As for the Anti-War Demonstrators, who demonstrated by means of violence, how does it feel like to be eating crow now?

Easting crow about what? We were right to oppose the war and we're right to oppose the US military occupation of Iraq. 200,000 Iraqis in Baghdad also protested against the US occupation today.

preach on.
i love president bush.
and the war was necessary.
America rules.

America, the only nation to arise not from a bonding of kinship...but from a bonding of ideals--the ideals of liberty and equality. There are other subsets of these ideals, but the vast majority of true Americans (in reference to the United States of course) hold true to the concepts of liberty and equality. As such, yes, Americans have the right to voice their opinions. Sadly, the Supreme Court has allowed the burning of the American flag to be protected under such liberty. I feel this is the same disgraceful decision as when the Supreme Court declared the Missouri Compromise unConstitutional during the Dred Scott case--prolonging slavery and ultimately contributing to the factors leading to the Civil War. However, I respect my government, and can only hope for another era shift in judicial review.

But...in the matter of the war. I also believe it was needed. No matter what speculation exists concerning the reasons behind the war, no one who pays any amount of attention can deny September 11. Are you so calloused that you would allow an attack on our own kin..those who are bonded to you--share the same ideals--go unchecked? If any other nation was slighted and wounded, their national kin would support them, have American's lost compassion and the bond amongst themselves? You may argue that conflicts can be resolved without weapons. Grow up. Look around you. Look at the facts. As a martial artist and teacher of the arts, I can relate to the decisions being made. I hold strongly to using violence only as the last resort...but sometimes...you just HAVE to fight. Words dont work, wont work. You cant make promises with terrorists, with those with a known track record of deception and backstabbing. It would only be a matter of time before we would have to defend ourselves against more wounds. Once a conflict is engaged, one can only take some many blocks and blows...as I teach my students, when it comes to a conflict...you can never win if you don't take an offense.

Liberty and equality only exist when people are responsible. I see the problem arising, and I grieve. As Americans lose their wills of taking responsibility and defending their ideals...we will lose more and more.

~<*>The Ninja<*>~

You and your kind words were missed.

One thing I have noted though, and this is just the rambelling on a red blooded AMERICAN male....

Its not surprising that many of those women who are in support of America, proud of the troops and their actions, and the President for doing a good job, do not hesitate to use their own pics as icons and proudly show Just how beautful they are. My Precious pet uses her own pic as well. She is beautiful, She loves our country as much as she loves me... and that is only ONE of the reasons I Love Her!!

As always, you state your opinion strongly and with conviction, and I cannot fault you for that. I know your opinions to be steadfast and retained in the face of much criticism, a certain portion coming from me.

I missed a few of your posts, as I was busy trying to create life instead of destroy it, but having returned I have read a few of your past posts, including quotes by R.W. Emerson and R.M. Nixon, and feel compelled to reply in kind with quotes from the same sources:

"...if there is another war there will be no victors, only losers."
-- Richard M. Nixon, in New York Times.

"When a president does it then it is not illegal."
-- Richard M. Nixon, CBS TV report.

"Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals


In response to your well-meant (if slightly fascist) post, I will reply with my usual obscene and detestable effort to discredit any effort of a government which results in the deaths of innocents...

u havent answered my post, 'daddy'.u accused me of being a naive little school girl when i refered to bushes preisental election as a coup and his term as a dictatorship.if im not answered i'll assume im right, an no-one wants that do they?
oh, and by the way.playgirl, i totally admire u for being in the army.but i think u shud kbow, preisent bush and most of his admin (with the exception of colin powell-the most dove-ish of them, oddly enough) were determined draft-dogders in vietnam. nice to know hes aware of the horrors of war himself, eh? lets see, he wud be logging up his criminal record for drug use and drink driving about then.

"the most envied and powerful country in the world"

Most envied? I dont think so...
Most powerful? Because your country WASTES about 50% of the worlds total (HUUUUGE CASH NUMBERS!) military spendings on the army? Does a big army automaticly make a country the "most powerful"... NO WAY IN HELL! The country that needs the most annual cash wasted on their army, is in reality the LEAST POWERFUL country in the world. Because the most powerful country in the world, is some country that DONT need a huge military to feel like a great nation.

Ya know Ms, I could explain why your posts suck so much in foreign eyes. But i'll just do the short one to make you think about the "powerful" and your freakin army...

* When there are international disagreements and the US government cant solve the problems by use of diplomacy (brains & talk) or UN sanctioned actions (supported by the MAJORITY OF THE FREE WORLD) what is preferrable? Let's compare it with regular peoples everyday confrontations with their neighbours shall we. Perhaps with your previous post about a puppy dog getting kicked to death...!
Solution A:
Countries: Use the military and attack/invade countries.
Personal : Hit our neighbour in the face, pick up our handgun and shoot the neighbour, or why not... KICK THE NEIGHBOURS PUPPY DOG so the poor thing dies.

Solution B:
Countries: Use diplomacy, US, or at least NATO security council sanctioned actions.
Personal : Talk & use brains.

I say, without a shadow of a doubt, any country that repeatedly needs to use the A solutions is a CRAP country. The simple fact that USA once PUT SADDAM in control of Iraq makes the conflict even more ridiculous: Oh, we made a mistake, let's correct it... with guns.

MANY smaller nations are greater than the USA.


This is what military invasions do. You dont see this in US media, especially not now after the war is "won". But let me make clear to you, the US Army choosed to protect the Iraq Oil Department with their forces, but almost no other important places. No military protected the hospitals from getting everything stolen, same with internationally invaluable places like the Iraq National Library and the Iraq National Museum. The US politicians dont give a fuck about the Iraq people, there are other interests behind the conflict. Just look at the SPEED in wich a certain company "Haliburton" got $70 Billion worth contracts to save the oil wells in Iraq.

Is oil worth more than a few thousand (yes, THOUSANDS!) of civilian casualties? Apparently the worlds greatest nation think that way. Well, let me correct myself... i dont think everyone in USA thinks that way, but UNFORTUNATELY the old guys who run your country thinks exactly that way.

So far, NO weapons of mass destructions have been found in Iraq.
Wasnt that the original reason the army went there...?


Have fun with the US economy reports in the future. The record budget deficits, more unemployment, and similar stuff... is NOT because of Sept 11, NOT because of Saddam, it is because incompetent people rule the USA.
So... enjoy this one:

thank you
but i realy dont consider myself a hero...
im just a man who has a job and does what he is told

>>Quote from playgirl: >> I can't remember where I found out that the monsters who held her captive were going to amputate one of her legs. Can someone please let me know it this was fact?<<

She had her leg broken, and the Iraqi people do not have the proper medicine or healing power to have been able to help her because if I remeber correctly they were broken in too many places, so she would need reconstructive sergury(sp?). Amputating the leg will stop infections and such.

Thank God for this war on terrorism, it's sure to end terrorism forever. Like that time when the U.S. declared its war on drugs, and now you can't get drugs anywhere!

Oh dear. playgirl was one of the people that turned up in my interests search...and I find all this...

I think the basic opposition to the war is based around...

a.) We have no right to take action in another country when it has consequences like this war did. Somewhere between 1700 and 2000 Iraqi civilians dead is a little harsh, especially given the fact that they didn't have any choice.

b.) If we're going to attack a country with the intent of liberating its people, we have to have a consistent standard. With the logic used to justify this war, we should be attacking China, Saudi Arabia, and probably God right about now.

c.) The pre-emptive strike policy is garbage. If Pakistan and India accept our policy as their own, there's going to be nuclear war, and sooner then later. Besides, what's to stop another country from striking pre-emptively to the pre-emptive strike? It's basically free rein to attack anyone who might attack us. This also would've created nuclear war with Russia a few decades ago.

Given all this, that guest up there who posted images of hurt children and all that is full of crap. He/she makes it seem like soldiers go in there with the intent of shooting at women and children for sport. Extremists are idiots.

Hopefully, the tyrant is dead.

He is. Of that I have no doubt.

But so is salam pax-i like(d?) him; he was lucid and erudite and intelligent and suitably cynical about EVERYONES intentions-and now he hasnt updated his journal since march 24th.see www.dear_raed.blogspot.com.oh god please god dont let him be dead please please please.
dont read this as a criticism of the war-though as i have made clear i am strongly against it-its just a public expression of...well, grief, i guess.

I am always amused by people like this after war. This war proved nothing other than that The United States is very good at destroying the infrastructure of another sovergn nation, and not quite as good at telling us what caused them to want to do so.

And the fact that we have to go into syria to get Saddam, and that we didn't get Saddam makes me wonder how good we really were at suceeding in the mission.

I respect the brave people like jessica lynch (who is from my home state by the way) a whole lot more than the guy in the other picture, who isn't brave at all. He sends people to do what he would never dare to do. He like many of the "Anti War Scum" of past year, dodged the draft by joining the reserves, then quit and went to buisness school.

People like that shouldn't send people into war until they know what they are doing. It's cowardly. It almost seems as if you are looking forward to wars. It's like the new big blockbuster movie. Gulf War II: This time it's personal.

Give me a break.

All I can say is amen! Could you possibly give me the html thing for the waving flag? I want to put it in my journal!

http://politx.ohskylab.com/archives/000542.php

see above.theres a fairly relibable source-is there no inter-state communication or what?

point two:given u hav no idea what i look like ur insulting my physical appearance did NOT cut me deep...and its degeneration to cheap insults exposes ur insecurity.

and ur gay & lesbian friends...was that accusing ME of homophobia? i AM bisexual, thank you very much.and if u EVER compliment me, i shall consider lesbianity.

A few facts and stats.
Estimated international military spending in $US, 2002 - 850 billion.
% spent by US - 50
% spent by Iraq - 0.0015
Amount in metric tonnes of depleted uranium left in region after 1991 Gulf War - 320.
Estimated number of US soldiers suffering from Gulf War syndrome - 200000
% increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1919 and 1994 - 700.

But the US army still uses depleted uranium rounds, and still more of the bloody stuff is now lying around Iraq, and cancer rates will continue to soar, and more of your brave soldiers will find that the Republican Guard presented far less of a threat than did the radioactivity of their own bullets.

2.) Although you pro-war Americans are of course entitled to your opinions, I would remind you that opinions are like arseholes. Everyone's got them.
The only way to make your opinion worth more than the next guy's - or girl's - is to research the matter in question, build up as large a base of unbiased knowledge as you can, and then judge.
Politicians are inherently dishonest about personal matters - why should they be any more truthful about matters of policy? Nixon - "I am not a crook." Clinton - "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." See?
Therefore, rather than swallow the justice and liberty rhetoric - think about US foreign policy in even the last 15 years. Much of what comes across seems to be that America has the moral high ground because of its "democracy" and "liberty". So when Bush talks of "liberating" the Iraqi people, lots of you swallow it because you've been told from day 1 that the US is a country of the true, and the brave and the free.

What if I were to say, from a researched standpoint that America has repeatedly;
a)interfered in the DEMOCRATIC process of countries where the result was unsatisfactory to US interests
b)installed/supported leaders that were brutal, totalitarian, oppressive etc eg your friend and mine Saddam Hussein, the police state during the Korean War, The South Vietnamese Govt, a little group called the Taleban ...
c)ignored far worse regimes than Saddam's, and continues to ignore them today. In Rwanda in the early 90's, when, as a matter of fact New Zealand, my country, was on the UN Security Council and pushed very hard for intervention there - This is NZ that does not support the current war, you'll note, but wanted to send a force into Rwanda - America and France between them stymied all efforts to stop the violence there. The US played a game of semantics, arguing over the definition of "genocide" while Rwanda turned into hell, despite the efforts of Human Rights Groups and NGOs.

Hutu militias tortured and killed Belgian peacekeepers JUST TO SEE WHAT THE UN WOULD DO. Nothing, the US prevented it.
A carefully organised and detailed genocidal campaign took place, Hutu killing Tutsi. They had lists of what houses to invade, names of who to kill. 800,000 - yes 800,000 Tutsis were killed in three months. Three months. And your brave nation of the free and the just argued that it wasn't genocide so it wouldn't have to do anything about it. After all, they were only poor black people who didn't speak English, and didn't have any oil.
Mothers were forced to kill their own children. One marriage partner would be killed in front of the other, who would then be allowed to live with their horror and grief for a while before they were killed themselves.
Two hundred thousand babies were born as a result of rape.
Bodies were dismembered, and the pieces put in piles -piles of heads, piles of legs etc - this REALLY HAPPENED, and my country tore its hair out trying to stop it. And the US did nothing, worse it actively PREVENTED anything being done.

So, you can talk about how everyone is jealous of your country, and of how great you are, and how everyone should love you, and "BIG THUMBS DOWN" to the anti-war protesters ... but you don't know what you're talking about.


The sad thing of course, is that your country is powerful, and it is great, and if it wanted to it could put an end to poverty, hunger, war, dictatorships etc.

You could. But you won't. Because you'd rather spend 425 billion dollars a year on weapons instead.

And I haven't even started here, but I'm sick of this now. Go wave your flags

War is regulated in the Bible. Read Deut 20. President Bush is a man of God and he is attempting to follow God's word.


God Bless the Troops and safely return them home.

Bravo!

Honestly.im not being sarky-sarcasm is harder to catch in type and is this a parody, right?
because i dont think even the most hawkish of you can hide behind god on this.of all ppl, i thought HE was meant to love everyone, EVEN IF THEY HAD BROWN SKIN & LIVED NEAR OIL.but hey, im not christian, what do i know?
still, if its ok to jugde todays world by the bible, im assuming it works both ways and moses will soon face a war-crimes tribunal.who d'you think'll get the TV rights: Al-jazzera or CNN?

to be pro-peace is currently to be jeered at, reviled, ostracised as 'unpatriotic'.now is this blasphemy, too?
we are such backwards beasts.we live in tribes, each tribe assuring itself that gods on their side.THose who choose to make a principled stand will always be unpatriotic, because it is never popular to say the lives of ppl in the other tribes are as valuble as our own.does god now say that to? im not a theist-im a humanist.but even if you dont believe in him, surely god should be a touchstone of perfection? WHY THEN IS HE BEING DRAGGED INTO WAR, OF ALL THINGS?
please tell me this was a joke.

Right on! Very well said. I completely agree! Nice to see someone with common sense!

http://www.greatusaflags.com/

I didn't see this pointed out previously, and thought it should be mentioned along with everything else.

As I'm sure you know, having served, the US flag code requires that a flag which has touched the ground or otherwise been soiled be disposed of by burning. That's the only respectful means.

Patriot flagburners (as opposed to the ones who merely want to get a reaction out of people) try to use this to say, in much fewer words, that the government has soiled the American flag with its actions, which must now be disposed.

Patriotic flagburning protests have nothing to do with hate or disloyalty, but are an objection to the government's practices. Whether that be ignoring human rights violations and genocide everywhere it wants except one dictator that we ourselves put into power, and hasn't even committed the worst atrocities currently going on, killing people so that they'll be safe, obstructing democratic elections, the destruction of the US Constitution, or any other of the complaints that have been actively ignored by this administration, is solely up to the protester.