Politicians.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:30 pm

I don't know. I think we should have been out long, long ago. This democracy building philosophy is bullshit.

Post by **Minimalist** » Wed May 21, 2008 6:48 pm

Of course it is.

But that's just a smokescreen for the oil inudstry.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:31 pm

Some day you'll have to tell me about that.

Post by **Minimalist** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:39 am

Post by **Minimalist** » Thu May 29, 2008 8:28 pm

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200805 ... L6480.html

More good news.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing ever higher this year as long war deployments stretch on. At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year, the Army said Thursday.

Nearly a third of them died at the battlefront - 32 in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. But 26 percent had never deployed to either conflict.

[/quote]

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri May 30, 2008 6:46 am

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the suicide rate for U.S. society overall was about 11 per 100,000 in 2004, the latest year for which the agency has figures. The Army said that when civilian rates are adjusted to cover the same age and gender mix that exists in the Army, the civilian rate is more like 19.5 per 100,000.

A serious subject. Civilian suicide rates are actually higher than that, but very often the cause of death is modified out of sympathy for the deceased family. "Accidental drug overdose" and "accidental auto accident" lead the list. Also a large number of terminally ill patients choose to control their own destiny through suicide.

So, given the demographics, the military rate of suicide reflects society at large. It's still alarming and serious. More effort to identify and intervene early needs to be done.

Ishtar · Post by **Ishtar** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:21 am

Beagle wrote:
So, given the demographics, the military rate of suicide reflects society at large. It's still alarming and serious. More effort to identify and intervene early needs to be done.

Well, for starters we could try not sending them off to fight totally unjust and illegal wars.

rich · Post by **rich** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:30 am

Hmm - unjust maybe - but when is war "legal"? I think a war is classified as "legal" just to satisfy conscience (in other words to make ourselves feel better about it). I can be glad with it being a just war - (but then again - someone had to start it for some reason).

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:41 am

rich wrote:Hmm - unjust maybe - but when is war "legal"? I think a war is classified as "legal" just to satisfy conscience (in other words to make ourselves feel better about it). I can be glad with it being a just war - (but then again - someone had to start it for some reason).

In the US, war is legal when it is voted to be legal by Congress. In the eyes of the world, it's legal when the United Nations votes it to be legal.
The Iraq war is legal.

Ishtar · Post by **Ishtar** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:45 am

Beagle wrote:
rich wrote:Hmm - unjust maybe - but when is war "legal"? I think a war is classified as "legal" just to satisfy conscience (in other words to make ourselves feel better about it). I can be glad with it being a just war - (but then again - someone had to start it for some reason).
In the US, war is legal when it is voted to be legal by Congress. In the eyes of the world, it's legal when the United Nations votes it to be legal.
The Iraq war is legal.

Beags, come on. It wasn't voted for by the United Nations. It was voted for by UN Security Council which has never in the history of the world ever dared to go against the good ol' US of A.

The motive for the war was oil.

How the UK and the US got any kind of flimsy, raggle taggle consensus for it behind them was by lying about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which, to this day, have never been found.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:53 am

Of course you're welcome to your opinion, but that sounds like the same thing that we're hearing in the US - and coming from the same people who moaned and complained for a decade that Bush the Elder should have done something about Saddam Hussein when we were there in the Gulf War. He's gone now, and the same people are whining that we should never have gone.

I agree we've stayed too long. But we were right to go in. My opinion of course.

rich · Post by **rich** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:00 am

Beags - I think you're right. We should have gone in there and beat the daylights out of them but staying - bah. Police actions were always a no win situation - with no gains either. Go in, finish it, and get out - let them take care of themselves after that.

Ishtar · Post by **Ishtar** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:02 am

Beags,

I don't know about what sort of people you're talking about, but I'm not moaner or a complainer and I've been very clear about this from Day One:

Here's a Wiki account of what happened at the UN Security Council over the Iraq war, so you can make up your own mind about its legality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UN_Sec ... e_Iraq_war

In March 2003, the US government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. The 2003 Iraq war officially started a few days later.

Prior to this decision, there had been a good deal of diplomacy and debate amongst the members of the UN Security Council over how to deal with Iraq. This article examines the positions of these states as they changed over the period 2002-2003.

Prior to 2002, the UN Security Council had passed sixteen resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441 on Iraq unanimously.[1] In 2003, the US, UK, and Spanish governments proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the "eighteenth resolution" and others called the "second resolution". This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast 'no' votes on any new resolution, thereby seeing it 'vetoed'.[2] Had that occurred, it would have become incredibly difficult to have argued that the Council had authorized the subsequent invasion. Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the US, UK, Spain and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.[3]

On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

In fact, Bush himself has recently admitted that it was illegal.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:05 am

rich wrote:Beags - I think you're right. We should have gone in there and beat the daylights out of them but staying - bah. Police actions were always a no win situation - with no gains either. Go in, finish it, and get out - let them take care of themselves after that.

I agree . It only took two weeks to win the war. It took several months though to find Hussein. At that point I would have loaded him on a plane and pulled out.

Ishtar · Post by **Ishtar** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:08 am

rich wrote:Beags - I think you're right. We should have gone in there and beat the daylights out of them ....

Rich, beat the living daylights out of who?

To date, the UK and US forces have killed far more innocent Iraqi civilians than Saddam Hussein ever did.