From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> At 03:14 PM 7/27/2003 -0600 Michael Harney wrote: > >The war on Iraq wasn't about liberating Iraq, it wasn't about weapons of > >mass destruction or terrorism. It was entirely politically motivated. The > >republicans saw their approval failing after Osama Bin Laden evaded capture, > >and, wanting some sort of evil figurehead detained or killed as a trophy > >that people in the US can applaud, they chose to attack our most recent war > >enemy Saddam Hussain (sp?). > > This is nonsense, Michael. President Bush declared that Iraq was a member > of the "axis of evil" in January of 2002 when his approval ratings were > sky-high. Try another theory. Unneccesary, many countries were named in the axis of evil. It was the choice to go to war with them that was politically motivated. > >(and by golly, the military took every shot they could when they even > >just had questionable evidence that he was at a given location... at least > >three attempts to kill him using missle strikes, at least one of those on a > >civilian target, all missed killing the intended person). > > So, the US should not have tried to kill Saddam and using missile strikes > to try and do so was wrong? Are you serious???? Firing on a civilian target when your intelligence is as sketchy as someone thinking they heard someone over a phone who sounded like Saddam. Yes, bad thing. He obviously wasn't there, and civilians were killed in the attack. Didn't the intelligence also say his two sons were there too? That was (obviously) wrong as well. > >They committed a very > >criminal act that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and > >retribution was called for. > > Do you really believe that the liberation of Afghanistan was justified > solely by retribution? I mean, I don't even consider retribution to be > in the Top Ten of reasons for the US to liberate Afghanistan.... and > indeed, I'm not sure that it is a reason at all. I never said *solely* by retribution now did I? Give me the Letterman top ten. Tell me that September 11th isn't one of the reasons people in this country said "go kick Al Quida's butt." Your living in a dream world if you think it wasn't reason Number 1. For sure, there were other reasons, but those reasons weren't adequate before the September 11th attacks. > >What did Iraq do though? Nothing. They had no > >proven ties to the attacks of September 11th. Should we wait for them to > >attack us or one of our allies before we attack them? Damn right we should. > >Otherwise it is we who are the terrorists, it is we who are the criminals. > > Actually, on 2 August 1990 Iraq suddenly attacked Kuwait. In early 1991, > Iraq signed a cease-fire with the United States, a cease-fire whose terms > they have never abided by. Case closed. Hardly, the U.S. broke proper channels when it acted outside the U.N. Other countries would have liked a stronger inspection regime before invading Iraq, and really, Saddam was less of a threat to us then than he was in 1991 after the cease fire. What damage would it have done to wait another 4 months, or, if as you might argue, the summer weather would be prohibitive, a year? You yourself said we never had a majority of the security council support, France's veto be damned, we didn't even have the majority. > >If this war really was about weapons of mass destruction, why aren't we > >going to war against Isreal and North Korea for their illegal nuclear > >weapons programs? Case and point: it simply isn't about that, it is all > >about politics. Disgusting. > > What's disgusting Michael is your inability to comprehend that an attack on > a country that already has a nuclear weapon would very likely result in the > incineration of hundreds of thousands of people - to say nothing of the > hundreds of thousands of civillians that would die in Seoul thanks to DPRK > artillery shells. Once Iraq gets a nuclear weapon, Michael its game over - > unless of course you advocate direct confrontations between nuclear powers. > > Let's consider for a moment what might have happened had Iraq waited to > attack Kuwait until 2 August 1992. We now know that Saddam Hussein would > likely have shocked the world by successfully testing a nuclear weapon at > this time. Thus a nuclear-armed Saddam rolls into Kuwait and begins > pushing on into Saudi Arabia - and he declares that if the US sends troops > to Saudi Arabia that he will lob a couple nuclear weapons into Tel Aviv and > Haifa. *Now* what, Michael? Your scenario is flawwed. U.S. intelligence suggested that Saddam had enough anthrax, VX gas, and other agents to kill every person on the planet at least a couple of times. Of course that would require perfect dispersal, but it wouldn't have been a stretch to say that if U.S. intelligence was correct, Saddam could easily have killed millions in Iraq and neighboring nations with such an arsenal. Yet he didn't, and you contend that the weapons really were there, so why didn't it happen? And if it didn't happen here, why would it happen somewhere else? > You have argued that it is terrorist and criminal to attack a country that > has not attacked you or one of your allies.... so, you simply wait for > that country to build nuclear weapons and *then* attack your allies? Wow, back to the nuclear weapons argument again, yet, what's this? There is no real proof Iraq was trying to buy nuclear weapons, and no intelligence to suggest that they had restarted their nuclear program. So once again, what harm would it have done to impose a more strict inspection regimen and wait a few months or even a year to either find the allegded WMDs or rally support from other nations if Saddam continued to thumb his nose at the inspectors and the U.N.. > By the way - of the recent developments in the nuclear programs of the > DPRK, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq over the past 15 years - how many > occurred with the knowledge of US intelligence sources? I know that Iran, India, and Pakistan were hardly surprises. The other two I hadn't heard about, but only recently gained interest in international news. > I'll give you a hint - the answer is a very round number.... so I wouldn"t > count on being able to know when a successful test is "imminent" if that is > your plan. Again, flawwed. See the above example about VX and Anthrax. Weapons are weapons. Distructive potential only discorages use by nations, not *encourages* it. > >Let me illustrate the blatant lack of perspective that the majority of this > >country has. All of the following are more likely to kill someone in the > >U.S. than a terrorist attack: > > Only because Iraq has so far been successfully prevented from developing > nuclear weapons and selling them to the highest bidder. > > Michael, a nuclear bomb going off in NYC would kill millions of people... > so that statistic of yours is absolutely meaningless. The statistics are not useless because it has never happened. That is a statistic in itself. That means something. It is not just a coincidence. Nuclear devices are large and laborious, easy to detect, and hard to transport. The chance of a Nuclear bomb being detonated on US soil is slim. If you want to tighten up the borders to make it more difficult to smuggle in nukes, great, do so. Employ more border partol agents and buy more vehicles for them so that they can close the gaps in our border through which a bomb might be smuggled in. God forbid the goverment do something that creates jobs durring a time that the economy is lagging. That is within our right as a nation. Attacking nations willy nilly without provocation is not within our rights. > >Your suggestion that the left's inability to form an effective war plan > >against terror is a demonstration of bad leadership is not just wrong (as a > >war plan is entirely uncalled for IMNSHO), it disgusts me that you beleive > >that the republican style of the war on terror is neccessary. How many > >civilians has our war in Iraq killed? > > I'm glad you brought this up, Michael, because the answer is between > 100,000 and 200,000. Meanwhile, according to UNICEF, Saddam Hussein was > kiilling around 5,000 people a day. Of course, the Left only cares > about people killed by Americans.... thus if you get killed in Zimbabwe, > don't expect ANSWER to start rallying international support to stop the > killing. Please cite on the 5000 per day figure from UNICEF. Clarify as well as to when this killing began and when it ended. Also please clarrify on the 100000-200000. Were these ones US troops killed or the total on both sides? Please provide both numbers if you have them. Michael Harney [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons." - Douglas Adams _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
