Iraq War Illegal?

[johnc]

I dare anyone to read that webpage and say at least 3/4 of what's on there doesn't make sense.

 

I read that stuff years ago. Nothing new. Same old "conspiracy theory" BS just updated to reflect our current leadership. I'm waiting for the Nostradamous links next...

[JMortensen]

Bastaad are you normally this gullible? I mean, look at the address!!! commonsense/armaggedon

 

According to this theory he is a overzealous crusader, but according to Kevin's he's a Satanist... who is right here???

 

I am a firm agnostic, but I'm getting pretty tired of people using Bush's religious convictions to "prove" weird conspiracy theories about his intentions. I suggest you start looking at the Socialist websites for some more insight into this. The more I look at them, the more I see correlations between your commonsense/armaggedon site and Kevin's Bush is a Satanist Illuminati/LaRouche/the Jews secretly own the US sites, and the Socialists' websites. New World Order, Illuminati, Skull and Bones, its all the same conspiracy theory crap.

[Guest bastaad525]

nope no Nostradamus links. Really the link I posted is nothing like that, and I'd wish you wouldn't characterize it like that and keep others from even being interested. I don't buy the Nostradamus stuff. I dont' really buy the bible code stuff either. And I wouldn't classify a lot of what's on that page as being anything like 'cospiracy theories'. I don't buy the new world order stuff either and I highly doubt Bush is a satanist (first time I heard that one, it did get a laugh out of me).

 

 

I posted elsewhere that I myself am pretty skeptical of a lot of what I read there. I can't say I consider Bush himself to be a religous 'nut' or extremist. What I do know, is there are a lot of religious extremists out there (not just of the muslim variety). There are a lot of people who take the Bible and everything it says VERY seriously and literally. Including the book of revelations. I know that some of these people pull some big strings in government.

 

 

now answer me this, what is so hard to believe about some hardcore religious extremists following the word of the Bible to the letter? What if they look at Revelations as literal prophecy? There ARE some people who do. What if they think they can affect the events as presented there? What if they think it is their DUTY to make those things come to pass, so that the end time would finally come and they could go to heaven? WHY is that so hard to believe? I have truly known some religious 'nuts' myself, and wouldn't put it past some people who really believe, to try to bring about the rapture and the end of the world so that they may go to heaven. What WOULDN"T you do to get into heaven? I won't say one way or the other if I actually believe it would happen, but I do believe there are people out there who do, and would try to make it happen if they could.

 

 

If the whole war between the Israeli's and the Muslims is not at least partially based on religios beliefs, what's it all about then? People CAN and DO go very far in the name of those beliefs.

 

 

And please don't call me gullible, I merely try to be open minded. I"m sorry but a lot of what I read there made sense to me and seems like it could be very possible. It would seem to explain some things about our involvement in Iraq, and our relations with Israel. It doesn't sound all that crazy and it does seem to fit in a lot of ways. Sorry but I do accept it as a possible and plausible explanation.

 

 

And I have yet to read or hear any better explanations, that's for sure. Maybe for the war in Iraq, but I have yet to hear some good explanations about our goverments relations with Israel. If any of you have one I'm all ears.

[JMortensen]

I'm sorry Bastaad, I really didn't mean to offend you.

 

Seriously though, start looking around and you'll find all sorts of religious conspiracy theories, and a lot of them come from the Socialists. Note that socialists tend to suppress religion and communists outright ban it. I read about the first half of that webpage, then just glanced at the titles for the rest of it, and the first half was very similar to a lot of the conspiracy theory stuff I've read elsewhere.

 

I kinda got into this when I went to the Post Office about a year ago and there was a LaRouche booth outside. I talked to the guy for a while and bought some stuff, read it and thought it was crap. About a year later I was listening to a Soundgarden song "New Damage". The line "A New World Order, it's new damage done..." piqued my interest and I went a searching on the web for "New World Order" and found that there is a LOT of crossover between all of these theories.

 

now answer me this, what is so hard to believe about some hardcore religious extremists following the word of the Bible to the letter? What if they look at Revelations as literal prophecy? There ARE some people who do.

 

This might not go over too well with any fundamentalists here, but Christian fundamentalists aren't very good at being fundamentalists. http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/drlaura.asp Just read the letter to Dr. Laura. If nothing else, it is HILARIOUS and points out how not fundamental Christian fundamentalists are.

 

Fanatics of ANY stripe are dangerous. The real question is do the fundamentalist fanatics have the pull with Bush that the website suggests. Bush is not afraid to use his executive powers, I think we can all agree, and I think if he were of the mindset that is described in that website that we would know it, because it would be plainly obvious. I personally haven't seen it, but then I haven't seen him act like a Satanist or an Illuminati or a Knight Templar or any of this other conspiracy stuff either.

[Guest Phil1934]

I do wonder what the motive for Iraq was. Gerry Trudeau advances the idea of empire building. Here is one for religious zeal. Some say we are representing Israels's agenda. Michael Moore says it's about oil. Others say it's about construction contracts. Bush said it was about "He tried to kill my daddy", WMD, then about freeing the people from Saddam. The 9/11 probe did not even try to clarify the reason, other than to state there were no WMD. Saudi Arabia has been paying for radio commercials that say the 9/11 Commission found no Saudis flew during the flight ban and neither the Saudi government nor the royal family sponsors terrorism. We know both these statements to be untrue. So the commission was a joke and it is not likely to be reopened with a Republican congress. That they put their stamp of appproval on unsworn testimony with the White House lawyer advising should cause people to call for a new investigation. But few are even aware of the 100,000 Iraqis killed by our troops, only the 1125 we lost. That we are bombing Fallujah into the ground does not speak well of our intent to free the people and improve their lives so we can mark that one off the list. I don't think there's enough religion in DC to cause a stir. (Kerry had no charitable deductions until he prepared to run for the presidency.) Two down. There has been enough talk of memos discrediting the WMD intelligence that we can assume that was an excuse. Strike three. There are closer neighbors to Israel they should worry about. Four down. So we invaded Iraq because it was a secular state and not likely to receive help from its neighbors. Iran is obviously a bigger threat and has killed and imprisoned Americans. Why we haven't blown up the Saudi's Al-Jazeer TV station is another good question. Either we are empire building or helping a Saudi agenda. I don't think Bush is enough of a thinker for empire building. So we come back to a Saudi/Bush family business. If we truly had an independent media in this country they would detail the business interests of Congress and the President and the bills they voted for when a moral man would have recused himself and maybe we would get back to the government we should have. But then they wouldn't be granted access to press conferences or rides on the media plane or might run contrary to their outlet's owner. Maybe there's a conflict of interest there too.

[Guest bastaad525]

Like I said I dont' consider Bush a fanatic, I'm really unsure what to believe about Bush at this point. But, I know that Bush does invoke the name of God a heck of a lot more than any president I can remember. And he has made references to doing some of the things he's doing because it's the will of god... or like, god WANTED him in charge when all this happened.

 

 

I know religious fanatics like Jerry Fallwell and Franklin Graham do have close ties with Bush. These are the people I wouldn't put past the idea of trying to make certain things happen. Who's to say how much influence they have on Bush.

 

 

Look... just about any Christian out there (I assume all?) believes in the Second Coming of Christ, that this WILL happen. Many do believe that the events in the book of Revelations will also happen. Many of those do believe it will happen SOON, that current events are signs of how close we are to this event. This isn't conspiracy theory. This isn't crazy. This is real, everyday, sane rational people, believing in what some might consider crazy things. If those in power believe these things... they dont' even have to be fanatics, just true believers, why wouldn't they play along with what the bible foretells will happen or has to happen?

[johnc]

Many do believe that the events in the book of Revelations will also happen. Many of those do believe it will happen SOON, that current events are signs of how close we are to this event. This isn't conspiracy theory. This isn't crazy. This is real, everyday, sane rational people, believing in what some might consider crazy things. If those in power believe these things... they dont' even have to be fanatics, just true believers, why wouldn't they play along with what the bible foretells will happen or has to happen?

 

But that same has been true for generations, which is my point about the link you posted. These exact arguments were brought up and argued even more forefully when John F. Kennedy (Catholic) was running for President. There was a lot of fear that the Pope would actually be running the country.

 

Its nothing new and every time its proven to be wrong.

[JMortensen]

Look... just about any Christian out there (I assume all?) believes in the Second Coming of Christ, that this WILL happen. Many do believe that the events in the book of Revelations will also happen. Many of those do believe it will happen SOON, that current events are signs of how close we are to this event.

 

True enough, but the Jehovah's Witnesses have predicted the second coming and Armageddon something like 7 or 8 times now. Jim Jones and all of his followers drank their Kool-Aid. You've got the Hale-Bopp guys CUTTING THEIR NUTS OFF and killing themselves in their Nikes. Through a friend I actually met a guy who bought land in Arizona believing that Nostradamus's prophecies would come true and CA would fall into the ocean, leaving him with ocean front property.

 

I think it is an irrational part of human nature to think that the END IS NEAR, and it seems to be a pretty universal thing througout history. You were aware that just like 2000, on Dec 31, 999 people also thought Armaggedon was upon them, right?

 

The problem with the conspiracy theorists is that they are very good at making connections. They can weave a tale that has you believing their crap at the end. "Evidence" abounds, and can be convincing if you aren't very skeptical. I was listening to one skeptic who was talking about the Bible Code, and he was saying if you looked you could find a pattern, and interpret a meaning, in the number of streetlights you find on particular streets in particular alignments, etc. All I'm saying is read more about conspiracy theories, look around you and see what is going on, and then judge for yourself what is true and what is false.

[Guest socket_toomee]

Hey, i just asked a question about whether you guys feel lied to or not i wasn't "casting any stones".

 

And after reading my countries data, in 2001 there was 340 homicides, because i can't access any info on gun realted murders after 1995that i'll go by 1995 in which under 20% of homicides were involved with firearms, under my calculations that is 85 gun related murders. How many did Detroit have? When i did sociology in Lincoln Nebraska, my teacher told me it was much higher, i won't quote any numbers cause i don't remember. I spent a year in the U.S. So it's not like i'm just some foreigner who says Americans are arrogant pricks, I have a lot of friends there and have close ties to my host family

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi066.html

[johnc]

The latest numbers, off the top of my head, is about 16,000 firearm related murders in 2003 which is about 5.4 for every 100,000 people (295,000,000 US population). Using your 85 figure and an Australian population of about 20,250,000 I calculate a firearm related murder rate of .42 for every 100,000 people.

 

In general the US is a more violent country then Australia and it has always been that way. Lots fo reasons for it beyond the weapons used.

 

FYI... To put the US numbers in perspective - the US CDC calculates on average that 62,000 people in the US die each year from the flu, 32,000 each year from blood poisoning, and 19,000 from illegal drug overdoses.

 

I'm curious... why you feel that the firearm murder rate in the US is important in this discussion?

[Guest 2slo4u]

I am sure that with our technology, we could have disposed of Saddam and Osama years ago without even being detected. Geez, we're one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet. Besides our motivation for keeping hold of precious oil, we are after all imposing "our" beliefs on others. Obviously if we "help" achieve "demoracy" over there, it will be easier to maintain control over more oil. I do not believe for one second that we needed to send our troops to "pacify" all of the remnants of Saddam's "regime". We could have pinpointed his @$$ using Satellite imaging and/or GPS using various methods and popped him like a cherry. We're all spoonfed the media every day that shapes our opinions whether we like it or not. We average our television and written news (ooh, must be factual... it's on paper!) into one mass of digestable data to make our choices.

In the meantime, I worry about my little brother whose been in that hellhole twice now and hope he makes it back in one piece. I wonder how he justifies in his heart killing people that he's never met. People who have children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I hope Bush's BULL$#IT bleeding heart (bleeding with oil) ideals don't leave my brother with permanent nightmares of a battle we shouldn't even be fighting.

[Guest socket_toomee]

My reason was because i asked if you guys felt abused for george W's lying to you, and Mikelly asked about John Howards lying about disarming the general public, in my mind that "lie" was fairly successful for the country, Mike D is the only reason i brought it up. My Question about whether anyone feels abused is still unanswered. You don't have to answer of course.

[Pop N Wood]

No. I don't feel abused. Mainly because I don't feel lied to. I feel those who are keying in on WMD are uniformed. There were a 100+ reasons for invading Iraq. The potential for WMD was just the one everybody latched on to and the one Bush made a selling point. There is a difference between being wrong and being lied to.

 

I really don't want to argue whether the war was right or wrong. Out of all the reasons I could think of there are unquestionably people who won't agree with them. But unlike some of the depressed individuals flaming all these political threads, I recognize there are other, fully legitimate points of view beside my own.

 

Also you may want to go back and read Mike's post to you. He didn't say gun deaths in Oz went up. He said violent crimes went up. Big difference. Some would claim one could be prevented by the other.

[Guest bastaad525]

look around you and see what is going on, and then judge for yourself what is true and what is false.

 

 

That's the problem right there, and may be where I'm crazy or not I dunno, but I AM looking around, looking at situations and trying to understand the why's of them... Before it always seemed it was about the oil... I've never believed this was just about 'stamping out terrorism'. But now that I've read the ideas presented on that webpage, they do make a lot of sense to me. Hey I'm still taking them with a grain of salt... I believed the whole Y2k scenario to be much more likely, and yet, you didn't see me preparing for disaster or pulling all my funds out of the bank like some people I knew.

 

While a lot of reasons have been given by all kinds of people for why our government is concentrating on Iraq right now, and many of them seem very plausible, so far this 'conspiracy theory' (I still say it doesn't qualify as that) gives what I consider the best explanation to what has always been very mystifying to me... the relationship between our government and Israel. So far, ONLY the conspiracy theories that have been presented to me seem to make any sense when trying to explain that. I've yet to hear a plausible, 'rational' explanation for what seems very irrational behavior.

 

 

Also, the difference between what this website is talking about, and the jehovah's witnesses or nostradamus predictions, is that this theory doesn't rely on waiting on predictions at all, rather, it talks about people trying their damndest to make 'prophecies' (Revelations in the Bible) come true, rather than just waiting for it to happen. The Jim Jones and Hale Bopp cases only seem to strengthen the point, for me... it shows that people will do crazy things if they believe something enough. So the only question it leaves, for me, is just how much do Bush or the other high ups making the decisions believe in Revelations and the second coming of Christ? Obviously the other 2/3'rds, the Israeli's and the Muslims, believe their teachings enough to fight and die and do what many might consider 'crazy things' in the name of their god's or beliefs. So why not our guys?

[Guest socket_toomee]

Because someone has a different political system, is that the right reason to invade them? even if they aren't within the geneva convention, which the U.S doesn't apply to

[Guest 2slo4u]

It's not about religion, conspiracies, "WMD", or "helping" to create democracy in another country. It's about OIL plain and simple. 9/11 just gave us the oppurtunity to try to get a better hold on it. Our government took advantage of our feelings about the unfortunate death of our people in New York to get more control over there. Our country runs on oil plain and simple. The top dogs in the automotive industry do not give a crap about the environment, there's plenty of oil to last until they die. The top dogs at all the refineries also could give a crap less about alternate energy sources, they've already invested so much $ in oil refining technology. You can sit here and try to break our contry's role in Iraq down in a million pieces, as intricate as you can get, and you're trying to find some needle in a haystack to explain everything... it's not going to happen. Like one of my teachers once said "Brian, you're making it more complicated than it really is.. the answer is right there... it's not as complex as you think" Sometimes the answer is very simple, OIL.

Bush can talk about overturning tyranny and helping those "poor" people out, but he is just giving us those lectures to get us moving in his direction, kind of like a pep rally in high school "USA, all the way, ra ,ra ra" But he's just trying to justify the deaths of more of our troops by blaming the death of the people in New York on Saddam or Osama or some other new entity they'll fiind when they capture Osama and find that he really didn't coordinate the plane crash. Geez, it'll never end.

[JMortensen]

The Jim Jones and Hale Bopp cases only seem to strengthen the point, for me... it shows that people will do crazy things if they believe something enough. So the only question it leaves, for me, is just how much do Bush or the other high ups making the decisions believe in Revelations and the second coming of Christ? Obviously the other 2/3'rds, the Israeli's and the Muslims, believe their teachings enough to fight and die and do what many might consider 'crazy things' in the name of their god's or beliefs. So why not our guys?

 

The guys who espouse these wacko theories... THEY are the Jim Joneses and the Heaven's Gaters. Do you notice how John and Mike Kelly have been citing all the "Chicken Little" stories this election year? You have another Chicken Little story on your hands, but you are telling the rest of us that you think the sky really IS falling.

 

The problem with the conspiracy theories is that there is always some fact that can be twisted around to make it look at least slightly plausible, and most people's reaction is once they start to believe the first little lie, they are willing to stretch to believe the second, then all of the other ones kind of fall into place until your sitting there in your pajamas convinced that Bush's govt is run by the church.

 

When you contact the guys from the website and they say to you "We're making a compound. Everyone can come, but you need to bring 300 lbs of food and a gun..." take my word. DON'T GO.

 

All I'm saying is read a BUNCH of conspiracy theories. You might see the conspiracy for a conspiracy when you read that Bush is a Satanist, no he's a totalitarian, no the country is being led by Christian fundamentalists, no Donald Rumsfeld secretly controls it all, no Cheney is controlling the US and all he cares about is Halliburton's profit/loss report.

 

The more of them you read the less seriously you'll take it.

[johnc]

Blood for oil? OK by me:

 

LONG LIVE OIL

 

Thu Oct 14,12:05 AM ET Op/Ed - William F. Buckley

 

 

By William F. Buckley Jr.

 

Teresa Heinz Kerry's reference to "greed for oil" can be passed over, and is being passed over, as routine political hyperbole. But maybe the time has come to examine the words and their meaning. This is so because "oil" is widely used as the great engine of human avarice. In years -- and centuries -- gone by, the devil word was "gold." It was gold that brought out the reserves of evil in men. It ranked with and even exceeded love and sex. Oil could not, of course, go through hobgoblinization until its uses were discovered. But now it is used as the commonplace agent of evil.

 

What needs to be said about oil is that it IS worth fighting for. We would all agree that air and water are necessities. Without them life instantly ends. Without oil, life does not end, but life radically changes.

 

If one contemplates oil as simply an agent of energy, the idea becomes instantly clearer. Every advance by mankind against the material duress of life is most easily expressed in terms of energy spared. Electrical power is generated in part by coal, by running water and by nuclear energy. But much of it is created by oil and gas. What is it that a people are willing to fight for? The security of home and hearth come first, and that is achieved mostly by weaponry; but weapons that seek to have their effects beyond the range of a cartridge of gunpowder do so, on battleships and airplanes, by the propellant force of oil.

 

If you are willing to die in order to protect your local hospital, then you must be willing to die for oil, because without electricity, your hospital won't take you beyond a surgeon's scalpel, and a surgeon is helpless without illumination, which is provided (in many places) by oil.

 

To say that we must not fight for oil is utter cant. To fight for oil is to fight in order to maintain such sovereignty as we exercise over the natural world. Socialism plus electricity, Lenin said at the outset of the Soviet revolution, would usher in the ideal state. He was wrong about socialism but not about electricity. Electricity gives us whatever leverage we have over nature.

 

To flit on airily about an unwillingness to fight for oil suggests an indifference to the alleviation of poverty at the next level after bread and water. Throw in, perhaps, the wheel. That too is an indispensable scaffolding of human power over nature. But then comes all the power not generated by the muscles of human beings and beasts of burden.

 

Oddly, those who speak so lightly about oil are often the most reluctant to explore seriously alternatives to it. In the history of discovery, only one such has materialized, which is nuclear power. Although nuclear power proceeds inconspicuously to light most of the lamps in France and promises to do as much in China, a mix of superstition and Luddism stands in the way of developing the nuclear alternative here.

 

Meanwhile, we must get on with oil, and the reserves of it are diminishing, and such great storehouses of oil as exist are mostly in the Middle East. The idea that our effort in Iraq (news - web sites) is motivated by lust for its oil fields is easily dispelled by asking who is today profiting from such oil as is being produced in Iraq? The answer is: the Iraqis. The great need now is for increased security forces deployed to protect the oil from the nihilists and from those who reduce any consideration of oil to politics. What is achieved, that any sober judgment will approve of, by the destruction of oil fields, the kind of thing that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) tried to do in Kuwait in 1991?

 

It's unlikely, given the spook that now attaches to the mere mention of oil, that the presidential candidates will say wholesome things on the subject. But it would bring fresh air to international discourse if we heard from either or both that oil is a great natural bounty, and that we must encourage its production, guard against its despoliation, and honorably defend it as worth a total national commitment.

 

[Guest Phil1934]

Everyone touts the Iraqis as profiting from the oil, but no one has bothered to ask whose tankers are transporting it? Are they being compensated? Are they charging a transport fee like Haliburton tried? Maybe one tanker is the former Condaleeza Rice. She did have one named in her honor. Who is refining the oil? Are they being compensated? These questions ar not only going unanswered. they are going unasked.

[Pop N Wood]

Everyone touts the Iraqis as profiting from the oil, but no one has bothered to ask whose tankers are transporting it? Are they being compensated? Are they charging a transport fee like Haliburton tried? Maybe one tanker is the former Condaleeza Rice. She did have one named in her honor. Who is refining the oil? Are they being compensated? These questions ar not only going unanswered. they are going unasked.

 

You're being non causal.