Ahem, who provided the chemicals
France, Germany, China and the big fish, the USSR . They were backing Saddam a lot more than the US did in the few years it actually had any open dialogue with the Iraqi regime. Russian were always masters of using chemical weapons I belive that their combined Chemical and Biological weapons output was 1000 times that of the US during the cold war. And then of course the French who's pan-Arab agreements ensure that the Islamic world gets a voice in the UN security council as well as mates rates of nuclear reactors (Who build Saddams reactor at Osirak, you guesed it The French, you should see Jauque Chirac giving Saddam a guided tour of a nuclear reactor, like a kid in a candy store he was), China sold Saddam SCUD missiles but I mean whats nuclear weapon plants, chemical and biological agents, fermenters, fighter planes, tanks, guns, AA equipment compared to the USA giving Saddam sattelite information about Iranian troop movements and the ability to purchase a limited ammount duel use equipment from American companys. Gee I mean those Iranians under Ayatolla Khomeni were such great folks, truly respected human rights and create a much better situation in the Muslim world than the Status Quo did in the 1980's, Imagine a world where Iraq fell as would the gulf states, the Miracle of a Pan Islamic Superpower bringing the Japanese, Chinese and European economies to a grinding halt, the ongoing peace and harmony that would only have been achieved through the utter destruction of Israel and the subsequent nuclear war that follows if the Israelis pull out a Goliath operation obbliterating millions of people into fine powdery ash but it would all be great because the US didnt support Saddam in the slightest.
And puppet government? I hope that you understand the meaning of Interim, the entire concept is that you install a group of guys checked out by the UN and then have them run the country until elections can be held (there are things to do before a free and fair election may be run), I suppose that the elections themselves are going to be rigged no matter what the result is, I mean the Iraqis could elect Saddam and reinstate him and it would still be a US/Mossad plot. No thats just plain stupid, im sorry, Osama Bin Laden would make more sense because he is really an invention of Bush and used for his own political agenda, I saw that movie and I belive Moore, Bush is the dumbest president ever that was able to craft a series of complex political machinations with such a masterful degree it makes for beautiful machiavellian art.
Israel is breaking international law all the time because international law is a total crock that is designed to empower terrorists and lambast the liberal democracys, don't see Arafat being dragged into the world court for crimes against the Israeli people do you? How about for stealing billions of dollars that should have gone to the Palestinians to improve their lot, or for blocking peace deal after peace deal and not fighting terrorism, for shame, I have no respect for the United Nations, it is a hive of scum and villainy where evil dicatorial regimes are given the oppertunity to bust liberal democracys balls over minor infractions all to distract from their appauling and ongoing abuses.
I suppose that you will remind me that Israel violates international law by posessing or not possessing nuclear weapons well in advance you are wrong, Israel has not signed the nonproliferation treaty and therefore is within her rights to hold or not hold nuclear devices. Israel is one of the few countries in the world that genuinely needs nuclear weapons, surrounded by enemies that seek her complete and utter annihilation, victim of 3 arab wars of conquest and the sole truly democratic country in the entire middle east which must be guarded. Israel doesn't start wars and retains such devices if they exist merely as a tool of ultimate defence and I think that the past 30 years without major wars against Israel are a testament to that little fact.
Something that you like many may not comprehend is that Washington, Ghandhi, Mandela all desired peace and freedom and they were ultimately rewarded for it, I am truly sorry for what we have done to Iraq, I am sorry that we didnt back the '91 uprising of the Shiites because Washington feared a Shiite theocracy, im sorry we gave Helicopter access to the Iraqi Army in the south in the surrender treaty that allowed them to supress the uprising. I am sorry that in '98 when there was a real chance of removing Saddam Clinton backed out and the Iraqi people faced 5 more years of death under corrupt UN sanctions and Baathist terror. We should have listened and supported Iraqi freedom fighters when we had the chance but we didnt and they are all DEAD, 200,000 people lying in mass graves, some shot through the head (a merciful way to die), others blown apart by Saddams Thugs, some buried alive (Is that your peace of the grave that the US violated?). The average Baathist thug has a very strong comprehension of freedom, freedom to slice peoples tounges out with razor blades, slice pregnant women apart and then murder unborn infants to force confessions from anybody that dares defy Iraqi freedom of speech by speaking against Saddam, get a mind Celticfc, these guys do not treasure Iraq's freedom, their comprehension of democracy is to get 100% of the vote by torturing and then killing anybody who doesn't vote for the dictator (just for you I post this link, It is graphic, It is brutal but it will show you excatly what these people got upto before "Bushitler" had a chance to oust them
http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.844,filter.all/event_detail.asp) I can only hope that you may understand that the removal of that vile dicatorship and the subsequent "winning of the peace" is worth the price.
But wait theres more, you have the second lot of resistance "minutemen" your Islamist element. No middle eastern country would be complete without a full contingent of religious fanatics there to wage Jihad against any invader. These guys are the real deal, verifiable grade A freedom fighters. They seek to establish ONE Islamic power in the world.. that being only one. The entire concept is that modernity is unholy and that the only way for mankind to live a pure and true existence is to revert back to the 7th century, Mohammed's time. See this entire crazy scheme was enshrind in Wahabbism the group that the Saudi Royals made a pact with in exchange to rule the country, Whahab's run the society and use the oil money to spread their wonderful ideals around the world and the Saudi Royals sit at the top and make a fat wad of cash. Now the crux of the issue is that these groups spread their lovely worldview around, namely in the 80's to Afghanistan where their kids went off to fight Jihad against the "Evil Atheists" now the problem that arose from this was that the US supported these Afghan Arabs, they were able to give them weapons (Stinger Missiles work really well against Russian Choppers BTW) and training which basically bogged down the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and ultimately contributed to the end of the cold war and to the freedom of millions of people from that great evil that was communism (what do you know, something that I and Osama bin Laden agree upon
). After the soviets leave Afghanistan turns to shit as major league civil war takes root, from this Chaos the Taliban comes to power, they are not themselves Saudi but they have a very common Wahabist like Deoband Ideology, now the great bit here is, and youll love this, Osama bin Laden and these Taliban types hapily helped eachother, the product being Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan that were used to train a lot of foreigners (who are right now doing their part in Iraq catching coalition bullets) as well as the Taliban troops. After a while bin Laden got tired of small attacks like Embassys and Warships and set his sights on something a little bigger, ressurecting the Bojinka plot of 95 Al Qaeda decided to strike at the US and they setup September 11 - they succeed and if you remember correctly that was a very bad thing. Subsequent of these attacks Bush vows to fight these terrorists on the US's own terms by fighting them in their homes hence Afghanistan, which is not getting much press because as we all know Good news is No news Election preparation and census's are worthless stories (however France refusing to allow NATO support during the elections thankfully gets some coverage), ousting the Taliban regime is good but Al Qaeda operatives spread out around the world. They find a great oppertunity to operate in Iraq as they know a big invasion is coming and they will have a great chance to fight the Great Satan, Saddam invites foreign Jihadists into his country before the invasion to fight the americans and matches them up around the Saddam Fedayeen (remember those guys, the ones that we were promised would turn Baghdad into Stalingrad, were still waiting on that), he also invites in some nice fellows such as Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi a Jordainian terrorist who operates independently of Al Qaeda but will work with them. Right now these guys have made an alliance with the Baathists to create helll, they do this just like the great men you mentioned did, Bombing Police Recruitment Centers, Shelling Schools, Blowing up Children
(don't we all just love the sight of burning 8 year olds in the morning
) slicing the heads off innocent people, wait a minute I don't recall the bit where George Washington decided to kill every single man woman or child who supported the British in any way shape or form? Ghandi brandishing a a shiny Schimtar to slice the heads of those who opposed passive resistance does that ring a bell to anybody? Surely we all learnt that Mandella was active in his support of bombing schools I mean the guy would really can't be a true "freedom fighter labelled terrorist" unless he killed his own countrymen and women or to be more precice boys and girls.
So in Iraq as we speak you have resistance forces fighting against the Coalition, the Iraqi Government and among themselves and they have the stated agenda of transforming Iraq into Afghanistan Redux, its back and its better - now with 2 tonnes of enriched uranium at its disposal to give your dirty bombs that glowy goodness
. If you support these people over the Iraqi government that was overseen by the UN and when the time comes the elected government then it is outrageous to suggest that you have the intellect and morality of a mule unless of course it was a particuarly stupid and amoral mule.
I presume your reference to the videotaped behaddings being more than meet the eye must be a cunning allusion to the "spooky coincidence" that just when the tape surfaces there was the shocking and worse than death torture at Abu Ghraib beginning, I mean wow, like a CIA blackops division must have kidnapped Berg and then murdered him but all the while leaving cunning hints that don't make any sense if that is what they did that prove that they did it, Russian Accents - well I don't know Arabic or how a Russian would speak Arabic with an accent but Chechnya has produced its fair shair of Freedom Fighters, maybe just maybe they took a vacation from fighting the spetznatz to take pot shots at US troops and engage in some good wholesome "slice his head off, he is American AND he is a filthy Jew" games. Yeah it must all be a coincidence that Bergs execution matched to Daniel Perls one which occured in 2002 in Pakistan because we all know that a Muslim Freedom Fighter would never, ever engage in such disgusting behaviour I mean actually touching a Jew is outlawed by Islamist terrorism, big no no, why do you think they use suicide bombings?
By your speech about the west bank barrier as an "illegal wall" they "just put up" I will assume that you don't know too much about the history of it or the long and drawn out history of Palestinian terrorism. You see when you have your youth recruited by violent organizations to exterminate a certain group of civilians because they are of a certain relgion and you give them bombs to kill other people with it creates problems, blowing up other young people indiscriminately, executing little girls in the back seats of cars and pregnant women who are their mothers all of these little tiny infringements of the victims human rights are what is commonly accepted as terrorism. The non-state actor who perpetrates these actions is generally called a terrorist, not a millitant a terrorist. This term has subsequently been used for people who hijack planes and execute hostages, or fly said planes into skyscrapers where they subsequently explode, people in the plane are incinerated and those in the buildings they have the human right of freedom of movement - 100 floors to the pavement!, There is such a thing as a terrorist whether you believe me or not and men and women with strenght and courage stand up to these terrorists so that other people don't have to, this is currently a highly sucessfull operation where terrorism is fought on every front and it is kept out of downtown western cities but if you let your guard down lives will be lost (Madrid, Bali are two key examples, many of my own countrymen were lost in Bali to the hands on Jemah Islamyia an Al Qaeda linked organization and I can honestly tell you that the nightmare of having a biger bomb going off anywhere in the west because terrorists are emboldened and state sponsered fills me with dread, and not the jokey "ohh im scared" kind). So go ahead and protest against what you see as in illegal war, invent conspiracy theories to describe everything that is wrong with the west that is all designed to opress poor Osama bin Laden, call returning troops baby killers like an injured Iraq vet was at a march in Seattle (do them all if you want to, but expect concequinces for the last one). This is you excercising freedom, all of it and you cannot ever overlook that. Iraqi's have never had a chance for true freedom, the freedom to choose their government, freedom to speak out against their government, to form opinions of their own, to start political movement (provided that they are legitimate, nonviolent ones of course like in any proper liberal democracy, I do not want to hear about the outlawing of Muqtada Sadrs "I kill other clerics but im still a holy man" party) freedom from opression, freedom to worship. It takes time for all these things to take hold, the place is still dangerous but every day forward is a day closer to peace and when it is acheived then Let Freedom Reign throughout Iraq and then throughout the entire world, there would be no more terrorism when all men are free because the "underlying causes" that some seem to want to adress are inherently bound in the sheer number and ferocity of authoritarian regimes out there and matching rhetoric and ideologies.
Or in shorter terms, your argument lacks depth and I myself loath your opinion (not you personally) that these criminals who murder Iraqi's and who hold such virulently authoritarian ideologies deserve the label freedom fighter.