I'm for the right for anyone to burn any flag as long as it's within the law. For instance, I'm against someone burning a flag (or anything else foe that matter) near brush, trees, and or dried grass during a draught). not good to be a cause of a 100 million acre forest fire because of a political opinion.
When I see someone burn a flag, I see someone upset about a policy or two of the country's flag they're burning. I don't see them upset with everyone or everything about that particular country.
Personally I am against flag burning. Don't confuse that with being against the right to burn the flag as I support the Rights to free speach very strongly. I won't burn my country's flag nor will I burn any other country's flag or symbol, ever. Never have, never will. That's one of the fastest nonviolent ways to get people on the fence to join the other side. It only strengthens the other side's resolve.
Am I against this present invasion? Yes I am. Have I or will I go to the streets and protest? No. Protests via mob mentality turn into violence and chaos. Let's see, Im against the violence and chaos of war but I'm going to use violence and chaos to get my points across? Nope. I have some friends and people I know over there right now. I don't want to see them coming back in body bags. I don't want to see innocent Iraqi civillians killed/injured either.
I am not against this war because of human rights, I am against my government going in without UN approval (official international support). To unilaterally invade another sovereign nation because of the potential of what they might do is opening a Pandoras box, we might not be able to close.
As I see it, France, Germany, China, and Russia wanted more time for the UN inspectors to finish their inspections before deciding if it was right to invade. Had we found the smoking gun of chem, bio stockpiles, we'd have gotten the worldwide support and coalition memberships in our invasion. No smoking gun found yet. what were we afraid of by waiting another 3-6 months? That perhaps there would be no WMDs? Our allies only want proof that there are WMDs before they'd lend support. Not inuendos of their being WMDs via the proper documentation of the destruction of said WMDs.
Keep in mind the Iraq military doesn't classify, handle, document their chemical weapons like we western nations do. We got into exposure trouble from detonating some chem munitions because we thought they were conventional. No warning signs or documentation. No seperate storage facility. They were store right next to conventional munitions in the bunkers. (I think the only difference was the color coding of the tips).
Are you really surprised that Iraq wouldn't want to be 100% cooperative? After all since 91, it has been under a strangling econonomic blockage and embargo. A lot of their civillians have been killed do to starvation and lack of proper medical treatment.
Is Saddam head of a brutal regime? Yup. would I be glad if his regime was replaced by a democratically elected leader by the Iraqi people? Would I like to see sovereign peoples everywhere enjoying peace, freedom, democracy, civil liberties with the rights to pursue hapiness? You bet. Our reasons are dubious for getting Saddam. We helped him, his WMD programs, supported his invasion of Iran, turned a blind eye when he massacred the Kurds (we still do that to Turkey). But because he isn't an ally of ours, we get our panties up in a bunch? We are the Doctor Frankenstein of too many regimes.
There are and have been worse regimes that we have propped up and supported. When do we go after them and our fellow Americans that supported such regimes? If we do that we're going to be at war with the majority of the world. Either you hold the same standard to all countries or you hypocritically do not. It's ok to support a viscious, totalilitarian regime because they happen to be an ally, but not ok if they're not?
Now that we're in this invasion, am I still against it? Yup. I do hope we reach our objectives as "cleanly" and with the least loss of life as possible (I've got too many friends and people I know over there right now). I'm sure no one likes innocent civillian casualties. those points we all have in common I'm sure.
I've got to go to work now. You all want to flame away, go ahead. In my mind you'll be just like the flag burning idiots. Either make your case in a civilised manner or don't bother trying. we can have a civilized discussion, you know.
Regards,
SaburoS
PS. I consider myself extremely patriotic and will show my support for this country's welfare and people (yes, including every single member of this BBS no matter our disagreements) in my way. Please excuse any typos and fragmented thoughts as I just woke up.
