Debate tonight

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Debate tonight
303
Thu, 09-30-2004 - 10:54pm
So, what did everybody think? This debate was my first (missed last yr's) and I enjoyed it. I liked how they were both respectful to each other and professional. No sighing, making facial expressions, slouching etc. I can't wait for the vp debates. :) XOXO.

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Avatar for savagefreedom
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:18pm
I have to agree, the thing is many American cannot place them self in that country. It is the complete opposite of everything American stands for. I personal think if we dropped the anti-war folks in Saddam Iraq, they would be for the war with or witout the WMD. Or the volitions of the UN resolutions.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:21pm
>>Shouldn't the fact that these countries make contributions at all, be relevant and good enough?<<

With all due respect mifskie,

Isn’t a position of trying to include as many helping hands as possible preferable to saying 'good enough’ ?

And of course it’s relevant.

Any help should be respected and appreciated.

I think it’s a case of being enough to get a large and difficult job done.

There’s so much work still left to do in Iraq, and I mean no disrespect to all the sacrifices already made and all the tough work already done.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:24pm
those are not eyewitness accounts, you have been sold a Republican-funded bill of goods

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=231

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:27pm
What about Dan Rather? Thank goodness for fox & talk radio -- now we truly can get "the other side of the story".
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:30pm
>>I'll have to remeber that the next time a self-righteous Canadian starts mouthing off about your measley contributions to keeping international order while expecting the same amount of respect and influence as those who pay the lion's share in both monetary & human terms.<<

And you say Kerry is disrespecting allies.

Why are you associating one person's point of view with an entire country?

Isn't that being a tad simplistic?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 4:38pm
Last term I had a math teacher who was from Iran. He was once talking to a few of us about his country and being here (he's been here over 12 yrs) and one student asked him if he ever missed Iran and he was like "no way." He seems to really like it here and his family. Before they lived in Florida and they moved here to Tennessee. He was such a nice guy and a great teacher. You could tell he loved teaching (always willing to stay as late as people needed after class and that was around 7:45pm est) and was an engineer at TVA during the day (he said math was more like a passion then job).
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 6:39pm
you wrote:

"I support the war in Iraq for two reasons. One: We have troops there risking their lives everyday. Two: As an American woman I simply can't fathom what it would be like to be a woman in Iraq. I can't imagine living in fear. I can't imagine not being free. It's that simple. Can you imagine a life in which you weren't free?"

^^^^

Women all over the world can imagine that. You have formed a wildly uninformed opinion and called it "simple." Simple is one word for it, that's for sure!

Newsflash: it's happening in countries all around the world (women "not free"). F.Y.I:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/news.do

http://www.unicef.org/french/emerg/index_exploitation.html

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/trafficking2002/index.html

http://www.savingwomenslives.org/

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150172000?open&of=ENG-ISR

http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cirm.htm

http://www.savethechildren.ca/en/whatwedo/isfemgen.html

http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/

Did you know that:

-in 28 African nations, FGM (female genital mutilation) is practiced on thousands of girls every day, permanently maiming them?

-in Kuwait, women (55% of the population) can not vote? Or run for office?

-in Lebanon, proof of education is required of women to vote, but not men?

-in India, an average of 5 women a day are burned by their in-laws in dowry-related disputes (known as "kitchen fires" because they are frequently written off/ignored by authorities)?

-in Pakistan, young girls are frequently sold into arranged marriages?

-in Israel, 3000 women are trafficked (tricked) into the country as sex slaves (90% from Egypt)?

-in Morocco, despite last year's reforms allowing women to initiate divorce, men are still allowed to practice polygamy?

-------->And by the way: Want to know what the U.S. doing about the rampant epidemic of sex slave trafficking across Europe and Asia? The U.S. State Department has set up a hotline number. (If you have somehow never heard of sex slave trafficking, in a nutshell it is: women lured by the thousands from poor countries with the promise of good jobs & forced by threat of death to work in brothels where they often don't speak the language and their passports have been stolen from them).

http://www.detnews.com/2001/nation/0111/28/a10d-353428.htm

http://www.american.edu/TED/italian-trafficking.htm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3071971/

http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1454790


-------->Also, by the way: Even under Hussein, women in Iraq were considered by many Arab nations to be quite integreated into society and much more "free" (with more rights) than many other Arab nations today. Are those other nations next on our attack list?


SO,

my point is not that it was OK for Iraqi women to have their rights infringed upon by Hussein; my point is that your logic (that is was America's OBLIGATION to invade Iraq because "women were not free") is inconsistent with everything else America does & has done. I don't remember Bush's argument for invading Iraq being based on women's lives there, I was told Hussein was an immininet threat with his WMD's - a claim based on shaky evidence, since disproven to the embarrassment of Bush & Co.

In the U.S., people think we now have a culture which supports & values women as equals. (THAT is still totally debateable.) Furthermore: 100 years ago in America if you were a woman, you were the individual property of a man, either your father or your husband; if you left, you could be brought back as private property. We are suddenly morally correct on the issue of "free women" and should attack any region that is sill evolving toward equality?

It is a huge leap of logic (if one can even call it that) to say we are Earth Police and it's our role to attack a country (who did not attack us) in order to rescue women from their plight-- it is inconsistent with any understanding of U.S. history & current events around the Globe. I reject your explanation ("Iraqi women weren't free") for why the Iraqi War merits our support. I attribute it to the possibility that you are simply unaware of the living conditions for women all around the world. Is that possible? I am heartbroken and outraged over violations against women in the world, but it is farcical to imagine that "the welfare of women" in the world was a motive for Bush to go after Hussein.


p.s.-- Do you think the women in Iraq appreciate the thousands of innocent sons & husbands we have killed since we invaded? Do you think they wouldn't have preferred we help them SOME OTHER WAY if we were so concerned about their rights? If you say, "there was no other way", you have been sold a bill of goods and made a choice to settle for Republican "talking points" instead of actual facts.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 6:41pm
I agree with you. Well said.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 6:44pm
Wow if that isn't a transparent pile of excuses.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 6:53pm
blondie, i REALLY think many of us will agree that there is no need to call someone an idiot. did you like hearing it from T.H.Kerry? i didn't. and i don't like hearing it from you.



in regards to Fox not declaring a winner... SHOCKING (and really laughably predictable)

blondie i would like to invite you to see this (in theaters now, DVD available for order):

http://www.outfoxed.org/Screenings.php

and let us all know what you thought of it.

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