--- cornel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Your certitude is mindboggling. > Mario replies: Unboggle your mind. You seemed to be a reasonable guy, open to evidence, quite unlike committed anti-Americans like Gabe and Mervyn, so it is my mind that is boggling. The only certitude I have is based on the known facts. Surely you know that it was not the US that started this war. See if you can read this calmly and see if you disagree with any of this.
It was Osama Bin Laden who unilaterally declared war on the US in the early 90's, ostensibly because of our unshakeable support for Israel's survival. They then proceeded to attack the US, in NY, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, without any response from the appeasement-oriented foreign policy of Bill Clinton, which emboldened Osama to call the US a "weak horse" and himself the "strong horse", and led directly to 9/11. Bill also turned down Osama when Sudan offered him up because he said we may not have enough evidence to hold him. Shame on him for putting his head in the sand. Surely you know all this. Fortunately in 2001, George Bush was President. The Europeans were criticizing him because he had said he wanted to avoid "nation-building" and focus on domestic issues. Then came 9/11 and the sleeping giant had had enough. The Taliban were destroyed because they harbored Osama and refused to give him up. Saddam was next because the UN had already tried and failed to control him for 12 long years, France was sabotaging the UN, and if sanctions would be removed as France wanted, Saddam would go back to re-constituting his WMD program. The concern was that he would either use these against Israel or provide these to the terrorists he was harboring, like Al Zarkawi. Finally, UN resolution 1441, which you apparently haven't read, provided an ultimatum and the legal basis for Saddam's removal. Saddam would still be there if he had cooperated with UN inspectors and shown them that there were no WMDs in Iraq - they were either very well hidden or hidden in Syria. Perhaps the US would have found another excuse, but it would have been far more difficult, even though Saddam's regime, which achieved its position by force, by assassinating his predecessor, was brutalizing over 80% of the Iraqi people. Now the minority Sunnis, joinde by the larger Islamo-fascist movement is attacking innocent Shia and Kurds in an attempt to deny them freedom and democracy. The US has resolved not to let them succeed. You folks are all wobbly.
