure :nice:

Oh I think Laine had his tongue firmly in his cheeks. :tongue3: On the other hand, I’m not sure the cheeks were his.. bwahaaaaaa

LOL, Suman.

Nice to see that the US is not the least bit apologetic about the fact that not a single WMD has been discovered. Instead it is becoming a source of humour.

I don’t see any pro-war bloggers wondering about the absense of WMD’s either. Or do you buy the “they took em to syria” line?

With WMD’s gone, the only excuse left to rationalise the war is “democracy in iraq”. After seeing the great democracy in Afghanistan over the past 2 years….my my were the Afghan elections free and fair or what….I have no doubt that America will democratise Iraq too.

First of all, the WMDs argument was not the be all and the end all of the US’ reason for the war - it was one of the reasons.

Second of all, they did find two “mobile bio labs” that Iraq denied having. Even if they didn’t find the actual weapons, what were the labs doing in Iraq? Was it just a fashion thing?

If there were no WMD, why did Saddam risk a war instead of giving the UN inspectors free and unfettered access to every place in Iraq? I am not talking about once the US put a massive army at the borders. Why did Saddam kick out the inspectors and kept thwarting the inspections if he didn’t have anything to hide?

Oh, screw the democracy argument - look at all the mass graves. I am happy there are no more of them coming up anytime soon.

As for Afghanistan, it wasn’t like the country was this bastion of democracy and riches before the US invaded that you can say it is doing oh-so-bad now. Don’t you think the people are doing way better than they were under the Taliban? Don’t you think even a “sham democracy” (according to you) better than tyranny?

BTW, since you don’t like the US’ reasons for regime change in both countries, would you be fine if the US just withdrew from both countries right now and put back in place both the Taliban and Saddam in power? Would you jump up and down in joy that the US returned the countries back to their “original” state from whatever the countries are like now?

Afghanistan is not a “sham democracy”, cos it is not even a democracy. I am saying that it has been 2 years in Afghanistan, and not a mention of elections or any plans towards democratisation. And just cos they never had a democracy justifies putting the issue in a cold storage?

Also, I did not think the Afghan invasion was a bad idea. The 9-11 attack was clearly carried out by OBL and the network within Afghanistan was responsible, not just for 9-11, but other incidents like USS Cole etc. Going into Afghanistan and taking out the Taliban was a legitimate act of self-defence in my opinion. So there is no question of me wanting them back in power. But please o please don’t tell me the US went to Afg with the intention of ‘liberating the women’ from the tyranny of the Talibs. The tyranny has been there since 1996.

About Iraq, as you said, the US does not give one reason. It gives a host of reasons. So when one reason is negated(like the WMDs), you can always sit smugly and say “It wasnt the be all and end all”. I was convinced by the US arguments during Afghanistan. I don’t see a single reason compelling enough. Why saddam did soemthing, how they found some cans…blablabla. The bottomline is US can not show a single WMD in Iraq. Lemme ask you a logical question. if they had WMDs, don’t you think they would’ve used em as a last resort? At least on the troops, like during the Iran war?

The American public hates people dying….correction, it hates ‘American’ people dying. Any politician knows another Vietnam will be political suicide. So Bush, wanting to be re-elected, would not have attacked unless he was positive there were no WMDs in Iraq. One chemical incident would have started the “bring my kid home” rallies like Vietnam. It would have ended all chances of a re-election.

Would I prefer the return of Saddam? I don’t know. It is too early to say. Talibs were proper tyrrants. They took away personal freedom and medievalised the country. So the Afghans, even under a puppet are marginally better off. In the case of Iraq, there are voices for an ‘Islamic’ republic, which means an Iran-like situation. If the Americans were to truly put a democratic process in place, like in post-ww2 Japan, I would say the war was worth it. But so far, all indications are to the contrary. The importance given to Chalabi, shows that they want a Karzai-like “chum” ruling, rather than a true democracy.

You know Shanti, to be frank, even after all this I don’t give a damn. I wrote about it on my blog too. I am not exactly “anti war” since it is not my war. but then I am not “pro war” either for the same reason. the Iraqis never marched to protest the Kashmiri pandit exodus or the Gujarat riots. The Americans never did so either. So why on earth should I give so much importance to either side? They can all drown in the Nasiriyah oilfield for all I care.

I am no USA-basher. But just from an academic point of view, I feel that America is in the wrong IN THIS PARTICULAR SCENARIO. But I don’t feel motivated enough to try and convince you to believe otherwise.

You loved the war, and it is your blog. You have a right to say whatever you want. So peace!:nice:

Ok, let me say this once and for all - I loved the war - yes. But if you look through my archives, I didn’t say I loved it because Bush asked me to - I liked the war because this was the only chance Iraqi people had to get out from under Saddam’s tyranny. After hearing the stories of the torture and murders and professional rapists, I am happy the people are free to do what they want with their country, regardless of if they want it to become a great nation or a terrorist abode.

I wanted the Iraqi people to decide for themselves what they wanted and I wanted them to have the ability to work hard to feed themselves instead of starving while Saddam enjoyed an obscenely luxurious life. Where did I ever say it was right because of the WMD reasons? I had my own reasons for supporting the war, which are very different but overlapping in some cases with the administration’s reasons. My criterion have been met so far - I don’t care about anything else.