how exactly is a country that you can invade losing no more than 171 soldiers a threat?

That's pretty naive, shotty.

A country might not be a conventional military threat, but there are countless other ways to inflict damage.

You mean like how a kitten can be a dangerous killer if you try to swallow one whole and choke on it?

I think he means the kind of threat as PROVEN by the security service, but the government didnt want to reveal in case of jeopardising their identity... Although admittedly that evidence turned out to be the 10 year old college homework of a 15 year old Iraqii ex-patriot who left the country when he was 6. Oh if only I was joking.

What is the point of these political argument threads?

To argue about things, namely politics.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

What is the point of these political argument threads?

If you go back and read my first post, my intention was not to start another political debate (although given the topic I suppose it was inevitable), I merely wanted to get some feedback from people living outside the states about how they view us and why.

So, my question still stands: How do you feel about the US and our current state of affairs and why?

I think the United States government poses a greater threat to liberty and freedom than any terrorists ever could.

This sums up my views pretty nicely.

Quote from titanLS :

How do you feel about the US and our current state of affairs

I think most of you are stupid morons. In this regard, you're a lot like us Brits. And I think you're in your current state partly because every child's entire school career features weird nationalist ceremonies every day. It might not look so creepy from the inside, but it did to me when I saw it as a visitor.

Quote from titanLS :

and why?

Based on living in your country for a few years, and the fact that there appears to be a pretty standard distribution of stupid morons wherever you go in the world.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I think most of you are stupid morons.

I haven't laughed out loud at the internet in a long time. Perhaps I just found my signature...

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

A country might not be a conventional military threat, but there are countless other ways to inflict damage.

iirc ever claim about the supposed danger that iraq poses turned out to be something thats better suited for penn and teller to report on than for the un council and iirc theres a lot of evidence that the secret services knew it was a load of bs

I'm not saying the administration was correct for going in, I'm just saying that your argument against it doesn't necessarily hold up.

Quote from titanLS :

So, my question still stands: How do you feel about the US and our current state of affairs and why?

Yes, but why do you care how we feel? Although I guess you could ask why do I care why you care how everyone else feels, but that may be a little redundant.

The USofA seems to be full of religious nutters and warmongers, and brainwashed fools. That's the impression i get from the outside.

(disclaimer: I do not mean that every USofAer is a brainwashed fool)

Sorry for going off topic, but

Quote from titanLS :

I haven't laughed out loud at the internet in a long time.

Sounds like you need a bit of Dom Joly
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SkbL-U5LNTo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5rcvhJjJn04&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cCOhI1FwIO0



You can carry on with the political stuff now...

Quote from wheel4hummer :

Yes, but why do you care how we feel?

Because I'm a human being before I'm an American, and living in the states only allows me a certain amount of access to the thought processes and ideals of those who live elsewhere...

Quote from titanLS :

Because I'm a human being before I'm an American, and living in the states only allows me a certain amount of access to the thought processes and ideals of those who live elsewhere...

Take it from me, most people are ignorant, and the effort required to inform them is considerably greater than the effort required to stir them up into a frenzy if you've got the world's media on tap. And it's not an exclusive American trait. That's all you need to know.

Chances are your social circles introduce you to an unrepresentative proportion of people who actually give a **** what happens to other people, but in wider society it's mostly NIMBYs and xenophobes, in varying degrees.

Quote from Mazz4200 :

Sorry for going off topic, but

Sounds like you need a bit of Dom Joly
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SkbL-U5LNTo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5rcvhJjJn04&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cCOhI1FwIO0



You can carry on with the political stuff now...

I blame you for me being very tired at work tomorrow

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Take it from me, most people are ignorant, and the effort required to inform them is considerably greater than the effort required to stir them up into a frenzy if you've got the world's media on tap. And it's not an exclusive American trait. That's all you need to know.

Chances are your social circles introduce you to an unrepresentative proportion of people who actually give a **** what happens to other people, but in wider society it's mostly NIMBYs and xenophobes, in varying degrees.

I'll be the first to admit you're 100% correct, but even if 99% of the world is completely incapable of an intelligent response, that still leaves like 66 million people that might have something interesting to say...

Quote from titanLS :

that still leaves like 66 million people that might have something interesting to say...

Like lerts?

Exactly.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

No. The basis for that argument has already been stated: Iraq was destitute following a decade of crippling economic sanctions, had no military to speak of even if it did want to attack the USA, and was - if you believe anyone except the US government - having nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

You continue to miss the point. Saddam Hussein was not removed from power because of an expectation that his military forces would attack the USA; he was removed from power because he had control of Iraq's resources (money, weapons, land for sanctuary, various intelligence and technological capabilities and training facilities) that he would likely provide for the use of international terrorists, since he hated the USA and had demonstrated support for terrorism (as if his violations of the Gulf War ceasefire agreements were not enough cause for removal, already).

This is why it is incorrect for so many to say: the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and fighting terrorism (since Saddam wasn't, apparently, himself a terrorist). The point is that he had resources that would make actual terrorists more capable and therefore more dangerous, and there was good reason to expect that he would cooperate with them, since having the same motivation and goal (hatred for the USA, destruction of it), and good reason for urgent concern about that, since the 9/11 event had awoken the American government to the fact that it was involved in a serious war against such terrorists.

And it seems, to me, to be incredibly naive that you would imagine that Saddam Hussein would have "nothing to do with Al Quaeda" (or other terrorists - Al Quaeda does not represent the totality of terrorist enemies of the USA, anyway; there have been various terrorist attacks against the USA for more than 30 years). Do you imagine that two entities with a common motivation and goal would refuse to cooperate with each other, because having different reasons for their motivations, because having a difference of religious opinion? Have you never heard "politics makes strange bedfellows," or "the enemy of my enemy, is my friend" (popularized as a common Arabic proverb, during the first Gulf War)? Here in America, we have the Catholic Church cooperating with pro-abortionists (no, not about abortion or about Catholic religious doctrine; about other interests that they have in common).

And I've already mentioned a bit of what is, in fact, known about an actual relationship between Hussein and Al Quada, specifically (bin Laden's fatwa, and meetings).

And btw, have a look at the Iraqi flag, and how it was changed by "secular" Saddam Hussein in 1991:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_flag

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Take it from me, most people are ignorant, and the effort required to inform them is considerably greater than the effort required to stir them up into a frenzy if you've got the world's media on tap.

Dunno to be honest, i think you may have got that the wrong way round.

With todays mass media and this information super highway we're all sitting in right now i don't think the problem is a lack of information. I think it's more of a problem with sorting out the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the bullshit. I think these days we've reached a point of information overload and we've become deluged in a wave of apathy. We all know that our leaders are manipulating us, we all know the new laws they're enforcing are unjust and effect our liberty. We all know they're corrupt and self seeking, but we as a people don't seem to give a shit anymore. Maybe we've become so self centred and insular that the term community spirit has come to refer to a bunch of strangers on the internet chatting frivolously about nothing in particular and taking the piss out of each other. And it's a community of people who will probably never even sit in the same room as each other let alone feel so strongly about a common cause that they organise somesort of protest and actively challenge the law makers.

I guess at the end of the day people are people the world over. And yes, i do see a certain dumbing down of the public spirit, and a resistance to stand up and fight against the injustice we see in our own (real world) communities.

Back when i was a drug fueled socialist hippy student type in the late 80's early 90's i would spend most weekends being chased round the streets of London by a copper sat astride a freaking huge muther f**ker of a horse, due to whichever demo i was on at the time getting a bit violent. Remember the Poll Tax riots ? It may have been irresponsible and got way out of hand, but it made the government and the nation sit up and take notice. And the Poll Tax was dropped shortly after. But now all i see is the population having a bit of a grumble over new legislation then giving a collective shrug of it's shoulders and getting back to it's internet porn or who'll be kicked out of the Big Brother house this week. Ironic, hell yeah.

Maybe it is a ploy by this 'New World Order' to unify all nations and keep the worlds population in a perpetual state of apathy, filled with greed, insecurity, fear and utterly pointless distractions. A point where we know damn well that they're up to no good, but we feel so isolated and ultimately powerless to stop them that they can get away with just about anything. Or maybe they might just push us too far and we do rebel, we do stand up and fight. Maybe we'll reach a point where internal civil war is unavoidable. Very doubtful i know. But if it does ever reach that stage and the majority of the population really have become dangerously stupid, then at least we'll have plenty of cannon fodder to hurl at the enemy.


Erm, on topic, what do i think of America, dunno, never been

Quote from David33 :

You continue to miss the point. Saddam Hussein was not removed from power because of an expectation that his military forces would attack the USA; he was removed from power because he had control of Iraq's resources (money, weapons, land for sanctuary, various intelligence and technological capabilities and training facilities) that he would likely provide for the use of international terrorists, since he hated the USA and had demonstrated support for terrorism (as if his violations of the Gulf War ceasefire agreements were not enough cause for removal, already).

See... The problem here is that you believe Iraq was invaded because of the threat of terrorism against the USA. You just plain believe that. It doesn't matter than nobody else on earth believes it, because you do. I suppose it's a "faith" - I've never understood faith on any level, so I don't understand you either.

Let's look at how threatening Iraq's resources were, given that you've produced a list of the most important ones:

money: Iraq didn't have any.

weapons: Iraq didn't have any.

land for sanctuary: Oh come on. And anyway, according to the US government (so you probably believe it) most of the insurgency against US troops on Iraqi soil is being performed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, so even with the USA running Iraq it's still a haven for their enemies. Nice job, dickheads.

various intelligence and technological capabilities: Does that include various other vaguely-defined nonsenses or do you have any specific examples? The only evidence we've seen post-war is that Iraq had none of the capabilities that the USA and UK insisted that they had, which were used as justification for war.

and training facilities: So it's fair game to invade any country that the USA has pissed off which has a shooting range somewhere within it?

If you're going to persist with this argument, at least stop trying to justify it by pulling random nonsense out of your arse.