120,000 people (est) at this demo believe that peace solves everything. Sorry, this maybe be an unfortunate fact but it doesn't work when the people you are dealing with only know how to make their point by driving large vehicles at bulidings strapped with explosives. As has been pointed out many times, if this was ANY totalitarian state this demonstration would never have taken place. The 'perpetrators' of such unrest would have been imprisoned and tortured, and possibly murdered for the heinous crime of speaking their mind. We are lucky that people can do this, but on this occasion they are misguided by good intentions.I don't like the current situation in Iraq any more than they do, but I also temper that displeasure with the fact that without the current campaign Saddam would still be in power and still up to no good. It's costing lives, but let's get to the crux here, this is the armed forces yes? War isn't a holiday camp. We aren't paying these people to sightsee the world, we pay them to kill people, win battles, and run the risk of being killed themselves! If anybody enters the armed forces thinking that they will never face full scale conflict then they can only be described as naiive at best. As hard as this sounds, they are paid to do a job. That job is violent, dirty, tough and very, very demanding. If you think Iraq is bad just look at the grim statistics for the Battle of the Somme in WW1. The Brits lost 400,000 people, the French 200,000 and the Germans half a million for just 12 kilometeres of land. In all over one million people died there, about 100,000 people for every kilometre of land and all this over a space of less than 6 months.
In the scheme of things it's far from ideal, but we have got off pretty lightly in some respects. We could be far worse off but for the skill and determination of our forces over there, who I think are absolute heroes and deserve all the praise and support we can give them, and we should honour the ones we have lost. Of course I'd prefer we weren't doing this at all, but Saddam is the person who is responsible for this situation, not us. He was the one who deliberately concealed information. He was the one who played diplomatic games and refused to comply with endless resolutions intended to force compliance. He was the one who brought Iraq's infrastructure to it's knees. He was the one killing his own people and blaming us! He was sponsoring suicide missions in Israel! He was allowing his own people to live in abject poverty while he had countless palaces adorned in some of the finest, most expensive fittings you could buy. He was the one who killed Shi-ites for daring to practise their own faith. He was the one who launched a chemical attack against the Kurds, killing thousands of women and children in the process. Do I really need to go on????? Why is it the the allies are the ones having to justify their actions, yet NOBODY on the anti war side seems to care one iota for any of the events I have listed above, and trust me there's plenty more if you want it, committed by this sick, twisted individual Hussein. Worse still some here would rather he was still in power!
All this has been thrashed out before elsewhere, but do we really believe that the World will be safe if we do nothing? The world has nothing to fear from Islam, but it has plenty to fear from the extremists like Al Qaeda, who insult every moslem who lives by the Koran's peaceful teachings. Al Qaeda isn't interested in peace. It wants the death of Western society. All these groups think alike and they must be stamped out.
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Hail Santa...
posted November 27, 2003 19:46
