(god I hate these forums, of course editing won't work)



This is unlikely. There is a lot of stress between the Shi'a sects that exist in Iran and Iraq, so much so that it almost approaches Shi'a/Sunni levels of rivalry. They are not on good terms by any means.

The problem, of course, is that in these sort of situations you either end up having a secular, autocratic state or a theocratic but marginally democratic state. You can't have it both ways and it takes a hell of a long time to get from one to the other.

i have to agree with spacepony on this one. Nuke em all. I wanna see the entire middle east lit up and glowing for millenia.

The civil war is over. Guess what the Iraqies won.

HAHA, IDMopman opens his mouth...and proves...nothing!!! 'This simply did not happen' Amazing, we must have planted the thousands of skeletons. IDMopman, just so you don't think I'm BSing, I went over to Iraq (when I got to be there for the excavations) with the 303rd Armored Cav, Bravo Company, 3rd Platoon, out of Ft Lewis, Washington. At the time I was the crew chief on an M-1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank. The graves were not far from the Iranian border (not that it matters, I'm not saying the Iranians had anything to do with it, the area is just pretty barren) and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just a graveyard (I didn't think they piled bodies on one another in a normal graveyard). IDMopman is never going to see reason as he is a brainwashed tool who believes everything morons tell him. When he can tell me that he got this information from a soldier that was actually in Iraq, then he can be taken seriously. I've seen the mass graves IDMopman, this isn't propoganda, no one told me about it, I didn't read it in a book or newspaper. I was there. You think I'm lying, go to Iraq, they are still digging up the region and finding new mass graves. Hold one of the tiny little FUCKING skeletons in your arms and tell me it didn't happen. I got to watch because it was my job but not a night goes by that I don't have nightmares about those graves and the thousands who died there. Don't insult what I have done or the people who were piled into those graves by saying that it didn't happen. Saddam was a tyrant and hanging was WAY to good for him.

And do you have any proof that Iran has done any of this? If so, please show us.

I really am surprised at how bloodthirsty most of you lot are. And for no reason at all. Quite disturbing really.

And why not? Is there some reason why this would be kept out of the newspapers? I follow these things very carefully, both mainstream news and a lot of independent sources, many of which would jump on this kind of story. And yet they have not. Hmm.

Personally, I think you're lying.

Um Carbon, even bleeding heart assholes who study the war are saying that only, at the most, 50k have died in Iraq, most to the kind hearted Iranians or other groups that supply suicide bombers. What I find funny is that there is all this bitching going on about Iraq which has far less of a death toll then many other locations around the globe...wait, I know why, because AMERICA ISN'T THERE. We can't be blamed for those mass murders.
But that's cool with you Carbon, you've never lost someone because of something like this. Deaths are a number to you, nothing more. A chance for you to throw numbers (wrong numbers) around and act like it matters to you.
As for not wanting to be grouped in, read one of my other posts. I wore a uniform long before this all started which means I've fought for your right to be a jackass. If you don't like it here, 'get the hell out', we won't miss ya. This place is terrible but you stay here because this is where you are from, where you work, and you are scared to death to actually put your convictions to the test and move to another country. I'm not talking about moving to Canada, move off the continent, see the work. I did, I earned the right to my opinion by going to the places I've talked about, how about you?
Simply put:
Some people live an entire lifetime
and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world,
but the soldiers don't have that problem.

A little quote from a father who lost his son in Iraq. He still shows up when every unit in his area comes back from Iraq and does his best to shake all of their hands and thank them.

The Internet is always bloodthirsty. People who frequent it are often upper-middle class, focused on freedom and individuality, have had little personal loss, tend to subscribe to crappy pseudo-ideologies like objectivism and hard libertarianism, generalize and exaggerate (NUKE THEM ALL LOL), and know very little about history.

Statements like you see here that encourage genocide should be taken with a grain of salt. At least for your own sake in humanity, nee?



Sorry, nope. Most of the studies hover around the 100k figure, some going well into the hundreds of thousands. Saddam's rule produced similar casualty counts, but a large number of those were Iraqi Army personnel in the Iran-Iraq war.



If you perpetually look at conflicts in the context of 'welp people dying sucks', you will never get anywhere. Yes, people dying sucks. More people dying because you botched an invasion sucks more than less people dying because they live under a shitty dictatorship. Both are horrible. But that doesn't mean one isn't preferable.



Uh..actually, only one of those is true. Trust me, I'm eagerly awaiting when I can, especially with such outrageous concepts as universal health care and progressive tax systems.

Which Iraqies the estimated 100,00 - 650,000 dead or the aprox 2 million refugees ?

www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/ - 57k

And as Ghostwes said there is no news story about 10,000 babies in a mass grave killed for medical experiments anywhere , show me the documentation as I have been to back up my figures.

Ghostwes, why would I lie. I'm not running for office, I'm not planning on making a life in politics. I'm just a soldier, nothing more. You, on the other hand, are an idiot. You have no basis to say that I am lying, yet you did. You follow the newspapers and of course they must know because the military never keeps secrets, nor does this government. The death count of US soldiers in certain military operations, the newspapers have those right of course, the must be, someone wrote them down. Everything written down is right and anyone that studies what's going on in Iraq without any kind of security clearance must know all about it. Better for people to think you a fool then open your mouth and prove it Ghostwes. You know nothing other then what they want you to know. Go talk to a soldier, someone who's been there. Call them a lier too when they tell you what they've seen (if they were unlucky enough to get that duty). Prepare to eat teeth if you do, I know you would if this was in person as opposed to on a forum. You wouldn't though, you are most likely young and came of age during this conflict. When you saw a recruiter, you most likely had to focus very hard to not piss down your leg at the thought of what was going on in Iraq.
I make this an open offer to anyone that questions what I have said; ask me any question about my story, life, service, or times and dates and I will give whatever you wish. The only thing I will not give out (of course) is my full name and really personnal information. Put your money where your mouth is and ether put up or shut up. Let's see who's got balls and who is too afraid to back up there statements. I've already given information about my time over there and the unit I went with. By the way, we where stationed out of Camp Victory, which is one of Saddam's old palaces. Prove me wrong.

how can you be sure your service rifle exists if you weren't at the factory when it was being built? maybe your M16A2 maintenance manual was written by the liberal media.

Ghost prime you are asking us to believe that the United States armed forces found a mass grave with 10,000 babies in it in Iraq killed for medical experiments under the Saddam regime and have carefully kept it hidden from the world because they wanted to protect Saddam's reputaion ? ?

IDmopman, at what point did anyone say medical experiments? The people in those graves were Kurds and they died because of who they were. Check back a bit, there were news stories about this but that gave the war a reason other then the bullshit of weapons of mass distruction. Amazingly enough, as is written above, its war right, who cares that we found dead people. Check back further when Saddam gassed a whole town of Kurd, hell, I think you can still find video.
By the way, I live in West Virginia at the moment, though I have lived in half of the other states. Why do I say this, because I don't make all that much money (most people in the good old WV don't make much) and am in the process of getting medically seperated from the military after seventeen years of service thanks to damage I took to my lungs in Iraq. I have more reason to hate the military and the government then any of you as they have discovered Focal Nuclear Atypia in the cells of my lungs (look it up, that is something I really don't want to talk about). Amazingly enough, I don't, because I have been there and know what is going on firsthand. I hate debating this way, I prefer the kind of face to face conversations that forums have killed. That way I don't have to deal with people that the annonimaty (spelling??) of the internet has provided. I invite personnal conversations and face to face ones if anyone believes in themselves that much. Have a nice evening all.

M16A2? we used M4s in Iraq, M16A2s were used in the sixties and now only used in basic training. As to how I would know it exists, well, I've held several in my hands.

I know I'm late in the thread, but this response was awesome and made my day.

While I would love to engage in intelligent debate on the subject, I am not sure if RTS forum is really a great place to burn up one's energy.

If it makes the original poster feel any better, most of my friends, including myself, are voting Democrat this year.... and the Republicans I know don't want to bomb Iran either. Even if we get McCain, I'm expecting a lot more than we got from Bush. Not that Iran isn't playing a very dangerous game with their rhetoric and covert support of anti US interests, but unless they do something truly egregious, I can't see us going to war with them. The US public really does not want war.

Mass Graves, no one said anything about mass graves in the news...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105070,00.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/05/news/graves.php

no, these aren't real, not one of them is written or hosted by an Iraqi...oh wait

http://66.221.74.102/english/article_mass_graves_album.htm

http://www.donaldsensing.com/2004/04/iraqi-mass-graves-survivors-story.html

Oh yeah, we are keep is secret, the US Government, to make Saddam...naw, that's not right ether

http://www.donaldsensing.com/2004/04/iraqi-mass-graves-survivors-story.html

Oh wait, they are older then a year so these blind fools won't look at them

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-11-08-iraq-mass-graves_x.htm

I know, you fucking bastards need more pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.nppa.org/competitions/best_of_still_photojournalism/archive.cfm?year=2004&cat=INS&img=51048&lbg=20

A little more???

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev172204a.cfm

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2168968

IDMopman, this one is for you...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3026655.stm

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/ireland/print/cwgbojkfkfsn/

Now boys and girls, feel free to continue to look online for more but I believe this covers a wide range of media including the BBC and..Irish news? Anyway, I live in Huntington, WV and I have just taken a shower for when you all show up to KISS MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Call them all lies, I dare ya, I provide proof, you say 'well, I read' but don't say where. Once again, please form a single file line, no pushing, on your way to kiss my ass. I didn't check but as far as I know, I could be in one of those pictures. It's like where's Waldo, find me boys and girls.

Invading Iran is not only wrong, but the catatrosphes that will be caused from it will cause unprecedented economic collapse and a military conflict that will shake the world.

But nevertheless, Bush, run only by special interests (why do you think the average American wage has gone up by $1,000 om his term and inflation actually "reduces" the purchasing power!) has decided that he is willing to take America with him.

I. IRAN WILL GET NUKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you kidding me. A nation with the GDP of Illinois has the economic resources to construct a nuclear program that will "END AMERICA"? Give me a break. Getting Nuclear Weapons is an ardous task that only a few select nations can achieve. And even those nations that have Nuclear weapons that aren't elite are only given these nukes by assistance from other nations. It took Pakistan 13 years and foriegn support to achieve it's first blast.

II. IRAN WILL USE NUKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who the hell is dumb enough to actually use nukes! Seriously, if it weren't that stupid, I guarentee you the good ol' USA and our friends in Moscow will have blown each other to bits.

BUT AMAJIHAD SAYS HE WILL WIPE ISRAEL OF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!
So what? Politicans talk out of their arses ALL OF THE TIME. WHAT DO YOU THINK LEADERS DO? If he were dumb enough to actually attack Israel, Iran would be wiped off the face of the Earth. Nobody is THAT dumb. Even fundies want to live.

III. PREMPTIVE STRIKE WILL PROTECT US
Dude, preemptive strikes have gotten 5,000 dead americans buried in Arlington, premptive strikes don't do s***. More importantly, their an excuse to do terrible things, like, I don't know, start maligned wars by trying to hide them under good causes.

If you really care about our safety, then use DIPLOMACY. Good diplomacy will stop wars 100% of the time versuses your premptive strike to prevent war will stop wars 0% of the time.

IV. SPREAD DEMOCRACY, IT'S GOOD
If spreading democracy by guns is sooo good, we should enscribe "Democracy" on all our bullets; that way, when we find an insurgent who disagrees with Democracy we can Democratically take him out by blowing him to pieces. Is that the American way, Right? Look at Iraq, spreading democracy through guns has REALLY worked well, hasn't it?

----------------------------------

I disgress, let's talk about REAL reasons to invade Iran. The ones that Bush decided to use on Iraq.

I. AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES CAN GAIN ACCESS TO IRANIAN OIL, JUST LIKE IRAQ
Except the problem is that you can't get the $20 dollar gas when your refinery keeps getting blown up! But then again, if the price of oil just skyrockets because a few terrorists have taken the Gulf of Oman, then your in for record profits!

II. AMERICAN DEFENSE COMPANIES NEED MORE MONEY!
Because half the world's military budget isn't enough for you, you greedy pigs.

III. (Possible) THIS COULD BE USED TO KEEP ME IN OFFICE....
And I'll happily, happily, join the American people in removing you from office personally, by any means nesseccary....

As do I. Hopefully he'll be able to change the way things are, and bring in a new senate and house. Funny how republicans have been in power for so long. Oh, have you seen the "terrorist fist bump"? That made me laugh. I hear ya, some days, I find communism to be better than what we have right now. I find it strange that the founding fathers did their best to stop something like this from happening, but in the end, it did. :SNIFF!:

Lol that is some funny stuff u wrote Braddock8.

Oh, for crying out loud, I leave for work, and come back to this . . .

Bush's policy has always been that no options are off the table, but with public opinion and congress against him, I seriously, seriously doubt we're going to war with Iran. He'd certainly never get congressional support. Right now his policy is diplomacy, and I seriously, seriously, doubt he's going to declare a war with mere months left before he's done being president.

Anybody notice the date the video was recorded, BTW? It's in the upper right - and I'm reading '06, not '08. In fact, it can't be '08 because it was added to YouTube in '07! That video is two years old, and guess what? We haven't gone to war with Iran. It hasn't happened. This idea that we're on the verge of going to war with Iran is just plain stupid.

Good grief . . .

Because you're just some guy on an internet forum.



So you say...



Actually, I do have basis. You provided no facts to back up your assertions. Later, after this comment, it appears that you have provided some links. I'll check them out.

I will say this, however: I am aware of mass graves in Iraq. Mass graves such as the ones you described I am not aware of, and I would be very interested to see that verified for myself. If true, I want to know why these things were kept out of the media and why. I'm sorry, but I'm much more willing to believe journalists, eye-witnesses, experts than I am some guy on an internet forum, especially one who throws insults as readily as you do.



I think you are attempting sarcasm here. Look, if such a thing were true, why on earth would the US keep it a secret? It would help their cause for war! More likely, they would lie about such things in order to make people think the war was justified. One has to be discerning about these things, and be critical about what one is told. Especially, I might add, from random guys spouting off on an internet forum. Such as you... and me.



I'd rather talk to an Iraqi civilian, actually. Especially for things such as you describe, or from a journalist that I trust (and there are many that I do not). I would be much more likely to get the truth that way. Soldiers don't own a monopoly on truth, that's for damned sure.



I'm probably a lot older than you are, actually, and there's little chance of me being recruited to fight in your stupid, immoral, illegal wars of aggression because I don't even live in the USA, thankfully.



Uh huh. And how do we prove you are right or wrong without actual facts, pray tell?

I believe you may possibly have been a soldier in Iraq, but I don't believe you on the subject of the mass grave you mentioned, nor why it didn't make it into the news. Anything else you have to say is neither here nor there. I believe I have a solid enough grounding on what's happening over there to sift through some of the lies being told, is all.

... Really? You really, truly believe that?

What's gone to tatters? Enlighten me.

Furthermore, if the current state of the U.S. could be described as "in tatters," then when was it not? When was this mystical era when everything was sunshine and rainbows?

Also, where are you planning to move to?

Because we were there for weapons not dead people. The media wouldn't want to give bush a freeby.

How'd that work out for you, danielost?

I see your invasion has added plenty to the piles of dead people, however. Great job.



And why should they? If anything, their job is to do the opposite.

However, near as I can tell, the media were mostly cheerleading for Bush's illegal invasion, including the so called liberal New York Times. Judith Miller, anyone?

WWW Link

Iran in the near future?