I have never paid any attention to Amnesty International and I never will.

Ignore them, everybody in any position of importance does.

Don

Excellent post....hit everything on the head!

That post says it all.

The sound of a desperare man, raging at us, raging at everything.

We must be really bugging you.

"- but all of the indiciations are that Saddam has killed ORDERS OF MAGNITUDES more of his own people in this conflict than the US has"

Now imagine using that in court

"Yes Judge I did kill that man, but Stalin killed millions"

"In that case you are free to go!"

Someone elses crime does not excuse yours.

Gee Harm, apparently you didn't read the beginning of this post.

"So far, there's no credible evidence that the explosion in the Shaab marketplace had anything to do with coalition forces"

Why don't you go to your BBC (who has a reporter living in that part of Baghdad). He arrived in less than 10 minutes after he heard the explosion. He was questioning some of the people on site when he arrived. The response he got from 5-7 different individuals, after they looked around to make sure there were no Iraqi Secret Police standing near was, "it wasn't a missle."

When one of our cruise missles makes contact, the last 3-4ft of the tail survives the contact and is usually lying around the impact site. Have you seen that in any photos? Didn't think so. And if it was a JDAM, there wouldn't be anything left of the building. Sorry Harm, but you've been duped. Again.

Oh, and Neal, you forgot to add the turning a hospital into a military headquarters. Kicking out all of the patients to suffer and/or die.

Because the coalition forces have morals, we lost at least 9 of our wonderful Marines in a frontal assault of this hospital. They decided to not call in artillery/air support, since they didn't know if patients were still in there.Do you think the Iraqi Army will be so kind if they can attack one of our military hospitals?

You can go sod off Harm. Our men and women are dying in order to keep colateral damage to a minimum. You and yours are emboldening Saddam and his cohorts to commit the aforementioned atrocities. Your comparison to a murderer using Stalin for a defense is a straw man on fire. Are you so full of hate that you would see good men die, and innocent citizens brutilized?

Right analog, it wasnt one of our bombs, oh no thats impossible, we are just sooo accurate.

Strange then that we keep hitting our own guys.

Got a link to this BBC reporters comments, I watch the BBC and thats not been on it.

Reading this has convinced me though!

https://www.whitehouse.org/news/2003/032603.asp

Harmonia, you ignorant slut. That's a satire site.

Got something against satire now?

Terrible shame about Richard Pearl wasnt it!

Harm, how bad is terrorism in the UK? Do have people flying planes into your buildings because your country is "Satan"? Has there ever been terrorism in the UK? When it comes down to it, the root of this war is 9/11. That is what brought on the campaign to stop terrorism, WORLDWIDE. See, you try to tell all of the families of those victims that we are doing the wrong thing. Look at you, your country is a supporter. How can you consider yourself a citizen. If you don't like the way that things are going, then move. Move to Iraq! Take your family. Worry everyday that somebody is going to knock down your door and rape your daughter right in front of you. Your 12 year old daughter. I don't know you but I do know that you would develop hate. Hate so bad that you would do anything to get out. What if you were told that you had to fight for your country or your family would die. Be thankful that you have the right to choose. Saddam is a madman and he doesn't care about his people. It is only a matter of time before he goes off the deep end and launches an attack on the US. Or maybe the UK! See, you think that things are nice and peachy. You can sit down three, four times a day and drink your tea and eat your crumpits. What if you had no idea from ane day to the next if you would wake up and find out your capitol building was gone from a terrorist attack. See, you don't have to worry. Bush is doing the right thing by taking this war to them. He is taking it to them before they bring it back to us. I bet you consider yourself a good, patriotic citizen. A good citizen would be supportive in the face of an evil on the level of Saddam. So, screw Saddam, screw Iraq, and screw anti-war protesters!!

Blake, ever heard of the IRA?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/ira_campaign.shtml

As for the rest, I hope you now feel happier for getting that off your chest.

Laughing all alone at jokes you make doesn't make you bright harm, it make you look sad. Satire requires wit and humor to succeed.

Ya, know Harm, I will bite my toungue and say

that you are right. You have had your share of

bad shit! How did you feel about it though? Do

you hat the IRA for what they have done? If so,

what if they started to kill people again (I say

again because, though I am not familiar with your

history, I believe that there has been a peace

agreement)? What if they did something on the

level of 9/11? If the United States came to your

countries aid, would you be against it? Would

you even want retribution for what happened?

But forget all that. Enough of all this

protesting. No amount of it is going to bring

our troops home. Don't show love for your

country. But show love for the troops. Do you

think that seeing their countries protest what

they are doing increases their morale?

How we finally dealt with the IRA was to accept that the Irish people had legitimate greivances (sp) that had to be addressed.

It was hard as lots of people screamed "Dont appease terrorists" etc but while the ceasefire is still shaky, we now have members of the IRA in government positions.

Its not the same as the madmen who carried out the atrocity visited on you on 9-11 (which no-one I know has ever said was in any way justified) but thats what Blair did.

Do you think Blair would hesitate to send in tanks if the Irish had one tenth the crimes of Huessein on their hands? Apples and oranges harm. You are comparing dealing with a mouse with dealing with a biker gang. Both involve violence, but the comparison ends there.

As far as I know Puggs no-on ever carpet bombed Dublin, or indeed used special forces where the IRA was recieving the bulk of it's funding.

That was New York.

But as I said, your righth 9-11 was on a far more horrible scale, although what it has to do with attacking Iraq I have no idea.

It has a lot to do with it. The US has always known the threat of terrorism. Finally, after 9/11 the decision was made to stop international terrorism. It was on that day that the US decided to fight back not just for us but for the world as well. Do you think that Saddam would hesitate bombing us or you or or any other country? He wouldn't. The US may catch some flack about trying to be a peacekeeper. But hey, if we didn't do it then who would. You would have about ten more Saddams floating around and the threats to the world would be even greater. See, world terrorism affects everybody. By eliminating the problem at the source, we can save many more lives. Sure, this does not justify the brave soldiers that lose their lives but with the "choice" they made to do this comes that risk. See, those are the men and women that know the best. They know that by them giving up their life, they may save a hundred. That is bravery.

We haven't carpet bombed Bagdad either, you throw out that phrase like you knew what it meant. It means total elimenation of a city, everything, homes, factories, government buildings, everthing. It means making a city look like the surface of the moon. When have we done that since 45 harm?

Again you didn't understand what I said. You compared your experience with the IRA to Iraq, I didn't. I pointed out that if the IRA had not only bombed hotels, but had done the types of things that Iraq has, gasing towns that have non-chatholics for example, that using tanks would have been an acceptible means of stopping it.

You don't debate Saddam harm, all you can do is kill him.

But Puggsm when he was gassing those towns hew had full American and British support (as I am sure you know)

It's a little odd for Saddams friends (Rumsfeldt etc) who ignored the gassing at the time, for them to suddenly get all pious.

I don't speak for Rummy, just me. But no one bitched much at the time, not anyone. So any hypocrisy on that issue is spread pretty thin. I saw the figures somewhere that the sum total of US support for Saddam up to 91 was 200,000 thousand, USSR 25 billion, France about 10 billion. I can't remember where, but it was probably on instapundit.

What you don't appreciate is just how much of a sea change 9/11 caused here in America. Old time cold war alliences with thugs are being tossed over the side one by one. We thought they were for the greater good, well we have rethought that position. But we get no encouragement for doing so, the same ones who damned us for having them, now damn us for casting them off.

It all boils down to this, we are uniquely powerfull, no rival anywhere, no one in our fighting class. You are afraid of us, fine, we think thats not rational, but go ahead. Everything in our character says we do not tolerate an open threat, not anymore. That scares our enemies sure, but why people like you harm? Someone will dominate, we got the job through circumstance, not design. better us than the Russians or French. Much as you cite our sins, theirs were worse.

Well said!!!!!!!

I agree, well said puggs.

Harm, I do not have a link for the BBC info I pointed out. But, judging from the physical evidence (imagine that. evidence) it wasn't anything of ours. First off, the crater that was made by the explosion is less than 1.5m across. The smallest thing we throw around anymore is a 500lb JDAM. It would make a crater that size if it had hit and NOT gone off. If it had exploded you could fit a full sized car into the hole. And it wasn't a cruise missel. Again, the tail section is no where to be seen. And trust me here, if it was there, they would show the film of it. The evidence points to a S2S missle that crapped out after chasing one of our planes.

The other option is a group of soldiers with shoulder fired missles. And since they are shooting at civilians who are just trying to get free food and water from coalition forces, I wouldn't put it past them.

Again Harm, name one country besides the U.S./GB that would put it's own soldiers in danger before risking civilian casualties? I dare you.