2000 AD Online Forum

President Bush advises that the US public prepare them selves for an extended conflict with civilian casualties.

So they're buying extra potato chips and 2 litre bottles of Pepsi to watch it on the telly.

*uck 'em.

America civilians?  I doubt it.

If the war gets back to America it might shake them up a bit.

It would make me laugh... scumbags... ahem.

I heard tell that some americans somewhere have decided to call french-fries "Liberty-fries" now and french-toast Liberty-toast, cos theyre like, totally pissed off with the french. So theyll be sending back that statue of liberty any day now...

Guess New Orleans and most of Louisiana are in for the chop as well, not to mention Haiti (oh wait, they did that one already).

It would make me laugh... scumbags... ahem.

I hope thats present company excluded :)

Critter

well at least they have got the courage of there convictions and dont hide behind there pcs making snide childish comments

well im not against the yanks critter.

but the french well thats a whole differnt story.
to quote an englsih news paper i reasd recently out here.
whats the differnce between toast and the french?you can make soliders out of toast.

I think we should in invade France next!

well at least they have got the courage of there convictions and dont hide behind there pcs making snide childish comments

I know bou wasn't talking about all Americans, just a large part that thinks "light 'em up" is the only answer. FYI, I'm not in that catagory.

Critter

The problem is no one is quite sure what there convictions are.  If someone, in authority, can explain why we are at war by answering the following questions

Why its Ok for our countries to have WOMD, but not OK for others?  Particularly as we sold themn the weapons in the first place.
Why Iraq had a section 7 UN resolution against it, when Isreal and teh USA only have section 6s for similair crimes?
Why when most of the rest of the world is oppsoed to this are we not?
Why are we going after saddam, when we havent bin laden?

My opinion is not really to give here.  But another point thats made regualarly in this debate is the Germany analogy.  Germany invaded another country, at least twice before we did something.  When Iraq did it once, we jumped ontheir heads.  No analogy here.

Im not aainst war per se.  But unfortunately I can only see this creating more Suicide bombers and terrorists not reducing them.

Yer serious Slippo
   

Dubbya meant Iraqi civilians, with their deaths being 'inevitable'. I beleive they prefer the term collareral damage.

Dubbya was referring to Iraqi civilians, and the fact that their deaths would be inevitable in the pursuit of the USA's just and noble causes.

Holy moly!

What convictions are they then.

A conviction to protect America against terrorism..but hang on mo, that's made up....lets try a conviction to remove weapons of mass destruction....no wait that ain't working there doesn't seem to be any...how about a conviction to reign in a brutal regime (but not in Israel or Saudi Arabia – oops!)...ok ok lets try a conviction to help the Iraqi population. Call it operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Yeah! Truth justice and the American way.  

George said him self they have absolutely no interest in Iraq apart from to help the people so it must be true. So what if some of them are shocked and awed and killed.

If I were to hide behind anything it would be the majority of the worlds peoples that realise the yank so called convictions are bobbins.

You say snide childish remarks , I say displaying my dismay, contempt and anger. Lets call the whole thing off.

I agree; a message board is as good a place as any to express opinions. If other people disagree on the board, well, they can express their opinion too, can't they? For what it's worth, I am pissed off with Bush mainly for defying the UN, which may not be perfect but is the best means of keeping world peace we have. I am also pissed off at September 11th being used as an excuse to attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with it. If the US wants war, I would prefer better reasons than the ones parroted by Bush.

Shock and awe had another name once.

The Blitzkrieg.
When asked about the american weapons of mass destruction and why the US had denied permission to UN weapons inspectors themselves, some twat diplomat said "I dont think thats very relevant to this discussion". So basicaly American have EVERYTHING that were being told to fear times a thousand. What joy.

Well I think it's all Karnes fault.

well thankyou chaps, my head was about to explode with rage at molys comment but youve all been more articulate than me.

Critter, the last thing i would wish upon ANYone is harm ! why in the hell would i be prepared to drop my job at any given moment to fight fires, risk orphaning my kids & pull people outta smashed cars if not ?  
Its just the cossetted utter armchair arrogance of people who are prepared to dress up zenophobic hypocritical hatred in nice rhetoric. which is easier from far away across the atlantic.

what my childish comments ( which i knew would cause trouble) meant was prehaps if the consequences of war were a little closer to home than the propaganda of hollywood, people might be a little less gung-ho about supporting Bush & like minded nazi scumbags.

everday i have to be subjected to nasty USA e-mail spam, "nuke the rag-heads etc", its all to easy to become childish in the face of that..easier than allowing the utter UTTER disgust to surface. It doesn't take too much of a look at history to start to see the good guys from the bad ones surely ?  IN fact theyre all a shower of scumbags.


RAGE ! !

Scared?  You should be:

One point that everyone seems to be missing here.

this is not a war.
This is an illegal invasion of another country by a bigger one.
George wants a war because his daddy had one, plain and simple.

Actually... I am STILL RAGING ! ( in a not really caring or taking it personally cos this is the internet way)

fancy accusing ME of not having the courage of convictions... & hiding behind pc !!

what did you do to help fellow humankind in the last few hours Moly ? how much community voluntry work have you done this week? What acts of bravery have you done in the last coupla days ?

childish my arse. Ive earned my right to childish R & R, & i defy anyone to disagree.

GRRRRR !!

Bush and Blair want this war so bad, how about they don a uniform, grab a rifle and get their girlie, "hiding behind their armies", asses down to the front line. Don't start a fight and then run away and leave your mates to finish it you little sh*ts!

P.S. It's all Jareds fault he told Bush and Blair to do it for a dare. It's true, ask anyone.

Shit! Sebastion bachs looking a little haggard these days- what ever happened to Skid Row, anyway?

Well, I'm not one to let a political deabte on the 2000AD message board pass without comment.  

The thing that I have noticed is that much of the argument against the anti-war 'brigade' ran along the lines of - this will be a quick clean war and the Iraqis are queuing up to defect.

Well - now we have the President come on the telly and tell us to expect a longer war.  And then we spend all evening pounding the crap out of the Iragi regular army, who were supposedly meant to stream across the border at the word 'Go'.

The consent for this war (if we can say there has been consent) has been manufactured through the dissemination of mistruths (and lies).  Now, we are told to refrain from dissent, as this will damage the morale of 'our boys'.  But I'd been told these were professional soldiers, the best in the world and that there would be no opposition worth talking about.  Was I being lied to?

The biggest point is this - this isn't a war in isolation.  This will be the first battle in a long series of wars.  No amount of protesting will stop this war.  But equally no amount of protesting will hurt our boys, or prevent their victory (unless Iraqi opposition is a lot stiffer then we have been told it will be).  But protest while we are at war will signal we do not consent, and that may stop the next Grand Adventure.  If all it takes to dissipate dissent is to give the order for 'Hammertime', then next time war will come with fewer reservations.

When challenged at work recently with a 'whya demo now, its started?' I reminded the person of the POLL TAX - it was a campaign of demos and direct action (nonpayment) before and after the tax was introduced that stopped it and eventually sank the Iron Lady.

On a brighter note the future can't be too bad if the youth of today goes out in their thousands to protest. Never happen in my day...  I remember when all this were fields, and you could get a pack o' fags, a news suit, a bag o chips and still have change o' sixpence

Oldhand Proudhuff

Yay! The Guardians running an article on why Seattle, my adopted corner of the United States, is antiwar.

Link: Pacific overtures

Because it's Gates-land and everyone's hoping that Al Qaida wouldn't bomb a man with glasses?

Nah, its those peaceniks at Fantagraphics, who wnat to put a stop to any action...

this is not a war.
This is an illegal invasion of another country by a bigger one.

That's a war then.
It's not a war when the smaller country invites in a bigger one to take over.

"It's not a war when the smaller country invites in a bigger one to take over."

Nor is it a war when someone forces it into being against all advice. It's just a mess.

It's a war, alright, but it's a fairly dodgy one when one side gets all sanctimonious about the other breaking Geneva conventions after it blatantly broke UN conventions itself to start the war.
Parading POWs on TV is wrong, of course, but so is flying in the face of UN legality and world opinion.

I love democracy.

Link: schools out

Most recent addition to the list of things pissing me off about this whole mess; when politicians, military spokespeople et al talk about civilian deaths and say "There are always casualties in war" to imply that it doesn't matter, rather than as a reason to avoid war in the first place.

Sure, but there has been enough footage of Iraqi prisoners too. Footage of an Iraqi laying on the ground with some US soldier kneeling on his spine and handcuffing him also breaks the Geneva convention. And have we not also had footage of corpses strewn about? And it is our TV stations showing all the footage, whichever side is doing the imprisoning, which is surely also illegal. Theyre all bastards. Every double standard flexing one of them.

(stop the rant, stop the rant, take the beta blocker...)

Yeah... it's not *quite* the same as having a mic pushed in your face and being 'interviewed' for Iraqi TV though, is it?  Those guys look like they're quite rightly shitting themselves in case they give a 'wrong answer'...

That is the debatable bit. Media companies have apparantly said that the Geneva Convention applied to countries not to companies so they can make the decision whether to allow seeing faces of POW's etc.
Freedom of the media in the UK and US would then mean that you would (and indeed do) get both visable and blurred faces depending on the company. But I guess the thing with footage being shown in a country (like Iraq?) where the media is totally controlled by the govenment it IS the government/country that is transmitting the unblurred images.

Does it matter what level of brutality is shown them? Does it mean we get to break the rules 'cos were "nicer" and theyre condemned to hell for it? The law is the law after all. Dredd would beat them all to a bloody pulp.

I may be wrong here, but I believe the images in question were broadcast by Al Jazeer, an independandt arab news organisation based in Qatar.

I dunno- maybe I was talking too fast for you- but I think that there's a big difference in the way that POWs on both sides have been filmed.  I wouldn't particularly object to a camera crew being present as 'our' forces were captured or surrendering- although I might think it was a bit harsh if one of them got his back knelt on.  

Then again (and I haven't seen the back kneeling incident you refer to- so forgive me if I'm mistaken about the circumstnces here), haven't some Iraqis surrendered, only to start fighting again as soon as troops draw near?  If I was a soldier in that situation, I think I'd be kneeling on the guy's back until I was sure he was secure too.  Right or wrong- it's a war, not a tea party.

Anyway- the point I was making was about showing POWs on the telly- and I'd be the first one to condemn our government if they rounded up clearly fearful Iraqi soldiers, stuck cameras and mics in their faces and expected them to answer questions for the folks back home.

Matt

re: maybe I was talking too fast for you

oh, dear. No need to get all bent out of shape. Do you have yank tendancies perhaps? Were you whooping and clapping as you posted that?

Look, I dont actually give a fuck about soldiers being filmed. I was merely pointing out the "law" as it exists. You are absolutely right in a moral sense Ill not argue over which side are being the more humane. But hey-ho.  

Sorry- but who's getting all bent out of shape here?  I'm not the one making assumptions over which side of the fence the other is sitting...

>>Sorry- but who's getting all bent out of shape here? I'm not the one making assumptions over which side of the fence the other is sitting...

Now look here, I never said anything about which side you buttered your toast on...

Personally, arent we all (as a nation anyway) got some huge chip on our shoulders with regards to the yanks.  As a person who regulalry travels to the states I find them far more endearing and personable than a lot of Brits, shall I draw attention to all those Brits who hit the Med during the summer?!?!  

With regards to the geneva convention, well it was never thought that prisoners would be paraded in front of TV programs when it was written and yes it does fall loosely into the category of parading prisoners wether being arrested or interrogated on TV.  

As many people have said this War is unique. We have reporters on teh front line, TV pictures beamed hourly to our TVs.   If they tend to blur the edges of the geneva convention, Im sure that happened in many a war over the years its just now we get to see it first hand live!  That in itself is somnehwhat sick and abhorant and addictive.  

However in a somwhat lighter tone
News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq had indeed possessed weapons of maths instruction.

Yer Slippo :-)

"...shall I draw attention to all those Brits who hit the Med during the summer?!?! "

Please God - no! British tourists act worse than the Mongol hordes when they travel en masse (and my apologies to any Mongolian horders who are reading this). Eternally cringe-making.

"...and yes it does fall loosely into the category of parading prisoners wether being arrested or interrogated on TV."

There's a huge difference between filming their capture and parading them in front of the cameras afterwards. On the one hand there are journalists observing acts of war, and on the other there's the use of these observations for propaganda purposes. It's the second that's the area for concern - and the most problematic area for the media.

"...weapons of maths instruction"

*groan*

Nigel

Pfft... Somebody ought to kneel on your feckin' back...  Grmbl... mttr..

Sorry to interrupt. Just wondering if Oddboy's got any more pictures of Bou he'd like to share with us.

Please remember, that images of our soldiers treating the Iraqi prisoners humanely are also propaganda.  They boost support for the idea that this war is merciful and just, and could act as encouragment for Iraqis to surrender.  You can't escape propaganda in any war, and I find it insulting when people describe Al Jazeera as a stooge of Saddam.  Do any of our reporters consider themselves stooges of Bush or Blair?  

While propaganda is understandable in war-time, we 'democratic' nations face a further problem.  A democracy cannot function properly without free access to information (nor without equality, but I'll get onto that in a moment).  I'm not for one moment saying we should release troop movement details to all, but just pointing out the incompatibility of war and secrecy with democracy.

I agree many people in this country do have a chip on their shoulders with regard to the USA.  In my worst moments I might appear a rabid anti-American.  I would hope that I was not.  But it must be said that America's vast power makes it inherently undemocratic in a global sense.  They have the power, and often exercise it, to determine the way the world works and indeed, how other countries internal policies are decided.  While, in any civilised world a nation would take into account the concerns and interests of its neighbours (all part of a greater society), in America we have a nation that influences without accepting reciprocation.  Indeed, it cannot, its power is such that any concessions are won through American generosity rather than a relationship between equals.  In short, whether articulated or not, many people's anti-Americanism comes from the fact that an electorate of 250 million are the electors of the leaders of the world.  Internal, it is democratic.  But the billions that make up the rest of the world are not-represented in congress, in the senate or in the executive.  

British tourists ? Surely you must mean ENGLISH tourists ?

fauxjo? pictures of me from oddboy ..WTF ???
ask me yurself ya wierdo.

re yanky chip on shoulder, what we are grumping about i think, is nothing to do with the individual people but the nations overseas policies & manner of dominating the world in an utter hypocrital manner.

geneva convention? ha ! well that all depends wether they are 'terrorists' or soldiers doesn't it. Its a war for gruds sake , its wrong, its all fu888ed up * they are all scumbags.  oh yeah people get shot , tortured & fu888ed up in wars BTW. strange but true.

Oddboy has no pictures of Queen Firey-Bou.

Big man thatll be the same as its an Ennglish Hooligan problem, not a Brittish one?!?  Which in essense is true, but the point I make is valid.  Go to any town in the UK and have a look in Estates, wether thats paisley, portsmouth swansea or Portdown.  Its all the some, youths on the streets acting like they own it, drinking, drug taking, violence, its hardly Anglo specific, is it?  And well if youve ever been to Paisley!!!  Are my football predjuidices shinning through???  Ill be breaking into a chorus of in yer Paisley Slums, in a minute.  In fact its a very scots thing, well blame the english coz well it means we dont have to address any of our own problems.  

AJ - Can I say that probably one of the most eloquent arguments that has been made?  Thank you.  Unfortunately, we are  not a united world so national interests hold sway.  I dont think any nation acts altruistically, not even ours which is very sad.  You have given me food for thought, which is the great thing about this board.  Thanks

Yer "yes I am Scots" Slippo

oh, dear. No need to get all bent out of shape. Do you have yank tendancies perhaps? Were you whooping and clapping as you posted that?

Ahem. Less of the anti-Americanism please. I realise theres kind of  a misrepresentation of American attitudes, and American media doesn't cover dissent so theres the impression that there is no disent, but I assure you they are a very divided people on this war, just like we are.