forest and trees I have seen way too many people ignoring some basic facts to why we are over there to begin with. 9/11 wasn't the first time we came across terrorism, it was just the first time that massive non combatant 'Infidel' were visual reported of Americans. The list is long of our dealings with these people, some military in nature, others financial. Remember the long gas lines of the mid 70's? How many remember the reason for those gas lines? It was one of our first wake up calls and the main push for Alaska pipe line. Ignoring the problem will not help.
I am not naive enough to think that the suspicion of WMD was the only reason we went into Iraq. There were many factors involved. There were other reasons involved: - WMD, everyone thought they were there including ALL of Europe leaders [resolution 1441 anyone?]. Who is to say that Iraq didn't have WMD PRIOR to the long build up of troops and simply moved them to another country like Syria. - Saddam was an evil person that needed to be stopped. - Iraq was indeed in a race to build up it's nuclear arms. Israel took care of that in the early 80's since it was obvious that they were one of two targets that Iraq had in mind. Remember during the first Iraq war when Iraq was sending SCUDS at Israel instead of the people that were attacking them? And the other target was again realized in Saddam's last words: "The Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians". Persia = Iran. Even though the war between Iraq and Iran had been over for 30 years, there still is no love between the two nations. - I know that the immediate response from the left concerning how it has been reported that the CIA helped Iraq during the Iraq Iran war, Saddam still wasn't someone that we could trust even back then. Everything we reportedly did back then was done covertly. We couldn't come out and support him back then in public, they were just the enemy of our enemy. The Iran/Iraq war was a war Arabs vs. Non-Arabs. Muslim vs muslim. But we still knew the added issue that occurred when you mix islam with war. People were gassed, innocent people were slaughtered in the name of their side of islam. We were not picking sides with the different versions of islam, we just knew all sides were dangerous. Terrorism isn't a new islamic fad, but with a history that stems back 1400 years. Saddam openly sponsored terrorism and it was again, a long time growing issue. The WTC bombing of '93, Khobar Tower bombing, US Embassy bombing in '98, the USS Cole,... The terrorist don't hate the U.S. because we meddle too much in their affairs [we really haven't besides a few covert operations], the root reason isn't because we are Infidel's, it isn't even because we support Israel: it is because we are a big powerful nation and a good place to blame their woes on. "We don't have enough to eat even though we produce the life blood of the world and have a large GNP." "It is because of those bastard Americans" "OK - death to the Americans" "If you are a small monkey, and you beat up another small monkey, no one cares. But if you are a small monkey and you beat up the big monkey, then the other monkeys are impressed and you become the big monkey. The big monkey is a bigger threat to the other monkeys than any little monkey, and so when a little monkey challenges the big monkey, the other monkeys support the little monkey. All primates, including humans, instinctively plot against the big monkey and support challengers to the big monkey. America is the most prominent nation and the biggest monkey on Earth. People who are trying to impress their friends by beating someone up will attack America, because attacking America is much more impressive than attacking some deadbeat loser. Since America is the most powerful nation on Earth, people instinctively think that America is a bigger threat than the neighborhood psychopath, even though people are more likely to be robbed or murdered by the neighborhood psychopath than by America. Humans instinctively fear powerful people more than evil people." http://kmh678.tripod.com/Government/terrorism_against_america.html - The ME has been a hot bed of activity for the past 60 years. It wouldn't matter to us much if they didn't control a commodity that the whole world has developed a dependence on. Oil When OPEC decided to flex their muscle in the mid 70's, it sent shock waves through out the entire world economically speaking. Double digit inflation, double digit unemployment and the deepest economic problems that the U.S. had faced since the great depression. What springs out of economic unrest? As the depression would prove, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Hirohito along with Churchill, and FDR. Millions of lives were lost. The world has learned a long time ago and war is a great way of turning strife into anger that motivates people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. These leaders, both evil and good, wouldn't of existed without the economic situation that brought them to power. By placing us in the middle of the ME, we have taken some of the power of OPEC to insure that we can stay off a WW III as long as possible. Granted, it is just a delay tactic but it has worked for other nations for over a thousand years. We can't control the blame we receive from the islamic trash, but we can place ourselves where we can have a better control of it's result. The only way to slow down the path to WW III is by placing ourselves directly in the mix. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Has anyone noticed that even though we are smack dab in the middle of the ME, OPEC hasn't had the ability to 'create' any damage? Has anyone noticed that there hasn't been a major attack against not only the US but the rest of the world? I guess our 'war against terrorism' is working world wide. Iraq is where the U.S. needs to be. The war is over and has been for several years. It could be much worse if we didn't have an active role in this whole mess because the next mess could be much worse. At 12:26 PM 1/14/2007, you wrote: >I want us out of there as much as you do, but I believe passions are >stirred and wills are steeled, way beyond the climate that produced the >9/11 attack. If we had 10 thousand enemies then, we have a million now. >Sure, I'm making these numbers up, but the point is that we have a whole >lot more enemies today then we did before. > >What I'm saying is that we need now to prove to the world (and >ourselves!) that we aren't malevolent invaders/occupiers/conquerors, but >that America really does stand for all the good things we ourselves want >to believe is true. ><snips> jeff fisher, MCP www.turbofish.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
