Ragdollmaster wrote:Blind Pew wrote:Dude, the only reason there is so much violence in the middle-east is because we rushed to invade.
Completely and utterly wrong. We did not rush to invade. Other countries have been warring there for decades (Russia v Afghanistan, Iraq invades Kuwait, etc) We have been there as peacekeepers serving mainly to flush out terrorists that killed people on American soil. Said terrorists have been causing mayhem throughout recent history and enjoy killing everyone who does not agree with their extremist Muslim views, including other Muslims who don't pray fifty times a day and slaughter infidels. They alone cause the violence; our soldiers tone it down and statistics prove it.
US helped, trained and armed Afghans against Russians, and dethroned Iraq's first democratically chosen government.
It's not recent history, and blind pew was also wrong, the violence absolutely did not start with the invasion, but it might explain 1) why the terrorists are so good and 2) why many people in the area don't like US.
Also, Afghanistan isn't Middle-East, but I'll discuss it too since you brought it up (again?).
Blind Pew wrote:The only reason we went over there is for money. MONEY MONEY MONEY! Over a million innocent Iraqis have been killed because we are so frickin greedy!
Bullshit. The people at the White House, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, are actually smart. Tell me; HOW DO WE GAIN MONEY FROM THIS? Secretly transporting out all the oil? All the oil in the Middle East is worth less than what we spend each day we are in the Middle East on military expenditures. Money is no reason and never has been one. Furthermore, have we killed any unarmed civilians? No, we haven't, nor have we caused their deaths. In fact, we reduced that statistic; without armed peacekeepers from the US and various allies from the UN and NATO forces, there would have been many more innocents' deaths because there would be no one to stop them from dying.
I agree that the leaders most probably thought they were doing what they had to. The reasons might not have been money. Controlling oil probably was one of the reasons, though. I also agree that armed peacekeepers are necessary to keep peace, and that their presence helps save civilian lives. I disagree with the rest, especially these two claims:
1) All the oil in Middle East is worht less than what the US spends each day in military expenditures.
http://www.iags.org/futureofoil.html
This study is based on 2001 information.
Of the 1000 billion barrels of oil reserves, 66% are in the Middle East. That's about 660 billion barrels of oil. I believe the billion used is "milliard" to the rest of the world, which translates into 660 000 000 000 barrels of oil, please correct me if I'm wrong. Let's say that one barrel costs 65 US dollars, a conservative estimate especially since the price will keep on climbing for decades. That makes 42 900 billion dollars.
42 900 000 000 000 - that's a lot of money.
Much more than the 1 289 - 1 721 billion dollars the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are estimated to cost
between 2001-2018.
http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications ... Wars_i.pdf
2) US (does this include allies?) hasn't killed or caused any deaths of unarmed civilians.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5B10I0 - 88 civilians, total, died in Iraq last month. It's the lowest thus far since the invasion began in 2003. They weren't killed by US troops, but during a war started by the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/world ... rmany.html - German minister resigns because he claimed he didn't know civilians died in a bombing in Afghanistan.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=11 ... =351020403 - "The rally was staged to denounce the US forces' operation in Laghman province, where 15 civilians were killed on Monday."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =104061892 - "The team from Kabul also announced the official death toll from the battle in Farah province, saying 140 innocent people were killed, along with 25 Taliban fighters."
http://cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm - ""What causes the documented high level of civilian casualties -- 3,000 - 3,400 [October 7, 2001 thru March 2002] civilian deaths -- in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan?"
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawanews.php?id=959 - "The demonstrators were condemning an early morning raid in Khost province that killed four people and wounded two"
(And yes, I do act like a dick toward idiots. Have you all not noticed that yet?)
Must be hard to be you, then.