Four Years.

[Govinda]

So, this week marks the four year anniversary of the apparent Coalition's invasion of Iraq.

To mark this, the BBC news have been keeping a death-count for this week, starting on Monday: 179 this week.

Whenever I think of this conflict, I get angry. An abhorrent (and illegal) act carried out by the British and American governments principally. I cannot believe that that ****ing twat Blair went with Bush. Just for the twatting oil, things like that...from a selfish political view, I can almost understand why Tony followed. I mean, what would Bush have done to him had he not?

But still, the fact remains; Iraqi children die every day, both from Western bullets and from bombs planted to fuel a civil war sparked by our complete underestimation of the Iraqis.

This is just a thread to mark the passing of this date, upon which the death continues; the death toll has hit an estimated one million casualties; and for what? Some oil, offset by a greatly increased terrorist threat to the West, a more unstable Middle East (and a pissed off one at that) and a million more implications, small, often unheard, but still vastly important. They went, and we tried to stop them; we failed. Both Blair and Bush still hold office (and I know that Blair will be gone soon, but his party will remain. They voted for the war too, remember).

My thoughts go out to the poor bastards who are serving in the Army there, and the Iraqi civilians themselves. There will be no quick resolution to this, Iraq knows it; they are angry, and have every right to be.


So, what do you think?

[OmniTense]

It was poorly done.

Iraq... A country filled with the Sunni, Shia and the Kurds. A place filled with mutual hate and disagreement. The only possible way government was to exist there was through the totalitarian efforts of a despot. We removed that despot and all of a sudden hell is loose.

The Sunni (who were moderate and unfanatical amongst the Islam population) were the closest thing to our allies in the region. They made up more than eighty percent of Muslims in the country. But we had to dethrone them and replace them with the Shia (15% of Muslims who have fanatical tendencies). Any geographer will tell you that it was a fool's errand. An errand that we did not even have an express purpose for.

But what is done is done and now we need out. The 2008 election is our main hope. Electing someone with a talent of debogging quagmires... *cross your fingers*

[Silver]

That British fellow Blair's a toughie compared to Australia's own PM Mr John Howard. Howie's practically Bush's dog. It makes me sick, hearing about the polititical sucking up and the like. At least if our PM was some random monkey, he wouldn't be such a sheep. Unless it was a trained monkey of course.

Like Howie