Thank you for stating the obvious. I was referring to the war of 1812 when the US invaded Canada (which wasnt independant yet, so it was technically a battle with the British) and got their asses kicked a few times over. Yeah I'm kind of getting tired of claims about the bong in the picture, I changed my mugshot but it doesnt seem to come up in the post thing...whaaat the helll

I know this is late but there are so many things wrong with this post. One sums it up better than the rest. "before the Bush presidancy I rarely heard about terrorists..." no shit. probably because before the Bush administration you were about 13. By the way, when the colonists were fighting the British they didn't blow up their own people in the process. They didn't blow up children. I respect your right to your own opinion, but for gods sake.. You know at some points in our lives it makes more sense to listen to the experience of others before running your mouth off. That point is usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty five. It was for me. You are pissed about something, seems like politics is just the outlet. Maybe you should go mash those moguls a little harder, put that energy somewhere constructive. And why is it that some Americans are trying so hard to make other Americans believe that the world hates us? I've had more "eduacated" people feed me that line of crap than I care for. I have yet to have a foreigner tell me that.

what are u talking about others experiences? unless one of us is a political head, or has experienced wars that are over 100 years old none of us will have any experiences in this... this is just a fun show what u know little squirmish. its nice to know thats ur trying to neutralize the post, but in all honesty this post isnt meant to be neutral and its implied that it will get uncivilized, it says so right on the topic grid. so what if this is an outlet if it is i say use the shit out of it cuz u cant ski 24/7 and no ones gettin hurt here.

ps. the most commen sence reason for the bush administration to keep refering to terrorists is because it enebles them to invade iraq and steal the oil and exploit the people.. i mean free up resources and liberate the people... my bad. propaganda my friends, that germans were excelent at it in ww2 as well. PPS, i dont hate america, just the government and the way things are done.

America has plenty of money to buy as much oil as we want... ON THE OPEN MARKET! Our GDP is the size of the freakin galaxy. If AMerica was solely after Iraqi oil, why arent we pumping it out now? WHy arent we taking it for free? The war is costing us billions per year, we could easily offset our costs of the war but commadeering THEIR fields and selling it on the open market, or shipping it over here. But we dont do that, cuz the world would think just like you wrote. WE SIMPLY DONT WANT THE BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF IRAQI OIL BEING SOLD ON THE OPEN MARKET BY A MADMAN (Saddam) AND BEING USED TO FUND TERRORISM! Eploitation of the Iraqi people????????? Allowing EACH individual (excluding Islamo-fascists) and EACH religious group to have a say in their daily lives and governmental function is exploitation? Interesting....

Posted by: vailposseone WE SIMPLY DONT WANT THE BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF IRAQI OIL

A fine example of a completely stupid statement. You're not going to get many people to agree with you on that one.

ps vail, iraq had absolutely no ties to any terrorist organizations, saddam as an evil dictator but he never threatend the us in any way what so ever, and there was never a terrorist movement there. the terrorists under osama bin ladden came from afganistan not iraq. plus theres not many more reasons to be in iraq accept for the us to have some kind of resource gain, because theres alot of countrys will alot worse off people and worse dictators then iraq. a lot of african countrys are much worse off, iraq has schooling systems and alot of modern day things that we enjoy here.

Koot: Explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain WHY its a stupid statement. S hit... Third graders wouldnt get away with a rebuttal so vague and without CONTENT of any kind. S hit, are we having a discussion here or what?

Blackglass: You wrote, "iraq had absolutely no ties to any terrorist organizations" Response: Bin Laden and Saddam were both of Sunni fanatic clans. Bin Laden was all too happy with the massacre and suppression of the hated infidel Shiites. They were joined TOGETHER in a holy war against the United States. Why else would Bin Laden discuss this in his second fatwa against the U.S. and defend Saddam and his sovereignty “…So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people (Saddams citizens) and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.” (Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders World Islamic Front Statement 23 Feb. 1998) *al Qaeda/Iraq link #1. Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 highjack, was hosted by the terrorist Abu Nidal at his house in Iraq. Headed simply “Intelligence Items”, and dated July 1, 2002, a memo to Saddam signed by Tahir jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) states the Mohammed Atta came with Abu Ammer (an Arabic nom-de-guerre- his real identity is unknown) to Abu Nidal’s house: “we arranged a work program for him for three days with a team dedicated too working with him… He displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy.” *link #2) On Feb. 19, 1998, about six months prior to the attacks in Africa, Iraqi intelligence officials set in motion a plan to bring a senior trusted Bin Laden aide to Baghdad from Khartoum. An Iraqi intelligence document shows that a recommendation was made for “…the deputy director general to bring the [Bin Laden] envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with Bin Laden.” The meetings took place March 13, 1998. *link #3) Iraq’s former intelligence chief, Farouk Hijazi, met with Bin Laden in Sudan in 1994 and in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998. Bin Laden visited Baghdad in Jan. 1998 and met with Iraqi Deputy foreign Minister Tariq Aziz for the purpose of establishing al Qaeda training camps in Iraq. *link #4) Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, who was involved in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, also served as al liaison between Saddam and Bin Laden during the 1990’s. *link #5) After the Cole attack, two al Qaeda terrorists went to Iraq for training in WMD (mostly bio) and to bring back info. on poisonous gas. *link #6) According to Israeli intelligence sources quoted by Jane’s Foreign Report on Sept. 19, 2001, during the prior two years Iraqi Intelligence officers were “shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri.” (The known terrorist who has been responsible for the multiple beheadings of INNOCENTS in Iraq). According to said sources, one of the Iraqi intelligence officers was captured by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan. All of these can be viewed in the 9/11 Commission Report… the nonpartisan overview of the 9/11 attacks and leading up to the war in Iraq. You wrote: "saddam as an evil dictator but he never threatend the us in any way what so ever" Response: He CONSTANTLY shot at our planes patrolling the no-fly zones! These no-fly zones were set in place via the United Nations Resolutions and AGREED and SIGNED by Saddam and his Generals after Gulf I. He sent $50K checks to family members of Hamas suicide bombers who killed Israelis (thats sponsering terrorists). Americans were killed in those markets in Israel. He proclamed CONSTANTLY of his passion and desire to kill Americans, or as he called us... Infidels from the 'great satan'. You wrote: "the terrorists under osama bin ladden came from afganistan not iraq." Response: The terrorists under Osama were former mujahideen from IRAQ, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Palistine, etc. ALMOST NONE OF THEM WERE ORIGINALLY FROM AFGHANISTAN! They were transplants from OTHER COUNTRIES! Much like terrorist in Iraq NOW. You wrote: "theres alot of countrys will alot worse off people and worse dictators then iraq. a lot of african countrys are much worse off" No s hit! But those other countries dont have the resources (oil) to fund nukes and terrorists to the capacity that would HARM us on a massive scale. And after these countries have nukes, its a hell of alot harder to deal with (i.e. North Korea). African countries have huge problems, but Iraq was not a humanitarian mission. See past the politics my friend. We didnt want that madman to get ahould of a nuke. African coutries simply couldnt fund terrorism on a massive scale... no resources to sell to recieve money to fund terrorism. Yea, they had schools.. and in those schools were nothing of the outside world. Saddam occupied most of the teachings and had his picture and story of how great he was to his people on nearly every page. Dont be a fool... Compare their schools then to now. Completly different. Your thoughts?

ok, u tried to argue that people were from iraq so therefore somehow iraq was involved in a major part of the terrorist operations (or enough that would warrent an invasion of hte country) but the fact remains tho people werent in iraq at the time they were trained and living in afganistan so invading iraq to stop terrorist in afganistan doesnt make sence to me. and they found that iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at all, and iv sat in on a lecture from Gwin Dyre the renound "war journalist" whos reputation has been built on accuracy and finding truth , and he said that the exact reason for the US invading iraq is yet to be known, but they sent people into iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction (the UN also sent inspectors) and no traces were found of any sort of weapon of mass destruction, and the invasion took place after those inspections were held and showed no sign of WMD. u go on to say that saddam hung out with some known terrorists, mad men, murderers ext. but their relationship was exclusive to iraq, all things pertaining to their meetings occured in iraq, of course theres room for speculation and conspiracy theories, but common anyone can make up a conspiracy theory for just about anything and have it make perfect sence as long as theirs enough un knowns or room for interpritation. so what if saddam had men trained in chemical war fair and the like? he had no weapons or technology available to use them. im thinking about starting a country and teaching my soldiers how to ski, and im hoping to place that country somewhere about the sahara desert. saddam is mad, stupid, perinoid and an all round no good nic'. most people in the US (including soldiers fighting) agree that the war on iraq was wrong. and u cant even argue that u did it for the people because the majority of casualtys have been innocent civilians in this war. saddam was evil and only hurt his people, but tens of thoughsands of iraqi civilians have died in this war, aprox. 2000 US soldiers have died and im not sure how many iraqi soldiers have died. looking forward to ur reply. always a treat

ps. school systems improved... schools bombed... = worse off then before good reason for war (not saying this is the US's reason but im favoring it) is that war is the fastest way to boost the economy. although the US has a large NGP the fact remains that their horribly in debt and that their NGP would have to be 10 times as much for them to start to come out of that debt. US debt is at the highest EVER thats un disputable.

koot, on vail's statement about not wanting oil sold on the open market... you gotta read the whole statement. of course we want oil, who doesn't, but that's not the point. vail made a good statement about our GDP, and its true, we can afford any amount of oil. we're the US of f'n A (not to be cocky, but with all respect i think my forfathers gave me the right to be)... Blackglass, you must understand that in a time of war innocent people will be harmed. If they weren't then war wouldn't be so hated. However, there sacrifice is going towards a better iraq. they can't see that now because all they see is killing, but some day they will be greatful... and if not, WE still gave our all to help out a supressed country.

Ok thats fair that your GDP is massive, no one will argue that. The issue, is that oil is not in fact something you can buy unlimited amounts of on the open market. Maybe you can now, but with global oil consumption growing by 2% a year, and global production estimated to peak the supplies won't be around for ever. And a lot of the major oil producing countries aren't exactly pleased with the USA lately, and may not want to sell oil to the US, no matter the amount of money they have. So to say you dont want Iraq's oil, when you could have invaded lots of other countries with dictators that murder their own citizens but dont have so much oil, is rediculous. The war in Iraq is about two things in my opinion, and the primary one can be summed up as "energy security", even high-ranking officials have said this. Secondly, I think another major reason was war-profiteering, look at the amount of money all the defense contractors like lockheed, halliburton, boing, etc are making. Face it, its naive to think that a man like George Bush would want to go into a country thousands of miles away, spend over 200 billion dollars of american citizens money, just to "liberate the iraqi people".

Blackglass: Sorry so late to respond, I was in AK on a heli trip. HEAVEN ON EARTH! YOu wrote: "the exact reason for the US invading iraq is yet to be known?" Response: Bill Clinton made the same case in 1998 as Bush made in 2002 and 2003. Clinton said in his address to the nation, “I will attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program and it’s military capacity to threaten its neighbors.” As Clinton pointed out, Iraq wasn’t the only country to have developed WMD, but “with Saddam there’s one big difference. He has used them, not once but repeatedly, unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-log war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians. Firing scud rockets at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran, not only against a foreign enemy but against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq. The International community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today that, LEFT UNCHECKED, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.” Faced with the threat from Iraq, Clinton acknowledged the importance of PREEMPTION. He stated, “Heavy as they are, the cost of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. AND MARK MY WORDS, HE WILL DEVELOP WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION. HE WILL DEPLOY THEM AND WLL USE THEM.” Sounds exactly like what Bush said before the war and is saying now. Your thoughts? Bush has stated that there were MULTIPLE reasons for the war…most importantly to take Saddam out because he refused to abide to the United Nations rules set for him. Let inspectors in, quit screwing with their searches, disclose weapons, quit shooting at our planes patrolling the no-fly-zone, and quit supporting terrorist. (i.e. sending $30 –50K checks to families of Hamas suicide bombers). He sat on a gold mine of oil that could have been sold for said weapons and terrorist functions. Only now do we realize that the ‘oil for food program’ net him as much as $20 billion in cash…(where is it…could it be funding current attacks against our troops in Iraq?) that was to be used for food and humanitarian issues, not palaces, weapons and terrorism. As Bush put it, “Having to accept the word of a madman or the intelligence agencies of our country, I’ll take the word of our security agencies and protect our country EVERY time.” Saddam was intent on using the billions of dollars he was netting from the trillions of dollars of oil under the ground to fund ACTIVITIES AGAINST US now and in the future. Lets just get off the Iraq issue, Lets face it... You are a peacenik... You would have prefered the U.S. to have never gone into Iraq. You and your cohorts think it would be better off with Saddam in power... or his brothers... or the other hundred a-holes that stand in line behind them. You think that diplomacy can solve everything and I believe that force is necessary.

Blackglass and Koot: Black wrote: "although the US has a large NGP the fact remains that their horribly in debt and that their NGP would have to be 10 times as much for them to start to come out of that debt. US debt is at the highest EVER thats un disputable." TEN TIMES AS MUCH FOR THEM TO START TO COME OUT OF DEBT!!!!???????? OUR DEBT HAS DECREASED THIS YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is the huge deal you have with the deficit? Do you realize that our deficit has GONE DOWN in the last year. We are at war and deficit spending is unavoidable. The deficit is not a concern as long as our GDP, index marks and CCV is greater than our deficit spending.... WHICH IT IS! Individuals, domestic and foreign investors are trading, investing, lending and inputing INTO OUR economy. Why? Because they know its a GREAT INVESTMENT. This isnt the first time, OR THE LAST time, that we have/will be/been in debt.

Koot: You wrote: "I think another major reason was war-profiteering, look at the amount of money all the defense contractors like lockheed, halliburton, boing, etc are making." I'll let you do the research on this one yourself.... Get back to me and tell me HOW MUCH halliburton has profited from the war in Iraq? You dont know what youre talking about. Specifically look for the 'contract' arrangements that Halliburton signed with the government... (i.e. Profit margins and maximum profit pricing). Even your Canadian politicians agree, that the U.S. should be commended with the stipulations we made regarding these profit caps!!! See 1) Jack Layton (NDP), 2) Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Quebecons Party) 3) Stephen Harper (Conserv. Party) and your PM... Paul Martin. Again, you dont know what youre talking about. Research... and get back with me... Please. You wrote; "its naive to think that a man like George Bush would want to go into a country thousands of miles away, spend over 200 billion dollars of american citizens money, just to "liberate the iraqi people". I never said liberating the people was the primary, secondary, or even tertiary reason for the invasion!!! Please read my past entries. The liberation of the Iraqi people is a sideeffect (good one) of the U.S. protecting IT'S OWN PEOPLE.

yeah bla, bla, bla The only terrorists who are breaking all human rights, killing and torturing innocent people, breaking freedom and democracy at the moment is: USA. It´s bloody reality, the USA killed and provoced more wars than the Nazis in WW II. And one more thing, in WWII without Russian the Nazis were never beaten. So pls. stop with that hipocrecy,

LOL!!!!!! Yea for the swiss, theyve done nothing for the world... except 'swiss cheese'. The only population thats more cowardly than the french or canadians IS NO DOUBT... THE SWISS!!! Go pay some more taxes to your shitt yass loser government and let your 'turncoat' of citizens whine more about shit in the world that theyve done nothing to combat. LOSER! Russians??? I and my fellow Americans thank God that the Russians fought so valiantly in WWII, They sacrificed millions for the cause. The swiss could learn a thing or two from the Russians. P.S. Remember who won the 'cold war'??? Oh yea, It was America.

Posted by: BlackGlass hahaha, it seems iv sparked a bit of a heated discussion here. but yea i do have a 4x4 truck its sweet, i ski, i do trade jobs here and there and i go to school (where i get my education by the way...) so if a hill billy is someone whos outdoors works with their hands and drives a big truck i must be a hill billy. but i was refering to hill billys as toothless touch your sister bible thumbers most comonly found in souther states (where ironicly enough bush won most of his votes), sorry for the confusion yall. looks like il have to sell my truck as to not get all cought up with these hill billy types!

So you're pissed you missed a year of hockey and want to rant against the South? Well, I live in the South, don't own slaves, have all my teeth, and am more educated than you. If you don't like GW, fine. You don't live here and what he does doesn't really affect your country. I haven't heard of the Marines invading Vancouver, have you? So Iraq didn't turn out very well...point is, it's our mess, we'll clean it up. Just go back to doing what you Canadians do best: watching hockey, pronouncing about like aboot, excessive use of the word eyh, and acting like a bunch of pu$$ies.