On Wednesday, March 12, 2003, at 09:19 PM, William Shannon wrote:
So now it's our job to be the world's supercop?
There are "dangerous dictators" all over the world...many who are far more dangerous than tin-horn Saddam Hussein. Why not go after Castro? Or Mugabe? Why Saddam?
The facts are clear, this is none of our business and we are simple doing the bidding of Israel and big oil. War of aggression is illegal under international law and Nazis were hanged for it at Nuremburg. What's the difference here? We're going to attack and decimate a country that is not a threat to us in any way, shape or form. And then we're going to do the same to Syria, Iran, Libya, the Sudan and god knows who else. It's insanity. Meanwhile, as Napoleon Bush crosses the Rubicon our economy is failing...
Bill.
Who else can keep a semblance of peace and order in the world besides the US?
Certainly not the United Nations, an impotent organization which is overrun with representatives from the very tyrannical, oppressive regimes which need reform.
As to the ridiculous ( and ubiquitous) charge that it's all about big oil. . .
Use a little common sense.
Which would be simpler and easier - to appease Saddam Hussein like the French and the Germans have done in order to strike sweet deals for Iraqui oil, regardless of the atrocities this madman is committing against his own people, and the threat he couses to other nations, or to stand against him, depose him, and return control of the country's resources to the citizens?
Again, which would be simpler and easier - to protect the only functional, free-economy democracy in the Middle East, Israel, or to allow known murderers like Yasser Arafat to continue to milk the Palestinians to serve as his personal cheering squad and power base? If Arafat had any concern for the Palestinian people, he could have good living conditions and an economy as strong as Israel's. After all, Israel managed to turn the same harsh environment into an area teeming with manufacturing, research and agriculture. What has Arafat's leadership caused the Palestinians to produce? Homicidal maniacs and whiners.
Iraq does indeed pose a threat - not only to us but the entire world. That's why the impotent United Nations decreed that Hussein must disarm - 11 years ago. Iraqui's have suffered under UN-approved sanctions because Hussein has not complied with the terms established which would remove those sanctions. Wars of aggression are despicable. But this is not a war of aggression. We don't want to annex Iraq as the Germans did the Sudetenland - we want to return Iraq to it's own people, free of a tyrannical madman.
As to your continuing references to "Napoleon" Bush. . . Can you please list, in alphabetical order the countries which consititute this imaginary empire? Which nations pay their taxes to us? Which nations pay us tribute? Instead, why don't you balance the zero-entry empire list against all of the nations which we support.
In fact, who gives more financial aid to the Palestinians than any other nation in the world? The United States.
It seems so many who criticize our policies suffer from a pathological self-hatred.
Ray
