My obnoxious rant on the world 'situation'

Below is what I originally going to post as a reply / comment to a posting on Rawbeans blog. It's regarding the war in Iraq and people's frustration with GW, and the war in Iraq, etc. I decided to post here since, I figure a huge long winded comment on someone else's' blog would be against blog etiquette.

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WOW!Pardon my candor, but many of these comments actually kinda pissed me off in one way or another.

Afghanistan - Sorry, but though I think most Canadians like to assume Canadian soldiers only ever go places wearing the UN's powder blue, Canada originally went to Afghanistan as an invasion force. We were willing participants in an invasion to oust the Taliban who was sheltering Al-Qaida and Bin Laden. Canadian troops captured Afghani's and even handed them over to the U.S. to be shipped to Guantanamo. The reason it's in the news now is because of effective attacks against our troops (which I feel has to do with the fact too few resources are there).
I've had a couple people tell me Canada is currently in Afghanistan as a peacekeeping force. But neither this UN page nor this Cdn Dept of Defense page (note: updated in 2003) indicate any current peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. This CBC article and this timeline from CTV seem to sum up Canada's involvement pretty well. I found 1 article on the CTV site refer to Canadian troops in a 'peacekeeping role', but the multinational force (ISAF) referred to in the article is NATO led, not UN led. I do believe that makes a difference, especially there aren't any Mid-East nations in NATO.

Ousting dictators - Big Ben, getting rid of despots and protecting the innocent of the world is a fine and noble goal (it really is, not kidding here), but one can't bully the world in to doing it with you. This especially since the U.S. and FRANCE (how about them Freedom Fries?), along with 3 other world powers on the U.N. Security Council couldn't figure out any means of saving lives in Rwanda?
Maybe U.S. opposition to Rwanda had to do with the fact Ewen MacGregor, or Josh Hartnett had such a tough go in Somalia?
So to answer your question about civilized nations allowing dictators to rule? I suppose it depends on many considerations.. and in this case, the fact THIS dictator and abuser of human rights happens to sit on an oil barrel means NOW is the time to be a humanitarian. YES - Saddam is evil and wrong - but is marching in to a country swinging around your tanks guns the best way to handle ALL situations? CAN the civilized world suppress ALL dictators? Are there THAT MANY soldiers in the world?Sending people with the possibility of a good life back home, to the homeland of a ppl who've seen war and endured it first hand (Iraq has seen the Iran / Iraq war, and the first U.S. invasion as well) may not work out as well as you may first hope.
The U.N. is as flawed as any other organization, but the U.S. is just as guilty as the rest of the council for the U.N. being in it's current state, instead of just riding off and doing as it pleases.

WMD's - I'm torn on whether Saddam having WMD's or the UN inspectors being competent is really relevant. Why be part of an organization, wait for it's blessing after it hears a report on WMD's , and then decide "I don't like your answer.... I'm gonna invade anyway."?
the U.S. demonstrated to the U.N. that the USSR was setting up nuclear weapons on Cuba back in 1962. Is Saddam that much smarter than the UN, the US, the CIA, than Castro? I figure Saddam, had or even has bad stuff. Likely even stuff he promised not to have, but it's all relative. and if the U.N. decides there's not enough there to warrant an invasion.. you may want to try playing by the rules the rest of the world has agreed to.

Trib - sounds like you served (or still do). Good on you. I was going to join the reserves up here, but backed out after realizing swearing meant I promised to do what I was told to do by a bunch of politicians. I still haven't decided if I regret that decision or not. I feel like I should be 'earning' my citizenship and my right to vote. I suppose there should be a different means / place of doing that. Either way - seems like you found your way of doing it, for your vote, and good on you.

Sorry all for being pompous and heavy handed in my opinions on things, but I was feeling frustrated as I read what seems like opinions based on news 'snippets' and 20 second sound bites. I don't feel I know everything in the world... but hey - finding the above links reminded me Canada has troops in Haiti as well Afghanistan. there's a bunch of other stuff going on in the world and hopefully if we all try finding different sources, our leaders may start looking at those other issues as well. Hell - Maybe GW would have to crack google maps to see what else there is in the world?