NION Bay Area - State of the Union March

No shortage of jackasses in Frisco huh?

Okay, peaceniks, so what is the solution? Do you propose keeping Saddam in power? If so, you support his killing of innocent people. I'm all for preventing war, but it would be naive to think we can keep Saddam in power and simply hope he does not invade a fifth country.

One thing lacking from these protests. What IS the solution?

America kills innocent people. Should America be invaded and disarmed?

You honestly think you can compare the actions of Saddam to that of the U.S.? Stage your protest march in Baghdad, protest his gassing of thousands, killing of millions, and invading every neighboring country.

Don't forget the political dissidents, of which there are none left alive in Iraq.

If Bush wanted to live up to your vitriolic slander, he would need to murder every democrat in congress, drop mustard gas on Berkeley, and kill millions -- not thousands -- in neighboring countries. Until he does that, suggestions like that are nothing but a sad joke. Worse, they belittle every innocent person who lost their lives to Saddam's sadistic and indiscriminate attacks.

Seriously, your ignorance is astonishing.

Saddam violated the treaty that ended the war and prevented us from invading Baghdad. Now the game is back on and we will clean house.

Hi asdf,

If Saddam is so bad, and no one denies that, why is the US paying millions and millions for his oil. In fact, you just stepped up the purchasing to compensate for the shortfall of Venezuela’s delivery.

Your argument is highly hypocritical. You hate him so much that you are willing to risk the killing of many thousands of innocent people to get rid of him and at the same time your car runs on his oil and thus you pay for his “evil doings”.

Also your denying the comparison between the US and the Sadam regime is not convincing. The US has invaded many countries and not only your neighbors. (Vietnam, Panama and so on) additionally the US has both directly in indirectly killed many dissenters by supporting fascist dictators for decades. Saddam himself was once the celebrated friend and got millions in aid to build his war machine. You paid him to go to war with Iran. I see clearly some similarities.

I think you should learn a bit more about your own countries history before you come up with your cry for war and killing of thousands. Calling this war "cleaning house" is indicating your ignorance. US ignorance of reality and your own history is the biggest danger in the world. There are a thousand ways to get to Saddam. War is the most expansive, most dangerous and least creative possibility. Even Reagan managed to silence Gadafi without a war by destroying his oil industry with a targeted embargo for example.

Crying for blood and war is an easy thing for the world biggest war machine. Creating peace in this world is a hard, complex task that truly needs great people and leaders. You are obviously not one of them and neither is your President.

Again, like many protestors, you are long on accusations and short on solutions. Here is my solution:

1. Take out Saddam, Uday, Omri, and all the rest of the cronies with force. Yes, people will die. War is murder, and we need to murder these particular people.

2. Install a parlimentary government with UN monitored elections.

3. Give control of the oil to the Iraqi people. Buy it from them at the standard price.

4. As Iraq opens up into a free trade partner (Iraq could be rich if they ever go ten years without a war), let other countries in the region decide if democracy is right for them.

Tell me, what better solution do you have? I do not want another year of sanctions. I say, either we admit he has not disarmed and resume the war we stopped in 1991, or we trust that he has disarmed, and drop all trade sanctions. Leave Saddam to his own devices and free trade, and "hope" he does not invade a fifth country and kill millions more.

It is you who needs to read history. Saddam has killed millions in the past twenty years. This is far more than the U.S. has killed in all our "invasions." Saddam is right now expelling families from their homes. You are hypocritical if you claim to be for peace and human rights and yet leave Saddam in power.

So tell me, what is your plan?

Perhaps I was too hard on you. If you really knew how to create peace in this world, you would have already done it, and we would not be having this discussion. You would not be wasting your time with ineffectual protests against one of the few countries that allows you the freedom to do so. But in the interest of free speech, I want to hear your plan for creating peace in this world.

I await your reply.

A DOVE MY BROTHER>>>A DOVE.

DOVE REPRESENTS PEACE DUDE.!!!

Yes, I thought it was a dove. The crane is a symbol of peace in Japan, I believe - so it could have been that, too.

As for the war monger... a few questions:

1. Where did you get the statistics on Saddam killing "millions"? From what I understand, a lot of people have died from trade sanctions. Granted, a lot of people have died from Saddam's totalitarian regime, but millions? (Saddam has killed a lot of Kurds in northern Iraq - using chemical weapons and such - but we gave him those weapons in the mid to late-80's. Additionally, the United States continues to support the Turkish government (militarily and financially) with their slaughter of the Kurds in southeastern Turkey.)

2. We've been bombing Iraq almost every day, in the southern and northern "no-fly-zones" taking out SAM sites and other air-defenses, killing Iraqi military personnel. (Note: The "no-fly-zones" weren't set up by the United Nations, as one would think. They were set up by the US, Britain, and France. France has since condemned the "no-fly-zones" and pulled out of the coalition - but that's politics as usual because it happened at the same time they struck an oil deal (along with Russia) with Iraq.) One would think that if the Iraqis had the intention of attacking the United States with "weapons of mass destruction", they would have done it in the last ten years. Why hasn't Iraq attacked domestic US military targets if they're so dangerous?

3. Do you really think that the United Nations would supervise elections in Iraq, after the US invaded? Remember, the term being used is "regime change". That implies that there is control over who power is going to. (Another note: Using Afghanistan as a recent example, Hamid Karzai was installed as interim president. Karzai, a former Unocal consultant, promptly arranged for the completion of the trans-Afghani pipeline, running from the oil and gas fields near the Caspian sea in Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, into Pakistan and out to sea. Karzai isn't alone. The United States' "special envoy" to Afghanistan is an Afghani man named Zalmay Khalilzad. His old job: aide to the American oil company Unocal. The same formula of new leaders from oil companies would probably play itself out in Iraq after an invasion. Watch it happen.)


This is all about economics, without regard to human rights or territorial sovereignity. It's not about justice. It's not about safety.

>You honestly think you can compare the actions of Saddam to that of the U.S.?

Of course not. Next to America, Saddam is a piker.