Iraq Viewpoint

[Ensign Paris]

Hi,

This post may very well loose any friends I had on MacRumors previously, but its something that people should know. Britain and the US moving thousands and thousands of troops, aircraft and navy equipment, as well as sending out real threats to Saddam Hussian do not mean there is going to be a war. It is a show of strength and unity.

In my personal opinion, and this is only my view, but the war on Iraq is more likely to happen now that the peace protests have taken place. If we were all united behind our leaders then we probably wouldn't be going to war. Saddam now believes that there are a great number of people around the world opposed to any war, so he will push his luck. Before, he wasn't as sure, and we would have been able to push out military might without actually firing a single weapon. Those troops might have been enough to stop the problems.

We can't make threats and then not make good on them, we have to attack Iraq now because if we don't Saddam will start to believe that he wont get attacked, we are back to square one.

Make any sense to anyone? If possible I would like not to have a war, but i believe it is rather inevitable now.

Ensign

[job]

ironically your viewpoint coincides with several of the posters here, especially macfan's.

[alex_ant]

Yeah... if the protests hadn't happened, all the protestors wouldn't have felt differently, and Saddam wouldn't have been able to see the same damned lack of support for the war in polls worldwide. Try again

[jelloshotsrule]

good point ale X_ant

it's not like 90% of the people support war and thus in the polls it's clear. but then these few freaks show up and bash the war.

rather. it's about 50/50 (or like 47/47 with some undecided) at least in the US. the anti war folks certainly outnumber the pro war folks in some other parts of the world.

i mean, millions of people showed up to these things. yet that clearly isn't as high as the numbers in the polls... for any number of reasons (can't go, don't feel strongly enough to go, etc). yet we aren't putting an end to the public polls, are we?

[evildead]

What I love about the current protesters is that most of them know very little about what they are protesting against. I love the stupid signs they hold up... I mean, they are more interested in getting on the news than making a point. The rest are just ex hippies that are trying to re-live their youth

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by evildead
What I love about the current protesters is that most of them know very little about what they are protesting against. I love the stupid signs they hold up... I mean, they are more interested in getting on the news than making a point. The rest are just ex hippies that are trying to re-live their youth

you like to paint them with very broad strokes. so i assume you've spoken with "most" (say, 80%) of them and know their thoughts and intentions? cool

you should write a book about it or something. would sell pretty well

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by evildead
What I love about the current protesters is that most of them know very little about what they are protesting against. I love the stupid signs they hold up... I mean, they are more interested in getting on the news than making a point. The rest are just ex hippies that are trying to re-live their youth
It's always the fanatics who are the most noticeable, even when they comprise only a small portion of the crowd they're in.

[charboneau]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule

rather. it's about 50/50 (or like 47/47 with some undecided) at least in the US. the anti war folks certainly outnumber the pro war folks in some other parts of the world.

Actually poll numbers show 80% opposition in Italy, despite the fact that Silvio Berlusconi owns most of the media there and supports the war.

Britain runs about 79-80% opposed but Tony Blair ignores it.

The opposition to the war is huge. Do you think that every person opposed to the war went out on a cold February Saturday and protested. Each protestor present represents a large number of people who feel the same way.

The protest in NYC was huge despite the efforts of city and federal officials to curtail it: not issuing a march permit to keep crowds away, shutting down and slowing subway lines, police barricades keeping people from the demonstration site, news reports concurrent with the demonstration telling people to just stay away.

The government is doing everything it can to silence the growing dissent, including infringing on the basic Constitutional right to assemble and to speak freely. Already we have unconstitutional laws on the books thanks to the Bush administration that allow people to be held without charge, denied a public trial and that make breaking into your home without a warrant and removing and altering any items they find to be perfectly "legal."

And as a side note, the crowd at the NYC event was diverse and about as mainstream as you can get. And from all the people I talked to, VERY WELL INFORMED AND PASSIONATE.

In fact with National Academy of Science and more than 40 Nobel Laureates opposed to the war, with four former Poet Laureates of the United States coming forward to for a poets against war reading in NY, with the city council's of such university towns as Madison, Stevens Point, Davis, Charlottesville, Burlington, Austin, Oberlin, Chapel Hill, Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca, New Paltz, Princeton, Kalamazoo, Amherst, Northampton, Cambridge, Orono, Eugene, Corvallis, Bloomington, Evanston, New Haven, Urbana, Boulder, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara issuing anti-war statements, one thing seems pretty clear:

SMART, INFORMED PEOPLE OPPOSE THE WAR

Additionally there are similar resoultions from such large cities as:
Milwaukee
Washington D.C.
Providence
Philadelphia
Cleveland
Jersey City
Newark
Detroit
Baltimore
Portland, ME (and the state of Maine)
Des Moines
Gary
Chicago
Atlanta
Seattle
San Francisco
Oakland
Santa Monica
Santa Barbara
West Hollywood


Oh and the state of Hawaii

Resistance to war is huge. It is right. Political dissent is patriotic.

[charboneau]

ORANGE ALERT (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/02/17/hsorensen.DTL)

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by charboneau
etc

Resistance to war is huge. It is right. Political dissent is patriotic.

i'm sorry, didn't you see that the guy who knows most of the protesters said they're dumb and just trying to re-live their youth? i'm sorry you didn't realize the truth before you posted.. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:




but for real. well said. thanks

[3777]

Political section:o

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by 3777
Political section:o

you are right 100 percent

i didn't notice that there was a separate politics section until recently

next, we should have a sex/gender section and yes...a poop thread section:p