12 yr-old with his arms blown off

[DavidUK]

The 12 yr-old boy with his arms blown off (and his parents killed) reported on the news last night - we 'the allies' did that!! And I can't stop thinking about it. Is that a price worth paying? I don't believe he would think so. I wonder if Bush, Blair and all other warmongers would be so keen on war if they had their arms blown off and families killed? I am very very angry. Saddam may be a brutal monster but we are no better when we do things like this.

[Worker]

Miss Zippy. I wasn't being rude in my comments and I hope you didn't think I was; it's just that your opinions why the Allies generally and the US in particular are in Iraq are diagonally opposite to mine. I think they're there for humanitarian reasons and you think for political or financial ones. Only time will tell. There is one thing I think we can agree on and that is that Iraq will be a far better place without SH and that the future of the country will be put back in the hands of the people. I think it would be beneficial for all concerned if the government of whatever persuasion had at least an open mind as far as the west is concerned rather than have this dogmatic, intransigent and hostile opinion of the west. We could do with friends in that area.

[Miss Zippy]

No I didn't think you were being rude at all, Worker. I respect your views and opinions (as I do everyone else, provided they can back up their argument) and do understand your argument; it's just not what I believe to be true. But we live in hope and, as you say, only time will tell whether this war was the 'right' thing to do at this time.

[seaoil]

You've hit the nail on the head worker. It's when so often in the past and in the future the "heroes" like Bush and Blair do nothing to help those suffering, what's more you'll find that these liberating countries manufactured and supplied the WMD's we hear of. Stop kidding yourselves will you? If Bush et al want to go and bomb other countries that's OK ,not much I can do about just dont expect me to sit like a dork and applaud it.

[Worker]

Well, you may not applaud it, but the Iraqis certainly are.

[seaoil]

Except for the dead ones and the ones still fighting and the ones who'll get cancer for decades to come from the depleted uranium. Have a nice day

[Worker]

OK seaoil, let's go the whole hog. Let's blame Benz for all the road casualities he's created, JL Baird for inventing the tv which has given us these ghastly images; perhaps Messrs Gatling, Holt, Smith and Wessen, perhaps even the Chinese for inventing the gun powder; Walter Raleigh for lung cancer - the list is endless and just as useless as your argument. Yes, there are dead ones, on both sides, so what are you saying exactly? You can still only see what's directly in front of your nose can't you? Yes, a relatively few dead Iraqis but many many millions now free from tirany. The cost in human life, mental and physical health caused by the first world war was perhaps 1,000, maybe a million times greater - but then we didn't see it did we?

[seaoil]

Its your conscience mate not mine. All I'm saying is that it's very easy to sit somewhere like Britain and say "Well what a good job we've done there" without ever REALLY having to consider the consequences of military action by big world powers. If people open their eyes they just see that time after time the ones who suffer over and over and over again are the ordinary people, be they in NY 9/11, Afghanistan, an Israeli bus, an Iraqi village, a Bali hotel etc etc etc. Evil begets evil, violence begets violence it just goes on and on and on.

[Worker]

But this is just my point. Firstly, we need as many friends in the Arab world as possible and if two sides of any dispute can't find their own solution maybe an outside force could bring some sort of sanity to the situation. I think I read somewhere else that Israel has also ignored many UN resolutions and if this is the case pressure should be brought to bear on them as well, if only to show we're fair to both sides. I can see we're never going to agree on this; I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.