I'm no Nixon fan, but actually his goal was to get us OUT of Vietnam (which LBJ got us heavily into) "with Honor." Withdrawals take time, especially when you are trying to prepare the South Vietnamese to continue the war on their own.
How many innocent civilians died in the first Gulf War? Depends on your definition of "civilian." If you mean the Iraqi soldiers that we bombed, who were sitting in the middle of Kuwait when we bombed them, yes I guess there were a few hundred thousand casualties. However, if you mean the average person living in a city, then there were very few. Our bombing targeted military targets. Some bombs missed their targets, yes. But the numbers killed were at most in the hundreds of civilians, not thousands. Oh, BTW, how many Kuwaiti civilians were killed, raped or harmed by the Iraqi soldiers? Thousands. So, I guess it is a fair trade off. Yes, our nation tends to concentrate on wars that affect us. Yes, oil is a consideration because people like you and me enjoy our cars and electricity. However, blaming us for Africa's problems is wrong. Even with our vast resources, we don't have limitless resources. We have gone into a few African nations before to help. Remember Sudan? Just how were we to stop a genocide war in Rwanda? And to repeat a mantra of Marc's, why does it always have to be the USA that stops the problems in the world? Why are we slammed for not helping in Africa, when we have a perfectly useless United Nations sitting in prime American real estate that should be slammed for not doing their job. After all, isn't that what their charter is about? Last I looked, the USA's charter was to defend ourselves and our interests. It would have been nice if we could stop all the genocides in the world, as well as walk every little old lady across the street. However, we don't have the ability to be all things. So we must pick and choose, and hopefully our efforts don't cause harm, and hopefully we pick the right things for the right purpose. We currently are worked up over Hussein due to his eagerness to obtain weapons of mass destruction and his compunction to use such items. If it were only over oil, it would be easier for us just to go to the UN and ask that the sanctions on Iraq be dropped. I'm sure that would make a lot of oil companies very happy. However, we have a greater issue, based not upon oil, but upon preserving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in our metropolitan areas. Don't worry, John. I think Ketchikan is a good hide out. I highly doubt the huge radical Muslim population in Juneau will find their way to your island. OTOH, I happen to live in the town where the Air Force has its major schools, including Air War College, where we train Colonels to be our future Generals. Definitely a place to loose a nuke. Personally, I am glad we are trying to slow the development of high grade weapons by Saddam. Nixon wasn't impeached because he resigned prior to it happening. He wasn't prosecuted because Ford pardoned him. These are both Constitutional events, even if we don't like the outcome. In fact, my parents worked on a campaign to have Ford impeached for his pardoning Nixon. Yes, there is corruption. I have no doubt of that. Yes, there are those who want to destroy the Constitution and this nation from inside. But I can't fight a shadow, neither could the Nephites. Only when the Gadiantons came to light were they able to fight them. BTW, Gadiantons were BOTH internal and external to the nation. The internal ones kept hidden until they gained power enough to obtain the government. The external ones actually had their own government and places of resort/nation. They became so powerful that the Nephites and Lamanites had to gather together in Lachoneus' day to save themselves from them. So it isn't that we can only fall from within, there are just as many dangers from without. However, our faith and repentance will determine whether we survive the onslaughts that occur. K'aya K'ama, Gerald/gary Smith gszion1 @juno.com http://www .geocities.com/rameumptom/index.html "No one is as hopelessly enslaved as the person who thinks he's free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe JWR: Was Nixon actively killing civilians when he sent 60,000 American fighting men to Vietnam with no intentions of accomplishing anything? How many innocent civilians died during the Persian Gulf War of George Bush, Sr? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! 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