Mr. Bush does not deserve this. Its only because of him that Iraqis are free today from a ruthless dictator. Atleast he should be credited for taking a step to bring saddam to justice because no one had or could ever have done this for the people living in that region.
no way, he should get at least worse than what bill gates got. a shoe barely makes a mess!
May you remind me of what Bill Gates get? Did he get a cream pie or something? I recall our ex-ex Prime Minister Jean Chretien getting a cream pie before.
May you remind me of what Bill Gates get? Did he get a cream pie or something? I recall our ex-ex Prime Minister Jean Chretien getting a cream pie before.
that is correct.
interesting to hear that chretien got the same treatment :D
Mr. Bush does not deserve this. Its only because of him that Iraqis are free today from a ruthless dictator. Atleast he should be credited for taking a step to bring saddam to justice because no one had or could ever have done this for the people living in that region.
but the U.S. were the ones to put Saddam in power in the first place.
It's funny that this guy hates the US so much, while he's about to be released. I'd like him to speculate on what might have happened to him if he'd done this to Saddam.
BUT OF COURSE, he wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have thrown a shoe at the man who slaughtered more Arabs than anyone else in memory, because he would have been tortured for days and eventually killed. He threw a shoe at George W. Bush, ironically, because the US has made the country far more civilized. It no longer publicly tortures people for acts of civil disobedience.
It's funny that this guy hates the US so much, while he's about to be released. I'd like him to speculate on what might have happened to him if he'd done this to Saddam.
BUT OF COURSE, he wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have thrown a shoe at the man who slaughtered more Arabs than anyone else in memory, because he would have been tortured for days and eventually killed. He threw a shoe at George W. Bush, ironically, because the US has made the country far more civilized. It no longer publicly tortures people for acts of civil disobedience.
I think this guy is a retard.
you do realize the man who "slaughtered more Arabs than any one else im memory" was brought in by the States.
The US has done nothing but shitty things to Iraq.
I'm the last person to defend Iraq.. both politically and as a country.. for obvious reasons.. but this whole rant of yours is retarded.. imo.
you do realize the man who "slaughtered more Arabs than any one else im memory" was brought in by the States.
The US has done nothing but shitty things to Iraq.
I'm the last person to defend Iraq.. both politically and as a country.. for obvious reasons.. but this whole rant of yours is retarded.. imo.
US has done shitty things to a lot of countries since WWII. So what. They should stick with isolationism. The American founding fathers had it right, don't fuck with other countries' problems.
I'll assume you know your Iranian history. USA has played (and is still playing) Iraq and Iran like pawns, and it's despicable, then again, so are lot of events in history, move on and look towards the future.
These claims that the US installed Saddam are disingenuous. Saddam Hussein was part of a US-funded plot to oust the then-prime minister (who was a monster in his own right,) and his Baathist party then took power and proceeded to break every agreement they'd had with the US, regarding how they would run their country. It was a clusterfuck, but don't pretend like it was some evil move on the US's part, or that that history somehow makes Saddam less of a genocidal maniac. It's not like Iraq was a utopia before the US meddled in their politics.
[edit] - And, for the record, a powerful government that reveres citizens' freedom has the moral right to meddle in the politics of a weak government that is in the process of wiping out an entire ethnicity within its own borders. Always.
These claims that the US installed Saddam are disingenuous. Saddam Hussein was part of a US-funded plot to oust the then-prime minister (who was a monster in his own right,) and his Baathist party then took power and proceeded to break every agreement they'd had with the US, regarding how they would run their country. It was a clusterfuck, but don't pretend like it was some evil move on the US's part, or that that history somehow makes Saddam less of a genocidal maniac. It's not like Iraq was a utopia before the US meddled in their politics.
I disagree, replacing a maniac who doesn't cooperate with a maniac who says he will (which you may suspect he might not) is still your responsibility. Can't clean it up, then don't fuck it up.
USA look toward Iraq in the 80s as pawn to keep Iran in check, and also to implement democracy there to spread through a region dominated mostly by autocracy. Like I said, if USA kept their hand out of this, they wouldn't have this clusterfuck today.
Morro;43519 said:
[edit] - And, for the record, a powerful government that reveres citizens' freedom has the moral right to meddle in the politics of a weak government that is in the process of wiping out an entire ethnicity within its own borders. Always.
Admirable idealism, unfortunately, nobody does that, unless there is a strategic importance of resource or geography involved. Apathy is a bitch, ain't it?
I disagree, replacing a maniac who doesn't cooperate with a maniac who says he will (which you may suspect he might not) is still your responsibility. Can't clean it up, then don't fuck it up.
USA look toward Iraq in the 80s as pawn to keep Iran in check, and also to implement democracy there to spread through a region dominated mostly by autocracy. Like I said, if USA kept their hand out of this, they wouldn't have this clusterfuck today.
No, there would be a completely different clusterfuck. The US intervened to improve Iraq via the Baathist party, failed. Then the Gulf War, but for whatever reason they couldn't get it up to finish the job. And now, this. This war is the result of their having learned from their original mistakes in Iraq. They weren't about to passively install more unaccountable dictators, and decided that this time they would take a direct hand in making sure that the country came out for the better.
I'm not an idealist, there were definitely oil interests (not an evil thing in and of itself, btw,) and Iraq is a political center. I just don't like it when people pretend that Iraq is worse under the (admittedly very shaky,) democracy of today than it was under Saddam. It isn't. It is much better. This shoe-launching guy is an ironic figure because the his protest would have gotten him tortured to death, just ten years ago.
Admirable idealism, unfortunately, nobody does that, unless there is a strategic importance of resource or geography involved. Apathy is a bitch, ain't it?
I don't understand what you're saying, here. The US did act, in the Gulf War and in this one, so where's the apathy?
Beside the point though, i'm glad this happened to Bush.. it's not a miniscule event either... the head of the world (pretty much) was just insulted by having shoes thrown at him.. this will be in history books... our children will read this in school.
I don't think it'll go down in anything. It's a humorous human interest story. I know that throwing a shoe at someone is pretty much the worst, most demeaning sort of insult possible in the middle-east, but in the West, it's a cute oddity. Nobody will remember this in 10 years, at least no more than people remember Cretien getting cream-pied. Probably less, actually, since he dodged the shoe.
I'm not an idealist, there were definitely oil interests (not an evil thing in and of itself, btw,) and Iraq is a political center. I just don't like it when people pretend that Iraq is worse under the (admittedly very shaky,) democracy of today than it was under Saddam. It isn't. It is much better. This shoe-launching guy is an ironic figure because the his protest would have gotten him tortured to death, just ten years ago.
You don't know for sure life under Hussein is better than life under US occupation. Dictators, no matter how evil, don't set out to kill everybody or make everyone's life miserable. IMO, USA was seeking a vendetta against Hussein after he turned his back on the same people that helped him gain power.
Morro;43543 said:
I don't understand what you're saying, here. The US did act, in the Gulf War and in this one, so where's the apathy?
Gulf War wasn't a moral intervention. Have you seen Kuwait on a map? It's a tiny country with no significant important except oil. It was Hussein's turf. Thankfully for the coalition, Saddam wasn't very powerful and didn't have a big army or nuclear arsenals.
For comparison, why didn't anybody do anything about the recent Georgia incident? It's Russia's turf, and Georgia has nothing significant to offer to anybody, besides a small democratic government that is spitting in the face of Putin. US and the rest of the democratic world turned their back on Georgia, it's only Georgia, they are not going to upset Russia over a poor country.
Point is, you can saying whatever you want about moral intervention of the greater power to stop crime against humanity inside the border of a weaker government, but nobody does it and unless there is resource and geographic importance.
Point is, you can saying whatever you want about moral intervention of the greater power to stop crime against humanity inside the border of a weaker government, but nobody does it and unless there is resource and geographic importance.
South Korea?
Anyway, even if you're right, the result is still the same: Genocidal maniacs get stopped. I'm more interested in that than I am in the motivations of the people who stop them.
Not a moral intervention. Geography. Keep the peninsula in check from Communism. Also striking distance for nuclear bombers into China at the time. Leaving the Korean Peninsula to the communist was too dangerous as the proximity to Japan is less than 200km. Occupying South Korea also allow access to the Yellow Sea and control of South China Sea with Japan and Taiwan.
Morro;43562 said:
Anyway, even if you're right, the result is still the same: Genocidal maniacs get stopped. I'm more interested in that than I am in the motivations of the people who stop them.
What if the people who stopped the genocidal maniac caused more harm? The only fear under a dictatorship is the dictator, with Iraq in shamble, ethnic groups fear each other, there's also fear between the people who support the coalition and the people who don't.
I'm not sure exactly how to quantify how good a country is. Iraq used to have death squads wiping out an entire ethnicity, now it doesn't. Iraq used to terrorize its own people via secret police who would drag you out of your home, torture a confession out of you, then execute you in public, while forcing your loved ones to attend and applaud your execution. That doesn't happen any more. Iraq used to fund terrorists who would go on to murder innocent people around the world, now it doesn't.
If those things, and hundreds more like them, don't convince you, I'm not sure what will. Iraq is in disarray, far less than it was 5 years ago, and is steadily getting better. It's still got enormous problems, of course, but we can't perform miracles, here. Still, it just strikes me as impossible to argue that it's worse today than it was under Saddam.
that guy had pretty good aim...but unfortunately bush has some cat like reflexes which saved his beautiful face...and by beautiful i mean old and wrinkly
I'm not sure exactly how to quantify how good a country is. Iraq used to have death squads wiping out an entire ethnicity, now it doesn't. Iraq used to terrorize its own people via secret police who would drag you out of your home, torture a confession out of you, then execute you in public, while forcing your loved ones to attend and applaud your execution. That doesn't happen any more. Iraq used to fund terrorists who would go on to murder innocent people around the world, now it doesn't.
I'm not an Iraqi and I wouldn't know if those actions are true or widespread. I do know that the same thing has been said by the Western media about most countries that doesn't follow the democratic process. That is why I'm not convinced and probably never will be.
USA's involvement in that area of the world (or any area) was never noble. CIA supported Hussein to overthrow a pro-Soviet government. All the nasty things Hussein supposedly done to Iran, Kuwait, and inside Iraq was supplied by the Americans.
The haters of American knows their history of post WWII, USA in the past 60 years after the start of Cold War has impacted a lot of people outside its borders. Every continent outside Antarctica is affected, their actions were never noble, they didn't get involve because it was the morally right thing do. They got involved and installed dictators because dictators, no matter how ruthless, was better than communism.
You need to decide what you're arguing, here. You're oscillating back and forth between criticizing actions and motivations. If I say "motivations are less important than results," you say "But look at the results!" Then I say "The results are positive," and you say "but what about their motivations!"
Comments
interesting to hear that chretien got the same treatment :D
BUT OF COURSE, he wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have thrown a shoe at the man who slaughtered more Arabs than anyone else in memory, because he would have been tortured for days and eventually killed. He threw a shoe at George W. Bush, ironically, because the US has made the country far more civilized. It no longer publicly tortures people for acts of civil disobedience.
I think this guy is a retard.
The US has done nothing but shitty things to Iraq.
I'm the last person to defend Iraq.. both politically and as a country.. for obvious reasons.. but this whole rant of yours is retarded.. imo.
I'll assume you know your Iranian history. USA has played (and is still playing) Iraq and Iran like pawns, and it's despicable, then again, so are lot of events in history, move on and look towards the future.
[edit] - And, for the record, a powerful government that reveres citizens' freedom has the moral right to meddle in the politics of a weak government that is in the process of wiping out an entire ethnicity within its own borders. Always.
USA look toward Iraq in the 80s as pawn to keep Iran in check, and also to implement democracy there to spread through a region dominated mostly by autocracy. Like I said, if USA kept their hand out of this, they wouldn't have this clusterfuck today. Admirable idealism, unfortunately, nobody does that, unless there is a strategic importance of resource or geography involved. Apathy is a bitch, ain't it?
I'm not an idealist, there were definitely oil interests (not an evil thing in and of itself, btw,) and Iraq is a political center. I just don't like it when people pretend that Iraq is worse under the (admittedly very shaky,) democracy of today than it was under Saddam. It isn't. It is much better. This shoe-launching guy is an ironic figure because the his protest would have gotten him tortured to death, just ten years ago. I don't understand what you're saying, here. The US did act, in the Gulf War and in this one, so where's the apathy?
For comparison, why didn't anybody do anything about the recent Georgia incident? It's Russia's turf, and Georgia has nothing significant to offer to anybody, besides a small democratic government that is spitting in the face of Putin. US and the rest of the democratic world turned their back on Georgia, it's only Georgia, they are not going to upset Russia over a poor country.
Point is, you can saying whatever you want about moral intervention of the greater power to stop crime against humanity inside the border of a weaker government, but nobody does it and unless there is resource and geographic importance.
Anyway, even if you're right, the result is still the same: Genocidal maniacs get stopped. I'm more interested in that than I am in the motivations of the people who stop them.
If those things, and hundreds more like them, don't convince you, I'm not sure what will. Iraq is in disarray, far less than it was 5 years ago, and is steadily getting better. It's still got enormous problems, of course, but we can't perform miracles, here. Still, it just strikes me as impossible to argue that it's worse today than it was under Saddam.
USA's involvement in that area of the world (or any area) was never noble. CIA supported Hussein to overthrow a pro-Soviet government. All the nasty things Hussein supposedly done to Iran, Kuwait, and inside Iraq was supplied by the Americans.
The haters of American knows their history of post WWII, USA in the past 60 years after the start of Cold War has impacted a lot of people outside its borders. Every continent outside Antarctica is affected, their actions were never noble, they didn't get involve because it was the morally right thing do. They got involved and installed dictators because dictators, no matter how ruthless, was better than communism.
That's circular.