Gabrielvox,
"The US attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki after Japan had surrendered." Well if everyone in the USA education system is brainwashed and everything I have ever read is a lie, maybe you might be right. You have undisputed evidence to prove this allegation, I'd be interested to see it.
The United States supported the people and government of South Vietnam that did not want to live under Communism. The North Vietnamese supported the Vietcong in the South that would continue to attack and attempt to control the countryside. The USA helped the South Vietnamese defend themselves against these attacks. Soon the North Vietnamese began sending troops into South Vietnam. The USA continued to increase its involvement as the war became more intense to prevent the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces from taking over the country. In the early 1970s the USA largely withdrew its forces(January 1973) and for the first 2 years without USA military aid, the South Vietnames were able to protect themselves. Then in the Spring of 1975, the North Vietnames launched a massive offensive similar to the spring offensive of 1972 which had been defeated with the help of US airpower. The USA did not come back to the aid of the South Vietnames. Several military failures by the South Vietnamese led to the North Vietnamese military being, within a few weeks, just outside Saigon. The city was then taken and the war was essentially over. I don't see where your "US Invasion" comes in.
US intervention in South America was an attempt to prevent Communism or states that would support the Soviet Union from coming to power. Soviet communism was a serious threat to the USA and its allies during the Cold War and it was clearly in the interest of the USA and its allies to prevent other countries from being dominated by such influence given the potential for World War at any time.
"You can try and pacify your concience by manipulating perspective to believe that these acts were self-defense, but by and large the rest of the planet sees these types of acts as aggression."
Sorry, but I try to be as objective as possible.
"Which acts are those? There is no use quoting statistics and acts committed pre-1991, isn't that what the first Gulf war was 'for'?"
Saddams acts of aggression to name a few, are his invasion of Iran, invading Kuwait, invading and attacking Saudi Arabia, attacking Israel. His unlawfull acts in Iraq are to numberous to list.
"That 1,000,000 number has been hotly disputed, and Iran certainly will never admit that they lost so many. Iran also sent old women and children to the battlefield to fight. Hardly respectable and hardly Saddam Hussein's fault."
It certainly is Saddam Husseins fault, since as dictator and ruler of Iraq, he has complete control of the Iraqi armed forces and started the war. He is responsible for their deaths as well as the Iraqi deaths.
Iraq did have "muted" support from the USA during that time in the form of military intelligence, food, trucks, and transport helicopters. This was done in part to prevent Iraq from being defeated which could have created an immediate Iranian threat to Kuwait and the rest of the Arabian pennisula. Not only was it unlawfull for Iraq to attack Iran, but its extreme military failures and potential for collapse to the Iranian military, threatened the entire Persian Gulf region.
I'll agree with you that I don't understand the logic behind sending Tow Missiles to Iran to get hostages released and fund Contra rebels in Central America. But the sell of the Tow Missiles may have prevented the Iraqi military from taking large area's or all of Irans Southwestern province of Khuzestan which contains 10% of the worlds oil reserves.
But rather than being heavily responsible for the casualties of the war, the USA is partly responsible in keeping the conflict contained which prevented far greater casualties that would have resulted in a total victory situation by Iran or possibly by Iraq. The region really has the Soviet Union to thank for supplying 80% of the military aid to Iraq which prevented Iraq from being defeated by Iran.
Its more accurate to say that the USA and coalition liberated Kuwait rather than invading it. Iraqi troops were not in Kuwait to defend it. None of the deaths that occured in the Gulf War would of happened if Saddam had not invaded Kuwait in 1990.
"to follow you then, a leader is responsible for all deaths in his country as a result of the mismanagement of that country?"
In a dictatorship and police state like Iraq, thats probably true. In a democracy, that responsibility is largely divided among different branches of government, representives, organisations, and people etc.
You were the one who started the comparison between George Bush and Saddam or the USA and Saddam. There is no comparison in either case.
"So, now it is 'attempting'? I thought he had them? I thought there was an immediate danger to Americans?"
Saddam has chemical weapons and at least the biological material for biological weapons. He is attempting to get or build Nuclear Weapons.
"You've completely missed the point obviously. The UN hasn't had the balls to stand up to the US and force it to abandon ITS WMD programs in light of ITS capabilities and ITS atrocious record of killing with them. That there are likely no rules under Chapter VII that address the US is precisely the problem."
It could be that most members of the United Nations realize that WMD is primarily only a problem with certain countries that engage in behavior like Iraq which is offensive and unlawful rather than countries like the USA which are defensive and lawful in its actions.
"That would be after the country was pretty much decimated from the bombings that came before the actual invasion??"
It was after the 40 day airwar that did succeed in softening up Iraqi defenses in the Southern Kuwaiti desert to around 50%. Iraq's armored and mechanized divisions were to the north in northern Kuwait and the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border area. Most of these divisions were still at full strength at the time of the ground war. Later study of the intelligence revealed that Iraqi forces still had 75% of their equipment at the start of the ground war, although mass desertions severely weakened the regular army in Kuwait. The Republican Guard though was largely untouched and much of the intense fighting in the ground war happened with Republican Guard divisions.
At the battle for Kuwait International Airport, the regular army Iraqi First Mechanized Division and Third Armored Divisions put up stiff resistence but eventually surrendered. At Madinah Ridge and 73 Easting, The Republican Guards Tawakalnah Mechanized division and half of the Munawrah Armored divisions fought to the death.
"Did it ever occur to you that a country that is being attacked would probably move tanks or other military means into areas to try and actually protect them? After all, it was the US that was bombing these schools, if you will recall. Isn't that what we do when we're attacked? Try and protect our civilians?"
What protection does a T-72 tank provide a school or a house from an air attack from several thousand feet? None. Only weapons that have anti-aircraft capability can provide any type of protection against long range air attack. Most of Iraq's military equipment is not anti-aircraft guns or missiles. So when Saddam moves Tanks, Armored Personal Carriers and Artillery into civilian area's, its not for the defense of that area, rather it is for the defense of the tanks. It was harder for Saddam to move military aircraft into civilian area's and often these aircraft would take off and fly towards Iran to escape destruction. Iran never returned the 130 Iraqi military aircraft that flew to Iran to escape destruction, but Saddam would have lost them anyway if he had kept them in their hangers or flown them against US forces, as had already happened in the first two weeks of the air war.
But even if we contain your arguement to the movement of just Iraqi Anti-aircraft defenses close to civilian buildings, one does not have to move such weapons so close to the area it is trying to defend. For example, most US Patriot Missile batteries(Anti-Aircraft, Anti-Missile) in Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are not in such close proximity to civilian buildings that if they were hit it would cause damage to civilian buildings. Anti-Aircraft weapons have ranges in thousands of meters and don't have to be so close to say, a residential area its trying to defend, in that if the weapon system were hit, it would cause damage to the area it was providing air defense for. Shells from Air defense guns firing explosive shells sometimes cause damage on the ground as the shell when it clearly misses its targets or fails to properly detonate comes back to the ground potentially causing damage.
The USA does not target civilians, if we did, few Iraqi's would have survived the 1991 Gulf War.
"But there is no UN coalition this time around, is there? (yet, granted)"
So far there is. If war becomes necessary there may not be a UN coalition, but there will be a coalition of countries.
"Does George Bush stay in the White House if the US comes under attack?"
Maybe not but he does not go for a walk or sleep in residential neighborhoods like Saddam does. The President leaves the city and gets on Airforce One or goes to a secret bunker temporarily, that is away from civilian areas.
