> Many Americans assume this will be a short and painless war, something > like the last Gulf war from the American perspective. But this time > will likely be different, as many commentators have pointed out.
I don't think anyone knows how long the war will be. It largely depends on how loyal Saddam's closest troops are this time. The elite troops fought pretty hard in '91, so one might expect them to do so again. On the other hand, they have seen the defeat of Saddam before, so this time they could be less determined. People said the same (it would be drawn out with great loss of life) about the Afghanistan/Taliban war, and they were wrong. Certainly, we should consider the possibility of a drawn out war, but this argument overstates the possibility as "likely". The real answer is that no one knows. > Among other things, we're talking about an attack on Baghdad, a huge > city. Undoubtedly thousands of people would die, mostly young people, > including our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians. Thousands could die, yes. And that would be a horrible loss. But consider that MILLIONS could die if Saddam gets a nuclear weapon and sets it off in Tel Aviv or New York. And he has shown repeatedly that he is simultaneously clever enough and insane enough to do such a thing. He had already killed tens of thousands of HIS OWN COUNTRYMEN. It is foolish to rely on his good will in the future, since he has shown repeatedly that he has none. Do we neglect to send the police in to catch a crazy murderer holding hostages in a bank with a machine gun, because we are afraid some people might die? Of course not, we proceed carefully but with determination to disarm the crazy and resolve the situation. > If Saddam has chemical and biological weapons, this is the time he > would use them. Possibly. If so, better at that time, in a controlled situation where the troops have protective gear, and are ready to contain the spread of any contagion or toxic chemicals. Better there than on Tel Aviv or New York. > (It's ironic to think that this began with an attack on U.S. cities > resulting in thousands of innocent civilian deaths, and now we're > thinking about doing the same thing -- even though there is no > evidence than Iraq had any connection with the 9/11 attack. Straw man? I haven't heard any rational people arguing that this is vengeance for the World Trade attack. Besides, it is disingenuous to compare the two, since in one case the SOLE PURPOSE was to kill civilians and destroy infrastructure, whereas in the other case, the long term purpose is to protect civilians and to minimize death and destruction as much as possible while pursuing that goal. Moreover, it has been demonstrated 3 times in recent history that such a humanitarian war is possible: Gulf War, Serbia, and Afghanistan. This is ample evidence that the good intentions of the US are NOT just pie in the sky but translate into a just war, ethically fought, which minimizes the loss of life as much as possible. > In fact, even as to the alleged connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq > generally, intelligence operatives at the FBI and CIA have complained > that for political purposes the Administration has grossly overstated > the evidence of any such connection. One was recently quoted in the > NY Times: "We've been looking at this hard for more than a year and > you know what, we just don't think it's there." There is far more > evidence of a connection between al-Qaeda and other Arab nations with > whom we have ostensibly friendly relations.) Straw man? I have only heard the connection mentioned in passing, never as a major reason for war. On the other hand, it is clear the Saddam supports terrorism. One need look no further than his outstanding reward offered to the families of suicide bombers, which is in effect even now. Also, Saddam has demonstrated time and again that he is both conniving and insane. Do you really think he wouldn't consider an alliance with terrorists in the future if it would advance his personal goals of power and conquest? > Back to costs: Other costs of a war include the 5-7 year occupation > period that would follow, according to experts, at a cost of some $200 > billion to American taxpayers, This was put forward as a bad thing, but I think it is a great thing. Two of the most awe-inspiringly good things the US has ever done have been nation-building in Germany and Japan after World War II. We built the countries of our greatest enemies into the #2 and #3 most thriving economies in the world, and left them with functioning liberal democratic governments and unprecedented freedom for their people. What nation in history has done a more amazing thing to a conquered enemy than that? My real fear is not that we will spend the $200B, but that we MIGHT NOT. The real waste would be if we fight the war, with the cost in life and dollars, and then do not do our utmost to (re)build a nation where such an evil totalitarian regime is unlikely to arise again. If the war protesters really want to make a difference, and to avoid future wars, what they SHOULD be doing is working on plans and lobbying to make sure that the government does a good job of nation building in Iraq (and Afghanistan) so we don't have to fight ANOTHER war ten years down the road. THAT is the best way to prevent wars. We've already lost our choice about whether something needs to be done about Saddam, it is inevitable that something must be done. Where we DO have a choice is what we do to prevent wars ten years down the road. And what we can do is spend the necessary time, resources, and money to help build Iraq into a liberal democracy with a thriving economy with opportunities for Iraq's people to build a good life, instead of repression, persecution, and death by a despotic dictator. > Beyond that, our policy has already alienated many of our friends in > Europe, and inspired our enemies to further action. No, the only real objectors in Europe are France and Germany, who obviously have ulterior motives. France has invited the corrupt, slaughtering dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, to come to Paris. Does this show concern for the welfare of civilians? It seems to me France and Germany are only selfishly concerned about themselves and maintaining there welfare states in lavish luxury, not in helping people of the world. In fact, Gerhard Schroder of Germany has stated that Germany will not send troops to Iraq NO MATTER WHAT, even if there is a UN Security Council resolution to do it. Germany has stated they will not cooperate with the UN decisions, so why should we be concerned about what Germany selfishly wants? Moreove, most of Europe actually SUPPORTS enforcing the numerous UN resolutions and forcing Iraq to disarm. This was expressed recently in an op-ed column published in major U.S. and European papers. The leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark expressed solidarity with Washington over Iraq and urged strong U.N. Security Council action to force Baghdad to disarm. The majority of Europe AGREES with the US, and wishes to enforce the UN resolutions which specify that Saddam must disarm. > As most Americans recognize (according to polls), a US-led war, > especially without full UN sanction, makes future terrorist attacks on > Americans more rather than less likely. So, we should fail to do what is right and just, what we and the rest of the world have repeatedly said we would do in UN resolutions, because we are AFRAID of TERRORISTS? That is EXCACTLY the goal terrorists are trying to accomplish, to make us too afraid to do what is right and good, too afraid to live our lives. Wouldn't you rather be a brave person, taking action to do what is right and good for the people of the world, than a coward, hiding in fear and hoping against hope, counter to all past history, that everything will magically turn out just fine? > A war is particularly senseless when we have > a viable alternative. The UN inspectors say that given enough time > and resources, they can find and destroy any weapons Iraq has, even > without full Iraq cooperation. A war should be the last alternative, yes, but THERE IS NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE IN THIS CASE. Iraq has repeatedly defied the agreement made at the end of the Gulf War that it disarm of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has defied multiple UN resolutions reiterating this condition. When the inspectors were in Iraq prior to 1998, Iraq repeatedly placed more and more restrictions on them being able to do their job, forbidding them to enter certain areas, sending people ahead of the inspectors to the areas that were to be inspected, and refusing to let the inspectors talk to officials and weapons scientists. Despite this trickery by Iraq, the inspectors did manage to find some chemical and biological weapons, which is a documented fact in the inspectors reports to the UN. Iraq had NOT complied with voluntary disarmament. Finally, Iraq expelled the inspectors in 1998, to Iraq's great cost since Iraq KNEW there would be sanctions cutting off Billions of dollars of oil revenue as a consequence of expelling the inspectors. Now that the inspectors have returned, Iraq claims that the weapons have been destroyed in the interim while the inspectors were gone, and yet Iraq provides no documentation about when and where the weapons were destroyed. Why would Iraq do this? The reasons are crystal clear: Iraq has something to hide. And the agreement was for Iraq to DISARM ITSELF, providing evidence for the inspectors to verify that Iraq disarmed. The condition was NOT that they inspectors play a game of "catch if catch can" and look for evidence while Iraq hides it and refuses to cooperate. The statement quoted above that the inspectors say they can find weapons is a LIE, Hans Blix himself has said that he cannot find the weapons if Iraq hides them, and Blix has repeatedly reported to the UN that Iraq has not been giving their cooperation with providing the evidence of what weapons they had and what happened to the weapons. There is ample evidence to show that Iraq is hiding weapons. They have built mobile weapons labs and bunkers to move the weapons around and keep them out of sight of inspectors. In fact, I'll finish by providing evidence IN THE OWN WORDS OF IRAQI MILITARY OFFICERS, intercepted by US authorities from a cell phone conversation: "About this committee that is coming...with Mohamed ElBaradei [the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency]...We have this modified vehicle...What do we say if one of them sees it?" "You didn't get a modified...you don't have a modified...?" "By God, I have one" "Which? From the workshop?" "From the al-Khindi company." "What?" "From al-Khindi." "...I'll come and see you in the morning...I'm worried you all have something left." "We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left." -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
