########################################################################## # If Goanet stops reaching you, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # Want to check the archives? http://www.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
Ronald, 1. As you surely must know, John Kerry "exactly" articulated many things during the campaign, many of them "exactly" the opposite of another. Maybe you know "exactly" what he would have done, but 51% of the electorate were not willing to take the risk. 2. Well, regardless of how you play with the numbers, the last time I checked, George Bush had won the election and the Republicans had INCREASED their margins in the House, the Senate and the state Governorships. Bush and the Republicans would not have been in this position if "most Americans" who voted had not voted for them. So I think my my characterization is pretty solid, hardly "fluid". 3. Only a very few soldiers are opposing the "stop loss" provisions as they are entitled to do, but they will probably lose because this is something they agreed to when they enlisted. "Stop loss" provisions are used to maintain what they call troop cohesion for short periods of time. 4. "Saddam was not a threat" is your opinion, and some others as well. I disagree. He not only represented a threat of providing Al Qaeda with WMDs in the future, but was a brutal and murderous dictator as well. Unfortunately for your side, "Chain of Command", the one analysis that you have read among many, is not the ultimate authority. That would be President Bush. 5. By your own admission, when you complained that Saddam was being singled out from among many bad dictators, and by an observation of the facts, the US does not go to war with with every un-democratic country just to get it to become a democracy. Also, I wish you would read my postings more carefully. I DID NOT say that "spreading democracy in Iraq" was the stated reason for going to war. I explained in great detail that it was UN resolution 1441 and the 16 previous resolutions on the same subject over 12 years since 1991, all demanding that Saddam disclose an accounting of his WMDs. How can 17 UN resolutions over 12 years, the last one containing an ultimatum be described by anyone as making up a reason "after the fact"? 6. I will SERIOUSLY stop looking for the unaccounted WMDs once they are SERIOUSLY accounted for. Physics 101 taught me that matter does not disappear into thin air. There has to be a rational explanation for what happened to them. Not finding them is not a rational explanation. 7. Your problem seems to be that you believe the NY Times. I don't without independent corroboration. Furthermore, I think it is unseemly for you to continue to repeat the canard that Saddam was involved in 9/11, when President Bush has always said that he was not and the 9/11 Commission did as well. 8. I think it shows that you are running out of intellectual steam when you resort to insulting comments about me believing propaganda, not doing independent research and getting my news from TV. You seem to be insinuating that you have a higher level ability to get the facts, while you continue to spout left wing propaganda all over the place. 9. I hate to disappoint you, Ronald, but I volunteered to go to Iraq, and they turned me down on the grounds that I'm an old fart with heart disease and on the verge of surviving cancer. So, I have no choice but to reiterate the facts as I know them until everyone at least gets their facts straight. Then whatever opinions you arrive at are fine with me. After all, we have the luxury to have differing opinions, Ronald. In Saddam's Iraq and in the Taliban's Afghanistan, political opponents did not have that luxury. I know an Iraqi refugee in Detroit whose wife and daughter were raped in front of him by Saddam's goons, because someone told them that he had made a joke about Saddam. After hearing stories like that, dealing with opposition to the liberation of these countries has become my mission. I still can't figure out why some people, using every sophistry they can muster, oppose the effort to bring them this opportunity. Ronald Albuquerque <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ########################################################################## > # If Goanet stops reaching you, contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] # > # Want to check the archives? > http://www.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet/ # > # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to > reflect respect to others # > ########################################################################## > > > Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:44:47 -0800 (PST) > > From: Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > [...] > > Because the Democratic candidate for US President > this > > year was a Vietnam era holdover, it was critical > to > > the liberation of Iraq that he be defeated. Had > he > > won, your worst fears would have been realized, > in my > > opinion, because Kerry's entire history is one of > > drastic changes in position for whatever reason, > > usually outside influence. > > Hmm. Kerry articulated exactly what his position was > on > what he would do if he was elected. He was not just > going to > yank troops out. So I am not clear what point you > are making other > than attempting to repeat that "flip-flopper" thing > again. >
