By what standard? What is this a RFC protocol or something? Killing civilians is pretty black and white. It is a fact that the US killed civilians in the Gulf war as well as the recent bombings related to 9/11.
but you're making my case for me. saddam is killing his own civilians. he has murdered thousands of Kurds directly, and thousands of his own civilians both directly and indirectly. most people don't characterize him this way, but he is actually the biggest killer of Muslims in the world. if you accumulate the deaths of his own civilians with the mass slaughter of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq conflict, it adds up to millions of Muslims. his goal is to kill more civilians. yes, civilians die in war and the knee-jerk reaction is always to assign blame to the US for civilian casualties. but who started the Gulf War? saddam started it by invading Kuwait. so if you assign blame where blame lies, saddam hussein is directly responsible for all civilian and military casualties. this isn't moral equivalency--he invaded an ally of the United States and we responded by liberating Kuwait. he's at fault.

as for civilian deaths in Afghanistan, i don't know the exact statistics, and any unnecessary death is unfortunate. but who started the war against the West? it was UBL, al-qaeda and his sympathizers, funders and motivators around the world (including the taliban). if the taliban would have cooperated and handed over UBL, the bombing campaign would likely have been unnecessary. look at the results--we liberated that country from a brutal, oppressive regime in a matter of weeks. it was one of the most efficient military operations in history. also consider that sources estimate anywhere from 100 to 4,000 civilian casualties because some people include militant taliban as civilians (Human Rights Watch estimated 1000). the taliban exacerbated the situation by stockpiling weapons and quartering troops in hospitals, mosques and schools.

No I don't see. You think that because Sadam is killing people anyway that whatever the US does is OK...they were gonna die anway right. Morbid point of view you got there. But when I said killing innocent people, I was more referring to dropping bombs on them (by accident, on purpose, whatever, it still happened).
try to think logically for a second. you make no distinction between dropping bombs on people on purpose or by accident. that is really the moral argument at the very heart of the matter. hussein kills on purpose--he murders his own civilians and used chemical weapons against allied forces in the Gulf War (see Gulf War Syndrome causes). civilian deaths caused by the allied forces were by accident. there's a huge moral difference. tens of thousands of Iraqi troops surrendered and they were given food and water. prisoners taken captive by Iraq were tortured and displayed on tv as propaganda. so who are the good guys? you seem to think the allies (which Australia was a part of) are just as evil as hussein for liberating Kuwait. that's utter nonsense.

You imply that because they're communists they must be crazy. Maybe they just want peace. And even if they do have more "sinister" motives for wanting peace. Isn't that a good thing? I rather them protesting for peace instead of inciting war.
well i'm glad you admitted they're communists. i think people protesting for peace is a great thing. in iraq, if people protested saddam, they would be murdered. i think the peace protesters are just largely misguided. they want peace, but they don't understand the concept that peace can only be achieved through war sometimes. and yes, given the evidence of the effects of communism around the world (USSR, N Korea, Maoist China, Cuba, Cambodia, etc) i do think communists are crazy.

You make it sound like Clinton started a war to draw attention away from his sexual antics. Do you really believe that? It's more likely that this was already a part of America's military strategy at the time and Clinton's people just tried to work it in his favour. Keep in mind that Clinton had a more peaceful two terms than Bush has had two months.
yes, i do believe that. you need to read the news more often though. clinton engaged US troops in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Nigeria, and some others i can't remember. he did so largely without consulting Congress, which is unconstitutional. so aside from the fact that what you just said isn't true, i do disagree with all of clinton's uses of our military. not because they were sometimes unethical--they were--but because they didn't serve our vital national interests. but you didn't hear the antiwar protestors up in arms over those little quagmires, did you? in fact, judging by your statement you may not have even known about them.

3. Bush has more reasons not to go to war than to go to war. The main one being that there are other ways of getting Iraq to disarm without going to war.
what are those reasons? what are the other ways? the anti-war and anti-Bush factions always have criticisms, but they never have solutions. what are your solutions? do you want more UN resolutions? because we all can see what good those do. do you want to sit down and talk with saddam and hope he'll see the error of his ways? good luck with that one. what exactly do you propose?

America doesn't have a problem dropping bombs on civilians so I doubt some protesters are going to get in the way of a good military campaign. It is these people's democratic right to peacefully protest the actions of the government. This is called passive resistance, not treason.
first of all, the first statement is slander. to suggest that the US government has no problem killing civilians is false and irresponsible. our country specifically develops precision weaponry in the hopes of eliminating civilian casualties. compare that to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. compare that to suicide bombings in Israel. compare that to the first bombing of the World Trade Center. our enemy targets civilians, and you would accuse us of being the same? shame on you.

and i said protesting is ok, just as long as they don't do it in Baghdad. when they protest in Baghdad, aiding and comforting the enemy while impeding the US military, that is treason.

The point these people are making is that, whatever happened before aside, they don't want a war. Just think about that one single point. The majority of people protesting for peace just don't want more people getting the **** bombed out of them. Sure, there are other parties protesting motivated by other reasons but on the whole, it's just ordinary people who don't like to see innocent people getting killed.
maybe they had better start considering who's getting bombed. you said they don't want more people getting the **** bombed out of them. well they never protested UBL when the WTC got the **** bombed out of it. investigations laid out by Colon Powell have linked iraqi agents and iraqi money with al-qaeda efforts world-wide and have tied direct links to suicide bombings in Israel. it seems the war protesters don't mind people getting bombed, just so long as its the US and Israel.

on the whole i am glad you decided to debate with me. you are clearly passionate about your views. even though i think you're wrong, you're very persuasive.