The war in Iraq was fully justified by the massacres and gross human rights abuses committed by the Saddam regime. Or did you not hear about the 300,000 discovered in mass graves? Or about the hundreds of thousands of Kurds driven from the their homes and forced to become refugees.

In the words of colonel Tim Colins:

"We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them. Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there.
You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing. Don't treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor. In years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls, and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory. If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves. It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive but there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their body bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please. If you harm the regiment or its history by over enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation. As for ourselves, let's bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there. Our business now is north".
 http://www.protestwarrior.com

Concerned,you kill me every time you post.
SO lets see now, you think that:

Torture of women and children,including rape of children is liberation.

The use of white phosphorus as an offensive weapon on civilians is liberation.

The death by bombing of over 100 000 civilians is liberation.

The destruction of a countries entire infrastrucure is liberation.

The theft of oil,right now being divided up by western/us companies is liberation.

The fact that the iraqi farmers now have to use USA seeds is liberation.

The constant shooting of journalists is liberation.

The imprisonment of thousands without trial is liberation.

The poisioning of the land with illegal radioactive weapons (DU) is liberation.

And of course,the fact that the whole war is based upon twisted lies to enable Bushes agenda of death,is also liberation.

What a jolly decent chap you are,such values,such honour....You must be a member of either the neo cons or new labour.
Enjoy your work for the government.
U kill me man.

Interesting to see how the global situation is slipping out of the control of the US empire, ever since the foolish mistakes in Iraq. You can see that Iran is obviously not frightened by the US anymore, because it knows that it holds a lot of the cards with respect for Iraq. Already, the US is getting the shit kicked out of it by the minority Sunni insurgency. Imagine what would happen if Iran convinced the Shia to rise up as well. So Iran knows it has a lot of leeway. This is one stupid consequence of the US invasion of Iraq, and a good example of how greed sows the seeds of its own destruction.

And at the same time, Latin America is slipping out of the control of the US, with the people electing leaders like Chavez and Morales, and soon the only right-wing bastion will be Colombia, and some central american states. The US doesn't do itself any favors by building a big wall along the mexican border, and trying to overthrow democratically elected leaders. Their ideology blinded them to the realities, and their attention was focused on their stupid war, and now they are losing the battle of hearts and minds in their own neighbours. Even Canada is moving away from the US.

And all the while, China is growing more powerful, and the asian countries and economies are more and more falling into it's sphere.

The US has to learn to be a part of the global community, as an equal, if it doesn't want to be left behind and sidelined. At the moment it is being universally rejected.

Hello again Concerned. you've got a bit of a verbal tic going on when someone mentions Iraq don't you?

Funny that you should quote Tim Collins, who has recently come out against the war, and particularly the conduct of the US Forces.

At least you've proven that Americans can understand irony.

"The war in Iraq was fully justified by the massacres and gross human rights abuses committed by the Saddam regime."

No, it was not. Regime Change is illegal, and leaked documents prove that the US/Uk knew this. That's what the "WMD" LIES were all about, feigning a justification for a war they knew to be illegal, that was planned before Bush/PNAC was installed to the White House.

Saddam was trained, armed, funded, and protected from several coup attempts, let's not forget, by the USA and CIA, under the direction of many of the same criminals in power today.

The War of Aggression for Profit was, according the Nuremberg Principles, "the Supreme International Crime, the Crime Against Peace". It was also a violation of the Charter of the United Nations.

Hi Concerned, here is some more Tim Collins for you!!!

Tim Collins told his troops this was a war of liberation, not conquest. Now he says that he was naive to believe it

by Tim Collins

The Guardian (UK)

September 18, 2005


When I led my men of the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment across the border into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. Goodwill and optimism abounded; it was to be a liberation, I had told my men, not a conquest.


In Iraq I sought to surround myself with advisers - Iraqis - who could help me understand what needed to be done. One of the first things they taught me was that the Baath party had been a fact of life for 35 years. Like the Nazi party, they said, it needed to be decapitated, harnessed and dismantled, each function replaced with the new regime. Many of these advisers were Baathists, yet were eager to co-operate, fired with the enthusiasm of the liberation. How must it look to them now?


What I had not realized was that there was no real plan at the higher levels to replace anything, indeed a simplistic and unimaginative overreliance in some senior quarters on the power of destruction and crude military might. We were to beat the Iraqis. That simple. Everything would come together after that.


The Iraqi army was defeated - it walked away from most fights - but was then dismissed without pay to join the ranks of the looters smashing the little infrastructure left, and to rail against their treatment. The Baath party was left undisturbed. The careful records it kept were destroyed with precision munitions by the coalition; the evidence erased, they were left with a free rein to agitate and organize the insurrection. A vacuum was created in which the coalition floundered, the Iraqis suffered and terrorists thrived.


One cannot help but wonder what it was all about. If it was part of the war on terror then history might notice that the invasion has arguably acted as the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda ever: a sort of large-scale equivalent of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry in 1972, which in its day filled the ranks of the IRA. If it was an attempt to influence the price of oil, then the motorists who queued last week would hardly be convinced. If freedom and a chance to live a dignified, stable life free from terror was the motive, then I can think of more than 170 families in Iraq last week who would have settled for what they had under Saddam. UK military casualties reached 95 last week. I nightly pray the total never reaches 100.


The consequences of this adventure may run even deeper. Hurricane Katrina has caused a reappraisal of the motives and aims of this war in the US. The storm came perhaps in the nick of time as hawks in Washington were glancing towards Iran and its newly found self-confidence in global affairs. Meanwhile, China and India are growing and sucking up every drop of oil, every scrap of concrete or steel even as the old-world powers of the UK and US pour blood and treasure into overseas campaigns which seem to have no ending and no goal.


It is time for our leaders to explain what is going on. It was as a battalion commander trying to explain to his men why they would embark on a war that I came to public notice. The irony is that I made certain assumptions that my goodwill and altruistic motivations went to the top. Clearly I was naive. This time it is the role of the leaders of nations to explain where we are going and why. I, for one, demand to know.


· Colonel Tim Collins gave a celebrated speech to his troops about their mission to liberate, not conquer, in Iraq. He has since left the army.



 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1572914,00.html

Quote: "The death by bombing of over 100 000 civilians is liberation."

The vast majority of those 100,000 deaths have been caused by the terrorist insurgents. As for the lies that Saddam was America's guy, yes the briefly supported him during the war with Iran, but so did numerous other countries around the same time too, such as Russia where half of Iraq's arms came from.

"Quote: "The death by bombing of over 100 000 civilians is liberation."

Lie: "The vast majority of those 100,000 deaths have been caused by the terrorist insurgents."

The Lancet study, which Concerned appears to accept, clearly states that these deaths are directly attributable to the occupiers - the figures are SOLELY to do with the occupation - that was the point of the study.

As if a few roadside bombs, snipers and car bombs could kill 100,000! - that takes carpet bombing, disease and starvation.

If Mr Mouthpiece thinks he can fool us with such weak bullshit then he is even more thick than he appears - incredible as that may seem.

And I notice he's gone all quiet about his hero Tim Collins, now the good colonel has woken up to the atrocities commited in his name.

The truth hurts, doesn't it?

No, the US military is responsible for the death toll in Iraq. Even those who were most plausibly killed by the actions of the Iraqi Resistance would be alive today if Bush/Bliar hadn't committed "the Supreme International Crime", violated the Charter of the United Nations, and invaded the sovereign nation without cause.

"As for the lies that Saddam was America's guy, yes the briefly supported him during the war with Iran"

No, they were instrumental to bringing him to power, protecting him from multiple coup attempts, training, funding, and arming his military, and providing him with logistical support. This was throughout his career, up to the first Gulf War.

What happened during the Iran-Iraq War was that the US, under many of the same criminals as today, with the help of Israel as a third party, supplied weapons and intelligence to both sides, in the name of money, geostrategy, and maximizing the number of Arabs killed in the war.

Most accounts Iran-Contra will demonstrate this for you.