Pope: Enough with slaughters in Iraq

[LiberalNation]

Strong messages from this pope, he's not wish-washy at all.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080316/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_palm_sunday;_ylt=ApMHepsVKadjkKiPprViRdCs0 NUE

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in Iraq on Sunday, days after the body of the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop was found near the northern city of Mosul.

The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life.

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square

[Abbey Marie]

If only it was that easy to get people to stop blowing people up in the name of Allah.

[FSUK]

If only it was that easy to get people to stop blowing people up in the name of Allah.

abbey, if only the US and its freinds didnt illegally invade iraq. they are the cause of the death and destruction. It is their presence that is feeding these extremists.

You seriously need to open your eyes.

[Abbey Marie]

abbey, if only the US and its freinds didnt illegally invade iraq. they are the cause of the death and destruction. It is their presence that is feeding these extremists.

You seriously need to open your eyes.

Thanks for your PM. :)

One major problem with your logic is, we weren't an invading force in Iraq when they hit the WTC.

[PostmodernProphet]

abbey, if only the US and its freinds didnt illegally invade iraq. they are the cause of the death and destruction. It is their presence that is feeding these extremists.

You seriously need to open your eyes.

yet it seems AQ is NOT stronger than it was when it attacked the US, at least not if you measure it by what they themselves say......

[FSUK]

Thanks for your PM. :)

One major problem with your logic is, we weren't an invading force in Iraq when they hit the WTC.

Abbey, i see your point. However these terrorists in iraq are blowing everyone up- because they dont want the US there. They want them out..and also those that are seen to colloborate with them.

Its a civil war now.

[jimnyc]

Abbey, i see your point. However these terrorists in iraq are blowing everyone up- because they dont want the US there. They want them out..and also those that are seen to colloborate with them.

Let me see if I have this straight...

They don't want the US there, so they use suicide bombers non-stop to blow up their fellow citizens?

[FSUK]

Let me see if I have this straight...

They don't want the US there, so they use suicide bombers non-stop to blow up their fellow citizens?

They also blow up US troops and tanks. How many thousands US troops have died there?- alot.

The fact, is that such civil war- was not there prior to the invasion. The puppet shia govt- is causing tensions- it is not a representative govt.

There were NO suicide bombs prior to invasion, the invasion has just opened the gates of hell over there.

[Gaffer]

Abbey, i see your point. However these terrorists in iraq are blowing everyone up- because they dont want the US there. They want them out..and also those that are seen to colloborate with them.

Its a civil war now.

They want the US out so they can establish a base of operations and get oil revenues to finance their war. There is no civil war in iraq, there are a bunch of AQ from other countries trying to take control of the region. There is no rebel movement trying to defeat the government. The US and iraq are fighting thugs and foreigners.

The civil war lie was last years bullshit, you need to catch up with the times.

[jimnyc]

They also blow up US troops and tanks. How many thousands US troops have died there?- alot.

The fact, is that such civil war- was not there prior to the invasion. The puppet shia govt- is causing tensions- it is not a representative govt.

There were NO suicide bombs prior to invasion, the invasion has just opened the gates of hell over there.

And how many Iraqi civilians have been killed by the terrorists and extremists? Well over a hundred thousand! They have a rather odd way of showing their displeasure with the US! Maybe they're just violent people?

[Said1]

abbey, if only the US and its freinds didnt illegally invade iraq. they are the cause of the death and destruction. It is their presence that is feeding these extremists.

You seriously need to open your eyes.

Go back to the beginning. Name a time when the Mid East was at total peace. And when I say beginning, I mean the inception and spread of Islam.

[Said1]

They also blow up US troops and tanks. How many thousands US troops have died there?- alot.

The fact, is that such civil war- was not there prior to the invasion. The puppet shia govt- is causing tensions- it is not a representative govt.

There were NO suicide bombs prior to invasion, the invasion has just opened the gates of hell over there.

Meaning the potential was there, prior?

[DragonStryk72]

Thanks for your PM. :)

One major problem with your logic is, we weren't an invading force in Iraq when they hit the WTC.

Um, that was Al-Qaeda, mostly based out of Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. Where's the Iraq in that? I believe you may be very misinformed.

[Pale Rider]

Well, I guess we'll find out what kind of influence the Pope has over AQ.

[Kathianne]

What I read about the pope's statement did not lead me to say he was even talking about 'Bush's War', rather the murder of the Catholic bishop there along with two others. It was directed to Iraqis. Blame Reuter's or AP for the headline.

[LiberalNation]

Well there was that one line and the Vatican as been clear in it's disapproval of this war.

This Bishop will go down as a true catholic martyr of our modern time.

[Abbey Marie]

Um, that was Al-Qaeda, mostly based out of Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. Where's the Iraq in that? I believe you may be very misinformed.

FSUK stated that people are being blown up because we invaded Iraq. I said that 9/11 happened without us being in Iraq. Therefore, his argument puts the cart before the horse and is illogical. Which country the particular Islamic terrorists came from is irrelevant. Wheverever they are from, they blow people up because they are full of hatred and committ unimaginable violence in the name of Allah. I am not misinformed; you just need to follow the conversation a little better.

[LiberalNation]

and committ unimaginable violence in the name of Allah.
and we commit unimaginable violence in the name of freedom. Just cuz it's a bomb dropped from the sky doesn't mean the killing ain't the same, just not as personal.

Humans do mean things to each other on the basis of their principles, just a fact of life. Islamic terrorists aren't some new unimaginable evil.

[Abbey Marie]

and we commit unimaginable violence in the name of freedom. Just cuz it's a bomb dropped from the sky doesn't mean the killing ain't the same, just not as personal.

Humans do mean things to each other on the basis of their principles, just a fact of life. Islamic terrorists aren't some new unimaginable evil.

Your attempt at moral equivalency between us and these murderers is just sad.

[LiberalNation]

Dead is dead, the dead don't care how it got that way, neither do their families most the time.

[diuretic]

AQ had no links to Iraq prior to 9/11. It was a bunch of Saudis who committed the atrocities. Invading Iraq wasn't about 9/11, that was just a convenient excuse. There have been reports just released which explicity deny any AQ connection to Iraq under Saddam.

The invasion of Iraq has caused the situation that His Holiness is decrying. The invasion of Iraq was voluntary and it was unprovoked by the Ba'athist regime of Saddam.

Perhaps the Pope is thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas on the conditions of just war. If he is then he knows it isn't a just war.

[Gaffer]

AQ had no links to Iraq prior to 9/11. It was a bunch of Saudis who committed the atrocities. Invading Iraq wasn't about 9/11, that was just a convenient excuse. There have been reports just released which explicity deny any AQ connection to Iraq under Saddam.

The invasion of Iraq has caused the situation that His Holiness is decrying. The invasion of Iraq was voluntary and it was unprovoked by the Ba'athist regime of Saddam.

Perhaps the Pope is thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas on the conditions of just war. If he is then he knows it isn't a just war.

saddam had very strong links to the muslim brotherhood and other similar groups. Guess who makes up two thirds of AQ. The muslim brotherhood. It's all documented in that recent report. The report that got cherry picked parts released by an anonymous source before the full report came out.

Non-compliance with the peace agreement, non-compliance with the un resolutions, appearantly having WMD's, shooting at US and British aircraft for 12 years. You call that unprovoked? And we won't even go into the stuff uncovered after the fact. And I haven't mentioned the attempted assassination of a former US president ordered directly by saddam. We had and have a lot going on in the ME and the last thing we needed was a megalomaniac continually threatening the region.

Letting that mad man continue in power with his torture rooms and rape rooms and thumbing his nose at the world is not what I consider just.

[retiredman]

saddam had very strong links to the muslim brotherhood and other similar groups. Guess who makes up two thirds of AQ. The muslim brotherhood. It's all documented in that recent report. The report that got cherry picked parts released by an anonymous source before the full report came out.

Non-compliance with the peace agreement, non-compliance with the un resolutions, appearantly having WMD's, shooting at US and British aircraft for 12 years. You call that unprovoked? And we won't even go into the stuff uncovered after the fact. And I haven't mentioned the attempted assassination of a former US president ordered directly by saddam. We had and have a lot going on in the ME and the last thing we needed was a megalomaniac continually threatening the region.

Letting that mad man continue in power with his torture rooms and rape rooms and thumbing his nose at the world is not what I consider just.


I have not seen any documentation of any substantive connection between the muslim brotherhood and saddam. do you have a link?

[truthmatters]

All of the indications are that he had no connections. Facts just dont mean anything to some people.

[Gaffer]

I have not seen any documentation of any substantive connection between the muslim brotherhood and saddam. do you have a link?

Here you go.

http://www.floppingaces.net/

Check the third article down.

[Kathianne]

I think this will get you to the link and has some direct info from the full report:

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/03/15/pentagon-rpt-confirms-saddams-regime-supported-al-qaida/

[avatar4321]

I wish just saying enough would end things, but it won't.

It has to be worked for.

Has the Pope been to Iraq lately? Does he know what's happening on the ground?

[Kathianne]

I wish just saying enough would end things, but it won't.

It has to be worked for.

Has the Pope been to Iraq lately? Does he know what's happening on the ground?

I agree, and here is something interesting:

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2008/03/you-dont-get-to.html

Just a small bit, which includes the Pope and others:


...Jules Crittenden, guided us through the fog of war:


No one expected to see dusk. What we expected was Mogadishu writ large. The Americans would win, that was indisputable. But we, the first in, embarked on it without expectation of survival. We prepared to make a good run of it, stripping soft gear off the outside of the Bradley that might burn if we got hit, loading up on water and ammo. Smitty, the Bradley's 20-year-old radio operator, was bounced to make room for a psyops soldier and the amplifiers that would blast the "surrender" messages. Smitty was angry . . .

I was the only one in the company who had a choice in the matter. But the question of whether to ride with one's friends, when one has a job to do, when one has made a commitment, is not much of a question at all. There was heavy fire that day and for two days after. A lot of people died. But not us. We lived, and learned some of the many lessons that war has to offer.

Things rarely happen as expected. Once you start, you have to finish. You don't get to be the same again. There is nothing much good about any of it, but winning is better than losing. And there is no such thing as a safe place to which you can withdraw.

...

[Kathianne]

Sort of related to the above:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/16/patton_and_the_2008_vote/


Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
Patton and the 2008 vote
Globe Columnist / March 16, 2008


...Nowadays, the thought of losing a war isn't as hateful to some Americans as the thought of losing an election. Recall MoveOn.org's infamous "General Betray Us" ad last fall, which was intended to undercut the commander of US forces in Iraq. Think of Senate majority leader Harry Reid's insistence that "this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything," or Barack Obama's unbudging claim that the "strategy is failed" and we must "get our troops out," or Hillary Clinton's vow that "starting on day one of my presidency, we will begin . . . to withdraw our troops within 60 days."

Were Patton alive today, his opinion of such defeatism would assuredly be unflattering - and unprintable. But his conviction that Americans have no patience for losers would be reinforced by the public's mounting confidence that the war in Iraq will be won.

According to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, are now convinced that the United States will "succeed . . . in achieving its goals" in Iraq. A year ago, just 30 percent of the public thought the military effort in Iraq was going "very well" or "fairly well." That optimistic view is held today by 48 percent.
...

[diuretic]

saddam had very strong links to the muslim brotherhood and other similar groups. Guess who makes up two thirds of AQ. The muslim brotherhood. It's all documented in that recent report. The report that got cherry picked parts released by an anonymous source before the full report came out.

Non-compliance with the peace agreement, non-compliance with the un resolutions, appearantly having WMD's, shooting at US and British aircraft for 12 years. You call that unprovoked? And we won't even go into the stuff uncovered after the fact. And I haven't mentioned the attempted assassination of a former US president ordered directly by saddam. We had and have a lot going on in the ME and the last thing we needed was a megalomaniac continually threatening the region.

Letting that mad man continue in power with his torture rooms and rape rooms and thumbing his nose at the world is not what I consider just.

I've got nothing to add and it's pointless playing opinion ping-pong. The invasion of Iraq was unprovoked. The US was the only democracy in the 20th Century to launch an unprovoked war. Rationalise it as much as you want, it doesn't touch the fact that this was an unprovoked war, to say nothing of the aftermath. It is one almighty fuck-up and no amount of perfume will remove the stink.

[DragonStryk72]

Thanks for your PM. :)

One major problem with your logic is, we weren't an invading force in Iraq when they hit the WTC.

No, I paid attention quite well, this was the sentence you use, so you were either misinformed, on apparently, did not structure your sentence well. either way, the sentence was still the same one. and yes, the people who actually attacked us is important. Iraq did not want a war with us, they proved that every time they backed down the past 14 years just before we would roll in. They even kept trying to yield up once they realized we weren't backing down this time. Saddam was amazing at playing the punk game, but still, Iraq did not want a war with us.

And unless you've got some severe numbers of links that tell me he was a part of 9/11, then yeah, we sacked a country that wasn't fighting us. Now, did Saddam need to go, and did he deserve the death penalty he got? Hells yes. We should have taken him out the first time we said we would, when Iraq was in a much better state, when we could have secured it much more easily.

As to the Vatican's denouncing the war, I just have one thing to say: Duh? the church that's against killing says that war is bad, how is this unexpected? It would be kind of like being surprised when DARE proclaims that it is against the columbian druglords.

[chesswarsnow]

Sorry bout that,


1. The Pope is correct.
2. Its time they stop the slaughter.
3. The war ended in like 3 weeks, after it started.
4. They have been slaughtering each others to try to get to USA.
5. That's unholy sad.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Abbey Marie]

No, I paid attention quite well, this was the sentence you use, so you were either misinformed, on apparently, did not structure your sentence well. either way, the sentence was still the same one. and yes, the people who actually attacked us is important. Iraq did not want a war with us, they proved that every time they backed down the past 14 years just before we would roll in. They even kept trying to yield up once they realized we weren't backing down this time. Saddam was amazing at playing the punk game, but still, Iraq did not want a war with us.

And unless you've got some severe numbers of links that tell me he was a part of 9/11, then yeah, we sacked a country that wasn't fighting us. Now, did Saddam need to go, and did he deserve the death penalty he got? Hells yes. We should have taken him out the first time we said we would, when Iraq was in a much better state, when we could have secured it much more easily.

As to the Vatican's denouncing the war, I just have one thing to say: Duh? the church that's against killing says that war is bad, how is this unexpected? It would be kind of like being surprised when DARE proclaims that it is against the columbian druglords.


"They" refers to *Islamic terrorists*, which is what we were discussing. People who behead or blow up innocent people. People who are perpetuating the war in Iraq. It did not refer specifically to the people who blew up the WTC. Your nit-picking of words proves that you are missing the forest for the trees on this topic.

Let's try again: We (the US) were not an invading force in Iraq, when *Islamic terrorists* brought down the WTC. Therefore, blaming *Islamic terrorist* violence against the US on the fact that we are at war in Iraq, is illogical. *Islamic terrorist* hatred, the violence, and the agenda to bring us down, were there long before we attacked Iraq. (See also the 1st WTC bombing, and the USS Cole if you are still confused about the sequence of events of acts of violence by *Islamic terrorists* vs. the US).

Btw, did you know that the *Islamic terrorists* blowing people up in Iraq are often from other ME countries?

[diuretic]

October 2001 - invasion of Afghanistan to get the AQ people who masterminded the atrocities on 9/11.

March/May 2003 - invasion of Iraq to get....<please nominate currently favoured rationale>

[Gaffer]

October 2001 - invasion of Afghanistan to get the AQ people who masterminded the atrocities on 9/11.

March/May 2003 - invasion of Iraq to get....<please nominate currently favoured rationale>

saddam

We went in to remove saddam hussein.

[manu1959]

saddam

We went in to remove saddam hussein.

and the AQ that fled into iraq that saddam would not help capture......?

[Gaffer]

and the AQ that fled into iraq that saddam would not help capture......?

True

[retiredman]

and the AQ that fled into iraq that saddam would not help capture......?
who were these AQ that fled into Iraq that Saddam would not help capture, and where, in Iraq, had they fled to?

[Gaffer]

who were these AQ that fled into Iraq that Saddam would not help capture, and where, in Iraq, had they fled to?

zarqowi and a bunch of others I don't know the names of. Many went north to their training camps. Other stuck around baghdad to organize the resistance forces saddam had set up. You really need to pay more attention to history. You just to busy denying everything and trying to be right at any cost to know what was really going on.

And I'm not going to dig up links on shit we have already covered.

[chesswarsnow]

Sorry bout that,


1. Here's the *Fatskinny* on this.
2. America got attacked.
3. We know when and where.
4. Saddam said, "Hey come here and we send all you Americans home a bloody mess." and, "We won't allow inspectors back in here, you bring it!"
5. So after a bloody year, Bush took our forces in, giving *Saddam Hussein*, plenty of time to send his bigger weapons into Syria.
6. Israel recently took out a site in Syria, that could of been Saddams weapons.
7. I am sure we know, but its classified.
8. Mean while we are not really in a war anymore.
9. We are just hunkering down in a couple mid~evil countries in order to keep track on whats going on there.
10. Also we need to protect the oil, in that area, don't need to have another evil empire to have to deal with, we are still in Japan, Germany, and other places, that we will be in for a long ass time, just to keep an eye on shit.:popcorn:


Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Gaffer]

Sorry bout that,


1. Here's the *Fatskinny* on this.
2. America got attacked.
3. We know when and where.
4. Saddam said, "Hey come here and we send all you Americans home a bloody mess." and, "We won't allow inspectors back in here, you bring it!"
5. So after a bloody year, Bush took our forces in, giving *Saddam Hussein*, plenty of time to send his bigger weapons into Syria.
6. Israel recently took out a site in Syria, that could of been Saddams weapons.
7. I am sure we know, but its classified.
8. Mean while we are not really in a war anymore.
9. We are just hunkering down in a couple mid~evil countries in order to keep track on whats going on there.
10. Also we need to protect the oil, in that area, don't need to have another evil empire to have to deal with, we are still in Japan, Germany, and other places, that we will be in for a long ass time, just to keep an eye on shit.:popcorn:


Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

The site that Israel bombed was a nuclear site full of NK nuke technology. saddams wmd's are scattered among the hezbollah forces in syria and southern lebanon.

[retiredman]

The site that Israel bombed was a nuclear site full of NK nuke technology. saddams wmd's are scattered among the hezbollah forces in syria and southern lebanon.

tinfoil hat size? 6 5/8ths?