Originally Posted by Sasquatch
The "America is racist, and we don't like Africans" comment was sarcastic, obviously enough, and aimed at Akira Makie, who has it in his head that America is racist.
Some initial estimates (as in, before the conflict started, mainly those of anti-war liberals) placed the toll at tens of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians. In reality, I believe less than (or around) two thousand Coalition troops have been lost, and nowhere near 100,000 civilians have been killed by Coalition forces. Hell, the insurgents have probably killed more civilians than any outside force.
Saying the war is "illegal" is also about ridiculous. The UN disagreed with it, but did nothing to stop it--even when a Coalition outside the UN's juristiction was formed and took action. It was and is not "illegal" in any way, shape, or form. Our initial motives didn't qualify for you? Too bad, that's still reason enough. We went in and didn't find as much as we thought we would? Would you rather us leave him alone and have been right, but not find out until one of our cities gets attacked with a chemical agent? Don't answer that--I know a lot of people here would just like to see America and Americans hurt, as would a majority of the world.
The UN has a well-known history of complete and utter failure. Even if the UN had decided to do something (which they should have), they would have sent primarily American troops. Not to mention it was being controlled by France and Germany, two countries which were profiting from illegal under-the-table trading with Saddam.
"In 20 years or so, both Iraq and Afghanistan will likely be anarchic hellholes or fundamentalised-ruled states again."
Even if that is true--which you have absolutely no way of knowing much about--then it still means they'll have twenty years of freedom. I'd say it's well worth it. Hell, even if that "100,000 civilian deaths" crap was anywhere close to true.
"To blame it all on "teh evaile arab terrorists" is as one-sided as it is racist."
Sorry, I didn't realize the majority of terrorists were something other than Muslim Arabs. OH WAIT, THEY ARE ARAB MUSLIMS. Is it "racist" to say that, even though it's the truth? The NAACP would love you. (Unless you're white, of course...well, even with that mentality, they could use you.) And pointing out that the majority of terrorism is carried out by Arab Muslims is one-sided because, well, terrorism is one-sided, and that side is the Arab Muslims' side.
The Middle East will continue to hate the West as long as the West is still rich and Christian. Just like they will continue to hate Isreal as long as there is an Isreal to hate, and especially a Jewish Isreal. If your reference to "respect for national sovereignty" means that dictators should be allowed to torture, rape, and slaughter hundreds of thousands of their civilian populace without having to worry about "the Great Satan, America" stepping in to put a stop to it, then I am proud that I live in a country that doesn't "respect national sovereignty".
"I'm well aware that many North African and Middle Eastern states are well behind the rest of us in their level of human rights enforcement. However, improvements cannot be forced with military might; that only creates further suffering and injustice down the line. True change has to come from within."
How? "Oh mister dictator, will you please stop torturing my family, raping my wife, and slaughtering my friends? Pretty please? With a cherry?" Quite often, military action, or at least the threat of military action, is the only way to make improvements. You think Hitler would have realized what he was doing was wrong and stopped and apologized if Britain said "Alright now, you keep going and we're going to have to stop trading with you"? Hell no.
"The invasion or Iraq was about removing a cruel and corrupt dictator and eliminating an old enemy, with the additional aim of democratising another Middle Eastern state. A noble objective, perhaps, but the west truly has no business to go about deciding that its own system of government - liberal democracy - is fundamentally superior to other ways of life, and then killing anyone who disagrees."
Even if you were right, what would be wrong with removing a cruel and corrupt dictator? And the second point has me stumped a bit...a democracy isn't "fundamentally superior" to a dictatorship under Saddam Hussein, who has people tortured and raped for fun, and slaughters thousands of his own people on a whim? If you'd rather live under that kind of dictatorship, you're welcome to it, but it's pretty obvious that democracy might be just a tad bit better.
"...if we truly are supposed to be a world devoid of inequality and discrimination."
Yeah, one big Socialist earth, that'd be great right? Where nobody is any better off than anybody else, and no country is any better off than any other country. Let the whole earth live in poverty so the third-world countries aren't lonely.
T-Man -- Understood. Saddam had the capacity (or could quickly transfer things to create such capacity) to make chemical and biological weapons, and was developing the technology to make nuclear weapons. That, along with "he is a dangerous and ruthless dictator", was the reason the U.S., along with more than 20 other countries, I believe, formed a Coalition to oust him and restore Iraq to a functional, free state. We didn't find as much of the WMD as our intelligence had told us to expect, but that doesn't change the fact that it was right to do. There were other countries with nuclear capabilities, but most of them could be reasoned with, and weren't enemies of the United States already--prettymuch, they could be trusted not to do something stupid with their nukes, especially not the U.S. or U.S. interests.
