If you oppose the war on Iraq, make your voice heard...

On the subject of anti-war protests, though, I am all in favor of beautiful women streaking in protest to war! I only wish they'd do it closer to home! And an appeal to the media--let's see some more media coverage of the nudists, please! And some better camera angles!

http://www.studentsforwar.org/hitler2.htm

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"Chances are, if your parents didn't have any kids, then you won't either."

Some comments:

Half of those nudists you see shouldn't have the right to be nude if you know what i mean.

On Hitler and Saddam, I thought it was said best as "the only difference is the size of the mustache."

On being a political war. It is for at least some part. I believe it is mostly about defense, but if you want to look at people exploiting this war for political and economical gain, turn to France.

I am not pro-war, but I think It'd be a lot better to bomb and overthrow Saddam now than to a while from now get bombed and find out that Saddam sold weapons to terrorists, or to let him oppress his people any longer. What we are doing is a precaution, and I don't belive there is immediate danger, but danger that is possible and thus must be thwarted. Its like the cops taking the guns off of a suspected criminal. You do it not because he is about to do it, which he might, but because he could do it, and probobly will at some point.

And regardless on your stance on Bush, his policies, and the war, you should back Bush and our troops once the war starts. All further protesting would do is drop the moral of the troops. It is only morally correct and the proper American thing to do to back them up once it starts. Is this at least something we can agree upon?

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"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" - Howard Beale

I admit that there are some similarities between the two. But whereas Hitler single-handedly provoked the onset of WWII, Saddam is not doing the same. I hardly think that you can equate Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, a tiny mid-Eastern nation, with Hitler's conquest of Austria, France, and much of Europe. Hitler pushed the world into war. He had a carefully drafted plan for global domination. He operated under a policy of white racial supremacy and his animosity was directed not only against Jews, but also against all "non-white" races--i.e. against all non-Nordic Christian European races. Hitler loved England and the English, Saddam despises the English. Hitler's Germany was an industrial superpower, with modern highways (constructed under his regime), a highly advanced military and boasting industrial advancement unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The same can hardly be said to apply to Saddam. I admit there are similarities--both are anti-Semitic, brutal madmen. But the similarity pretty much ends there. Hitler was a genuine threat to world stability and democracy, being a totalitarian madman with aspirations for global domination. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, is merely a petty Arab despot, one of many in the middle-East. Not in the same league.

Beale, I've seen some footage of the nude protestors--some of them are pretty hot! At least from a distance! I'd like to see some closer shots!

Regarding the Iraq war--once the shelling starts, I'll shut up! Until then, I'll continue to voice my protest. My purpose is not to undermine the morale of the US troops. It's to question the legitimacy of Bush's political stand with regard to war in Iraq.

Thats are some very good points. But you must recognize that they are very, very similar. To a side note, check out the French appeasment during both wars.

Another point: You never see people protesting Saddam and how he isn't giving up his weapons. I would be much happier with the protesters on a whole is there were more groups protests Saddam.

Some nudists maybe.

Thats cool Django. Protest as hard as you want before and after the war if you want, and thats awesome. Protesting during is not cool.

Beale, point taken.

Incidentally, if you want to think of Hitler, don't think of Saddam Hussein, who only bears a slight resemblance to Adolf.

Think, instead, of Slobodan Milosevic and his policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia--the cold-blooded, systematic extermination of the Bosnian Muslim population.

Think of Roman imperialism and the conquest and enslavement of so-called "barbaric" (i.e. non Latin-speaking) races.

Think of British imperialism and colonialism in the 19th century, and, especially, of the colonialist regime in South Africa and its policy of state-institutionalized apartheid.

These examples, I think, bear closer resemblance to Hitler's policies of military conquest and racial discrimination.

Also keep in mind the brute force of the German war machine in WWII--backed by German technology and industrial might.

Also, you mentioned "French appeasement"--frankly, that is a ridiculous statement to make. For one, the French are not "appeasing" Saddam Hussein--they are conscientiously objecting to Bush's war-mongering and aggression with respect to Iraq. In the second place, the French were hardly appeasing with respect to Hitler and Germany. Rather, the French were engaged in a struggle for liberation from German occupation during WWII--or haven't you ever heard of the "French resistance"?

In short, your whole case of analogizing Hitler's Germany and Hussein's Iraq is full of holes. Personally, I'd say that there is just as much similarity between Hitler and George W. Bush, than there is with Saddam Hussein. Like Hitler, George W. Bush pretty much hijacked the presidency of the US. Like Hitler, Bush favors the wealthy minority and pursues a policy of discrimination against the poor. Like Hitler, Bush is a war-monger bent on unprovoked military aggression.

So, in short, I'm all for the nude anti-war protestors! At least they're sexy and look good rolling around in the snow!

Another point with respect to Hitler and Imperial Rome. In Hitler's Germany, the fascist salute, that is so recognizable, was directly stolen from the Roman Imperial salute. Even the slogan "Heil Hitler", which means "Hail Hitler", was stolen from the Roman slogan "Hail Ceasar" or "Ave Caesar". And this is barely scratching the surface. Hitler modeled his entire 3rd Reich around Imperial Rome.

Ah, hypocrisy at its best.

The French helped to develop oil fields in southern Iraq. The Iraqis gave them a price break on the oil. Think the French are against the war for moral reasons? I doubt it.

Not hypocrisy--just a poor choice of words on my part. What I meant to say is that it is an incomplete, misleading comparison. While the warmongers harp on about the similarities between Saddam Hussein and Hitler, which do exist to some degree, I don't deny that, they completely ignore the major, important and substantial differences between the two. What's more, they totally ignore the similiarities between Hitler and Bush. Now that's hypocrisy because the comparisons between Hitler and Hussein are misleading, incomplete, biased and skewed.

At least some part of the French position, if not all, is morally motivated. Probably more so than Bush's position, which is totally immoral, political and commercially motivated. If you claim that oil is the French motivation and deny the same for the US, then that's hypocrisy.

Oh come on there is nothing moral about going around killing people for whatever the cause, War is not moral, if war is moral than how is blowing yourself up in a cafe surrounded with people not moral? you guys are so silly. No side is moral, Bush is flexing his muscles, Howard is licking bumholes.

Muscles? What muscles? When's the last time you saw Bush at the gym?

Face it--the only muscles that ol' man Bush is flexing are his jaw muscles! Yakety yakety yack!

Check out this link:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centr...ws/5279628.htm

Hussein may not be responsible for the deaths of over 12 million people. He may not have yet invaded the same number of countries that Hitler did. But if we go in there and get rid of him, then he won't be able to. And we'll stop a tragedy before it starts.

Comparing Hitler to Bush is the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Hitler was a tyrant who killed millions of innocent people because they didn't look the same way as him. Hitler was a ruthless dictator who believed that he should control the world. If you're going to compare Hitler invading other countries to American presidents, then perhaps you should take a look at (I'm assuming) one of your favorite presidents, Bill Clinton. He didn't bother to go to the United Nations before we went to Bosnia and Kosovo and bombed Iraq. Bush is trying to appease the international community by asking for their input. Unfortunately, they don't really care about getting the madman Hussein out of power.

The French are sending ambassadors into African countries trying to persuade them to stand against the United States, purely because the French are so Anti-American! It has nothing to do with morals. Jacque Chirac has ins on Iraqi oil, and he wants Hussein to stay there so that his hook-up can continue.

The United States is not in this for oil. We are pushing for this because Hussein is failing to live up to his end of an agreement that he signed 12 years ago and the world community does not care to do anything about it. And, perhaps, if you for once gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt, rather than trying to smear him with lies and your personal feelings about him, then maybe you would see why we need to go to Iraq. I'm completely losing respect for you in this debate because you are unable to formulate an argument without bringing your feelings about President Bush into it. When you can come up with hard evidence that Hussein is not hiding weapons and that he is fully disarming all of them, then perhaps we can try this again. Until then, lose your bias. You're starting to sound like all of the left wing groups that really have no argument for anything, they just attack the President on no real terms. It's ridiculous.

You contradict yourself. You say France does this because they're 'so Anti-American!', and then you say it's because Chirac wants Iraqi oil for himself. I don't understand what you're getting at.

The thing about oil is that everyone wants it. If Mozambique launched an attack on Iraq people would say it was for the oil. You're applying to France (sort of inversely) the same thing Django is saying about the U.S.

Yes. I don't agree with your wording, but that's the gist of why I support an invasion of Iraq.

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**** the Lakers!

I don't think USA is imperalistic or that they have imperalistic purposes with the war against Iraq. It's more like, as a swedish journalist said, that they are instead isolationistic. Americans more often than any other westerners claim that they live in the best country in the world, because they believe they do. They don't want to rule the world but they want to keep the rest of the world out of America, because there's nothing in the rest of the world that's better than the american way of life. Most of the time the two oceans surrounding America has been enough protection from the rest of the world, with a few exceptions: Pearl Harbor and 9-11. So, when things like these attacks happen USA still proceed their isolationistic politics. USA doesn't want war against Iraq because they want to possess Iraq - they want war against Iraq because they want to transform Iraq into something more american. If USA can't keep the world out of USA - then instead they have to make the world be like USA. And that's isolationalistic, not imperalistic. And it will, of course, not work. Nobody wants to be ruled. Someone once said: Before you start a war you have to ask yourself two questions. One. Are you absolutely sure that things will be considerably better after the war is won? Two. Are you absolutely sure that things won't be considerably worse after the war is won?

The UN has of course handled this situation very badly ever since the last Gulf war. But no one cared during that time. USA and Britain didn't care about all those children dying because of the sanctions and neither did the people (at least not to the extent of today) that oppose the war today.

And France. Peace lovers? Jaques Chirac was personally very involved with the France-Iraq business during the 70's. The planes spraying poison over iranians and kurds were french Mirage planes. I've seen footage myself of Chirac sitting in a sofa drinking tea with Saddam - all smiles. And that's just one example.

In the same sofa sat Donald Rumsfeld (I've seen footage of that too) after cutting some deal with Saddam. Maybe it was the deal when US gave 46 helicopters to Iraq for "fighting insects". Iraq changed two components and used them as killer machines against civilians. Or maybe Rumsfeld cut the deal where USA sold biological and chemical technologhy to Iraq - technology that were used for biological and chemical warfare against Iran and the kurds. CIA knew about these massacres all the time - but said nothing and did nothing. Now it's a problem for US. Like Chile. USA needs Chile's vote badly in UN now. But since USA supported the assasination of the democratically elected Allende and the Pinochet regime, responsible for thousands of murders and "disappearings" - the USA is not very popular in Chile these days. Maybe it's time for US to start to plan ahead a bit. It will pay off in the long run.

And Germany. Sure they're pacifists. Only they were the ones selling nuclear technology to Saddam in the 70's or 80's plus a lot of other things. They traded a lot with Iraq.

This thing isn't black or white... It's grey, grey, grey.... And Osama is sitting in a cave somewhere (if he's still alive) laughing.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Sorry to be unclear about it. I can understand why you think I'm contradicting myself. However, both of these factors (France being Anti-American and wanting to keep Iraqi oil) are influencing the French.

You guys make a number of valid points. However, I don't have the time right now to address these issues in detail. Maybe later.

One point, though.

Perhaps my position may seem heartless to people affected by 9/11. What I want to say here is that you have my heartfelt sympathy and my deepest condolences for any tragedy you might have personally suffered by that monstrous act of terrorism.

However, the facts are sometimes hard to swallow.

9/11 was a heinous act of terrorism, no denying that. However, it was an act of terrorism, not of tyranny.

The proponents of the Iraq war are equating Saddam Hussein with Hitler, presumably claiming that just as Hitler was a mass-murderer, guilty of the deaths of millions of innocents, similarly, Saddam Hussein is somehow responsible for 9/11 and the deaths of all the innocent people who suffered as a result of that terrorist attack.

However, it was not Saddam Hussein who committed that act of terrorism. It was Osama bin Laden, an extremist terrorist, motivated by a hatred for America, which he equates, in his mind, with western imperialism. And what leads him to this conclusion? For one thing, past aggression against Iraq by Bush Sr. and Clinton. Osama bin Laden sees himself as the champion of the people of Iraq, and, insane as he is, he sought to exact revenge (I think) for the deaths of Iraqi civilians by bombing the WTC on 9/11.

George W. Bush is playing right into Osama bin Laden's hands. If Bush Jr. attacks Iraq and bombs the crap out of that country, which he could do easily enough, what do you think the result will be? Do you think the Arab world is going to sit quietly by and watch? On the contrary, the militant Arab world is going to make Osama bin Laden, an extremist fringe terrorist, their champion, and there will inevitably be outright war between the Islamic world and the west. Israel will probably be the nation to suffer the most. Bush is hell-bent on pursuing an insane course of action. He really needs to consider a diplomatic solution to the problem short of going to war, for the best interests of all concerned.

Sure Saddam Hussein is a monster responsible for murdering thousands of innocent civilians. However, he was not responsible for 9/11--bin Laden was. The US needs to focus on the guilty parties and bring them to justice and not pursue a never-ending campaign to reform the world.

To make an analogy--if, for example, an extremist neo-fascist German terrorist group bombs a major US landmark, would the US go to war against Europe? Against Germany?

What I'm saying is that even if 9/11 never happened, the world would still benefit if Saddam Hussein was removed from power. He possesses chemical and biological weapons; no one is denying that, if for no other reason than they were given to him by the United States.

The terrorist factions in the Middle East may not support Saddam Hussein, but there is that outdated and facile philosophy 'an enemy of my enemy is my friend', al Qaeda members around the world have allied themselves, at least objectively, with Hussein. The potential for catastrophe here isn't debatable, and the world would be done a favor if that threat was removed. Past Iraqi aggressions obviously indicate future ones. This needs to be stopped.

Also, it sounds like you're under the assumption that Iraq is a uniformly Muslim country. The Christian, (and until recently), Jewish population of Iraq is actually quite large for the region. You're making it sound like Hussein runs a theocracy, when in fact it's just a military dictatorship (of course, neither sounds appealing to me.)

The argument that we're playing into Osama's hands is nonsense for a few reasons:

1)If you've seen the video or read what he said to his troops before 9/11, he said that the U.S. is a weak nation, too afraid to fight. If the Iraqi regime is toppled, that's another fascist state overthrown by our 'weak' country.

2)Doves & peaceniks said the exact same thing before the invasion of Afghanistan. I know, I was one of 'em. If you've seen one argument to that effect after the Taliban was overthrown, I'd like to see it. al Qaeda had to abandon its host country and lost its haven in Kandahar, hundreds of its operatives were flown to Cuba, and Osama had to flee to the mountains.

3)If the U.S. was simply backing free elections, gay & women's rights, and freedom of speech throughout the Middle East, the reaction from al Qaeda would be roughly the same as it is to a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The fascist extremist fundamentalist crazies don't want any western intervention, be it cultural or military. Given the nature of the world today that's simply impossible, so there's no pleasing the terrorists. Therefore, it doesn't matter.

Osama Bin Laden & his whacked-out brand of Islam and Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime are different versions of the same evil, and both need to be dealt with accordingly.

The goose is out of the bottle. You put the goose in a bottle with a narrow neck and say 'how do you remove the goose from the bottle?' The goose is out.

That could be said of any number of world leaders. My point is that Hussein's Iraq is not posing an imminent threat to US national security, whereas there are other more pressing, immediate threats to national security. E.g. Bin Laden, North Korea, the economy, etc. Why, then, is the US dropping everything to pursue Iraq? It could only be a political maneuver on Bush's part to exploit the situation to follow up on a Bush family feud with the Iraqi leader. You have to explore the psychology of George W. Bush to really get a clear understanding of his motives, I guess.

I agree with your quote in principle. However, Bin Laden has clearly not aligned himself with Hussein and the two come from vastly different social circles and backgrounds. True, Iraq is a despotic military regime, but it is also a pretty developed nation, for the Islamic world. In fact, Iraq is the "cradle of civilization", with a history dating back to the ancient Mesopotamian era. In the middle ages, Baghdad was regarded as one of the most civilized cities on earth. The average westerner looks upon a different culture, like the Islamic world, and, being insufficiently informed, generalizes and oversimplifies the inherent complexities. There is a quotation from Sun Tzu's Art of War that goes--"know your enemy"--study your enemy and understand where he is coming from. Perhaps the US needs to study the Islamic world and better understand the complexities inherent in that ancient civilization a little better before engaging in yet another misplaced crusade. Study also the history of the Crusades of the Middle Ages and the horrifying catastrophes that ensued as a result before blandly endorsing another Iraqi invasion!

I hardly said that Hussein runs a theocracy! In fact, you make my point that there is a world of difference between Bin Laden and his philosophy and Hussein and his world. Bin Laden is a religious fanatic who is bent on pursuing a religious war. Hussein is just another petty despot--a military dictator--who has no real connection with Bin Laden and his cause.

Nevertheless, Bin Laden sees himself as the champion of the cause of the Iraqi people--he even incited the people of Iraq to rebel against Hussein. I have no doubt that he will exploit the US invasion of Iraq to fuel his own cause and personal agenda. Also, after the US pretty much devastated the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, I hardly see how he can call the US a "weak nation".

Incidentally, I fully supported US action in Afghanistan. But I object to an armed US incursion into Iraq because it's just not the same thing.

It's not about appeasing the terrorists. It's a) a question of priorities for the US; b) a humanitarian issue, and c) a political issue for Bush. Incidentally, these terrorists are not fascists, though they are certainly extremists. They are a group of radical Islamic whackos bent on attacking the western establishment to further their own bizarre, misogynistic, extremist brand of religion. Incidentally, I have no sympathy for the terrorists and fully endorse their apprehension. I do, however, object to Bush making an issue out of Iraq when there are far more pressing issues he should be looking at.

I thought we agreed earlier that they are two VERY different things! Bin Laden is a religious extremist--a zealot. Hussein is a military dictator in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, fairly cosmopolitan nation. In fact, consider this: whereas Bin Laden and the Taliban believe in the oppression and enslavement of women, Iraq is the most advanced society in the Islamic world with respect to women's rights and education. Women have a very high status in Iraqi society.

I'm not sure I follow you, but I was citing an illustration here to make a point. Perhaps you are reading too much into my words. My point was that Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are two very different things and the US needs to focus its attentions on the guilty party and not declare a generalized crusade against all its enemies all over the world. The US needs to follow a specific course of action--apprehend Bin Laden--not go around declaring war arbitrarily on anyone it happens to dislike or disagree with.