Decathlon: Now backtracks over decision to stay in Russia

[Tyre Lady]

Ahh sorry Jonathan - am unable to articulate in the way you want me to.
I think I have already indicated what I feel we have been "led to believe"

So at this point let us enjoy the singing of the birds, the sweet scents of fragrant blossoms on the trees and the bursts of life happening about us

[Jdsk]

Ahh sorry Jonathan - am unable to articulate in the way you want me to.
I think I have already indicated what I feel we have been "led to believe"

Why? They're simple questions and they can be answered simply.

You introduced the concept that we had been "led to believe" things that aren't true. But you haven't given a single example of something that we have been "led to believe" that isn't true.

Jonathan

[pwa]

@pwa wrote Saddam killed millions

Yes, and I asked you which of these assertions you think are true and which we were only "led to believe":

The dictator of Iraq was responsible for the massacre at Halabja, he was the aggressor who started a war with Iran that killed millions, he invaded Kuwait, he committed crimes against his own people, and we had no reason to think his crimes against humanity had ended.

And we still don't know.

Of course you have the option of answering for each or for all of those assertions, and adding what you think led up to each and who was responsible for those prior actions.

Jonathan

This is a bit of a drift from the thread so I will keep it brief.

My main point was that Saddam did enough bad things to be deemed a bad guy. If there is such a thing, he was one. And that it was possible to make a case for intervening to remove him from power.

I was factually incorrect in saying that the eight year long Iran / Iraq war killed millions. It was only (an estimated) 500,000. Saddam started that war.

Saddam's massacre at Halabja in which he used at least one chemical agent (mustard gas) on the Kurdish civilian population is well documented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre

Is anyone disputing that Saddam ordered his armed forces to invade neighbouring Kuwait?

There are also accounts of Saddam using violence and fear to bolster his grip on power within Iraq, including executing politicians he accused of treason.

I don't put forward any of this to assert that the Second Iraq War was a good idea on the part of the West, because I think it was a very bad idea. But I think Saddam's track record made him more of a justifiable target for aggression than Ukraine, where we have a democratic nation trying to assert its independence from a bullying neighbour. For that reason I think there is a difference, and the aggression against Ukraine is worse.

I'm not sure what the point is in comparing the two invasions. I oppose(d) both. Is that allowed? And the politicians who pushed us into the Iraq invasion are long retired. Well, maybe Biden played a role, I don't know for sure, but he wasn't a Bush supporter. Lots of Western politicians opposed the Iraq invasion at the time, and I suspect few look back and think it was a good idea.

( I didn't keep this as brief as I had hoped)