First of all, welcome back and nice to meet you.  Thanks for your support in KFC's blog.  I usually don't respond to those sorts of posts only because I don't need the angst but I couldn't help myself in that case.

I've probably got a rather simplistic answer for you and that is China, at the moment, is the world's main manufacturing centre and that is everything from modern technology to shoes and clothes.  If the rest of the world were to protest with trade embargos, for instance, we'd all be worse off.  China probably would suffer for a short while but they'd quickly turn themselves around.  I'm only saying this from a very layman logic point of view.  Heck, I could be completely wrong.

As for what America (and my home, Australia) is doing in Iraq, well there are probably many different political points of view, none of which I profess to know much about, not being even slightly politically motivated.  It probably has a lot to do with oil and controlling oil wells.  I don't think it has very much to do with terrorism or even with the supposed 'threat' to the Western world.  Personally, I think George W wanted to distract the nation and the rest of the world away from his internal social and economic incompetencies.

What is liberation, anyway, particularly to an Iraqi?  Is it the right to practice their religion as they see fit?  Is it the right to listen to music or watch movies from around the world without censure?  Is it the right to not have soldiers standing on every corner or maniacs blowing themselves up in market places regularly? 

I'm not anti-military.  I spend 10 years in the Australian Airforce.  But I am anti-involvement in campaigns that seem to be obtusely reasoned, as this Iraq campaign has been.  And you're right about the media too.  It does have a particularly short memory.

Well actually in Tibet’s case, the Dalai Lama,

(Tibet’s spiritual leader) has said that he

doesn’t want Tibet to become independent, only more autonomous. And as for Sudan perhaps the main reason that major governments don’t want to involve themselves in too deeply is because there is nothing to be gained from it (There’s no oil or resources for example).     

Good Question.

Dr. Guy, I'm going to be bold and say there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the Iraq invasion much like I did with my "talking points", which really is nothing more than an O'Reillyism on your part.  Talking points? Come on now, who made you the foremost authority on debating structure?  Who said this is a debate anyways?  Could be a musing, or a posit.  Could be theory, or discussion but that's an overused "conservative pundit" trick to discredit an argument, or should I say assertion.  Before we diverge further into semantics let me continue my "talking points".  Now for the real reason you commented, as far as Al Qaeda in Iraq, we allowed them to come in by removing the Saddam regime.  It was an unfortunate circumstance of the occupation in my and in many others opinions.  I'll quote the 2005 CIA intelligence report released by the U.S. Senate following the war. 

"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support," 

Here is a link to the report in case you'd like to read the actual intelligence assesment or haven't already.

http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf

The false ties to alqaeda in Iraq by this administration where also debunked by the 9/11 commission report with a link here

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf

 

How can you still say that Al Qaeda might have been in Iraq?  I thought this was ancient history.  I don't know who it's open to debate for, but no one in office that I know of is willing to open up this can of worms again for fear of looking like a lunatic (I can't name a single one that would still say it beyond this administration), at least no one has been vocal about it since it was universally accepted that Colin Powell's address to the UN was clearly wrong and politically motivated.  It's like saying that WMD's being in Iraq is open to debate.  It just doesn't make sense.  Have you read these reports BTW?  Hate to sound so adversarial but many of your arguments are largely based off ancient propagandhist rhetoric from 2004.  Also, if you're going to say "there are many more examples" you kind of have to name them.  It's like if I were to say I have a hundred witnesses that saw Bin Laden and George W. Bush shake hands prior to 911 and then not offering a single one.  BTW a debate can be started in many different ways, I've never been shy to posit facts or support when needed, this initially was an opinion piece, but If you want some more substance thats fine too.  Can you cite any credible sources that place the Baathist Iraqi state actively aiding Al Qaeda, or active, successful Al Qaeda recruiting during Saddam's much derided tenure?  If you do, make sure you forward it to the U.S. Senate Intelligence committee, seemingly they are as ill informed as I am.

Dynamaso, I concur with uknowimright, liberation in itself is a bit of a subjective reality.  For example, some women prefer to wear Burqa's, countering some arguments that it is simply oppressive and against women's rights.  How that works I dunno, but it happens.

http://digg.com/world_news/Muslim_women_protest_outside_Dutch_parliament_against_burqa_ban

There's a link, lest Dr. Guy calls this a "talking point". That is an excellent question BTW.

 

Uknowimright, you are very correct to say that the Dalai Lama is not calling for full independence.  I stand corrected.  So lets "substitute" Tibet for Taiwan for the sake of political correctness.  You could add Zimbabwe now. 

Great comments guys.

 

It is good that you listed this crazy story. With documents captured in Afghanistan and Iraq it seems that there were other people that disagree with the senate report as well as the 9/11 commission. Those people would be Al Qaeda. The only plane in the region they had available to practice the hijacking was in Iraq. That means the training staff was in Iraq. Did Saddam know what they were planning? No one knows but it is a fact that the country of Iraq was where the attacks were practiced. When this news was released the immediate question that came up, was Iraq involved in the attacks on 9/11? The administration said no. they did not believe that Iraq was part of the 9/11 attacks. This was before we went to war with Iraq. MSNBC then reported that there was a link that proved that Iraq was involved in the attacks. Again the administration denied the charge and MSNBC has not been able to produce this link but the word spread quickly that we were blaming Iraq for 9/11. From there we are told by conspiracy theorists that Mr. Bush wanted to go to war even before he took office.

After we went to war in Afghanistan we started to get a few press reports from Iraq that AQ terrorists were showing up in Iraq. This makes sense because Iraq was the only country that had not joined the war on terror. Even Iran was cooperating with us after 9/11.
Then pictures surfaced of these people in Iraq. Then Saddam took a terrorist that was pictured in Iraq and had him shot in the street. This was to prove to the world that Iraq was not involved with AQ. They have been there for years but no one seemed to notice this except the press and intelligence photographs of the plane used for practice. Sure Iraq did not trust AQ but it never stopped them from working together.



Right, no one except the AP, CNN, FOX the CIA, DIA, MI6, DGSE, DCRG, BND, CSIS, and the SISMI all agree that AQ was in Iraq. They all have stated that there were WMD in Iraq, the WMD's have been found but the oppostion has been minimizing the finds, as well moving the goal posts with each find. Three days after we stopped offensive operations we found some WMD and they said it was not enough, then we found more and that was not enough to go to war. Then we found over 500 tons of WMD and we were told that since it was not Nuclear weapons we did not really find any WMD. General Officers have gone on record stating that just before the war started the last of the WMD was shipped out of the country. This was not enough proof because the General was only saying this to gain favor with the President. What I find interesting is that the vehicles in Secretary Powel's address to the UN were never found. How is it that they were Photographed by two different countries but they were never found.

Secretary Powel only had one part of his address to the UN that he questioned. To say that the address was politically motivated is a bit unfair. The reason the story died was because documents captured afterward proved most of what was said was true.