[Skunk]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Well, unless I am mistaken the Commander in Cheif stood on an aircraft carrier and with a banner behind him that said "Mission Accomplished".

Unless I am mistaken, US troops are currently occupying the country, Saddam has not signed a surrender document and there is no alternative democratically appointed government to sign such a document. Furthermore, the US military is suffering between 13-20 attacks a day against its forces - doesn't sound like the war is over to anyone - except Bush.

Originally posted by :Chewbacca Also considering war was never declared in the first place at best you can say that parts of Iraq are still a combat zone.

So the Second World War wasn't a war but just a 'combat zone'? Invading a country is generally considering a defacto declaration of War. Hitler never 'declared war' formally on Russia when he invaded - the Russians even mistook the invasion as an 'error' on the part of a German Commander...
To deny that the US was/is at war with Iraq is to deny that the Russians and Germans were at war in WWII.

Originally posted by Chewbacca: According to the article at least one of these women served as an interpreter and adopted western style of dress before the marriage, so she was already a target for being a collaborator.

Saddam's regime was secular! Just about every educated woman wore non-muslim dress (hence the reason why Al'Qaida hated Saddam so much). Wearing 'western style' clothes does not get you called a collaborater - having a relationship with one does. It was the intimate relationship and the relationship alone that has endangered these women's lives - not the style of dress that they were wearing before the war began.

I'm also suspicious about motives here too. It's not often that highly educated women are attracted to 'grunts' - it's more likely that they saw a couple of tickets to the rich west on offer, and viewed it just like any other 'arranged marriage' - something for convenience, rather than for love. On the troops side, they might have seen a couple of lottery tickets - wives who are capable of earning more in a year than they could in 5 years...
But hey, I could be wrong and maybe there won't be divorces soon after the women achieve US citizenship and maybe a country that is struggling to surive won't need a couple of highly educated doctors either.

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Finally, I must consider the many war-brides from occupied Europe and Asia after WW 2, Not to mention the many war-brides from Vietnam. It is not like what they did has no precedent.

If you can name a number of US soldiers that married German citizens while the fighting was still going on, or US soldiers who brought home Viet Cong brides during the hostilities, I might agree with you...otherwise, there is no precedent for this behaviour.

Every 11 year old knows what happened to female collaboraters during and after WWII - to go ahead and form a relationship with these women knowing this was stupid to the extreme.