Life is better in Iraq then under Mr. ****head...

[Intrepid00]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...iraq_poll_dc_2

Is really that hard to compete against though? I mean, they can watch pornos now in groups at theaters. Surely its all good now

Cue Zar rant.

[Intrepid00]

If they where so crippling then how did Saddam manage to build all those new palaces with golden toliets?

[StinkyPooMan]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Yes, that was-

omg terrorist!

[Nodrog]

"Overall, 70 percent said that life was good now, compared with 29 percent who said it was bad."


I found this interesting. I wonder what percentage of Britons/Americans would say that life is "good".

[StinkyPooMan]

life sux

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

"Overall, 70 percent said that life was good now, compared with 29 percent who said it was bad."


I found this interesting. I wonder what percentage of Britons/Americans would say that life is "good".

I think a LOT of people in the western world (those living in free countries and 1st world) forget just how lucky they are.

[Boeder]

Sorry, hey psst, I wont tell them you're a terrorist if you dont tell them Im actually workmonkey!
but I have a none workmonkey related name so no one will EVER guess! tee hee.

ps NOT WORKMONKEY!
ps only ban me when I break a rule or else im sueing k?
no jokez

[Boeder]

thats my boy.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

If life is better in Iraq it seems that the main difference might be something to do with the lack of crippling sanctions.

this is probably the main reason...

no one likes to be "liberated" i mean "imperialised" by a bunch of under-educated yanks with iq's similar to that of this cheeseburger im eating at the moment. British armed forces have iq's similar to apples (apples are smarter than cheeseburgers)

Edit:

I just got this in an e-mail so ill share it with you lucky lot
-
Little David was in his 5th grade class when the
teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living.
All the typical answers came up -- Fireman, policeman, salesman, etc...
David was being uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked him about
his father.
"My father's an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and takes off all his clothes
in front of other men. Sometimes, if the offer's really good, he'll go out to
the alley with some guy and have
sex with him for money."
The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other
children to work on some coloring, and took Little David aside to ask him, "Is
that really true about your father?"
"No," said David, "He works for the Bush administration, but I was too
embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids."

[Intrepid00]

Petition for Rage Against the Machine smilie.

[IncubusGod]

Asked what political system they believed was needed in their country, 86 percent said they wanted democracy, but 81 percent said a single strong Iraqi leader was needed.

Erm,what?!
Either someone cant add or that sentance could be clearer.
And it kinda reads like the Iraqis want someone like Saddam back

[Intrepid00]

OR they want one executive branch leader and not 40 of them.

[Snurx]

Fight war, not wars.

[Intrepid00]

Get into driver seat. Bring up radio command, push b for WAR!

Oh, Good God, What is it good for.

[Qdeathstar]

sanctions didnt ::give money:: to the Iraqi government. Sanctions set a an ammount so the government could cover its costs (ie, serve its citizens) and make a small profit. Its up to the government to decide how to spend it. Saddam was a bad ruler, and he spent the money for his own purposes rather than helping his people.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by IncubusGod

Erm,what?!
Either someone cant add or that sentance could be clearer.
And it kinda reads like the Iraqis want someone like Saddam back

They may vote in an Islamic version of Saddam, and then where would we be.

For piece of mind, the americans do not want to give people in the middle east what they want, because what they want is mostly to do with (aside from the necessities of life) blowing up america.

[Marilyn Manson]

Sanctions are useless, and probably grossly immoral in their intent half of the time.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

Sanctions are useless.

how so?

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

how so?

Because, on the whole, they singularly fail to achieve their intention of leading to the overthrow of a government, or the changing of that government's policies, which is generally their intent. They also totally impoverish and ravish society, thus often being totally counter-productive. (As sanctions almost totally eliminated the Iraqi middle-class, any core social base for liberal ideas within Iraq is pretty much gone now.)

[Dante Hicks]

This is assuming that their assumption is to overthrow a countries government. Based on their record, a more rational deduction is that they're their to really **** up a country prior to military action, or something.

Of course, each situation is different (South Africa, etc).

[Marilyn Manson]

I'd say that it was more likely that they have been used as an alternative to military action, actually. Mostly they have been deployed where military action has not been immediately viable or desirable for some reason or other.

[Qdeathstar]

[quote], so why institutue a system where instead of undermining his leadership, [quote]
because the UN is against controlling governments, and instead perferers to restrict them, we didnt have controll over what the governement did with their money that they earned, all the UN did was set restrictions on what Iraq could make.

[Qdeathstar]

Sanctions are useless

I'd have to agree.. unless you change the leadership no real change is going to happen...

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

Because, on the whole, they singularly fail to achieve their intention of leading to the overthrow of a government, or the changing of that government's policies, which is generally their intent. They also totally impoverish and ravish society, thus often being totally counter-productive. (As sanctions almost totally eliminated the Iraqi middle-class, any core social base for liberal ideas within Iraq is pretty much gone now.)

If your aim is to **** up or neutralise a country, impoverishing and ravishing them isnt exactly a bad idea.

[Qdeathstar]

T&F....

I think you have a misconception about the "richness" of Iraq.

Before the sanctions, 85% of the people were just as poor as they were before sanctions... (most of the money spend on weapons, military, statues of saddam, and on saddams palaces) After the sactions, Saddam took all the money and used it for his advantage. If saddam was a responcible ruler, his people would have lived decently.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

Before the sanctions, 85% of the people were just as poor as they were before sanctions...

100% surely?

[Qdeathstar]

no... but doesnt that sound good

[LHC]

He's right you know

[Qdeathstar]

Im assuming your refering to T and F, because apparently im not right....


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...44899B7730.htm



Strait from Aljazeera itself.

[queball]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

Because, on the whole, they singularly fail to achieve their intention of leading to the overthrow of a government, or the changing of that government's policies, which is generally their intent. They also totally impoverish and ravish society, thus often being totally counter-productive. (As sanctions almost totally eliminated the Iraqi middle-class, any core social base for liberal ideas within Iraq is pretty much gone now.)

Some guy wrote a report saying the sanctions were working as planned and would have been successful in brining regime change. David Kay? The whole point of the UN and so on is to encourage other means as far as they are practical. How can we judge what damage the war has done? Under sanctions, we can refer to the poverty and look at statistics. Now, all we can do is point to the death and rioting and guess the extent of the chaos and how many years it will be until Iraq is back on its feet. It's like the difference between a dictator and a monarch - neither is a priori worse, but at least under a rule of law the badness can be measured.

I don't even know how to judge the parenthesised argument. What is Iraqi society like? Choosing war instead of sanctions to protect the middle class sounds like a fairly horrible line of reasoning, but I'm sure you understand these things better than me.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

If your aim is to **** up or neutralise a country, impoverishing and ravishing them isnt exactly a bad idea.

Well, ****ing-up a country is not really a good idea under any circumstances. Not that that's the intention of sanctions. The sanctions are meant to be a response to the actions of the current government, not the country itself. Which sort of defeats the argument for them before we've even got them off the ground.

Originally Posted by queball

Some guy wrote a report saying the sanctions were working as planned and would have been successful in brining regime change.

On what damnable logic is this conclusion brought about? How was any sort of regime change possible from the inside under sanctions, unless The Ba'athist regime willingly gave up it's position, which it was highly unlikely to do, and arguably would have not been a result of sanctions anyway, should it have occured?

Making a country dirt-poor does nothing to promote Democracy, or even to shift an incumbent regime. In fact, if anything, it probably does the exact opposite.

My argument is not an either/or one in favour of military action; rather it's simply an argument that sanctions are not the most useful tool in regime change.

[evil one]

Originally Posted by Intrepid00

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...iraq_poll_dc_2

Is really that hard to compete against though? I mean, they can watch pornos now in groups at theaters. Surely its all good now

Cue Zar rant.

Good for them!

But is a poll under 2500 Iraqis really representative for a country of nearly 25 million people?

[Qdeathstar]

it could be, it depends on how it was done, and what margin of error it has...

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by evil one

Good for them!

But is a poll under 2500 Iraqis really representative for a country of nearly 25 million people?

If properly performed, yes.

Welcome to the world of statistics.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Just one of the three types of lie.

Statistics can be abused, but only if your target doesn't understand them.

The same's true of everything.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

Im assuming your refering to T and F

I think he's referring to me, because there's no way that my statement can be deemed false.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that

'You can prove anything with facts'

[Marilyn Manson]

Who wants to see a drunken Stephen Hawking arguing about "All the wogs coming into the country." down the pub?

I'd pay to see it.

[Intrepid00]

Will his computer voice slur?

[Marilyn Manson]

Yes.

[Intrepid00]

Then I would pay.