[size=4]Burying Your head in the sand doesn't stop Maniac's like Saddam... He HAS Killed over 1 and a Half Million of his own People.... THEY don't want him either. OIL prices have dropped already!! Saddam IS a Major threat to the free world... along with the LEADERS of IRAN - Afghanistan - Democratic Republic of North Korea - Peoples Republic of China - and Maybe India - Pakistan who hate each other so much they could use Nuclear Weapons against each other.. We do NOT live in a Perfect World .... We have Police to help combat Crime in Australia -- George Bush or Tony Blair or John Howard have NOT killed 1 1/2 MILLION of their own people.... Saddam Has ... He MUST Pay for His Crimes... These are Just Facts... NO Flames please... [/size]

w0rd!
:thumb

good point ,,,not saying i agree with war,but he does have to be stoped,,,,

Well said Lee

Go Johny, Go Johny

Heh heh - Hot topic based on the previous.
Your not just stiring are ya Lee .

After a bit of research I'd have to say your pretty right on with your facts. Ask any Curd if Saddam should stay. Thats if you can find one with skin on.

I'm might be Exmilitary but not in favour of war of any kind. I will say no to any religious, economic or territorial war - but as this appears strictly humanitarian I am in support of the actions being taken, and the fact that the Forces of the Willing are inviting the UN to become the interim goverment is a good sign that there are no second agendas. It is sad that so much expence - financial and casuality needs to be expended to topple one man.

I feel for the Iraqi and all Arab peoples in general. I wish them well for the future that will hopefully be made available for them.

people say it is the US's war, and our troops shouldn't be there.

For those people, have you realised we have a choice.

1 - have 2000 (less than 1% of the US troops) in Iraq showing the US we support them.

or

2 - say "your on your own" to the US, and then when Korea decides to invade Australia the US will say "your on your own" right back at us.

Makes the choice fairly simple, whether your agree with the war or not.

Personally I think Saddam is a cowboy and needs to be stopped. I thought Britian could have sent James Bond into assassinate him though

[Edited on 22-3-2003 by Baja Wes]

Well apparently George Bush rang Superman and asked him why he didnt do anything about Saddam Hussein. Superman replied "because I'm in a f*cking wheel chair you c**t".

threat??? The iraqi army is minute and poorly equipped. There are much more dangerous people that aren't being stopped. Like Israel, they have been condemned the most times by the UN for their weapons of mass destruction, they have a history tainted with violence against innocent civilians.

The last thing it is, is a humanitarian war.

I think extremists will take the war as a "west vs the east" kind of crap and this will spur them to create more terror...

Korea will not invade australia, the only place they would invade would be south korea, and the US has troops on the border.

I doubt that the new "democratic" regime will be any better than saddam, look at Afganistan, how they were "liberated" from muslim fundamentalists. Yes Saddam is evil, but so is the US really. They are just as bad as each other.

The crap media on tv (CNN) is complete trash.

[Edited on 22-3-2003 by Che Castro]

Iraq did have a large army during the 80's when the Iran-iraq war was on, mind you they were trained by the US and the US did supply them with arms (chemical and biological too). However it was decimated during the gulf war, their country is poor. Yes Saddam is an evil person, but the US turned a blind eye when they knew he was killing people by the hundreds of thousands. Why attack now?

Iraq does have a large reserve of oil... and the US does have to prove that it still is the major superpower after the 9/11 incident. It is in recession and it needs to show the world that it still is #1, it needs an economic boost, and what better way to do that than to wage war!

North Korea's president Kim Jong II is actually very intelligent and rational, our relationship with North Korea has actually been improving over the last couple of years.
North Korea is only threatening to use their weapons to get economic concessions from the US. It isn't in their interest at all to attack anyone.
If anything they would only attack south korea or japan as the logistics of attacking Australia is absolutely immense!
North Korea is extremely poor, they do not want to fight, they are just using the weapons as bargaining tools to sustain themselves.

The US would NOT come to our rescue regardless of whether we helped them in the past. The only reason they would help anyone is if it is in their own national interest. This has been shown in the past.

I don't think the war on Iraq is justified at all. It is all about greed not policing, there is no "axis of evil" or any of that Bush propaganda rubbish.

If anything it sets a very dangerous precedent for the future and can only make the world a more dangerous place for us and those after us.
The war will strengthen claims of US imperialism by Fundamentalist extremists, the situation in the middle east will deteriorate once there is a liberal demorcracy in the midst.

The power of the UN has diminished, decades of collective security have been destroyed. How can the UN enforce peace and step in when countries like the US act unilaterally against it? World security will never be the same. How can we define what a "rogue" nation is now? A pre-emptive strike by the US is really no different to an attack by NK on SK.

The threat of Iraq/NK etc. is very very small to us. The threat of a terrorist attack is VERY real. We know that, after Bali, 9/11 and other smaller incidents. Our involvement with the US led war will make Australia a target, furthermore it will divide the australian community further, the perceived "muslim/middle eastern vs the rest" rift will grow.

Australia can only lose by being involved in the war, it can only make Australia and the World at large a more dangerous and unstable place. This primarily why I don't think australia should be involved in this war.

BTW the ANZUS treaty means very little, it only stipulates that australia and the us are obliged to act in coalition against an agressor ONLY IF a metropolitain centre of either country is attacked by the aggressor... Even then the ANZUS treaty is very weak, the world is changing.

[size=4]The people in Iraq maybe very Poor but Saddam has Millions of US Dollars stashed away in other countries... They have found overseas bank accounts so far worth nearly 900 million US Dollars.... So Saddam has plenty of Money but sadly No BRAINS... He could have bought a small island somewhere and lived in Luxury.... Oil prices have come down from $33 a barrel to $26 a barrel yesterday... I also believe that people join the armed forces to be an Armed Force ... I also believe that the people NOT attending the PEACE Marches ARE ALSO protesting by NOT ATTENDING !!!! This War is getting more complicated by the Turks (Who killed ALL those Aussies at Gallipolli) invading Northern Iraq which is a KURD State.... and the Kurds hate the Turks more than Saddam.... IMHO Some of the Media Coverage is Terrible!! I have been watching BBC CNN SKY NEWS etc... No Flames please... Lee[/size]
:o:o:bounce

ive heard from talk thatthe involvement of aussie in the war is about tryin to speed up the FREE TRADE between aussie and USA ??
anyway this war is over oil doesnt matter how much whateva have to say america is the biggest comsumor of oil in the world and they are running out so why wouldnt they attack iraq??? bush's biggest threat is the oil being lit on fire
cheers
rhys

it isn't completely about oil. But it definitely isnt about anything humanitarian. Like i said before, it's about trying to boost the American economy.

I don't want Australia to become a terrorised country

Well we are going probably going to see quite a bit of instability in the region i.e. Kurds and Turks. I hope not though.

Centuries of history involving this sort of stuff - tribal fighting; Ottoman Empire; political boundaries which split a once whole region of an ethnic group.

Israel and Palestine is a good example, or Pakistan and Indian/ Kashmir border.

There is no overnight cure, sorry. We can only dream of Peace and keep striving for it, history seems to show us never to expect it or if we do we are only being very nieve (I wish that were wrong)

Peace rallies just keep people a little more honest them they might otherwise be. Maybe the allies would not be stressing the humanitarian side of the war so much if they thought no one cared.

A thought. Keep the balance going:sandrine

Some questions you won't find in Trivial Pursuit...

01) Which is the only country in the world to have dropped bombs on over twenty different countries since 1945?

02) Which is the only country to have used nuclear weapons?

03) Which country was responsible for a car bomb which killed 80 civilians in Beirut in 1985, in a botched assassination attempt, thereby making it the most lethal terrorist bombing in modern Middle East history?

04) Which country's illegal bombing of Libya in 1986 was described by the UN Legal Committee as a "classic case" of terrorism?

05) Which country rejected the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua in 1986, and then vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law?

06) Which country was accused by a UN-sponsored truth commission of providing "direct and indirect support" for "acts of genocide" against the Mayan Indians in Guatemala during the 1980s?

07) Which country unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in December 2001?

08) Which country renounced the efforts to negotiate a verification process for the Biological Weapons Convention and brought an international conference on the matter to a halt in July 2001?

09) Which country prevented the United Nations from curbing the gun trade at a small arms conference in July 2001?

10) Aside from Somalia, which is the only other country in the world to have refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

11) Which is the only Western country which allows the death penalty to be applied to children?

12) Which is the only G7 country to have refused to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, forbidding the use of landmines?

13) Which is the only G7 country to have voted against the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998?

14) Which was the only other country to join with Israel in opposing a 1987 General Assembly resolution condemning international terrorism?

15) Which country refuses to fully pay its debts to the United Nations yet reserves its right to veto United Nations resolutions?

Answer to all 15 questions:
The United States of America.
The new moral dictators of the world??????

I've seen this one doing the rounds of late.

You know the world is a weird place when:-
1/ The best rapper is a white man.
2/ The best golfer is a black man
3/ The French are calling the US arrogant
4/ Germany won't go to war.

Squiz...

hey hotrodmatt, i posted that already in the restore not war thread.