Saddam Hussein is dead

"Spending those BILLIONS on painting schools, buying books, cleaning the streets, helping them set up a democracy they can live with."

I never said, nor did I imply, that we should now impose "American style" democracy on anyone. I was merely saying that we should be allowed to do those things that can be of benefit to the Iraqi people. Yes I believe that they should have a domocratic government, but when I said that it should be one "they can live with" I was in full realization that the Iraqi people do not think like Americans. I realize this more than most Americans do.

If painting schools, buying books and food and fixing roads etc. etc. is interference then I'm totally confused.

And, one could argue that the various quagmires that the U.S. has found itself involved in after WW2 have often been quagmires whose roots can be traced directly to European Colonialism. So in effect we're trying, albeit in vain, to fix problems caused by Europeans through no fault of indigenous peoples all over the world. How can we learn from history? We haven't had the time.

Later

 

I'm against death penalty in my country. Irakis do what they want (can) in their country, and I wont cry over the fate of such a bastard as S. Hussein.

USA are not to blame for this, because the US Army caught S. Hussein alive.

Anyway, if the goal of the invasion was to get rid of S. Hussein and enforce democracy, I wonder what was the point of Mr. Powell's show at the UNO, with his satellite pictures and his little bottle

 

Me too, but sadly it is. That's why the troops painting all these schools etc are under attack nearly constantly.

I'd disagree with that, look at the middle east, it was a warzone centuries before we turned up. Funnily enough we claimed we were trying to repair damage, help people and all that bunk.

As for learning from history, you've had almost a century, find a decent (as in vaguely neutral, not modern revisionist) book on British colonialism. The US is doing exactly the same as we did with exactly the same arguments, the 'white man's burden' and all that. Worse you are making the same mistakes, these areas were warzones long before we turned up and will be long after.

 

Did somebody say "no win situation" yet? How about "lose, lose situation". Pre and Post Saddam.

Doesn't matter what we do now or in the future.
Hopefully soon we'll start to learn to take care of ourselves. Actually, what I should say is we'll learn to let others take care of themselves, or not. It's a safe bet to say we can take care of ourselves quite nicely and maybe that's the real root of all the sentiment around the world.

Later

Later

 

doubtful, we are everywhere gents/ladies....... from a close contact in Germany :

Quote:
By SALAD DUHUL, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Attack helicopters strafed suspected al-Qaida fighters in southern Somalia on Tuesday, witnesses said, following two days of airstrikes by U.S. forces — the first U.S. offensives in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed here in 1993.

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In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said American forces killed five to 10 people in an attack on one target in southern Somalia believed to be associated with al-Qaida. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, were wounded.

A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in Tuesday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in a forested area close to the Kenyan border. The report could not be independently verified.

A Somali Defense Ministry official described the helicopters as American, but witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no comment on the helicopter strike.

The U.S. is hunting down Islamic extremists, said the Somali defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Earlier, Somalia's president said that the U.S. was pursuing suspects in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and that the effort has his support.

Somali troops and their Ethiopian allies were attacked in the capital late Tuesday by gunmen riding in two pickup trucks who fired two rocket propelled grenades, witnesses said.

The rocket attack was followed by several minutes of rifle fire. One Somali soldier was killed and two other soldiers and a bystander were wounded, said minibus driver Harun Ahmed, who took the injured to a hospital.

Col. Shino Moalin Nur, a Somali military commander, told the AP by telephone late Tuesday that at least one U.S. AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qaida training camp Sunday on a remote island at the southern tip of Somalia next to Kenya.

Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.

On Monday, witnesses and Nur said, more U.S. airstrikes were launched against Islamic extremists in Hayi, 30 miles from Afmadow. Nur said attacks continued Tuesday.

"Nobody can exactly explain what is going on inside these forested areas," the Somali commander said. "However, we are receiving reports that most of the Islamist fighters have died and the rest would be captured soon."

In Washington on Tuesday, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman spoke of one strike in southern Somalia, but would not confirm any of the details or say whether any al-Qaida militants were killed.

The assault was based on intelligence "that led us to believe we had principal al-Qaida leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them," Whitman said.

Somali Islamic extremists are accused of sheltering suspects in the 1998 embassy bombings. American officials also want to ensure the militants no longer pose a threat to Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has arrived off Somalia's coast and launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the U.S. military said. Three other U.S. warships were conducting anti-terror operations.

U.S. warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia by sea after Ethiopia's military invaded Dec. 24 in support of the interim Somali government. The offensive drove the Islamic militia out of much of southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, and toward the Kenyan border.

President Abdullahi Yusuf, head of the U.N.-backed transitional government, told journalists in Mogadishu that the U.S. "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

Other Somalis in the capital said the attacks would increase anti-American sentiment in their largely Muslim country. Many Somalis are already upset by the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population.

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday reissued a terror warning to Americans living in or visiting the Horn of Africa.

It was the first overt military action by the U.S. in Somalia since it led a U.N. force that intervened in the 1990s in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between U.N. forces and Somali warlords, including the battle, chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down," that killed 18 U.S. soldiers.

Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone that at least four civilians were killed Monday evening in Hayi, including his young son. His report could not be independently verified.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said it was not known how many people were killed, "but we understand there were a lot of casualties. Most were Islamic fighters."

Another attack by an AC-130 gunship reportedly occurred Monday afternoon on Badmadow island, in a group of six rocky islands known as Ras Kamboni — a suspected terrorist training base.

Thickets provide dense cover and the only road to the area is virtually impassable, locals said.

The U.S. military's main target on the island was thought to be Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people.

Leaders of Somalia's Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops.

In an interview published Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Monde, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere were among those captured or killed during recent military operations.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The warlords turned on each other, creating chaos in the nation of 7 million people.
You see the part in bold as well. I know exactly who that it is. I will not divulge any info though... All I have to say is I will have to send an email to a friend of mine but considering this I probably will not receive an email any time soon back from him.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16546093/
Maybe "we" should send the troops there too? Since when were we the world's police?

 

Hey Framer, you mean muster up the Virginia Militia? And, it seams to me since about 1945.

Erich, those crazy Ethiopians again. I don't see anything in bold.

Later

 

Haha! Where is NATO? But hey, if you don't mind spending billions upon billions on this quadmire, that's your opinion.
I'd rather have health insurance/schools/alternative fuels and on and on.
BTW. Mr Bush is having a televised speech tonight
explaining his reason for sending yet another 20,000 troops to Iraq.
Think I'll watch the Cartoon Network instead.

 

Trust me Framer, I'd rather have all that other stuff too. I decided to "opt out" of watching the broadcast too and play some poker instead.

Later

 

Concerning Soviets and Afghanistan, The Bear Went Over the Mountain .

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

 

3 children hang themselves after seeing Saddam execution

http://www.bruneinews.net/story/223268

 

Heard one of Sadam's family lost his head being hanged. "Everyone" is upset about this.
If you plan to watch a hanging, be prepared for death......no matter how.