europe, their view Options

[Vader]

i see there view as,
they wnat to get rid of terrorists also, but they dont want to lose ppl or spend the money so they go and said there against the war but really there just too fuckin lazy to get there hands dirty so they sit back and let us do there do there dirty work cause they know if they say there against it were gonna do it anyways so basically, next time they want help for anything i think the us should just go and and say fuck you guys

[cypher]

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism or our fight against it (at least initially). Al Queada hated Iraq more than we did because of their progressive views and practices of Islam. There is a line of thought that if we had never invaded Iraq the country would never been susceptible to the Al Queada incursion.

The view from Europe is that we had no justification to invade Iraq in the first place and because we did, we put millions of people at risk of death that should have never been in that position.

My wife works for a multi-national corporation and I have been fortunate to get the views from India, Pakistan, Ireland, England, Portugal, Canada, France, and Italy during dinner meetings.

The ironic thing about all of this is that we had absolutely crippled Iraq through ecenomic sanctions and if we really hated Islam, we could have tightened the noose on their illegal oil exports and driven the entire country into civil war. Unfortunately, we invaded a country that was completely incapable of defending itself and thus looked like a villian to Islam in the process. Now we are fighting unknown enemies in invisible places, losing American citizens every day.

During my Poly Sci classes in college the professor would say repeatedly, 'The devil you know beats the devil you can't see any day.' We had a devil we knew in Iraq and we were foolish. That's what you get with a president and his sub 100 IQ.

Cypher

[Nicky Santoro(The Wise Guys)]

couldn't of said it better myself

[Silver]

old saying
an enemy of ur enemy is ur ally. things are comming out now about this....

[Blakjak]

It is amazing how misunderstood European's views on the War in Iraq is to many Americans, like you Vader. Cypher I believe you hit on some very important points and I agree with you completely. I returned today from a two week student exchange in Nuremburg, Germany that has broadened both my horizons and respect beyond my highest expectations. I conversed with both young and older Germans on several occasions and understand their views much better now. For one, don't underestimate the resolve of any country like Germany. If they had truly felt that the War in Iraq was a worthwhile venture with a foreseable end and resolution they may have been inclined to join. Unfortunately for our American military forces serving in Iraq most of Europe did not join. The war is not dirty work to the Germans, nor is it clean work- to them it's just unfeasable. As evidence against your claim that they spend no money in combating terrorism I can give you a first hand account the security ordeals involved in going through the international terminal at Franfurt on Main International Airport. I live in Atlanta so naturally every airport in the world is a little less hectic and complex than Hartsfield, the busiest airport in the world, but I was astonished at the level of security in the Frankfurt airport. The money that must have been poured into security upgrades due to something that didnt even occur in their own country is impressive to say the least. But to them, as Cypher said, Iraq is totally different than the War on Terror. Good to know we have someone like Bush running the country.

[Silver]

im sure that they increased security since 9-11 but they were allways more secure then us... most of the world has been secure we were a little late....
iraq was a good battle ground for terrorists, saddam had to come down anyways. personally iran and syria are just as guilty as is saudia arabia. its not the people its the ties they establish. eliminate the terrorists...... anywere is better then here!

[realdeal]

This is a good example of how time can sometimes make people's memories fade.
For those who say we never should have went to Iraq, I would like to remind you a few facts.
(This is an excerpt from an article about the lies of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, the entire article can be found HERE)

"Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)"

And let's not forget that after all the BS that President Bush took about alleging that Iraq tried to buy Uranium from Africa which in the end turned out to be a fact.
You can read that article HERE.